mitsugirly

Thirty minutes into the boat ride (9:44am) the boat stops. The captain is looking around. Wait, what's going on? Then we spotted this: WHALES!! It was a momma and her baby. They weren't putting on a show. They were relaxing and moving really slow. Our dive guide told us that yesterday there was a pod of 8 Orca's in the area and they were attacking the mother and baby. She was fiercely protecting the calf. He said it was lucky to be alive. You could see the battle scars every time they surfaced. He said they were relaxing and recuperating until they would go on their long swim out of the area. You see all the white chunks out of their back and teeth marks? How cool would it have been to see the Orca's the day before? I guess another bucket list item to be added...although I'm mad at them for doing this to the mother and baby. Here's a video of them just floating at the surface and relaxing. You can really see the bite marks around marker 1:01. So sad. We stayed watching the mother and calf for 15 minutes and then headed back out. We were in the Los Arcos area by 10:11am. I could see it in the distance. Then the boat stopped and we were told to gear up...we're going in! Um...ok. I thought we would be closer to the arch. I was super confused but whatever.

As I put my phone off airplane mode, I immediately get a message from Eco Explorer "Hola Kim, we are waiting for you to do our dive tour. We are departing soon" WAIT WHAT??? I told them the ship was just now pulling into port and that ship time is an hour behind PV. We haven't even docked yet! This is our current situation... Then they tell me "We have a client here waiting for already 30 minutes. We will ask him if he is willing to wait. Please ask someone what time you will be getting off the cruise. Please let me know about what time you can be here." I told them our ship is due to dock at 9 and docking now. We would be off as soon as they allow. They are docking a little early but still had to get clearance before we could get off the ship. She informs me "We had your booking to be departing at 9:00 but is already 9:32. We will wait 30 more minutes. Maybe you can talk to the crew and let them know you have a tour right now." Are you serious? Do you not know how cruise ships work? Even if we were on PV time we can't dock at 9am AND be there to departing for a dive at 9am! Seriously?? I'm sure there's plenty of people that have tours. Do you think they're going to let our special group off the ship before they have clearance or before anyone is allowed to get off just because we have an excursion now? How ridiculous is this sounding right now???? I told her you know we are on a cruise ship and I told you the times we were in port. I can't do anything about what time they let us off the ship or dock. Of course at this point I'm not only shocked but I'm pretty sure my face was turning red and the anxiety was kicking in full force. I just had to throw in "Have you never had cruise ship passengers dive with you before??" I also told them that if they had someone there waiting for the dive then obviously it had to be someone staying there in PV and I wasn't quite sure why they would have them on the dive with us when there's time involved in docking and getting a ride there. She continued to ask "How long for you to get off, just an idea so we know what to do" I gave her updates...we are docked...waiting on port authority to give clearance...we are standing in line to get off (8:47am)...getting off now (8:51am)...walking to taxi (8:52am)...getting in taxi (8:53am)...in taxi and pulling out of port(8:55am)....(all with no response back from her during this process) My anxiety is on high and I'm getting pissed that they are even doing this to us. Think about it $600 paid for something they might decide to leave without us on. My last text to them HERE!! (8:59am). Now let's talk taxi's....I had originally decided to take the Uber because we all know it's cheaper. But there was no time for that. It was a 4 MINUTE RIDE...IT COST US $25!!!! Such a total rip off. They knew they had us. They could probably tell by the frantic look on my face and the rushing we were doing to get a taxi that we were desperate. I promise you, next time I will tell any dive shop that we want a noon dive or something. I won't be put in this situation again! We arrived to the dive shop and they immediately had us filling out the questionnaires for the dive. Then it was time to try on our gear. Thank goodness they had wet suits for us. My wetsuit was a little uncomfortable so they gave me a different size. I have put on an extra 10 pounds since our last cruise, I believe because I switched jobs where I used to walk 6-7 miles and work 12 hour days to one that I do hardly any walking other than to and from my car and into facilities. Then we won't mention the random cheating we do either. 😉 I was given another wet suit. I was concerned because there was a huge tear in the neckline. I ask about this and said water was going to get in it. He said it would be fine...fine for who was my question. The other guy that was diving with us came in the door. Honestly, he didn't look like he was worried about us being "late" or going out later. I think it was more the dive shop that was rushing. Once we were geared up, we grabbed our things and headed down to the dock right in front of the shop and were on the boat pulling out by 9:16am. Ok, I'm happy now and more relaxed. They had us put on life jackets and said they were required during the boat ride. I didn't see any seals on the docks or in the marina. Isn't it weird how PV and Cabo are so close together but yet so different? I spotted a Whale Tail...and it wasn't a Humpback either...

