Carnival Spirit Review - 3/1/05

I have taken so long on this because (A) it's much longer than I thought I was going to write and (B) I originally had planned on including pictures and stuff, but at this point I just want to get it up here as it's been almost a month now!

My cruise review from the Spirit, 3/1 to 3/9. Other reviews (by other people) are in these threads:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=149384&highlight=spirit

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=148592&highlight=spirit

About us:

Husband/wife, early 30s, 2 children ages 6 and 3. Live in San Diego. Wife was 23 weeks pregnant at embarkation. Previously cruised on the Pride (7-day in April 04) and Disney Magic (4-day in December '99).

Day 1

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Original plan was to take the Coaster down from near our house and walk to the terminal but I chickened out and got a friend to drive us down using our SUV. Got there around 11:45 or so, no traffic issues, got checked in, got our number (5 or 6, I don't remember) and found some seats to wait to be called. First thing I noticed was that the average age of people waiting for this cruise was a lot higher than that of the Pride from last year. Got called, went through security, got on the ship, made reservations for the supper club, and by then it was about 12:40 so we ignored the 1PM rule and went to our room.

The stateroom was available, a class 5A (obstructed outside, no balcony). We booked only a couple weeks prior and got a great price as it was an upgrade from the 1A rate. Dropped off our stuff and went to get something to eat.

It's always fun hanging out on the ship while it's still relatively empty. Also, since San Diego is our home, we enjoyed the unusual viewpoint of things we're so familiar with. You don't normally get to be 12 stories up while out in the bay! Did a lot of walking around checking things out. Met our cabin steward.. We were lazy when it was time for muster drill. He actually had stuck the "evacuated" tag on our door before we got out. We learned last time that with the little ones, being late to the drill is a good thing as they get real antsy being smashed in with all those people and no one wants to have what's bad get worse due to crying kids.

Cold and windy as we left port. Interesting sunset off of Point Loma.

That evening we went to the "welcome aboard" party for Camp Carnival which was held in the disco. I was exhausted, so I took some ribbing from the counselors about the kids getting their dance moves from "mom", but I was too tired to barely move. The attendance at this event was really light, maybe 15 people total, including parents.

Day 2 (1st day at sea)

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Honestly, Day 2 and 3 kind of blend together a bit. I didn't find myself having all that much fun yet. I went to the putting contest (just missed the cut), checked out some other things, let the kids do some swimming even though it was cold, etc. They were having a great time in camp carnival, of course.

With the family all dressed up we got our picture taken, and the kids were taken to the "coketail" party. We went on to the captain's party was what was to be expected. We sat in a bad spot, as we got one drink and then our server disappeared for the next half hour. In the meantime, the row right in front of us got served FIVE times. Near the end I flagged one of their servers over and mentioned that our server had been MIA and maybe he could give us something, so he put 2 glasses of champagne for myself and my wife, and then I asked about something else he had on his tray so he gave me one of those. Well, my wife won't drink more than 1 drink a day because of the pregnancy so they all went to me me me! Let me tell you, it's hard to drink that much champagne that fast. We went to dinner (table 314 I think) and I ordered a Bass Ale, so I'd put down 6 drinks in about 20 minutes. It didn't take long before I was starting to enjoy myself now! Unfortunately we weren't far into the show when the pager went off - my 3 year old had either been pushed or fell or something and hit his forehead on a table in the Lido lounge where camp carnival was having dinner. He had a knot on his head the size of a golf ball, it was huge. They staff at camp carnival was a bit freaked out - I think they were worried I was going to tear them a new one because it did look really bad. He's a tough kid though, so I checked him out and took him down to dinner with us. By the end of dinner he wanted to go back.

I think this may have been the "Standing Room Only" show night. We weren't impressed. Perhaps we've been spoiled by having season tickets one year for "Broadway San Diego", which is all the major touring shows. I thought the male singer in particular had a very flat, boring voice. The female was a bit better but she wasn't always pitch perfect. The dancers were ok, but surprisingly not in great shape for dancers.. I saw people that were more fit in the workout room..

