Mexican Riviera Cruise - Mazatlan

 For our second day in port, we went to a beach resort in Mazatlan. They took us on a bus out to the resort and gave us a short city tour on the way.

We had hoped that being on a resort would eliminate the people selling us stuff on the beach, but it was still a public beach area, so we got approached about 100 times while sitting there. We found a nice spot to sit in the shade while the kids played in the ocean.

They gave us 2 drink tickets each and a ticket to get into the lunch buffet. A lot of us got virgin Pina coladas and strawberry daiquiris.

Lunch was mexican food and it was so good. The view was pretty amazing, too.

Right before lunch, we gave up our spot on the beach with the plan to enjoy the resort pools that afternoon. There were like 6 different pools. The water was pretty cold, but felt nice once we got used to it.

We found this jungle looking walkway that led to some caves and rocks. Deep inside of them, there was a cliff jump that a lot of the kids went off of.

These gigantic iguanas were on the rocks and fences in this area, too.

The warmest pool was this kids pool with racing slides. The slides were bumpy and a bit rough going down, but the kids still had fun.

We ended the day in a volleyball pool. Even the dads got in the water to play.

We had to leave around 2 to head back to the ship. It was a relaxing day and a lot of fun.

Mexican Riviera Cruise - Puerto Vallarta

Our first stop on the cruise was Puerto Vallarta. Fortunately, we were there before the civil unrest broke out there a few weeks later. It's a good thing, too, because our excursion there was the highlight of the cruise for our family. Danny and I had done this excursion about 9 years ago when we did this cruise with the Miner family adults. We thought it was one of the coolest things either of us had ever done in our lives and we wanted our kids to experience it, too. It is called an outdoor adventure. The day started with a 30-minute catamaran ride to this bay full of pelicans.

Shortly after we started the boat ride, we stopped to see some whales in the area. It was a momma and baby whale. I didn't quite get the picture of the whales before they went under again.

Here is the bay. The boat on the left side of the picture is full of pelicans.

After the boat ride, we got onto these big jeeplike vehicles for a rough ride up the mountain.

When we got to the base camp, we had the chance to use the restrooms and changing rooms before getting our gear on. At this point, we also had to leave behind all of our belongings, including our cameras. But they did let us take a quick picture with the gear before we stowed everything away.

The next thing we did was get on the back of a mule for a climb up the mountain. It was funny to see some of the mules compete for the front. Any time one would start running, all of the others around it would run, too. 

After the mule ride, we started the ziplines. The first 2 were pretty average, with the second one being a bit longer. From there, every zipline changed. We rappelled down a waterfall, ziplined down into water, hung upside down, stood on a surfboard, rode a roller coaster zipline with a plunge under the water at the end, dropped straight down off of a platform, and rode some waterslides. It was so much fun! The kids loved it. Camden was just sad because he came off of his pad on the last waterslide and it was really slow for him. All of the kids thought that the rappel down the waterfall was the scariest one. 

After we finished, they showed us our pictures that the camera guy had taken for us along the way. They looked really cool, but we all decided that we could store the memories in our heads, rather than paying the $200 they were asking for them. We got chips and salsa and guac after that and had some time to hang out a bit.

While we were eating, we saw this HUGE spider in the tree.

After the whole excursion group got done on the ziplines, we got back on the jeep things and rode down the mountain again. Then we got back on the catamaran for the boat ride back. We stopped at these arches and cool rocks on the way back.

After we got off the catamaran's we walked back to cruise ship. We passed through the little tourist booths to pick out some souvenirs when we got close to the ship. We got each of the kids a t-shirt and then got back on the ship. The military guys wouldn't let us get a picture with them, so we just got our own picture with the ship before heading on.

There was a family that ended up on the same jeep as us and were just in front of us on the ziplines that we talked a bit with that day. They also had 4 kids (2 boys and 2 girls) and were from Idaho. We found out after talking with them that their oldest son was graduating this year and heading out on a mission. After the tour, we started seeing them all over the ship for the rest of the week.

Mexican Riviera Cruise - On the Ship

In the end of January, we took a cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We flew to California on Saturday and spent that first night at Brian and Maryn's house with their family. We all left early on Sunday to board the cruise ship in Long Beach.

These pictures are a little out of order, but the kids spent a lot of time in the pools and hot tubs on the ship. There was a little kids splash pad and slide area, but you had to be 12 and under to play in there. There were also 2 bigger slides on the ship. One of them was a tube slide that the kids went down a lot. It had some flashing lights inside and some see through the tube parts when it was over the edge of the ship. Tyler was most excited about the other big slide, a drop slide with a trap door. He has never been on a slide like this and it is his life's goal to go on one because he thinks they look so fun. He was so sad to find out on day one that there was a weight restriction for the slide. You had to be at least 120 pounds and he was no where near that weight.

The kids were also slightly disappointed that the pools were saltwater pools. Their skin would get irritated from it if they spent too much time in them.

Dinnertime was fun, but the kids (and maybe some of the adults, LOL) preferred to eat dinner at the buffet. The first night at dinner was a bad experience, where it took 2 hours to get through dinner. The service was quite slow and we had an appointment after dinner that we ended up being late for. Because of that, we always ate at the buffet if we had anything scheduled for a specific time after dinner.

Another problem with the dining room was that the menu did not differ that much from night to night. Half of the items on the menu stayed the same the entire week. Also, Tommy struggled to stay awake through dessert.

The shows were lacking a bit, IMO, on this cruise. We also had to reserve seats for the shows ahead of time and that proved to be difficult. Danny and the boys skipped out on all of the shows. Ashley and I went with Brian's (or some of Brian's family) to 2 of the shows. The first one was ICONs. I think Ashley was a little bored with this one because she didn't recognize a lot of the artists and songs that were highlighted in the show. I thought it was fun, but it was more like a concert. The other show that we saw was Jersey Boys. I had never seen this one and didn't know much about it, but it was a lot of fun. I recognized most of the songs from it too, so that was fun.

We also went and watched an illusionist one of the afternoons on the ship. I think everyone thought that was fun.

There was a glow party one of the nights, but we didn't get up there until the kids one was over. The pool deck was still lit up with black lights and playing music as they were waiting for the adult glow party to start. Camden and Kat put on a dance show for all of us.

The kids tried out the miniature golf course on the first day. It was pretty small though, so I don't think they enjoyed it that much. They never went back to do it again.

Everyone loved the buffet. We had fun surprising the Filipino workers in the buffet area with the greetings in Tagalog that Alyssa had taught us. The kids always sat at their own table and had fun making designs with their food.

Lydia and Ashley always sat together to eat and the adults sat together. They only really had tables for 2 and 4 in the buffet area.

We paid to ride the racing cars one of the days. Our boys struggled a bit with turning them and crashed a couple of times before the workers told them they had to be done. They were pretty upset about it so we didn't do it again. Tommy did really well on the racetrack (I think he has done it quite a bit around home).

I think the highlight of the cruise on the ship was the ice cream. We all ate it a lot.

We played a lot of card games on the ship during down time. 

We loved having a balcony in our rooms. Ashley and I caught a bit of the sunset on the last night.

On our last morning in the Long Beach port, we also got to see the sunrise.

Our overall impression of the ship was mid. There were a lot of fun features for the kids, but some of them ended up not being as fun as we expected. The food was good on the first day, but kind of repetitive so we got bored with the options halfway through the week. The service was great on the ship and the overall feel of the cruise experience was good. We didn't wee a single towel animal on this cruise, which surprised us. That being said, it was still a cruise and a really fun week away. We especially loved spending the time with Brian and Maryn and family.