So what is the Mitsugirly family doing today? Oh...so many possibilities here and I wanted to do ALL of them. It was so hard to decide. It's like trying to decide do you want to take the Lamborghini today or do you want to take the Porsche? Because to me, they were equally important and all things I wanted to desperately do while here. So let's talk options. There's a REALLY neat place that you don't see people talk about on here (and I'm not sure why) and it is super unique...and beautiful. It was something I thought would really make the good people of cruise critic think "hmmm, that's a place I want to visit in the future". I like being a trend setter and showing people different places available to go to that you don't see them mention on here. It opens up their options. That place would be a place called Marietas Hidden Beach!! If you haven't heard of it, you should look it up. It is a protected National Park and a unique wonder of the world. They say it was created by bombs in the 1900's and the erosion afterwards caused the hole/beach it is today. The military used the island for target practice. It is an island of lush greenery and at this particular beach, the land opens up to a big hole that is a beach...in the middle of everything. Just this huge crater in the land. The water rushes in from the ocean and you're on a beach in this hole with land surrounding you. The Marietas are made up of 2 uninhabited islands that was formed thousands of years ago by volcanic activity. The Hidden Beach is the only place within the Marietas National Park that visitors are allowed to set foot on land. In 1960 Jaques Cousteau began to fight to gain protection for this unique environment. It wouldn't be until 2005 it was granted National Park status. In 2016 Hidden Beach was gaining popularity on social media, along with environmental destruction of the islands, that it was actually closed down to tourists. Then a plan was put in place with many new restrictions that included only allowing 117 (where did they come up with that odd number???) visitors daily and tour boats were only allowed there from Wednesday to Sunday. You must wear a helmet and lifejacket to swim through the channel to get to the beach. Some days the water is too rough to swim through it at all. You are also limited to the time you are allowed to spend there. It looks majestic from the pictures. It is invisible from the outside and you can only access it through a long water tunnel you have to swim through. Of course this must be done during low tide. Here's a few pictures NOT MINE but off the internet to show you what I'm talking about if you've never seen it. Is that not the coolest thing you've ever seen??? However, it's not a beach you can just go to and hang out at all day. Since it is a popular place, and a National Park area, they only allow you to go in for a certain amount of time and then you have to come back out for the next group to go in. We contacted several vendors that had tours there. Since it was a "short" visit, I knew we wanted to do other things popular to Puerto Vallarta. I started inquiring about the next popular thing... Los Arcos. Yes, another arch! The Mexican Riviera seems to be famous for arches. I would quickly find out that every tour guide I contacted said they couldn't take us to both because they were too far apart. I mean we had ALL DAY...why not?? I would also find that a lot of the tour companies were about an one hour drive away to get to their place and I wasn't so sure I wanted to do that. So let's talk about Los Arcos. Another popular destination for cruise ship passengers. This is in the Banderas Bay and where most people go for sightseeing or to snorkel or dive. Wait, did someone say dive??? We always dive at least one port while cruising and this was our last opportunity. I knew I had to do something. I started reaching out to different dive shops about going diving. I told them I was interested in Los Arcos. (I had seen a lot of pictures and videos of people snorkeling and diving here and almost every picture I found had TONS of fish...AND....DIFFERENT KINDS OF FISH. Fish we've never seen before while in the Caribbean. Yep, that's what I wanted to do. However, I did notice in most pictures and video's, it could be very cloudy or have green water. I was really unsure about deciding to dive there or not. I knew it wasn't going to be the same experience we've always had in the crystal clear Caribbean. I was really torn on this decision. I did show the kids the Hidden Beach and they were super excited about it. However, after I told them that this would be the only option to scuba dive at, they immediately picked diving instead. Karl said he really wanted to try out diving. Now I ask Karl multiple times before the cruise..."You do know how to swim right?" I would get the same reply each time "Yeeeeaaa (said in a very long drawn out way) I know how to swim...." and it always sounded like there was more to it. Of course he would add that he's never swam in the ocean. Honestly it had me worried. I was responsible for this 6'2" human "child" and I didn't want anything to happen to him. But he insisted on wanting to dive. Alrighty then! We are GOING DIVING! (***so if anyone ever decides to go to the Hidden Beach, I want to hear your story since we really wanted to do this and wasn't going to get a chance! I WILL BE BACK!***) We spent many months of "coaching" him with the way the ocean is, all the hand signals used and what they meant, the equipment, how it felt to breathe under water, the things you might see...all the nitty gritty. He was super excited, but I think also super nervous...especially when I told him "If you are a part of this family and plan on vacationing with us, you must love the water and must learn to dive" LOL I ended up booking with a place called ECO Explorer Vallarta. We would have to take an Uber from the port to their location, which they said was about 8 minutes away. They were aware of our "dive status" but also knew that we had someone with us that had never done a Discover Scuba before. Since I knew we were going to Los Arcos, I had to ask...where do we do the class and the skills? They informed me that the class would be conducted on the boat ride to the dive spot...ok, we've done that before. Then once we get to the dive spot, we would go in the water and do the skills. Ok, this is where things get weird and anxiety gets high. They said that it would be in about 15 feet of water. Ok, I'm kinda worried for Karl now. Karl is calculating in his head...ok, I'm over 6 feet tall and down 15 feet would be a little over twice my height...I should be ok. Yea, you THINK you'll be ok but this is different. The cost of the dive was $149/pp. So now that you all know what we are doing for the day...it's time to actually move along with the review...whew!

