Review cruise ports Mazatlan, Acapulco, Zihuatanejo, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo March 2007

[DoubleDutch]

All our experiences with the ports of our Mexican Riviera cruise and some info I think might be helpful. I will put a review on the Dawn Princess in “Cruise lines P-Z –“Princess Cruises”.

 

Mazatlan: thanks to this board we got in touch with Mazatlan-Frank and booked the Colonial and City tour. We arrived at 13:00 and Frank was waiting for us with his airconditioned van.

In the 6 hours we were in Mazatlan he showed us (and explained) all: the new sites (if you want to see Mazatlan before it gets as big as Puerto Vallarta, now is the time to go!) as well as the old. We had a full program: a brick factory, a tile factory, a furniture factory, a bakery, some great view (watch the Love Boat leader, at the end you see a view of Mazatlan, at exactly that place we enjoyed the view also!). We went to the village Concordia etc. etc. We specifically said that we didn’t want to go shopping, and so we didn’t. He adjusts the program exactly to what you like to do or see. It was a great day, and 6 hours went by as fast as 2, so we were sorry to leave Mazatlan and Frank. Frank is a great guy and we would definitely recommend him to everyone. Look at his website: http://www.mazatlan-frank.com or send him an e-mail at frank@mazatlan-frank.com. He replies very quick and he has several tours to offer.

 

Acapulco: Because of the reviews on this board and the long day (in port from 8am-11pm) we contacted Rosie for a full day tour in Acapulco. I would NOT recommend her tour. She e-mailed me back saying that she was already booked but her husband Arturo would do the tour. Since she mailed that he is the one who taught her everything I thought it would be fine. A week before the cruise I confirmed the excursion, but when we arrived there was no Rosie and no Arturo. Instead they had sent Carlos. His English can best be described by his pronunciation of Spaniards: spinyards. He had no real extra knowledge to explain anything on the different sites, for instance at the Fort San Diego he didn’t tell anything about the Dutch, which would have been appropriate since we’re Dutch and one of the first things you see there is a Dutch carriage etc. Luckily the Fort had information with everything in English, so by reading the information boards we learned what we wanted to know. The same for Capilla de la Paz, there they had an information leaflet available in English, so we could read for ourselves. We visited the Flamingo Hotel and we had to go to the market, although we said we didn’t want to shop,” it was part of the tour”. I was glad to have said that I wanted to have some free time in the afternoon to relax, because this all was getting on my nerves. After a couple of hours (we had drink on the beach and strolled along the boulevard) we met again for the Diego Rivera’s mosaics (for which he didn’t even get out of the car to explain), a nice sunset view from an old hotel and the cliff divers. We also wanted to see the multimedia show at the Fort, but this was canceled according to the people at the Fort because there were not enough people at the ship who booked the cruise, according to the Princess people because some problems with traffic. A bit disappointing since I was looking forward to this, but the show is only available for groups and there isn’t an evening for individual people.

Conclusion: if you want to visit Acapulco, take a taxi and this review so you know what sites to visit and do it yourself. Btw: taxi drivers enough at the dock and they start with saying: $20 per hour, so the end price depends on your own negation skills.

 

Zihuatanejo: this is just a small old fishing village. The people are very nice, they don’t hassle you like in the other ports where everyone continuously wants to sell you anything. We chose to just walk along the shops, check our e-mail at an Internet café ($1 per half an hour) and just relax (not much else to do in half a day). And we bought some nuts to accompany our beers on the ship (for some reason they don’t serve any nuts in the bar’s), while enjoying the sunset and the dolphins and whales we could see from de sundeck.