As someone else mentioned, there was an emergency stop at Cabo on the way down. I actually woke up when this happened as I guess my body "noticed" that we had stopped. I contemplated getting up and seeing what Cabo looked like at night (it was 3 AM) but I just couldn't do it and went back to sleep. :)

Day 3 (2nd day at sea)

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A little warmer, did more of the kids swimming, hanging out thing. Had the 3 year old take a nap mid afternoon because we'd decided to do the slumber party for the kids so that we could stay out a little late. They did the survivor thing this day. I again managed to miss the "shipbuilding" info just like last year, although this year I was smart enough to go to the Pursors where they had the rules (I ended up not participating).

This is the night we scheduled for the supper club. We were given a table for two along the starboard side, meaning we could catch the end of the sunset. Unfortunately we couldn't see much else, I think a table where we could see the dance floor and the musical duet would've been better. The food was fantastic, I had the new york strip as the main course, and the other courses were very good as well. Everything about the place was top notch and we highly recommend spending an evening there. Be sure you get the peach glaze somethin-or-other for dessert, it was unbelievably good. I was so stuffed by we did some dancing and hung out long enough I was able to enjoy the entire thing. yummmmmm. I was as full that night as the past two Thanksgivings put together!

I think this was the night they had the comedians and the late-night comedy show, which was much better than I expected it to be and we were glad we'd put the kids in the slumber party so that we could see it (at a $10/hr cost after 10 PM for the 2).

Day 4 (Acapulco)

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Now it was warm, but not hot. Great weather. Upper 70s/low 80s I'd say. At this point I'm getting excited because for me, the ship is nice, I enjoy the food and stuff, but what I really enjoy is the adventure of the ports of call. I love seeing new places, experiencing new things. We got off the ship, went through the terminal, and ran into the government approved taxi people. I asked for a taxi for 2 hours, how much? He said "$50 but you have to rent 4 hours so it's $100". I was like uhhhhh, no. So I walked about 20 feet and another guy asked if I needed a taxi (working for the same company). I said the same thing "We want a 2 hour tour and a drop off at Caleta beach - how much?" He said "$25 an hour, $50 total". I asked what kind of vehicle, he said Chevy Suburban. Does the A/C work? Yes. These were the right answers since to me, I'll pay more for the big vehicle because we've got the little kids with no car seats. They made a radio call and up pulled a suburban and a guy hops out to load us up. I was a little surprised because I thought the guy I talked to would be the driver. So I asked the driver if he speaks english and he said that yes, he does, and it was understandable so away we went.

Our driver's name was Ismael, he had 2-tone hair, was in his 40s, and I would recommend him. He drove us around the bay to the south up to Senior Frog's to take in the view, then drove us back down and up through the old streets and the marketplace (think 3rd world street fair), then up to another lookout, and then eventually to Caleta beach. He took the 2 hours as discussed and knew a lot about Acapulco (born and raised there). His uncle is a cliff diver, so he pushed that we should take the time to see the cliff divers (we didn't). His driving was "safe and sane" and he recommended that we eat at "La Cabana" at Caleta beach and we scheduled a time for him to pick us up and take us back to the ship. I think the return trip was $15.

When we got to Caleta Beach we talked to one of the street "barkers" because we wanted the glass bottom boat over to La Roqueta Island. At this point we were definitely on our own because suddenly no one spoke english, as Caleta Beach is known as more of a locals beach. He lead us to where we paid for the tickets and then where we would get on the boat. The cost was $5 per person round trip, the 3 year old was free. Unfortunately we sat there a loooong time as I suspect they just don't run the boat until they have enough people waiting. We finally all got on and went. We met another group of 3 from our ship and it was nice to share stories. They drove us all around in this boat giving a narrated tour of all the sights (speaking Spanish). Occasionally we'd make out certain things, about a particular house being where the president stays, that sort of thing. After about 30+ minutes of this we started heading back to Caleta beach, so I waved my hand and asked "La Roqueta?" and he pointed at his watch and shrugged his shoulders. The other guide actually spoke english and said that it was too late, they were all bringing people off La Roqueta. Bummer! So my advice is - if you want to see La Roqueta, go there first and arrange for the taxi driver to pick you up afterwards and THEN take you on the tour, not the other way around.

