Carnival Spirit Mexican Riviera 10-10-09 Plus Plus

[DiverDownAZ]

Monday Oct 12, 2009
Fun day at sea #2. The Wife was recovering from yesterday BB testing and needed to loosen up so we heading to the Gym. After she ran a mile on the treadmill she started to get a little sick from the motion of the ship, a big storm was coming in and it was getting rocky. She sat down on the mats and started to stretch while I worked Chest. FYI, be very careful doing dumb bell bench presses while the ship is rocking (it is easy to dislocate a shoulder). The Wife left the gym to go get some sea sick drugs and found her friends on deck instead. We all sat there talking and not minding the wind, rain and rocking. I then went back to the gym and did 2.5miles on the elliptical.

Later that night we found out we were passing through a Tropical Depression , the dining room and the comedy show were pretty much deserted because so many people were sick. The show tonight was Greg Ott Comedian/ Magician, he was pretty funny, his magic was pretty basic but it was overall a very enjoyable show.

[Litewait]

Originally Posted by DiverDownAZ

You are lucky. I lived at Point Loma while in the navy and loved it. I would love to move back.

Yes we love San Diego. Got here at a Navy Brat! My dad retired from the Navy and was working at PSD Point Loma at the time!

[Simon_B]

Originally Posted by DiverDownAZ

Sunday Oct 11, 2009

We started the day with the Life boat drill it went pretty smoothly and only took about 15-20 min. The wife had the first part of her Black Belt exam today...(the wife speaking) The Black Belt exam was pretty brutal as always but blissfully short. We started out with a killer work out, basics then we preformed 2 of our Kata’s. We used Club Cool so it was like we were in a fish bowl. One wall is all glass so people kept stopping and watching. Everyone was oblivious to the people watching except when we stopped for a quick water break. The Floor went from Tile to Wood to Carpet and with the rocking of the ship it was very difficult to keep your balance. Our test took 3 hrs each of the days we tested, students who did not get to test on the cruise tested for 13 hrs all in one day.
The group reservation office was not the best for this cruise at arranging dining times, meeting rooms, etc.

(the Hubby speaking again) While they kicked and punched, I went to the gym, sat in the sauna, watched the Bengals come back and beat the Ravens. It was a good morning. .

What style? I am a shodan in Chito Ryu and saw you training - looked challenging, I was wishing I had brought my gi.

[DiverDownAZ]

Originally Posted by Simon_B

What style? I am a shodan in Chito Ryu and saw you training - looked challenging, I was wishing I had brought my gi.

The Wife is Studying Kenpo

[DiverDownAZ]

Tuesday Oct 13, 2009
Our first port was Manzinillo. We didn't have any real plans so we walked to the taxi stand and asked to be taken to a beach that had good shade, food and beer. The taxis cost $40 for eight people. He took us to Mirra Mar beach, where we sat under an umbrella eating tacos and drinking cerveza while the kids played in the waves. The waves were probably a little rough for small kids but our 13, 17 and 40+yo kids all enjoyed them. Total bill while we were at the beach was $50. There was a small craft mall next door that the women enjoyed and of course there was a constant stream of vendors. The vendors were very well behaved one no "thank you" and they moved on. One other nice thing about this beach was they had showers and restrooms on site.



I think the taxis waited for us but the waiter said the taxis out front were different and that he had called our taxis, when our taxis showed up it was one large van with a different driver. When we got in the van the driver told us $25 when we got to the pier he said $35. After reading about the people getting tossed in jail in Antigua over a taxi fare dispute I didn't want to argue over $10 so we paid with out a tip. We were going to tip 5-7 bucks so the difference was only 3-5 bucks.







After dinner was the Talent show. Every one was very good but one lady was incredible she sang "Music of the night" from the Phantom of the Opera. She was as good as any of the professionals we have heard sing it.