 

Puerto Vallarta: There a lots of possible tours in PV, very popular are the Canopy tours, but we booked a Royal dolphin swim and City tour with Alfredo, through Mazatlan Frank (see for info Frank’s website). The Dolphin swim in PV looked more attractive than the other ports (price and activities) and canopy was also possible in Cabo, just not through the ship). Alfredo is a real fun guy! In the morning he could relax since we went for a swim with the dolphins at the Puerto Vallarta Sea Life Park. This was the best! They really took a lot of time at this park and we had great fun. It is not allowed to make pictures but you can buy a underwater camera for only $15 and take it with you in the pool to make pictures. Mine turned out great! We also bought a DVD of all our action for $50. A lot of photo’s were also taken, but they are very expensive ($20 a piece) or as a package $150. Not handy those big pictures if you want to use a digital photo album! More info on this park: http://www.sealifeparkvallarta.com/ , we definitely recommend the Royal Swim. After this Alfredo entertained us with his stories and jokes and showed us all the sites in PV. We had lunch at a nice restaurant El Nogalito, in the middle of the rain forest. Again I would like to recommend Alfredo, just look at his tours at Mazatlan Frank’s website, he has different options and if you want to do something else: no problemo!

 

Cabo San Lucas: on the Internet we found http://www.cabosanlucastours.net/Xtreme-Canopy-Tour.htm . With this organization (that also does Puerto Vallarta tours) we booked the extreme canopy tour. The canopy tour itself was fun and exciting. But there were also some negative things to mention. When you book the tour you get info to obtain a Cabo discount card, but when we arrived in Cabo the store where you could pick this card was no longer associated with cabosanlucastours. The canopy is very new, opened last year, and this was clear since for instance they hardly spoke any English, so there was no explanation during the tour about the length or the names of ziplines etc. The bathroom at the start (finish) had no water to wash your hands. Positive: fresh cold water on every stop in between the ziplines what by the way was really a necessity because of the heath and the climbs you had to walk (definitely not suitable for people with walking problems). After the tour you could get some free soda’s but the free tour of the Historical Tequila Factory with free tastings of several varieties of gourmet tequila (as stated on the website) was invisible. Instead we had to wait for a long time before we were brought back to the marina. Conclusion: the canopy itself was great, but don’t expect anything else.

 

All in all a perfect Mexico-itinerary: a great way to get to know Mexico and teaser to come back for some more inland sightseeing.

 

If anyone still has questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

[debr]

DoubeDutch,

 

I'm so sorry you were not pleased with your tour with Carlos from Rosie's Tours. We toured with Carlos on April 26 and had a fabulous day! We designed our tour ahead of time but during the day changed our mind several times on what we wanted to do and Carlos was always very accommodating to our needs. We also felt that Carlos did very well in communicating with us during the day.

 

Debr

[232271]

Can you compare these ports with Cozumel, Jamaica, and

Grand Cayman?

 

Is the water colders?

What about beauty?

 

Trying to decide if Mexican Riviera is for us or not?

 

any thoughts are appreciated on differences.:)

[Charisse4]

Can you compare these ports with Cozumel, Jamaica, and

Grand Cayman?

 

Is the water colders?

What about beauty?

 

Trying to decide if Mexican Riviera is for us or not?

 

any thoughts are appreciated on differences.:)

 

The water is not a pretty as in the Caribbean and it's much, much, colder! I can honestly say that I'm glad I went but I'll never go back. I've never experienced Vendors and beggers (I think they made more money in one day than I make in a week) like I did on our Mexican Riviera trip. 3/21 to 4/1/07.

[DoubleDutch]

Today Rosie mailed asking me how the tour was. I replyed with a link to this website review. A part of the e-mail she send then:

 

<<.......I just read your review and that was not very nice for you to say that you would not recomend my tour because I was not the one who did the tour for you to star with.........>>

 

So I guess Rosie doesn't feel responsible for a tour she organizes!

So be carefull to book a tour with her: you don't know who is going to do the tour (even if she emails you the name it might be someone else ) and what the quality will be.

 

 

[melika091900]

The water is not a pretty as in the Caribbean and it's much, much, colder! I can honestly say that I'm glad I went but I'll never go back. I've never experienced Vendors and beggers (I think they made more money in one day than I make in a week) like I did on our Mexican Riviera trip. 3/21 to 4/1/07.