Even though I was bummed, we were still in a beautiful setting, and the kids were going stir crazy since all day they've been on boats or in cars, and it was time to hit the beach, so we just went over to La Cabana and hit the beach. They reluctantly setup a table and umbrella once we told them we were going to stay for dinner. My wife hung out at the table while I went swimming with the kids. The water was colder than I expected it to be but still not bad, probably 76-78, which is warmer than it ever gets in San Diego. I had 2 Pacifico's delivered to the table (served in a bucket of ice) and my wife had a virgin pina colada. Pacifico tastes so much better in Mexico.. My wife thought she was reading the bill wrong when the total was $6. The vendors here were not very pushy other than one woman who seemed determined to give my wife a neck message or something. Perhaps if we spoke spanish we would've figured out why she was so determined (as in, she eventually just started doing it - being nice or trying to make her feel obligated to pay?).

We eventually got cleaned up and had dinner at La Cabana. This whole time we had live mexican music going because someone was having a birthday party at the restaurant, so that was fun. Ismael said La Cabana was a "safe" place to eat, that it's a favorite of foreigners. Safe was good. Unfortunately, it's a favorite because their menu isn't mexican at all! Doh! It was things like seafood or beef shiskabobs! Oh well, dinner was actually quite good and my shishkabobs were delicious, and the sun went down and the temperature stayed in the 70s with a fantastic view. The food wasn't particularly cheap($10-$15 per plate), just the drinks. Ismael was early picking us up so he had to wait for us, when we were done he took us back to the ship.

I don't remember what we did that evening. I think it was Mexican cultural dance performance night, which we skipped since we see that all the time in San Diego. I do remember hanging out on lounge chairs on the sun deck hoping that there would be fireworks from Fort San Diego but they never happened while we were up there so we took the kids back to the cabin and hit the sack because we knew tomorrow was Ixtapa!

Day 5 (Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo)

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Everyone's favorite port on this itinerary, and for a reason. Pulling into this bay how can you not be excited? The coast just looks lush, it looks luxurious, it looks.. like something from a movie. We got our tender sticker (#3 I believe) and eventually tendered over after a bit of a wait. We're glad we got the sticker instead of just waiting for open tendering, as that evening we saw someone still wearing their tender sticker and it was #12! At the end of the pier is where all the taxi drivers hang out. I walked up to a guy and asked if he knew Omar. He looked at me kind of blankly. I asked again if he knew Omar from Seattle. The guy next to him said "Are you from Seattle?" so I said "No, I'm just looking for Omar from Seattle, he was recommended to us". Of course, I'm thinking fat chance this is going to work since a lot of people have already got off the ship... He says "Do you need a taxi?" "Yes, but I'm hoping to find Omar." and he says, "I'm Omar." Of course, I'm thinking "yeaah, riiiight!". So I ask to see some ID and sure enough, he whips out a license and he's indeed Omar! So we agree on a price for 2 hours ($70 I think, which I felt was high.). We then proceeded to get stuck for 15 minutes in a traffic jam because a tow truck had decided to try to tow a car off the one street that goes past the pier, backing up EVERYONE (taxis, busses, everything!).

Omar took us around Zihuatanejo, showed us so great views, pointed out Richard Gere's house, etc. His english was decent, not as good as I'd expected after reading favorable reviews on Cruise Critic. He then took us over to Ixtapa, stopped at a sort of roadsize crocodile pond which the kids loved, and drove us down a dirt road that he called a "typical Mexican town", where the bathrooms were outhouses, laundry was being done at the well, pigs running down the street, houses half-built and left that way, kids with no shoes, etc. He felt that a lot of what we saw on the dirt road was due to "lazy people", because he said he and his wife came from a similar situation but now they live in an apartment and own their own store where they sell things when there isn't enough business for taxi driving. From there he took us to the Barcelo resort, which was our requested destination, and we agreed upon a pickup time and price.