[DiverDownAZ]

Wendsday Oct 14, 2009
Our second port was Ixtapa / Zihuatanejo, The Wife and I went diving with 2 others from her Karate group. We used Carlos Scuba. This is the same company used by Carnival which is $120 thru carnival but $75 if booked directly thru the dive shop. On the first dive visibility was 10-15 feet with strong surge and current. My Wife was having problems clearing her ears so she was going to hover over the rest of us until she cleared. The first problem arose because visibility was so bad she lost sight of us so she was essentially diving alone. The second problem happened when the Dive master took up the first guy when he ran out of air, while they were up doing the safety stop the guy that was with me got down to 500psi so I took him up and ended the dive. I still had 2000 PSI left. We never should have been allowed to separate with such bad visibility. The dive master went back down looking for us while we were doing our safety stop and didn't show up for several minutes after we were on the boat. 2 of the divers had less than 10 dives and those where 5 years ago, plus a refresher dive the week before. I never felt uncomfortable for myself and had confidence in my ability to handle the situation but I have been diving for 25 years including professionally in Alaska. I did not have confidence in the others dealing with it if an emergency had arose.

Our gear was prepared by the DM for our second dive. This dive had much better visibility probably 20+feet and much less current/surge we also saw a good assortment of fish. The problem on this dive was the wife’s tank valve was not fully opened so when she got to 1000 pounds she couldn’t breath any more so she stole my regulator. Once on the surface and having fixed the problem with her tank we found the bubbles from the other group and started to go back down. Unfortunately we found them so easy because they were coming up. And once again the DM was nowhere around, he was off looking for us. At no point should the DM have needed to look for us, he should have known where we were and if he could not keep an eye on us he should have called the dive due to unsafe conditions.

After thinking about all the problems on these dives I would definitely have to recommend avoiding them. On one 2 tank excursion there were 5-10 safety problems any one of which should be enough to disqualify a dive shop from being a choice and especially from being the preferred vendor of the cruise line.

As if the problems with the dive shop weren't enough the batteries for our dive camera had enough charge that they would turn on the camera but as soon as we hit the shutter button it would turn off. So we bought 2 batteries from a shop by the dive shop they did the same thing. So no underwater shots. We did see a pretty yellow and green sea horse, a ton of puffer fish.

Dive Video

[SDPadreFan]

Good to know the heads up regarding that dive shop. I don't dive but I spend a lot of time on the Mexican Riviera board so I will be able to relate your experiences to others.

[step222]

DiverDownAZ Was the new downtown cruise port open in Manzinillo?

[DiverDownAZ]

Originally Posted by step222

DiverDownAZ Was the new downtown cruise port open in Manzinillo?

I hope this wasn't the new terminal. It was just dock, no facilities at all. The good thing was you didn't have to fight your way through crowds of vendors.

[DiverDownAZ]

Thursday Oct 15, 2009
Our third port was Acapulco. I have never seen such aggressive vendors before. Most places they take a polite no and walk on. These guys grabbed on like a leech and wouldn't let go if they saw the least chance you might be interested regardless of what you said. We split the group today with the women going shopping and the men going to sit at the beach. My goal for today besides drinking a couple beers was to try one of the beech massage girls. We found a spot about a 1/2 mile from the ship. I ordered a bucket of beer and attempted to relax. There were so many vendors it was hard to relax. We had one toothless old lady that came up and asked if we wanted a massage, she gave a quick sample on my shoulders that was pretty good, but I told her later after the women got back. She kept coming back every 10 min to ask if I was ready. About 3 hours and 20 refusals later I finally gave in. At the same time A Henna tattoo guy came by, Sam's Goal was to get a Henna tattoo. Some how in the middle of his tattoo he started getting a massage also. Sam is 17 and felt VERY uncomfortable getting a massage from some strange lady on the beach. I would have gladly traded masseuses because his was much younger and cuter than mine, and my full massage wasn't very good.




Shortly after the massages I was taking some pictures and dropped my camera in the sand. No problem I just took it in the water to wash it off. I'm not sure if I had my drivers license and SS card in my pocket or the massage girl took off with it but when I got out of the water I could not find them. Oh, my camera is water proof.

