Cheapo Dad's Trip Report on the Navigator of the Seas (Maybe with few pictures added)...

[harryfat1]

We made it off the ship. 

 

Unlike their East Coast brethren at Cozumel, Ensenada is much more restrictive of access to part of the dock as you can see there are barricades everywhere.  Can’t access the front or the Aft of the ship easily.

 

 

 

Time to visit the Crazy aunt in the basement as we made sure she was well-fed before we headed out (aka photo session with shipboard photographers with port pictures) we saw other people visiting their relatives in their basements as well

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Seeing a Mooring Line is like a moth to flames.  It has that magical whisper feel that you see in the movies “Come here and take a picture of me...” with the character walking like a zombie toward the Line...

 

 

Do you see that gap opening to the right?  That’s where you do the now world-famous “Patti Maneuver” and sneak in and smile and point at the camera.  Except there are no sea lions.  All been chased away by the workers

 

 

As discussed previously, had to do a long trek just to go to the front of the ship and then walk all the way back as the family stood there being bored.  Wouldn't do it if it was raining...

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

So the Ensenada port is built where you exit the area on the broadside of the ship – do not go past the Bow or the Aft and do not collect $200 (Old Monopoly reference). You exit the ship and you go toward the red buildings on the side of the ship to either join your preplanned excursions or walk out of the compound where it says EXIT (they only tell you 3 times in case you can't see very well)

 

 

 

Greeting us at the Exit pathway is a police offer with a sniffing dog.  Each person’s bag had to be sniffed by the dog before we were allowed to exit.  Are those drug-sniffing or bomb-sniffing dogs?  Anyone know?

 

[broberts]

18 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

Greeting us at the Exit pathway is a police offer with a sniffing dog.  Each person’s bag had to be sniffed by the dog before we were allowed to exit.  Are those drug-sniffing or bomb-sniffing dogs?  Anyone know?

 

Possibly fruit and vegetable sniffers.

[Coralc]

35 minutes ago, harryfat1 said:

So the Ensenada port is built where you exit the area on the broadside of the ship – do not go past the Bow or the Aft and do not collect $200 (Old Monopoly reference). You exit the ship and you go toward the red buildings on the side of the ship to either join your preplanned excursions or walk out of the compound where it says EXIT (they only tell you 3 times in case you can't see very well)

 

 

 

Greeting us at the Exit pathway is a police offer with a sniffing dog.  Each person’s bag had to be sniffed by the dog before we were allowed to exit.  Are those drug-sniffing or bomb-sniffing dogs?  Anyone know?

 

 

Fruit (or plant or vegetable) sniffing dogs. The dogs in Mexico Agriculture Division train at the same USDA facility in Georgia that our Alameda and Santa Clara County parcel inspection dogs do. ☺️ The DEA dogs train somewhere else.

[perfect match]

Welcome back Harry! Hope you had a great weekend and your son is all settled in at school.

 

I’m loving the first of the photos from Ensenada! I mean sea lions 🦭 and mooring lines regardless of the angle from which they had to be taken - what’s not to like? I can’t wait to see the rest!

[Coralc]

I should have said dogs and handlers train in Georgia. Our dogs are various breeds and all about plant material.  German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois, seem to be more drug or bomb sniffing dogs. 

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, broberts said:

 

Possibly fruit and vegetable sniffers.

 

2 hours ago, Coralc said:

Fruit (or plant or vegetable) sniffing dogs. The dogs in Mexico Agriculture Division train at the same USDA facility in Georgia that our Alameda and Santa Clara County parcel inspection dogs do. ☺️ The DEA dogs train somewhere else.

 

1 hour ago, Coralc said:

I should have said dogs and handlers train in Georgia. Our dogs are various breeds and all about plant material.  German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois, seem to be more drug or bomb sniffing dogs. 

Thanks for the quick responses.  Too bad I didn't take pictures of the dog as the officer was taking the dog from person to person while we walked down the pathway to exit the area.

 

Old man memory in me wants to say that dog was a German Sphered but I wouldn't put any money on that.