My one negative about Omar is this: Our total time with him was only about 90 minutes and that included the time we spent sitting there going nowhere. We felt that we were a bit ripped-off. His driving was very careful for a taxi driver, which we liked, however it was still a Nissan Sentra with no seat belts. The A/C did work, at least. Compared to other ports $70 for 90 minutes is a bit much. I guess I have only myself to blame for not calling him on it, in general we did like the guy a lot and really appreciated his defensive driving style. I cannot say whether that was a lot compared to others in Ixtapa or not. I can simply say that I happily recommend him with the one caveat that you may be overpaying. It's up to you to decide if

seeking out someone who speaks English and drives in a sane manner is worth the extra expense.

We went into the Barcelo and spoke with a hostess, said we were from the Pride and wanted to use their pools in exhange for us eating at their restaurants and drinking their drinks. She smiled and said of course. We spent the rest of the day here, about 3 hours worth, some of it at the pools, some of it at the beach. The beach here is beautiful, with very few vendors compared to most resort beaches in Mexico I've seen. The activity of choice seemed to be parasailing as there were never enough people asking for the banana boat for us to do that (would've been $5 a person). They rented jet skis cheap ($35/half hour, $50/hour) but I was short on funds because lunch at the Barcelo and the taxi had been more than expected. My daughter got some hair braiding done - the lady said $20 but I thought that was too much and I didn't know what my wife wanted for my daughter's hair, so I found my wife and sent her back out with $10, and she got what she wanted for $10. I can also confirm that they do have a massage tent on the beach there where they do a 1-hour massage for $20, although we didn't partake.

Now this is the interesting part. Several people said it was ok to go to the Barcelo and use their chairs and umbrellas on the beach, but no one talked about the pools. Well, just as we started to pack up, a security guard comes over and starts grilling us - in Spanish. Basically, the people who are staying at the Barcelo all have wrist bands they wear. We didn't, so in his mind, he needed to do something. I tried to explain that a lady said it was ok, etc. He wanted to know if we'd come in via the beach. I pointed towards the front of the place and he told us to wait (all in spanish, so we only understood certain words of course). He went and grabbed a life guard and they had an animated discussion for a while, he came back, and then he just stood there glaring at us as we finished packing up and left. My advice: Barcelo was nice, but don't go there for the pools as you run the risk of having a run-in with security. We were fortunate that ours happened when we were leaving anyway. Despite the obviousness of the fact we were leaving, the security guard seemed determined to do something. For a moment, we were worried, but ultimately nothing happened.

Omar was right on time and whisked us back to the port for $10, and we had an hour before last tender so we shopped a little with the small amount of cash we had left and got back on board.

This is the night they had the old-guy recording artist - Denny Brunk. We saw the exact sameguy doing the exact same songs on the Pride a year before. The first time it was semi-entertaining, this time it was boring.

This was also the night we first caught Peter playing at the piano bar. He kicked booty, and seeking him out became a theme for the rest of our evenings on the ship. He does requests and has a request list, but anything I came up with he seemed to know, and all off the top of his head. Extremely good piano player, don't miss him!

Day 6 (Manzanillo)

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For Manzanillo we'd decided we were going to do the snorkeling expedition with Dive Manzanillo. We'd exchanged email with them and got to the point where we felt comfortable bringing the 3 and 6 year old out, as they have rafts with plastic windows that the littlest ones can float on and see the fish.

The tough part here was we needed to get to the dive shop early, so we got off the ship early and found a taxi, any old taxi. Our luck had run out, as this guy drove the taxi in that enduro style, weaving through traffic, riding bumpers, honking horns, doing 100 km/hour in a 40 km/hour zone, and all this in another little Nissan Sentra-esque car with no seatbelts. It was thrilling to an extent, but I feared for my kids lives and I wondered what my wife was thinking. He spoke not a bit of english but somehow still managed to get us to where we were going, and in one piece, thank god.

