Our Mexico Cruise notes and Pictures

[nancy_s_leong]

Hello,

 

This website has been so helpful on planning our Mexico Cruise trips. Here are some notes from our cruises.

 

We went to the Mexico Cruise couple times last couple years. Really enjoy the cruises which bot are round trip from San Francisco. We will go again.

 

Here are some fun things we like during our cruise:

 

1. Sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge!

 

2. Enjoy all the good food, good service, good entertainment, midnight buffer, reading novels by the pool, play ping pong, swimming, steam room, parties, etc

 

3. Enjoy all the port activities:

 

Cabo San Lucas:

 

The port which we like the best! Beautiful view on rocks & Arch and beaches.

 

Water Taxi Around Cabo's Rocks & Arch and got off on the Lovers Beach, swimming, wave watching, very fun and pretty for all about $8(2nd visit) to $10(1st visit).

 

If you want to go to Lover's Beach, between the rocks, a secluded romantic setting. Local water taxis will take you there and come back for you for $3.

 

Walk around the two area, stop by some nice shops and restaurants.

 

Catalina Island:

 

Renting a golf car, drive around the island, and visit gardens, shops.

 

 

Puerto Vallarta:

 

Los Veranos Canopy Tour, we took taxi to the office, then took the nice scenic ride to the Los Veranos Canopy, had nice lunch after riding all the zip lines.

Then back to the down town area, walked around theBoardwalk, pretty boardwalk, called the Malecon, real street name is Paseo Diaz Ordaz, between 31 de Octobre St. and Zaragoza St.

 

Cathedra located just off the Malecon at Zaragoza St, where the pretty treed square is.

 

Full body message for the 75 minutes for both my husband and I at Krystal hotel in Puerto Vallarta. The wed address is

 

http://www.go2vallarta.com/milleniummassage

 

The Krystal hotel is a good place to relax for the day, nice swimming pools and Excellent Spa.

 

Mazatlan

 

We went to the King David’s Stone Island tour and really enjoyed it. We met some nice people which included a family from another city of Mexico. Banana Boat ride, horse back ride by the the beaches, nice lunch and all the drink you like for about $38.

 

Also, I heard that there are many fun places in Mazatlan, like, watching the cliff divers, old town streets, boardwalk in Old Town, etc.

 

San Diego

 

Visited my little sister Tina and her Fiance Min, went to La Jolla for lunch, then visited wild animal park. Lot good places to go in San Diego, like:

San Diego zoo, Sea world, Balboa Park(all the museums), old town, Coronado, Seaport Village, and many more, you can check out our San Diego pictures for more details.

 

Los Angles:

 

We took the Santa Barbara, Malibu, Rodeo drive, Beverly Hills tour, had good time as well.

 

If you live in the bay area near San Francisco, the Mexico Cruise or Alaska Cruise round trip from San Francisco are excellent choice.

 

Here are the cruise pictures:

 

Mexico_Cruise_Sept_2004

http://community.webshots.com/album/548247347GTkNfv

 

Mexico_Cruise_Oct_2005

http://community.webshots.com/album/547723724Lphwqw

 

Alaska_Cruise_Sept_2003

http://community.webshots.com/album/90602195RbAKrr

 

Enjoy,

 

nancy

[judyf]

Thanks so much for the port review. IMO this board doesn't get enough reviews. I love to read what everyone did in the ports.

 

Thanks for posting

[nancy_s_leong]

Hi Judyf,

 

Glad that my notes might help you. for the cruise reviews, not sure if you kew it or not:

http://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/index.cfm

you can pick any cruise line or any cruise ship you are interested in, lots good reviews there.

 

cheers,

 

nancy

[judyf]

Yes, thanks for the link I've read all them there on our ship. I like to read more about the ports as everyone does something different and it doesn't matter what ship you arrive there on.

[Scuba-do]

Thanks for all of the ideas. How much time should we allow for the Canopy tour and the Massages? I want to schedule the appoints, but I don't know how long to plan for.

[nancy_s_leong]

Scuba-do,

 

I remember we had a 11am appointment for the Canopy tour, and zip lines is about 1 and half hours, total about 4 hours including the transportation. It' better for you to contact the canopy tour directly for more detail:

 

http://www.canopytours-vallarta.com/

 

For the full body message for the couple is about 1 hour to 75 minutes, we were lucky, they let us in the message room as soon as we arrived, no extra wait time. But please make a reservation before you go, ask for internet special(15% discount), we pay $60 for both my husband and I on the 75 minutes full body message shich did not list on the manu.

http://go2vallarta.com/milleniummassage/

 

Take the taxi if your time is limited.

 

We did the canopy tour and Malecon on 2004 cruise, and message and Krystal hotel on 2005 cruise. But I saw from this board some one did both canopy and message on the same day.