 

 

 

i agree about the water... but the vendors in jamaica are way worse than in the mexican riveria, they are pushy and they grab you ,,

in mexico you say no thank you and thats it ...

weve been there many times and love it ,

its not like the caribbean as far as the water but its nice to try at least 1 time, we keep going back since the port is close to us so we dont have to fly ..

 

melissa

[AZlabs]

It sounds like most of your problem with the tours, both Rosie's in Acapulco and the canopy tour in Cabo was that the guides didn't speak very good English, this could be that you were in Mexico. Did you tell the guide that you were Dutch? If not, how was he to know?

 

We took Rosie's tour last October and were very pleased and have not heard any other complaints, besides yours. We wouldn't hesitate to use her again and would trust her to set up another guide if she was unavailable. I am sure her tour cannot satisfy everyone, but from the reviews it makes most of the people happy. My guess is the reason you wanted to use her tour in the first place is because it is very reasonable. She uses a new air-conditioned van, furnishes free drinks and is very knowledgable about the area, since it is her home town. I am sorry that you didn't enjoy your tour, but I can assure anyone out there that is interested, that it is well worth the cost.

[CanyonDweller]

It sounds like most of your problem with the tours, both Rosie's in Acapulco and the canopy tour in Cabo was that the guides didn't speak very good English, this could be that you were in Mexico. Did you tell the guide that you were Dutch? If not, how was he to know?

 

We took Rosie's tour last October and were very pleased and have not heard any other complaints, besides yours. We wouldn't hesitate to use her again and would trust her to set up another guide if she was unavailable. I am sure her tour cannot satisfy everyone, but from the reviews it makes most of the people happy. My guess is the reason you wanted to use her tour in the first place is because it is very reasonable. She uses a new air-conditioned van, furnishes free drinks and is very knowledgable about the area, since it is her home town. I am sorry that you didn't enjoy your tour, but I can assure anyone out there that is interested, that it is well worth the cost.

I have agree with secondwindy.

I kept reading about a tour with Rosie and everyone raved about so I contacted her for pricing etc. I posted on the Roll Call for our cruise that we were thinking about booking her tour and would anyone like to join us. At first two couples expressed interest, then two more and before I knew it 28 people “signed up”.

I think I can speak for all…….we made the right decision! Rosie gives a WONDERFUL TOUR!

With so many people on the tour and not enough room in one vehicle for all, Rosie contacted two of her friends in the tour business, Olga and Carlos, both were wonderful as well….excellent guides, excellent English skills and all three are as nice and charming as can be. Not one of the eight people in Carlos' vehicle complained about his English skills.

We did the typical must see stuff like the cliff divers, shopping etc… but Rosie incorporates the not so common things in her tour like the a visit to her parents casa where we sampled three types of fresh picked mangoes from their trees, the fantastic view of Acapulco from Hotel Casa Blanca at night and the very beautiful Peace Cross

These are some of the comments from others on the tour posted on the Roll Call after the cruise.

“Thanks again Russ for planning the Rosie/Olga tour. It was definitely a highlight of our trip.”

“Russ and Sharon - Rosie's tour was the best!”

“Russ and Sharon thanks for putting together >> Rosie's tour, it was the best part of the cruise.”

“Thanks also to Tami for planning the meet and greet and Russ for arranging the awesome Rosie tour!”

“Rosie's tour...which was super and we would also highly recommend! I'm sure we went to places that no one else on the ship ever would get to visit.”

“Wasn't the Rosie tour wonderful?...........a very special time that I wouldn't want to have missed.”

I have gone on way too long but the experience was a fantastic one and the best tour we have booked. To not book Rosie for a tour when in Acapulco would be a shame. She is very professional, very charming and someone I now consider a friend.

DD, I am sorry that you did not like your tour but all I can figure is that you where expecting something else

[DoubleDutch]

It sounds like most of your problem with the tours, both Rosie's in Acapulco and the canopy tour in Cabo was that the guides didn't speak very good English, this could be that you were in Mexico. Did you tell the guide that you were Dutch? If not, how was he to know?