If I was to label the stops, I'd call Acapulco "party city" because of the big hotels, lots of american eateries (Tony Romas, Hooters, etc), and monster Discoteques every 3 blocks. Ixtapa/Zihuatenejo would be "luxury resort". Manzanillo is "working Mexico". People seemed to have places to go or things to do, everything was pretty commercial or industrial, etc.

The people at the dive shop were all very friendly and english was no problem since they were all from the states. However, this is one time I wish we'd paid for the ship's tour. First, we boarded vans that took us to the beach. Both vans had holes in the floor and one of them had no doors. Then, because we were the only snorkelers, we got in the same boat with the divers. I had no idea this was going to happen and was really unfortunate. I would say that if you choose to go snorkeling via this business, pay whatever the difference is to have your own snorkeling boat. We launched out to the first destination, my family got in the water, and we did our snorkeling. The water felt about the same as Acapulco to me, which was good, and we never felt cold at all. We saw a big, luxurious ship packed with people from the Spirit doing the ship's snorkeling tour. At this point we snickered about how they'd paid twice as much as us to go to the same spot and on a ship packed with people. Little did we know.... We took a lot of underwater pictures and entertained the kids. The divers never got in the water, nor did the two guides that were with us (despite emails saying there would be guides in the water to help with the kids). They didn't tell us to come in but we eventually got back in the boat ourselves because there was only so much to see and the kids were losing interest. They then cranked the engine up and we went out around the peninsula to the Pacific side of things where the divers dropped in. The scenery again was spectacular, however it was very choppy and the small boat (we're talking about a 20' boat here) was really rocking around. We declined the offer to get back in the water so the guide manning the boat did his best to entertain us by driving us down the coast a bit then back. The divers were down for much longer than had been suggested, and we spent a lot of time sitting in one spot bouncing around, breathing exhaust fumes from the outboard engine. My son got sick and so did my wife. Neither threw up (he dry heaved a couple times) but both turned a shade of green. Fortunately the bouncing around put him to sleep in my arms. My daughter was fine, I was a little nauseous. All 4 divers got back in finally and they were off to their next dive spot, which they said would be calmer and we could snorkel there. Of course, by now we're completely dry again, sick of being out on the water, just sick in general. So instead we had them take us back to the beach. They said they'd be 45 minutes and they'd be back at which point we'd all go back to the dive shop if we so chose. "Hah! right!" we said to ourselves, and indeed we were right because it was more like 90 minutes before they came back.

Fortunately, the story doesn't end there. This was obviously another "locals" beach and is what you might picture for real mexico. Shack-type restaurants with bamboo poles holding up roofs, no floors, plastic chairs, etc, sitting along the beach. By now we're getting more comfortable that no one's going to steal something, especially here since we're really not in a city/resort area. The kids hit the water and have a blast playing on the beach. We start getting hungry so I go up to the restaurant there that the dive guide said had the best seafood ever. Unfortunately I don't like seafood. I try to decipher their spanish menu, and best I can tell, all they have is seafood seafood seafood! So I bring a menu down to my wife and we look it over and decide we're just going to have chips and salsa and something to drink. So we go grab a table and order chips, salsa, guacamole, Sol Cervesa, virgin pina colada, and soda for the kids. This is when a so-so day got really good. The temperature was perfect, the setting very relaxing, the kids having great fun, and the fresh-made corn chips they brought were easily the best I've ever had. Now mind you, I live in San Diego, next to Mexico, and I've had a lot of different chips at a lot of different restauarants! But these were thick, baked corn chips with a lot of salt, and they were just SOOOOO good. They also provided a bowl of cut-in-half limes which when squeezed on the chips made everything just that much better. We ordered up another round of those chips and my wife single handedly cleaned the big plate of guac and I took care of the big plate of fresh salsa, and while I was at it, picked up a margarita that was one of the strongest margaritas I've ever drank. Total cost - $14US + tip.

