Eating and shopping in the Golden Zone area???

[tlovesdis]

Hi everyone,

We were going to do an excursion through NCL that would take us to the Golden Zone for some shopping and then on to a resort for swimming, etc... My cousin and I were thinking that we would really like to spend time browsing the shops and didn't want to be rushed so we thought we might can the excursion and go to the Golden Zone on our own.

1. Is it easy to get a cab at the port and about how much is it each way?

2. Are there a lot of different shops in that area? My husband wants to buy cigars and my cousin and I would love to find all sorts of different types of things!

3. Are there a lot of places to eat and which ones would you recommend?

We figure if we don't do the excursion, we save $150 a couple and we mostly just want to shop in Mazatlan since we will do a beach excursion the next day in PV.

Thanks!

Tina in Antioch, CA

Norwegian Star 10/18/08

First cruise EVER!

[melika091900]

hey there neighbor

i would just take a cab to the golden zone, it was fairly inexpensive, there are many places there to shop in the back alley kinda areas you will find great deals and barter barter barter..

shell city is also nice to go to,

also stop at senor frogs on your way back

in PV

you can always go to the westin hotel in PV< everyone always recommends that, go to their website and see about fees for day use, http://www.starwoodhotels.com/westin/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1090

i wouldnt pay for an excursion to go to a hotel and shopping,

just my thoughts ,

any other questions please ask away or email me anytime, weve been all over mexico many times.

take care

melissa

[melika091900]

and have fun on the star!! we went on that ship 2 times.

heres some pics

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/555967401BpRTpu

 

and heres some more

http://travel.webshots.com/album/547192194JZNfcz

[tlovesdis]

Thanks so much for your response and for the link to your pics! Loved them!

 

Tina

[sdmike]

You take a tram from the ship to the cruise terminal, and after walking through a ragtag mall of shops out to the street, you will find about a million cabs willing to take you to the Golden Zone. The cost was about $10 per car, regardless of the # of passengers if I remember correctly (might have been a few bux more, but not much).

 

We walked around for a couple of hours up there and found some interesting shops and deals. There is an open air shopping center on the west side of the main road that doesn't look like anything, but when you walk through there is a restaurant at the end that empties onto a beautiful beach. There are dozens of merchants there ready to pounce on you coming down the stairs, so we didn't go out to the sand, but it was pretty. As you get to the back of that little shopping center there's a silver shop on the left that sells tons of stuff. The are VERY open to negotiations, and the stuff is very nice.

 

Overall, the Golden Zone wasn't a big thrill for us. I think the downtown area along the water is prettier and might have more places to shop. I think the Golden Zone was created to cater to the cruise ships, with lots of "approved" merchants like Diamonds International up there. Do your homework. You can get deals, but unless you know you're prices it's hard to figure out what's a deal or not. For example, I saw a beautiful piece that was marked at $2300. :eek:. The guy asked me what ship I was on, and when I told him he said "you get our biggest discount" and offered the piece at $1800. :rolleyes:. Was it a good deal? I have no friggin idea.

 

One word of warning. Both the Vision of the Seas and the Disney Magic went under Norovirus quarantine after visiting Mazatlan because some people got sick eating at the Shrimp Factory, which is in the Golden Zone. We were told by our waiter to be careful by eating on the ship and NOT in town. We listened to him, but others didn't and we ended up paying the price (no more self service food, including ice cream, after that)

 

Finally, there's an internet cafe in the shops building attached to the ship terminal. $2 for 30 minutes if you want to log in and check mail.

 

Hope that helps! here are a couple pics of mazatlan.

 

Beach I talked about above...at the end of the little shopping center

 

Free Tequila at Senior Frogs in Golden Zone :)

 

Walking around downtown near the terminal

[jandjfun]

Just a note. We have eaten at the shrimp factory many, many times and have never gotten sick. Perhaps the ships problem was just that, the SHIPS problem.

[househunter]

I agree, that just doesn't make sense. Norovirus is just that, a virus. If someone got sick from eating shrimp, that would be food poisening or a bacteria. Also it takes at least 12-24 hours for food poisening to show up so not sure how they could isolate where it came from.

 

Millions of people vacation in Mexico, not on a cruise ship and eat the food every meal without being sick. If it was truely Norovirus, it was not from a restaurant in Mexico, it was probably brought on by a passenger.

 

Part of the fun of traveling is trying the local cuisine. Eat and have fun!

[jandjfun]

Hi, all the resorts and restrauants in the golden zone use purified water. The water and ice are perfectly safe to drink. But it never hurts to drink bottled water when you are concerned.