deladane

I made eye contact with the woman making fresh waffles behind the counter, so she gave me a fresh one straight from the waffle maker. I knew Ian would be thrilled, as he loves waffles and I could never find them at the Lido breakfast on the ship. Jason opted for the made-to-order chilaquiles, one of his favorite Mexican breakfast dishes. The dining tables had a beautiful view over the beach, looking out towards Isla de Venados.

Bars at the hotel don’t open until 11am. That was the one thing that surprised me most about this all-inclusive resort. I was under the impression that they served alcohol 24 hours a day, or at least from 7am until sometime around midnight or 1am or something. What if people wanted a mimosa or Bloody Mary with their breakfast? That caught us off guard since we would only have about 6 hours at the hotel and this took away 2 hours of our drinking time. Breakfast was still being served, so we went to the buffet to get something to eat. There was a very long line, so it took about 20 minutes to reach the front, but along the way, we caught a sneak peek at the food and it looked good and well-stocked. When we got to the front of the line, the long wait made sense. A hostess greeted us and asked how many people were in our party, then she escorted us to our table. This was wonderful! Unlike at the buffet on the cruise ship, where you have to walk around searching for a vacant table, the hotel staff seated us which eliminated a lot of stress. I was actually surprised at how far apart they spaced the tables. Maybe I just got used to the tight spaces on the ship, but there was plenty of space between the tables here so it didn’t feel crowded, even though every table was occupied. Jason sat at the table with Ian while I went to the buffet to get our food. The buffet had lots of options, from fresh fruit, to yogurt, to typical breakfast options like pancakes, french toast, and waffles. They had lots of pre-made Mexican food options (obviously!) and a salsa station, but there was also a station for made-to-order eggs and another for chilaquiles. They were constantly refilling the trays of food, and with so many people eating at once, nothing appeared to be sitting out too long and it was all served at the appropriate temperatures. Fresh fruit Yogurt Salsa bar Fresh salads

We walked around briefly to get a lay of the land and decide where we wanted to set up our spot for the day. The hotel grounds were beautifully maintained, and hardly anyone was out this early in the morning. There was a rectangular pool across from the lobby with several lounge chairs, but it looked like a pool for laps, or maybe playing water polo or volleyball or something, and we hoped to find something more scenic. We walked down a corridor and it opened up to the beach. There were lots of lounge chairs under palapas in the sand and shockingly, no one was using any of them! Next to the beach, there was a beautiful pool with a waterfall and a swim up bar, so this seemed like a perfect spot for us to hang out today. It was kind of strange, though, because there weren’t any loungers. I don’t think I have ever seen a hotel with no lounge chairs at the pool. There were a few palapas with upright chairs at the far side of the pool, so we gathered 3 of the chairs under a palapa that was against the side of a hill so we knew we’d be protected and in the shade, and we set up our towels here for the day.

We pulled up to the Hotel Playa Mazatlan just before 9am. The Uber dropped us off on the street, but in hindsight, he probably could have pulled up to the front of the hotel where guests unload their luggage. We put Ian in his stroller and walked across the street to enter the hotel property. The reception area was in a big room with a long counter behind a glass partition, and a separate line for checking in and checking out. We got on line to check in, and when it was our turn, they said the person who handles day passes would arrive soon and that we should wait to the side. Ok, that was promising, they had a dedicated person to handle day passes. This must be a legit thing to do at this hotel. 10 minutes later, they called us back to the desk and explained all the rules of the day pass, and had us sign off on the policies. They took a cash deposit of $30 USD, and I confirmed that they would give me back the deposit in USD as I didn’t want to receive pesos back. They gave us 3 blue cards that we could exchange for towels, and we had to trade the towels back at the end of the day to return the blue cards or we would be charged 250 pesos ($15 USD). He put a bracelet on Jason’s and my wrist, but Ian didn’t need to wear one. After that, we were free to enjoy our day. No one said anything about needing to know someone staying at the hotel, so clearly I just took that blurb on the website too literally and anyone is free to visit and pay for a day pass. I asked for a map so we could find our way around, and then we were on our way.