Ok, well I'm up early and couldn't sleep, despite going to bed way after my bedtime, so I'll continue some with the review until the family gets up and it's time to start our day. APRIL 4: PUERTO VALLARTA 9AM-9PM I actually woke up to the alarm going off today and not on my own accord. That meant I missed the sunrise this morning. I guess my body needed the sleep from all the boogieing I did the night before. I headed out to the deck to see where we were at. As always, looking at the land nearby, it looked foggy. It felt warm outside and I was hopeful. The tv said it was 70 degrees outside so I had hoped the air would feel warmer as the day went on. I went back in and started packing for the day. Sakari is looking at me and asks "Are you in a hurry?" I must have looked a little frantic because I always pack the night before so that everything will be ready for the next day. Then if I forgot something, I usually remember by the morning. Since we got in so late the night before and was so tired, I didn't pack anything. This was an important day, so yea, I must have looked a little frantic as I raced around the room throwing multiple things in the bag and double checking everything. We headed up to breakfast at 7:20am and managed to get "our spot". This is where we always ate. This middle table or the exact location on the opposite side of this. This seems to be our thing when cruising. Sakari picks a spot and we try to stick to it. It's been like this since her first cruise at 3 years old. As you can tell, there didn't seem to be a lot of people up and at'em yet. I guess since it's a long port day, they had all day to figure out what to do and take their time. The bacon decided to come back from bacation with a bit of a sunburn today. Go figure... After breakfast, we headed back to the room. I checked the time on the tv. Then I checked my phone after taking it off airplane mode. There definitely was a time difference. I had tried to figure all of this out prior to the cruise and see if others said if the ship changes their time to reflect the port time. You always get a mixture of answers that reflect both: yes they do, no they don't. Yea, that didn't help. I know we didn't get any notice to set our clocks ahead. I doubled checked the Fun Times, no mention of it. UGH! I really hate when they ships don't change the times. It causes so much confusion...and anxiety for me.

LOL, it looks like you're a veteran around here. 🙂 Oh how neat! We share a birthday and he's the original Karl. 🙂 Aww shucks! Thanks so much! Yes, yes it it a good day! Is it bad that I have no clue who any of those people are other than Cindy Crawford? And now you! Good day for sure!

So tonight was another party....The GLOW party! Woo hoo! We like glow parties. We like parties. We like to dance. We love the 80's. Even Sakari knows all the words to the songs. We like the....everything about it actually. We raced back to the room after the show and put on our neon glow shirts and headed up to the pool deck. Hey look, Richard Simmons has arrived! There were actually a lot of people that were dressed up in 80's attire. Wayyyyy more than on NCL. These people really get into it clothes hair and all. They gave me a lot of good ideas. Next time we are on Carnival, I'm definitely going all out! This party was so much fun and we danced the night away!! We had to tell Karl to calm down and few times before he jumped on us. So glad that we have someone else that likes to dance as much as we do. Now like always, it was cold so we were in pants and long sleeves. Karl kept his hoodie on and didn't even show his neon green shirt. Deon had the party going...he gets a little carried away (if you've sailed with him, you know what I'm talking about) We stayed until 11:30pm and then called it a night. We were all tired and needed to get some rest because tomorrow was a big PLANNED day this time around...finally. We took our light up glow torches they passed out with us back to the room...and I brought them home and actually used them at Sakari's birthday glow party last weekend. LOL

Aww thanks. We love the name Karl...I guess that's why we stuck with calling him that. On a side note, It caught my eye that it says your date below your name (that you signed up with cruise critic) is February 20, 2004. That's my birthday!! February 20 is my real birthday, not the 2004 of course. LOL It just caught my eye for some reason.