While the men were lazy on the beach. The women found a new friend to lead them around town to all the BEST shops all of them were owned by his relatives. They managed to get all of the shopping done for the gift exchange we did at the end of the trip. Yes they did all of it both theirs and the men's.

When the Women finallllllly showed up at the beach we went back to the ship because we didn't know what was going to be involved with getting a new SS card, or even getting to the boat with no ID or SS card. We should have stuck around awhile longer because there was absolutely no problems We just walked up to the first security guard told him what happened, he escorted us to the head of the gangway where we told the story to ship security, we told him our room number and we were on. Getting a new SS card was that easy also.

The show was before dinner tonight it featured Marcus Raymond he was a comedian juggler. He was very funny, I'm not sure if he was a bad juggler or if it was all part of the act. I think he was intentionally bad. The best part was one of the girls that we met on the cruise was a major part of his act she was on stage for at least 10min helping out.
ROCKY JUGGLING

After dinner we were heading to the Piano bar but stopped and talked to some friends in the middle of the hall for 2-3 hours. We never did make it to any of the bars after dinner. Our friends made it to the club "Dancin" at 11PM one night and it was deserted.

[DiverDownAZ]

As requested all files are in PDF

Excursion list

Capers Oct 10

Capers Oct 11

Capers Oct 12

Capers Oct 13

Capers Oct 14

Capers Oct 15

Capers Oct 16

Capers Oct 17

[DiverDownAZ]

Friday Oct 16, 2009
We got up and ate breakfast in the main dinning room. I (the wife) had a very light breakfast because the 2nd part of my Black Belt test started at noon. We all got together early and started attacking each other on the deck 3 where all the life boats are because no one was on that deck and then at the stairs by the elevators. The stairs were not busy but we still got a lot of strange looks from passengers and crew. We had another brutal work out and then demonstrated our self defense and then preformed our final two Katas. To finish off our test we had to run up the stairs from deck 3 to 9 thru the Lido Buffet then up to deck 10. The wind was so strong we had to claw way thru as we ran around it. On the down wind leg it was an incredible feeling almost like flying as I was being pushed by the wind.



After the test I put on a fresh Gi and took pictures at a couple of the photo stations. One of the action shots turned out really good.





Tonight is the 2nd formal night. Got all dressed up again and took a TON of pictures. A lot of them turned out great but the (MEAN) hubby would only let me buy a couple more. the show was another Broadway production called "The Big Easy". It was another very good show about New Orleans.

[SDPadreFan]

Thanks so much for your efforts.

[DiverDownAZ]

Saturday Oct 17, 2009
I slept like crap due to ship hopping thru the water instead of gliding. Every 20-30 seconds the bow would dive down and the sound of the engines would change. Back on the sub we had a MAJOR flooding accident that should have killed us. Every time the bow would take a dive I would go back to that time. It was quite the stressful night.


We went to the Couples Massage seminar. This was the Best ship board seminar we have been to. In fact it was probably the only good one. They actually were teaching massage techniques instead of spending a n hour trying to sell you stuff. If you enjoy massages I would recommend this seminar. We did the detox and secrets to a flatter stomach seminars last time Stay away from them.



After the seminar I went back to room for a nap. While the wife packed our stuff.

[DiverDownAZ]

Sunday Oct 18, 2009
Arrived in San Diego around 5 am. Ship cleared customs at 8:45, we were at the parking garage by 9:30. This was the most efficient debarkation we have seen. We loaded the car and headed for Yosemite. We arrived at the south entrance at 4:00. The last 20 miles were a blast to drive in the Vette, it was
a very windy road
with almost no cars on it. This is why Brought the Vette and left it in a parking garage instead of bring the truck.

Went to the Mariposa Sequoia Grove. We did the shortest hike about 2 miles because it was getting dark already, we saw some beautiful trees. This hike was definitely worth it but we want to come back and see more.