We all woke up at 7am from the vibration of the thrusters. I didn’t mind the early wake up though because we had places to go, and slushie alcohol-filled drinks to drink! I took a peek out on the balcony, and we were just pulling into the dock in Mazatlan. Look at all those white tour vans lined up and waiting to pick up passengers! Having already packed our bags last night, we got ready quickly and went to Lido at 8am for a lite breakfast. Our day pass would include breakfast and lunch at the hotel, but since it would still be an hour or two before we had food in front of us, we wanted to eat a little something on the ship first. I got a half-slice of French Toast for Ian and myself, plus a lemon poppyseed muffin. I love how the muffins in the breakfast buffet are just the muffin tops. Everyone knows that is the best part of the muffin, so this probably cuts down on a lot of wasted food (I have definitely been known to break off the bottom stump of a muffin and throw it away because it’s not as good as the golden, crispy top part! Also, props to anyone who gets the Seinfeld reference!) We got off the ship by 8:15am, and took an open air shuttle for the short ride from the ship to the port exit. We were not allowed to walk through this port as it’s a busy working port with shipping containers and lots of action, so I assume these shuttles were there for our safety. They only held about 20 passengers, so it filled up quickly and we were on our way. We had to walk past lots of stores to exit the port, and at first I wasn’t even sure where we were going and if we were still in the port or if this was the streets of Mazatlan. Eventually, we saw what we assumed were the port gates, so we asked one of the staff to double check and he said yes, we should exit the gate and that’s where an Uber could pick us up. Out of habit, my eyes scanned the list of options in the Uber app for the cheapest price, but be careful! The cheapest option on Uber in Mexico is a scooter! That definitely would not work for 2 adults, one toddler, and a stroller!! I requested an Uber X and it arrived 2 minutes later. A nice, new, clean car pulled up with enough space in the trunk for Ian’s stroller. The ride to the hotel took 15 minutes and cost $4.11 USD. Can’t beat that!