 

If I encounter something like this going forward, I will be sure to take a picture of it (might get yelled at by someone...) 

[harryfat1]

2 hours ago, perfect match said:

Welcome back Harry! Hope you had a great weekend and your son is all settled in at school.

 

I’m loving the first of the photos from Ensenada! I mean sea lions 🦭 and mooring lines regardless of the angle from which they had to be taken - what’s not to like? I can’t wait to see the rest!

Thanks.  Good to be back home. 

 

It was a tiring weekend trip.  I had a headache at work on Monday after coming back late Sunday night.  Getting too old to be driving long distances.

 

Few pictures from the weekend

 

Now California is land of $7/gallon gas - yes, that's expensive by US standards for our overseas friends reading this

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

So here is the $4/pp shuttle I discussed earlier.  Pay the dude the cash to get on board and keep the return ticket to get back to the shuttle.

 

 

 

The timestamp is 9:54.  This will be important at the back end of the discussion.

 

I have been in the shuttles in my previous visits to Ensenada so I know the spiel they will give as soon as the van clears the gate of the cruise port.

 

The dude will try to sell you the tour to the Blow Hole (La Bufadora) from their company.  The price now is $25/pp.  Earlier in the year, the YouTuber person said it was $20 so inflation has hit Mexico as well.

 

If you want to price compare, you can get a similar tour to the blowhole online on Viator for $35/pp or through your buddies at RCI for $50+.  I did my price comparison before leaving and I thought about booking the Viator tour if I wanted a tour locked secured but since the family isn’t a morning crowd and from previous visits, I know they have lots of shuttles that will take you to the Blow Hole so I felt comfortable on the last minute booking.

 

Dude selling the tour to people here for $25/pp

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

In my previous visits to Ensenada with my parents back in the 90s or with the boys when they were really young in their strollers, I never made it to the Blow Hole. So this time, I made it a top priority to go there

 

So the way it works is after they drop you off downtown as part of the $4/pp shuttle, within 10 feet of where you exit the shuttle, they have tables at the park area where they will collect the $25/pp for the Blow Hole tour.  You pay them (in USD – cash) and then be directed to another shuttle bus 40 feet away.

 

The umbrella area is where you pay for the Blow Hole tour after you get off the white shuttle bus

 

 

Then after payment, the guide will tell you to board the first white bus in the front

 

 

 

This white shuttle bus will be the bus that takes us to the Blow Hole

 

 

This is downtown Ensenada.  Not much has changed in the past 20+ years since my first cruise here.  Highly recommend you do some sort of tour while in town.  I have walked the downtown area before.  Not worth writing (texting) home about...

 

 

 

[Sea Dog]

17 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

Seeing a Mooring Line is like a moth to flames.  It has that magical whisper feel that you see in the movies “Come here and take a picture of me...” with the character walking like a zombie toward the Line...

 

I love this, perfect!!

[harryfat1]

We waited for a few minutes as the bus filled up with other cruise passengers

 

 

 

Here’s our tour guide – Alexa.  Yeah, as in the name of Amazon’s virtual assistant.  I was tempted to ask her if her family has any Amazon devices at home and if they had to change that to a different “wake” name…

 

 

The gal is pleasant and energetic. Spoke perfect English with no accents.  Gave us a lot of info about the area and the Blow Hole itself.

 

Alexa said this is the one beach the locals go to.  Ensenada is not known for its beaches so you won’t find any tours that take you to a beach like in Cozumel. But they do have horseback riding

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Once we left the busy city area, the scenery turned more rural.  Alexa said they grow a lot of asparagus here for exports so if you bought some asparagus at your local grocery store and it says “product of Mexico”, it could come from Ensenada

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

As we round the bay, we look back at the harbor where the cruise ship is docked

 

 

 

 

 

This area is nice.  They should build some sort of rest area platform for people to get off the shuttle and take some pictures and maybe they can sell some drinks/snacks here

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Alexa pointed out that the rings you see in the ocean are fish farms.  They raised fish here to sell to Japan and Asia as part of the sushi and regular fish trade

 

 

 

 

[JamesEM]

Harry, now that tourist season is over the price of gas is now around $3.00/$3.15 a gallon here is the Myrtle beach area. 