Drove to the west entrance ~30 miles of dark winding roads covered in fog so it took about 1 ½ hours to get to our hotel at the west entrance. The hotel (Cedar Lodge) is nice, the room (Deluxe) is wonderful. Our room has a king 4 poster bed with a Jacuzzi tub and separate shower, refrigerator and 32” LCD TV. The only problem is there is only one restaurant with in 6 miles. The food is surprisingly good but the service is not.

[DiverDownAZ]

Monday Oct 19, 2009
Finally dragged the wife’s LAZY butt out of bed at 8am and out of the hotel by 9:30. The day started off gorgeous we drove around the park and hiked to a couple of falls, but around noonish it started to rain. While we were at Bridal veil falls the wife's camera fell out of her pocket and exploded. We managed to get it back together except for making the flash work, But since this is the camera for our dive housing we have to buy a new one so the flash works. The wife was freezing her butt off so we stopped at the village store and picked up a nice jacket for only $40. I was surprised at how low the price was given our location. And the wife isn’t even in that big of trouble since our packing space was limited. About 4 it stopped raining and the clouds disappeared. It was like a totally different park. We went back to Yosemite falls and took more pictures. Then on the way back to the car the sun hit Half Dome, WOW it was beautiful.









We had another dinner at the onsite hotel restaurant not because of their outstanding service or prices but because they are the only choice.

[DiverDownAZ]

Tuesday Oct 20, 2009
We were going to drive up to Glacier point this morning but it was closed for Economic stimulus induced road repairs. So instead we drove to Curry Village and hiked Vernal falls. This is an "easy" 1.8 mile hike. The first part of the hike up to the bridge t the base of the falls was very pretty and easy. The last .3 miles from the bridge to the top of the falls is a 45Deg incline it reminded me of climbing the pyramid at Coba but 10 times taller. It was so worth the climb, the view was gorgeous.





We went back to Yosemite falls again, it is amazing how much the change in light affects this area. On the way we saw a big Buck just hanging out by the restrooms. People were walking all around him and taking flash pictures but he didn't care.





We stopped and to some people that had just climbed "El Capitan". They had spent the last 4 days climbing. The last day had been in the cold rain. I think the word used to describe people like that is INSANE.

[DiverDownAZ]

Wednesday Oct 21, 2009
We left for home today, so sad. Our vacation is over.

The GPS took us away from the park then down this little windy road. The road would have been fun but there was quite a bit of traffic, and it was almost a residential area. On the road we saw 7 deer in peoples front yards and a large flock of wild turkey in somebody else's yard.

On the way we stopped at Brock farms cheese factory and tourist trap. while we were pulling in several people from a tour bus started taking pictures of my car. One guy went so far as to walk around it taking pictures from several angles. Vettes aren't that uncommon.

The trip from Yosemite to Gilbert took 11 hours with several gas/bathroom/leg stretch breaks.

[SDPadreFan]

If you want an even more intense drive. Next time try Sequoia National Park. You'll see even bigger & better trees as well. The park is just south of where you were at. You would access it through Fresno. Actually, that whole area of the National Park and the adjacent Kings Canyon is pretty awesome. It's also less crowded than Yosemite.

You are seeing Yosemite when it is unfortunately at it's worst. It's still an incredible place, but it's a little tired looking after hosting several million visitors during the summer. We like late May, right before the onslaught begins. It's always touch & go because some of the roads don't open until late May but it's an amazing place as it comes out of it's winter sleep. Some trails can still have snow on them making it fun (read adventure) to follow. You need to go up onto the peak and do the "fissures" hike sometime. You will get an awesome view of the valley. Plus with the snowmelt, the waterfalls will be spectacular then. I need to get my pictures from Yosemite posted one of these days.

[jones391]

Thanks for the Capers

Originally Posted by DiverDownAZ

As requested all files are in PDF

Excursion list

Capers Oct 10

Capers Oct 11

Capers Oct 12

Capers Oct 13

Capers Oct 14

Capers Oct 15

Capers Oct 16

Capers Oct 17