The sun was starting to go down and Sakari wanted some pictures of her and Karl in the sunset. This is not the time to be playing around...you realize we ARE on a ship right? There will be no Titanic's for us!! We headed back to the room to change for dinner and ended up at the buffet instead. I was throwing caution to the wind and had rice, 😶 noodles 😶and even an egg roll 😶 to top it off. Hubby did not say a word. 😄🤐 I was a good girl for desert and stuck with the sugar free. That makes up for all the cheating right??? It does right??? At 7:30pm we decided to take in a show and went to the Rock Revolution show in the theater. As always, some of the singers could sing and others weren't the greatest however... Carnival has stepped up their game a bit and this show included DRONES!! I love drones and they all lit up and was in sync and it (in my opinion) made the show! It definitely reminded me of something the other cruise lines would do.

We finally made it back to port after our short but sweet detour. I will let you guess who's hungry... The mango's only filled him up for a short time. He wanted some authentic Mexican food. Well, I wasn't going to pass that up either. After eating we decided to visit all the shops in the area. Sakari managed to find a cute little necklace that was nothing but a chain but it was all hearts. They wanted $35 for it and wouldn't budge. Karl had already spent his money on gifts for his mom and sister back home. She was sad she didn't get the necklace but good things come to those who wait and aren't impulsive buyers...after we got back home, we went shopping at our local craft store and found the exact same necklace...for $3.95!!!! Then it was time to catch the tram back to the ship. We arrived back to the room and I immediately put my phone on the charger because it was dead...which meant I completely forgot to take a picture of our turtle towel animal today. Ugh! Sakari and Karl decided they were going to do the ropes course and the hubby and I decided we wanted to go on the Sky zooming pedal roller coaster above the ocean ride. We split up so I wasn't able to get any pictures of them on the ropes course...as much as I wanted to since rumor had it that Karl may be afraid of heights. They managed to finish the ropes course and our line was taking so long that after waiting all that time, the people behind us got tired of waiting and Sakari and Karl were able to get in line behind us. The hubby and I raced around the track and I gave it my all. I won the race, or at least in my eyes I did and that's my story and I'm sticking to it no matter what information you may get from others. That meant when we finished, I was able to grab my camera in time to see them coming back around to the finish line and snap some pictures.

Well, it was getting late and I knew we should probably head back. We stopped a cab that pulled up and ask how much back to the port and he said $25! Wait what? You're kidding right? It only cost us $15 from the port all the way to the aquarium. Then he started talking about a "tour"..."I can take you on a tour to see the sights for $40". Um...I didn't ask for a tour, we just want to go back to the ship. It was getting late. He kept pressing "How about a 1 hour tour...I'll show you all the things of importance. Places you didn't go with a great view of the ship. How about $25?" No, we just want to go to the ship. Finally we agreed on $14 to go back to the ship, still more than I thought it should be but at least more like it. Then he throws in, I'll take you the long way and show you the sites. Consider it a "mini-tour". I verified several times...we have agreed on $14 right? Because we are not requesting a tour...just a ride back to the ship. He confirmed. Alrighty then...you pick your route Mr cab driver...whatever that route may be for $14. 🤷‍♀️ We started heading up a winding road and I could at least see the ship in the distance: He pulled over and said "You want to get out and take pictures?" I told him that was ok, I already did. He said "You must have a fast camera"... yes, yes I do. This is Creston Hill, the highest point in the entire city and a place you can go to and climb all the way up to the top. It is 334 steps to get up there. This is also where you will find the glass bridge, that was built in 2017,and you can pay an additional cost to walk out onto it. This is one of the most popular things to do in Mazatlan. (I'm glad I managed to find a better way to spend my day than giving myself a heart attack). Since 1928 the hill was used as a maritime marker and they would have bonfires to guide ships in the port. In 1879 it was improved by using an oil lamp. Then in 1905 it was replaced by a lighthouse (El Faro) that's still there today. It is considered one the highest lighthouses built on natural terrain in the world. It also used to be an island. However, in 1930 a stone road was built that linked it to the city of Mazatlan.

Then we came to a little roundabout area and I looked across the street to find even more statues (I remembered seeing these in pictures before) and I knew we had to go over. This area is known as Liverpool Alley. This alley is a replica of England's Liverpool Street, which honors The Beatles. There are statues of the members of The Beatles that look like they are crossing the famous London Street on their iconic Abbey Road album cover. Of course the kids joined in on the fun. The Cavern Club, which is where the band debuted. The classic red British style car with flags printed on its rooftop (I have one of these replica's at home added to my "red" collection in my travel room) Of course you have to have the red phone booth to go along with it (I also have one of these) ♪ We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine ♪ ♫ After enjoying this area for awhile and sitting down to rest, it was time to move on.