-> of course we told him that we are Dutch, it's probably one of the first questions of every tour guide "where are you from? "

She uses a new air-conditioned van, furnishes free drinks and is very knowledgable about the area, since it is her home town. I am sorry that you didn't enjoy your tour, but I can assure anyone out there that is interested, that it is well worth the cost.

-> furnishes free drinks? not with us. And that Rosie and her husband is very knowledgable about the area I am sure, but against agreements it wasn't her husband who did the tour it was someone else.

[DoubleDutch]

We did the typical must see stuff like the cliff divers, shopping etc… but Rosie incorporates the not so common things in her tour like the a visit to her parents casa where we sampled three types of fresh picked mangoes from their trees, the fantastic view of Acapulco from Hotel Casa Blanca at night and the very beautiful Peace Cross

I have gone on way too long but the experience was a fantastic one and the best tour we have booked. To not book Rosie for a tour when in Acapulco would be a shame. She is very professional, very charming and someone I now consider a friend.

DD, I am sorry that you did not like your tour but all I can figure is that you where expecting something else

 

 

 

Yes that is right I was expecting something else. I tried to book Rosie but she was already booked and said that Arturo, her husband "

the one who taught me almost all I know"was available, so we agreed on him doing the tour. Without any notice: no Arturo.

And this also ment "Rosie incorporates the not so common things in her tour like the a visit to her parents casa where we sampled three types of fresh picked mangoes from their trees" was of course out of the picture.

The only not so common thing was that we he had real mexical lunch, we insisted that we wanted a real mexican lunch instead of the standard tourist stops he first wanted to bring us to. We ended up in a nice local restaurant out of town, this was the highlight of our tour, the only thing that we have done and visited where we didn't encounter other people from the cruise.... I wish we would have visited Rosies parents casa with the mangoes, that would have been great, instead of the fleamarket of which we said we didn't want to visit but we had to because "it is part of the tour" .

[debr]

It's unfortunate that DoubleDutch had a bad experience with Carlos from Rosie's Tours. We were scheduled to tour with Rosie's husband on March 26 but because another group added people to there tour without informing Rosie she needed her husband's help that day. We were met at the pier by Carlos and he informed us of the change. We were a little disappointed, but Carlos was a delightful tour guide and we had a fabulous day! We designed our tour ahead of time but during the day changed our mind several times on what we wanted to do and Carlos was always very accommodating to our needs. We also felt that Carlos did very well in communicating with us during the day.

 

Rosie, her husband and Carlso do a fabulous job of showing Acapulco to visitors.

 

Debr

[AZlabs]

DoubleDutch, I am sorry that you not happy with the tour, but as for us and the other 10 people that were with us, we enjoyed our day and would definitely do it again.

 

CanyonDweller & Debr, I am glad to hear more members share good experiences with Rosie, Arturo and Carlos. We didn't meet Carlos or Arturo, but if Rosie was not available we would be glad to give them a try.

 

I was looking on Princess Ship Tours, some of the places we went weren't on the tours and others if booked through the ship would have cost over $200 (cliff divers, Flamingo Hotel, Chapel of Peace, etc.....) We saw several things that were not on the regular tours. We also had a visit with Rosie's family and went on the roof where there was a great view of the Mercury in the Bay, it was just after sunset and we all took pictures with the ship lights shining as our backdrop. We were there in October and there was not any fresh mango, but maybe next time.

 

I believe the reason that Carlos didn't get out of the van to explain Diego Rivira’s mosaics, was because it was a very narrow road on a blind curve. We met a car on the road and it was very close. One of our fellow tourists did open the van door to get clear pictures.