You know how you get some memories, almost like a sensory snapshot, that you think will stay with you forever? I think this was one for me. For about 30 minutes I felt like I was in Mexican paradise. One thing that was very different and interesting - here in America restaurants are all about the turnover, get people in, feed them, get them out. There, it was obvious people came down and claimed a table for the entire day. There was one set of tables in the front row next to the beach where people had setup their porta-crib in-between the tables. Can you imagine what would happen if you brought a portacrib into a beach-side restaurant in the U.S. and set it up while laying claim to two tables with all your stuff? I really envied that part of things, because I could totally see spending an entire day there, although I guess I'd either have to learn to like seafood or find something other than chips to eat!

Vendors here were more numerous but not pushy. We bought some cotton candy for the kids which was just nasty, tasted like corn syrup not sugar. The kids still liked it. They did have public restrooms, however the toilets had no seats...

When the divers returned we packed up and headed back to the dive shop, where one of the owners flagged down a taxi and negotiated a price to take us back to the port ($10). The guy spoke decent english and told us how he had been in and out of the states and in just a few weeks is going back to trucker school to get his trucker license and move to America for good. He drove sanely and we wished him well with a $15 payment for our $10 taxi ride. Plus, I was still feeling really good from that Margarita!

We were back on the ship by about 1 PM or so and grabbed some lunch up on Lido then spent the rest of the day at the ships pools. There were a lot of people on the ship so either many cut it short like us or didn't bother to get off. We were on our way to dinner when the ship was leaving port, and I say this - if you have the early seating, it's ok to be a little late. Get out on the promenade deck when leaving Manzanillo, as the locals stand along the shores and wave and shout as you go out, and you'll find Carnival staff out there waving back.

This night was the stage hypnotist, Chuck Milligan. He was good. Very good. Perhaps the most fun stuff on ship. Without a doubt we decided that we would do the kids slumber party again tomorrow night so we could catch the midnight, R-rated version of the show.

Day 7 (3rd Day at sea)

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Well, by now we've gotten into the swing of things a bit more. We started hitting dance lessons left and right and had a lot of fun learning how to dance the Carwash, and even better was how to dance like Austin Powers. The kids were with us for this stuff and they thought it was great as well. Typical day at sea stuff although it got chilly pretty quick.

2nd formal night, we got a couple more pictures taken. The knot on my son's head was basically gone. We brought the kids to this formal dinner and all went well.

This night we saw the "High Spirits" show, which I thought was much better than the Standing Room Only show. The sets were much more elaborate, the music better, the dancing better, and I thought even the singing was better. Much more creative. I felt bad for the performers, though, because it was like they were performing for a bunch of corpses. I guess if I was 65 years old I wouldn't get excited about the Timewarp from Rocky Horror Picture Show either, so I'm not trying to insult the crowd, but the crowd was really just dead. Perhaps 3 port days + an older demographic will do that.

We spent some more time with Pete the piano master as well as seeing some of the same people in the Karoake lounge that were always in there (is it like a drug to people who do it?). Then the midnight, R-rated hypnotism show with Chuck Milligan. Much of it was the same to start, but the show just got better and

better. Very fun. I was amazed at how many people really race up to the stage when he takes volunteers,

and he must have had at least another dozen that went under out in the audience.

Day 8 (4th Day at Sea)

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It was getting real cold by now, and the ship was getting pretty dead. There were not a lot of activities scheduled, another dance class, art auction, bingo - standard stuff but it just seemed like less than usual. The disembarkation talk was today and they had a real nice talk with the captain including giving him a big laminated certificate with the signatures of many of crew. With the ship soon changing itineraries, this was the captain's last cruise before a one month vacation, and we got the impression from talking to the crew that many were going to be done with their service or getting reassigned before the captain came back. So it was interesting because you got to see a bit of the "family" on a cruise ship that I don't think you normally see (or that normally feels contrived). Otherwise, not much to remark on here, we did most of our packing pretty early so we could hang out at night.