We waited for quite some time and the crowd was gone. I guess no more cliff divers and my anxiety was spared. I overheard someone say that they are not on a schedule and they dive when there's a big enough crowd. "Ok, let's walk down the street and do something! I'm tired of sitting here". My little ducklings, I mean family, started following and down the street we went to see if we could find anything interesting. I'm not really sure what this was? I was sure it had plenty of stairs to climb and I wasn't really in the mood to climb stairs so we didn't. I imagine the people up there could see the same as what I could from below only they are higher. 🤷‍♀️ I looked over to the other side of the street and immediately noticed something in the rocks: This is known as Cueva del Diablo...The Devil's Cave. The Chapel of San Bartolome is right above it. This cave is known to have various stories surrounding it: It was a place they used to hide soldiers guarding ammunition in the war days Pirates used it to keep their treasures in here The devil was released when work was done at the foot of the hill and the devil was heard inside Others say people have went in and never came out even though it's a very small cave that doesn't go back very far Among other stories told... ...you be the judge! There were plenty of statues along the way...I only took a few pictures. Jack Cousteau: Of course you won't find me passing up a mermaid picture. I had Sakari stand by it because well, I'm sure they were once related back in the day. Right below this mermaid statue was a weird looking concrete (?) slide that looked like it might have went into a pool at one point? I starred at it for awhile trying to figure out just what this was and what it was used for. So of course, I had to look it up and this is what I found: It is called Carpa Olivera de Mazatlan. The pool in the sea. It says it's a pool for aquatic fun and an ocean wave pool and one of the few that exist in the world. It says it is free to the public, but precautions are taken to ensure the safety of swimmers in relation to dangerous tides and waves. They say it is a revolutionary concept and the creator brought the vision of a pool fed by sea waters. There was a restaurant on site too. The pool slide was built in 2014. The salt water of the sea flows constantly to fill the pool from the waves and since it's always refilling, it made a unique experience for those who stayed at the hotels in Mazatlan. It's one of 7 marine pools in the world. I have found pictures of it with water filling it. It looks pretty cool. I guess today was a low tide? There was nothing in it and it wasn't being used. There's video's online as well. I think it's a pretty cool concept although sliding down a concrete slide that's not wet...hmmm, I don't know about that or how it would even work.

When we first got there, there was a really large crowd in the area. By the wall at the street I noticed a guy who was standing there and was wet. I assumed he was one of the divers that had just went. We decided to have a seat along the wall and wait. They had various vendors in the area selling fruits and small gifts. We decided to get a cup of mango. It was delicious but there was a lot. We had wished that we would have just bought one and shared. It was too much for us to eat all of it. I think they charged $5 each cup or maybe it was $10. I can't remember but that sounds about right. While we were sitting on the wall eating our mango and every other bite we would throw down on the rocks below us...gotta feed the birds...I started noticing something moving. After watching for awhile, I tell Sakari there's a crab on the rocks! But there wasn't just A CRAB there were tons of them everywhere. I seen a mermaid in the distance and decided to go over and check it out. Well at least the cliff divers don't actually have to climb the cliff to get to the top.

Ok, it's been a very busy week for me and I just finished up for the day...so...it's time to get back at this review. After finishing up at the aquarium, we walked down the street a ways but didn't see much but did take a picture of a few statues: I made the executive decision to grab a cab and have them take us to the area where the cliff divers are located. We had plenty of time to spare so why not? I was pretty sure it would give me high anxiety but I was willing chance it anyhow. Our driver charged up $10 to get there. I'm not sure if this was considered one of the Palmonia cars or not but it looked like a car that had the top cut off, then roll bars and another top put on. It was all open aired. I took pictures along the way. This guy had a serious sound system in it with speakers in the roof.

No it was some type of lizard looking creatures inside a hollowed trees. 😄 Oh, well maybe I've been wrong in thinking they all go in the canal? I'll have to check more into it. I can completely understand about those perks. We only cruised with NCL for the longest time and got all the perks but eventually decided other cruise lines were a lot of fun as well. We are almost to Platinum status with Carnival. We are miles away from RC any status. LOL LOL I know right? 😄 Yes she has grown... and too fast for my liking! Really? What ship were we on together? We love Carnival as well...and RC. Heck, we love any cruise ship I would imagine. lol