 

In most cases I have found that the outlook that you have and your attitude plays a big part in the way people react to you. You can't make everyone happy. ;)

[gomexico]

My advice is to shop carefully for tour guides in Acapulco. Some guides take you "shopping" to a favorite hotel, to their home . . . expecting to "soften" you up. You should dictate the itinerary, not the driver. There are more than a dozen highly-recommended drivers in Acapulco who are bilingual that are frequently mentioned on the webistes - don't feel that you're bound to use one or two most often recommended.

[DoubleDutch]

I am glad that the ones who replyed had a good experience with Rosie.

But I must say I feel offended by remarks that it might be my attitude or that I seem to forget that they don't speak English in Mexico.

If you read my whole review you can see I was very happy with my other private guides in the other ports: Mazatlan Frank and Alfredo, so it has nothing to do with attitude or language. That I had a problem with the language capacities in Cabo was because of the result of it: no explanation at the zip lines. Wouldn't you like to know which ziplines is the longest or anything about the surroundings? If during the whole zipline tour NOTHING is said because of not being able to speak english, I think I should mention it on this board. By the way: I travel a lot, I speak 4 languages, going to emigrate in the near future and dare to say that I can adjust very easily to different countries and cultures.

 

I am also wondering about the fact that nobody seems to agree with me that it is strange that without notice (not even after my last confirmation) I get another tour guide in Acapulco, it seems that everyone only allows me to be positive about Rosie, which I can't since she broke the agreement and even followed up with a remark that it is not nice of me to tell she isn't a good guide, since I did't tour with her, which is exactly the problem in the first place.

 

Since I think this board should be there to share experiences, good and bad. And if only the people that have a good experience are allowed to post messages, what would be the use? But hey if it makes you feel happy, just blame it on the fact that I am European, they are somewhat weird aren't they? They don't shout out with everything: oh how great, how excellent! they can have a different opinion. On the cruise I did before, in the Baltics, it was even said as an announcement: please passengers from Europe (and there were a lot), on your review about the cruise, please check excellent with every box, since this is common in the US. If you would check good then it is not positive.

 

To end positive: I love my cruise to Mexico which you can read in both my reviews. The only day that I would have done different I could do it again is the day in Acapulco, which I almost forgot if it wasn't for the mail of Rosie this week. So please everyone enjoy the Mexican Riviera, it's a great place to spend your vacation/holiday and if you're in Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta please say hi for me to Mazatlan Frank and Alfredo, they are the best!!!!

[btorlv]

I like to see both pos and neg comments about tours. Double Dutch loved Mazatlan Frank and We thaught he was just ok and there where 6 of us. Double should not get slammed because he did not like a tour that a lot of other people did. Just my 2 cents.

[lovemexico]

:) I also agree that Double Dutch should not be slammed for posting her feelings, but in all fairness making fun of someone who speaks a second language with an accent is not really fair at all. We toured with Rosie a couple of years ago and were very happy with her tour. It seems to me that she has worked very hard to become popular so my best advice is to book ahead. We have now planned our next cruise for September and have decided this time around to spend a week in Acapulco before embarking on the Princess. As of now our count down has begun.

Happy cruising to you all and yes it is a good thing to post the good the bad and the ugly.:D

[DoubleDutch]

so my best advice is to book ahead.

 

I totally agree, just book ahead like I did and keep your fingers crossed that you get the guide that was promised to you...

[lovemexico]

After reading your review Double Dutch I did book ahead last night and this morning opened my mail and had my responce. Seeing that we have a week in Acapulco before we begin our cruise we will be doing different things with Rosie this time around. In other words we shall be seeing the other side of the coin. I will report back and let you all know if I was bumped off to someone else or if she attended to us in a proper fashion as she has done in the past. We are really looking forward to this trip making it a touch longer begining with a week in Acapulco:)

[lovemexico]

This evening we picked up the phone that was advising us that we had a long distance call never expecting it to be our friendly tour guide Rosie.

 

She is out of town as she informed us but asured me that she will be with us from the moment we get off the plane and from the time we embark on our cruise. I think I can uncross my fingers now.:) Nice touch on her behalf. Getting more excited as each day goes by we havent had what I would call spring weather in Toronto so far. We can hardly wait!