Wednesday, January 3 | Mazatlan | 8:00am to 5:00pm Mazatlan is what I would consider to be a medium port. The options of things to do are not nearly as limited as in La Paz, but it doesn’t have close to the number of options as Cabo and Puerto Vallarta. Ian LOVES animals so I knew I wanted to show him animals in at least one of our ports. Mazatlan opened a brand new aquarium in early 2023, and it is supposed to be one of the 10 largest aquariums in the world upon completion. They are opening it in stages, so when I was doing my research over the summer, only part of it was opened for visitors. I’m not sure what the timeline is to complete construction, and it may or may not already be done. It was very hard to find reviews of people who have visited the new aquarium because it’s only been open for a few months, but I did see a Youtube video of someone who went there and the exhibits looked beautiful and interactive. It seemed like a very doable activity, especially if the weather was cold or rainy that day. I also liked that we didn’t need to buy tickets in advance so we could keep our options open in case we wanted to go at the last minute. Another thing that I knew we wanted to do on one of the port days was to buy a day pass to an all-inclusive resort. Of course Cabo and Puerto Vallarta have lots of options for resorts with a day pass, but they all seemed very expensive at $100+ per adult, and some also charged for toddlers. As far as I could tell from my research, there are 2 resorts in Mazatlan which offer a day pass. One is the El Cid Marina Beach Hotel, but this is where Carnival takes its ship excursion so there was no way I was going there too! The other is called Hotel Playa Mazatlan, and it is located just a few minutes down the beach from El Cid. While it is an older resort originally built in 1955, it seemed to be updated and get very good reviews online. Best of all, they only charge around $40 per adult for unlimited food and drinks, use of facilities, palapas, and pools, and children under age 4 are free! The resort looked amazing, with several different pools, waterfalls, beach access, and even a children’s area. This looked like the perfect way to spend our day, and we did not need to buy tickets in advance so we could always switch our plans if the weather didn’t cooperate. The one slight issue was that they don’t guarantee that they offer day passes every day. If the hotel is overbooked, they reserve the right to decline a day pass, so they recommend calling that day to confirm. Luckily, my cell phone plan includes free calling in Mexico, so I planned to call the hotel the day before while we were in La Paz (since I didn’t want to wait until that day to know what we were doing!). About 2 weeks before our cruise, Hotel Playa Mazatlan revamped their website. Since I’m always a bit anxious about our plans in port, even after I have settled on a plan, I continue to check all the websites regularly in case of changes. Sure enough, they changed their day pass prices from 700 pesos (approximately $40 USD) to 850 pesos (closer to $50 USD). It was still a great deal, especially compared to prices in Cabo and Puerto Vallarta, so while I wasn’t thrilled that our day would now cost $20 more than had we visited just a few weeks sooner, it wasn’t a deal breaker. The bigger issue was the page with a detailed description of their day pass was completely gone, and I couldn’t find the details listed anywhere else on their website. The link I had been using now gave me a “404- page not found” error. The only information I could find was buried on the “services” page. It said “With this deal, you can come any day of the week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and enjoy our facilities with a family member who is staying at our hotel.” Ummmm, say what?! We obviously don’t have any family members who happened to be staying at this hotel on the day our cruise ship is in port. When did that become a requirement?? Suddenly, our plans were in limbo. I decided that I was going to play dumb and make believe I didn’t see the change on the website. Maybe the person working at reception didn’t know about the policy change and would still honor the old day pass policy. Or better yet, maybe they just meant this as an example of why you would want to use a day pass, but it wasn’t the only reason and they would still give day passes to anyone who wanted one. I still planned to call the hotel the day before, and if worse came to worse, we had the aquarium as a backup option. During Ian’s naptime yesterday, I went out onto the balcony to call the hotel. I had written down 3 phone numbers. The old version of the website listed the front desk phone number as where you should call to verify day pass availability. After the website changed, I also jotted down the general “contact us” phone numbers. They had 2 options, one for USA and one for Mexico. I honestly didn’t know what that meant. I have a cell phone registered in the US with a US phone number, but I would be using that phone in Mexico over Mexican cell service. It didn’t hurt to bring all 3 numbers on my page of notes. So back to the balcony… first, I called the front desk phone number, but I got one of those pre-recorded messages from the phone carrier saying they are not able to complete the call as dialed. Ok, well since I am physically in Mexico, and the top left corner of my phone now says Telcel instead of Verizon, let’s try the 800 number listed for Mexico. Nope! I got the same pre-recorded error message. Now I was getting nervous. If I couldn’t speak to someone at the hotel, I was going to abort these plans and just go to the aquarium. I didn’t want to risk showing up at the hotel, them demanding to know the room number and last name of my family member who was staying there, and rejecting us as we stood there in bathing suits ready for a day at the pool. No thank you! I could feel my heart racing as I dialed the 800 number to call the hotel from the US… and it worked! Maybe I should have known to try that from the start, but I was overthinking things. A man named Carlos answered the phone, and I asked if he spoke English. He said “A little” so he did his best in English and I filled in my questions with my limited knowledge of Spanish. I asked if they were selling day passes to the hotel for tomorrow, and he said yes, they have them every day. I asked if it was okay for me to come with my husband and 2 year old son from the cruise ship, and he said yes, that was no problem. I opted to omit a question about having my family staying at the hotel because he seemed very chill about the day pass and he didn’t give any indication that there would be a problem. He said we could only have access to the hotel from 9am until 5pm, but I told him we would be gone by 3pm to be back on board the cruise ship long before sail away time. He confirmed that they provide towels (good! Because I really didn’t want to schlep those big heavy blue Carnival towels into their hotel, which would make it even more obvious that we were day pass people and not actual hotel guests), and that the day pass included unlimited food and drinks and access to the pools and loungers. By the end of the call, I felt confident about our plans for Mazatlan.

I don't necessarily need a party vibe to enjoy a piano bar. In fact, that's why I usually like piano bars so much- I get to sit at my table, enjoy my drink(s), and sing along to my favorite songs without having to get up and dance (which I'm not very good at!).

Hi Holly!! OMG! I'm so glad you found my review! That is too funny that you just did this itinerary a few months ago... or at least that you tried to do it! We sure do have the same taste in cruises LOL What a bummer that the hurricane got in your way, but it sounds like they were able to salvage things and you still ended up with 4 port days, even if you did have to miss PV. That's just a good excuse to try again sometime!

Oh yay! I'm so glad you are having a great time!! You all look so cold, bundled up in hoodies and towels! Hopefully the temps warm up for you as you sail further south!

Thanks for saying hi! I'm glad to have you here following along!

That's good to know that they also have chocolate. Even if it still tastes gross, a lime straw in a mudslide sounds horrible!! lol Why can't they just make them with no flavor? I assume the ingredients in the straw have an unpleasant flavor they are trying to hide, but still...

Oh how funny. I haven't seen that movie but I'll have to look up the actor on IMDB.

Oh no! That must have been so disappointing that they cancelled your excursion with almost no notice! Did they give you the option to rebook something else? Maybe one of the ship excursions to the beach? I watch the TV show Below Deck, and there have been several times that the weather is sunny and beautiful, but the yacht doesn't leave the dock because the seas are too rough, and the swells would toss the boat around so it is unsafe. Maybe that's why they cancelled your tour- not because of the weather, but because of rough seas? If so, you are better off missing the tour!