[harryfat1]

1 hour ago, JamesEM said:

Harry, now that tourist season is over the price of gas is now around $3.00/$3.15 a gallon here is the Myrtle beach area. 

That's just a crazy low price compared to what we are paying in CA.  There's no gas station in the Bay Area that is selling below $5/gallon gas.  Even Costco is selling at $5.12.

 

How do you guys get gas at such a low rate?  Is there a refinery in SC that keeps the prices super low?

[harryfat1]

I was curious on how the whole fish farm thing works in Ensenada and looked up a couple of YouTube videos on it.  Fascinating stuff:

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Here's a bit of news that nobody cares about but I will share it anyway as I received an email this morning from CC.  Apparently, I have reached a milestone of 5,000 posts here at CC and they sent me a congratulatory email as well as 2 digital coupons for free iced tea at the Windjammer to be used on my next RCI cruise. 

 

Woo Hoo! That makes all the typing all these trip reports worthwhile in building up my post count...

 

Per the software, it took me 18 years to reach this milestone as it just means I am not a regular poster here at CC.

 

Actually, the side story is that I was a member of CC even before 18 years as I started with the screen name "Harryfat" in the 90s but I stopped cruising for a while when the boys were born. 

 

By the time I came back to cruising mode a few years later, I couldn't log into my account and the only way to reset my password back then was to have the system generate a password to the email that I signed up in - the AOL email.  Only the older folks know what AOL email was - You Got Mail....

 

The only thing was back in the old days AOL charged money for monthly membership and access to their email address.  I stopped paying the fee after awhile and I wasn't about to re-activate the AOL account just for CC.

 

So I just created a new access, Harryfat1, since I couldn't get into the original Harryfat account.  In theory, I lost some posting history from back then.

 

Oh, well, like I said, info nobody cares about.  Unless someone has some AOL story to share...

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

OK.  We made it to the Blow Hole.

 

Time stamp is 11:15.  Alexa will take us to the Blow hole and then we have free time for lunch or shopping and meet back here at 1:15 at bus #206 (making sure I remember the number by taking a picture of it – how anal am I?).

 

 

 

 

The sign says Welcome to the Blow Hole

 

[harryfat1]

Be sure to bring some small changes/coins as the bathrooms here cost money.  Yeah, for real.  There’s 75 cents (USD) to use the bathrooms here at the Blow Hole. 

 

On YouTube, it used to be 50 cents earlier this year but I guess inflation is also here in Mexico (but apparently not in the RCCL food costs which keep going down)

 

[JamesEM]

Harry, as for the gas prices I live in a red state.

[HappyTexan44]

7 hours ago, harryfat1 said:

That's just a crazy low price compared to what we are paying in CA.  There's no gas station in the Bay Area that is selling below $5/gallon gas.  Even Costco is selling at $5.12.

 

How do you guys get gas at such a low rate?  Is there a refinery in SC that keeps the prices super low?

 

It isn't a Red or Blue state thing, it is a California thing.   The gas that everyone else buys is outlawed in California.   So, Supply/Demand and your supply is much much smaller.   

 

Not sure how much of this is true, but I remember reading once that the gas California can use only comes from one location and that the Browns, California political family owned that gas, or at least their money came from there.  I'm sure there are CC people who know more on that.  

 

[broberts]

29 minutes ago, HappyTexan44 said:

 

It isn't a Red or Blue state thing, it is a California thing.   The gas that everyone else buys is outlawed in California.   So, Supply/Demand and your supply is much much smaller.   

 

Not sure how much of this is true, but I remember reading once that the gas California can use only comes from one location and that the Browns, California political family owned that gas, or at least their money came from there.  I'm sure there are CC people who know more on that.  

 

 

An internet search will produce numerous articles from main stream media sources that suggest most of this post is mischievous fantasy.