 

enjoy,

 

nancy

[Clutier]

These ideas are great...we go in April..never would have thought of the massage..thanks

[Fender]

Nancy,

 

Thank you for sharing your experiences. We would like to go to Lover's beach and the Arch, there will be 8 of us.

How do we make sure the taxi comes back to pick us up in a few hours?

I'm a little leery of being dropped off without a way to get back to the ship.

 

I appreciate your feedback.

 

Fender

[nancy_s_leong]

Hi Fender,

 

I was worry about the same thing as you, but both times they came back to pick us up(even though we pay them full price before they drop us off to the Love beach). Please write down the name of the company(label on the boat), another option is, pay them half of the trip cost before they drop you off to the love beach and pay the rest of them after they pick you up, or don't pay them until they give you a ride back. Since you have a big group, and I don't think they will forgot to give you a ride back, but they might have some offset timing(ten minutes or so) on the picking up time though.

 

Worst case they forget to give you a ride back, you can take another water taxi back by another boat. A lot of boats are in and out of the Love beach pretty often.

 

have a great time at Cabo San Lucas,

 

nancy

[Soak up the Sun]

Loved the pictures! I liked hearing about the highlights for you at each port. We leave one week from today.

[nancy_s_leong]

Clutier,

 

Just want to clarify on the price of the full body massage per couple. Total price is $60 dollars per couple with internet discount(They accept cash only). You can make reservation by email:

 

milleniummassage@hotmail.com

 

They did an excellent job, we gave them nice tips.

 

Soak up the Sun,

have a great cruise,

 

nancy

[Bucky3]

There were nine of us in Cabo last year. We negotiated with one of the water taxi drivers to take us to Medano beach. There were nine of us, and we promised to pay in full when he came BACK to pick us up at the designated time. At first he was reluctant but finally agreed. It worked out fine. We would try to do the same for Lover's Beach when we go back to Cabo. We felt more secure about getting back to the tender dock in time by not paying up front.

[Canadiankaratemom]

Thanks for the detailed review of all ports and pictures. Wished I had seen your pics and read your review before we left for our recent Mex. R. cruise Mar 11th to MArch 18th on board Sapphire Princess. We would have probably done somethings differently.

 

This is what we did: PV - we did the PV beach break excursion via Princess. We left at 9 am - they took us to Paradise village- private resort where we had end section of beach blocked off for us. Great Buffet lunch and drink. Towels and surf board rentals for free. In the village, there was a small zoo and shopping mall. We got back to port by 3 pm. Our guide said he would take any one interested in heading downtown PV for free, but we would have to get back to Port on our own. It should take 20 to 25 mins. As we had to be back at the ship by 5 pm, felt it was perhaps too tight of a time, so went to Walmart and walked around the shops at port instead. So, we really did not see much of PV.. there is always next time!

 

Maz- we booked city tour and lunch on beach with Frank in Mazatlan.. This was fun.. Frank had 26 people booked, so he ended up using open air bus.. great view and picture taking opportunity. Highly recommend this tour with him. Went downtown to see the Cathedral.. walked around the market downtown - could have had more time here. Went up a hill, had great view of our ship from this view along with HAL and RCL - Vision of the sea. Saw the divers, hit the Golden zone, some shopping time there.. also did a walkabout near some artist's home and theatre. Had lunch at Tony's on the beach. .bit pricey, but still good. Got back to ship by 3:30 pm.. Next time, we will try horse back riding on Stone Island.

 

 

Cabo - our favourite port of call too.. but way too short.. our 17 yr old wanted to see Los Arcos, so booked a 40 min boat ride via Princess early in the am to see this with him. Lover's beach excursion was full..met up with the rest of our party and walked around the Marina.. discovered the shopping mall .. heaven for our teenaged girls in our party. This is where we would have done things differently. Next time, we will book with local operators to visit Lover's beach, and or private beach to do more water sports.. it was a very hot day. Could have spend the entire trip in water!

We plan to visit Cabo again.. perhaps fly there directly and spend an entire week there.

 

All in all, we enjoyed our Mex. Rev. cruise like you Nancy and would go back, but maybe a 10 day cruise next time to take in more ports of call.:cool:

[nancy_s_leong]

Hi Bucky3,

 

It's very smart of you not paying up front for the Cabo Taxi.

 

Canadiankaratemom,

 

Glad to hear you had great time on your Mexico Cruise, to ur with with Frank in Mazatlan sounds great, I heard lots good things about Frank, will try his tour for sure next time we visit Mazatlan again. Thanks lot for sharing all the port experience with us. Your port activities sounds very good. I am excited for your next 10-days Mexico Cruise. :)

 

cheers,

 

Nancy