[shawilson]

If you have never been to ACA to see the cliff divers, then go. I did not care for that port, and would just stay on the ship.

 

I love Zihua, Cabo and PV. Very easy to do on yor own. Wasn't a fan of MAZ. Stone Island looked OK, but if we ever went back, I would probably just stay on the ship. I cruise for sea days, not for the port experience, so I'm a bad one to take advice from.

[jrtmouse]

Since I think this board should be there to share experiences, good and bad. And if only the people that have a good experience are allowed to post messages, what would be the use?

QUOTE]

 

DoubleDutch, I so totally agree with you! People on these boards take things WAY too personally. The purpose of these boards is to gather and share information, good and bad, from different perspectives. I recently posted a not so pleasant review of the Carnival Liberty and it wasn't well received. I tried to be positive where it was deserved. However, I said the same thing - What is the point of these boards if everything is always positive?!?!?!

 

Good grief people. Everyone is looking for something different on their trips. When you read these reviews take this into account. Take what information you find useful and leave the rest alone.

 

With that being said, we recently booked this itinerary on the Spirit for the January 1 sailing. I'm very interested in finding out what private tour options are available in Acapulco, Ixtapa and Manzanillo.

 

Thanks everyone for your personal reviews of your cruise experiences.

[PACURN]

I am booked with Rosie for next Oct. I booked so far in advance that I was the first person. Most of the people in my group are with her, so Arturo will be taking people too. She did mention today that another driver would be available if needed. We have been emailing back and forth for months now. She emailed me yesterday to ask in another lady and her son joined us. Although I thought that was nice of her she certainly doesn't need my permission.

I booked her based on all the fabulous reviews I have read about. I was shocked to see a bad one for her. Well I guess it was not her personally, but Carlos. I feel confidant that she will be our guide. I look forward to going to meet her parents and having a wonderful time.

[lovemexico]

We shall be using Rosies services in late September so I will get back to Pacurn and let you know how it went. Iam confident this will be the second time we will be doing this with Rosie. We had a great time the first time around and planning on doing a whole lot more this time having a whole week in Acapulco before we begin our Cruise:)

[crabbycruiser500]

Our group was on the same cruise as DD and I made pre arrangements with Rosie for our Acapulco tour. We knew more people from the ship would be using Rosie. We had no idea whether we would get Rosie herself, Arturo, or another person. We happened to get Rosie. Arturo had another group and for a while both groups were together. After the famous Acapulco divers we separated from Arturo & his group and the party began. We did not want the "regular" tour so Rosie took us to a restaurant on the beach where the Margaritas flowed and the food was way too good. After leaving the restaurant we did a few more drive bys of local places of interest then Rosie overheard us say that we were going out in the evening. She said why not let her take us after we rested up for a couple of hours. We met up with Rosie around 6 PM and off we went to Senior Frogs overlooking Acapulco Bay & the city lights. Only 6 from our group went and Rosie had arranged for us to get a nice spot in the restaurant. Rosie is so well known that the staff just brought our table several food items to go along with our drinks. We also had the honor of having Rosie's very sweet niece Melissa accompany us. That was great since we had two older teen age boys with us and Melissa was nice enough to dance with both of them. Our son enjoyed that night so much I think it was one of the main highlights of his whole trip, he even danced on the table! Very sorry to hear that it did not go so well for DD. To tell you the truth I did not think we would have such a good time in Acapulco but our good time had alot to do with Rosie, too bad she cannot clone herself and make everyone happy:rolleyes: !

[PACURN]

We shall be using Rosies services in late September so I will get back to Pacurn and let you know how it went. Iam confident this will be the second time we will be doing this with Rosie. We had a great time the first time around and planning on doing a whole lot more this time having a whole week in Acapulco before we begin our Cruise:)

Thanks I appreciate that. I really think all will be fine, after all I'm on vacation. I'll be looking forward to your review though.