Unfortunately, not much going on in the evening until late, it seemed. They should move the nightlife up in time (ie lounge music starts earlier, etc) on the last night since there isn't much to do and people need to get to bed earlier for debarkation. We managed to catch another half hour of Piano requests and I got Peter to play Great Balls of Fire, which he did with flair, including lifting his heel up on banging on the high keys just like Jerry Lee Lewis.

Day 9 (San Diego)

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Debarkation was smooth once it started but they had some issue that kept them from unloading passengers as early as they had claimed they would start. We'd decided to try taking the Coaster to north county and calling a friend or neighbor to get us the last 3 miles (or I could jog it if I had to and come back with a car). Unfortunately the Coaster literally started pulling out of the train station as we walked up and it was the last morning train - 3 hours until the next departure, so I called a friend, who got stuck in a meeting, so we ended up hanging out at the train depot for about 90 minutes. The kids didn't seem to mind too much, though.

Summary of Observations

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I thought the shows ranged from good(comedy/hypnotist/High Spirits) to poor(Standing Room Only/Denny Brunk). The demographic of passengers was much older than on the Pride, however, as weird as this sounds, it got "younger" as the cruise went on. I suspect the first day or two the younger crowd just didn't know what to do and spent more time in their rooms and stuff, but by the end of the cruise were out and about and much more involved. Peter (piano player) pointed out that with the Pride being a 1 week, Sunday to Sunday cruise, you will get more students, more professionals, etc because it's much more compartmentalized, where the Spirit has a lot more retirees because of the midweek to midweek style sailing schedule than effectively impacts two calendar weeks of time.

Our Sail and Sign card was $785 - $320 for tips, about $100 for drinks, and the rest was supper club, souveniers, and late-night babysitting. We spent between $500 and $600 in cash at our 3 ports of call, which includes taxis, food, drink, snorkeling, and very few souveniers ($50 total probably). Remember that we did no Carnival ship excursions. The snorkeling ran $45/adult and $25/child, if I remember correctly. The ship's snorkeling cruise was $85/$75 but may have included lunch. Like I said before, as far as the snorkeling trip went, this time you get what you paid for since it all fell apart. However, if it hadn't all fallen apart, we wouldn't have had that perfect hour+ on La Bouquita Beach. Funny how sometimes things work out, isn't it?

Overall - a great vacation. I thought the Spirit was not full - the typical problems of not being able to find a deck chair never materialized, and it seemed the showroom was never truly full, and I can't say I ever saw any of the lounges really hopping. Again, this may be due as much to the average passenger age as it was the total number of passengers on board. This may have brought the energy and fun level down some for us. Truthfully, we enjoyed the Pride more last year. We have good memories from all ports of call the Spirit visited. For years we've debated taking our family to Ixtapa for a vacation, and I'd say this trip convinced us there is no reason not to, and will likely be our first choice for a Mexican air/land vacation out of the 6 ports we've seen in the past 2 years.

We definitely recommend the Spirit Mexican Riviera cruise. For younger families, embarking on a Friday or Saturday, which would limit the cruise to more of a 1 calendar week situation, may result in a group you'll have more in common with, while older couples may prefer to target the mid-week to midweek schedule for the same reason.

Great review. Thanks for taking the time to write such an extensive review.

I was on the Spirit a week before you, and completely agree with most everything, except the demographic was different for me, as it was presidents week (many more families). Great review :)

Great review. My wife and I (She graduated from SDSU incidentally) are very similar in age to you and have kids. We took our first cruise without the kids on the Pride last year and LOVED IT. We were thinking of this cruise with the kids next year so I'm glad you posted a review because your perspective appears very similar. Thanks for taking the time it's appreciated.

Glad you have found it useful. I must admit, I wish I'd proofread it before posting. It's amazing what the brain spits out when you're just going fast and freestyle - wrong words galore, and the edit feature turns itself off after a short period of time so I can't go back and fix things. :P

Oh well.

Nice review. Thanks for taking the time. No matter how educated you may be the mind is still faster than the fingers. My spelling sucks and I say I inherited it from my Dad ;)