We dropped Ian up in Camp Ocean and went to the Liquid Lounge to find seats for the Rock Revolution production show. The doors opened at 7, and when we arrived at 7:15 there were still plenty of open seats. I prefer to sit in the upper level of the theater. I’m short, so if I sit downstairs where there’s no slant to the floor, the person in front of me always blocks my view. The seats upstairs had a steep stadium seating, so I had a great view, even if it meant I was further from the stage. That technique has always worked well for me on all of my cruises because the performers usually just stay up on the stage, or maybe they walk down the aisles briefly, but I could always see what was happening below. With Rock Revolution, the whole stage extended out into the seating area downstairs, so it was hard to see what they were doing from upstairs. Of course, we could hear the songs just fine, we just couldn’t see the performance for that part of the show. This photo gives you an idea of what I mean… Theme of Rock Revolution was Summer of 1969 and Woodstock. It didn’t have any plot, just a bunch of songs sung concert-style, including Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, Come Together by The Beatles, Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel, Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin, and You Make Me So Very Happy by Blood, Sweat, and Tears. One of my favorite parts of the show was the use of drones and lasers during Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It was so unique and definitely not something I have seen done on a cruise ship before. It was very hard to capture a photo just using my iPhone camera, but this will give you an idea of how it looked… . The show was 45 minutes, then we went back to the cabin to pack our bags for getting off the ship tomorrow. We still had some time before we had to pick up Ian at camp, so we went down to the piano bar for the 9pm show with Mat (spelled with one ‘T’). I usually love going to piano bars. I’m not a very good dancer, so the club isn’t for me, but sitting in a chair, singing along to some of my favorite music is my idea of a wonderful night. Unfortunately, we thought Mat missed the mark as a piano bar entertainer. His voice was good, and he knows how to play the piano, but there’s more to it than that… especially on a cruise ship, where piano bars usually have a certain kind of vibe. His song selection was very low-energy. He claimed he likes to alternate ballads with upbeat songs but his upbeat songs were not sing-along songs. He played “Isn’t She Lovely” by Lionel Richie, “1999” and “Purple Rain” by Prince, and “When September Ends” by Green Day. We like all of those songs, but they aren’t good sing-along piano bar songs. Most people barely know any lyrics beyond the chorus, and those songs are far from “upbeat.” Maybe things got better later in the night, but we couldn’t stay out late when traveling with a toddler. We left at 9:30 to get Ian from Camp Ocean, and beat the line to pick up before they start charging at 10pm. Then we went back to the cabin and all went to bed to rest up for another fun day in Mexico tomorrow. Up next: Mazatlan!

Ian napped until 6pm, at which point we woke him up because we were afraid he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. Unfortunately, we missed our 5:30pm dinner in the MDR, but we thought Ian could use the rest after so many missed naps and short nights of sleep over the last few days. I really wished dinner was at 6pm like it was supposed to be because 5:30 is just too early on port days. I will share the MDR menus here, even though we didn’t get to go there… We decided to go up to the Lido buffet and see what they had for dinner. We entered through the midship elevator bank, but that first section of stations was closed because they were using it to feed the kids in Camp Ocean. This was another reason I was annoyed that they moved the fixed early dining time to 5:30pm. Camp Ocean didn’t open for dinner until 6pm, so what did they expect us to do? If we wanted Ian to eat with camp, we either had to miss our own dinner in the MDR, or we had to bring him to dinner for 30 minutes but not let him eat anything, and one of us would run him up to camp and hopefully get back in time before the appetizers came to the table. The timing really made no sense, so we never ended up bringing Ian to dinner with camp. Ian said he wanted pizza tonight so we got him a margarita pizza. I wasn’t really in the mood for the options at the buffet, so I got my favorite deli option, the meatball sandwich. I noticed they had the shrimp and crab cakes from Emeril's menu from the MDR, so I decided to try one and I thought it was fantastic.

Thank you!! Welcome back! How was your cruise??

Thanks for posting the link, Greg! Yes, I am posting all of the Fun Times and the menus for as I get to each day of my review.

Actually, on the way back, we are on the other side of the road and I didn't even see the beach. It wasn't quite a highway, but it was a high speed road, and it made sense why the bus only stops at the beach going south as it's on the right side of the road, and going north probably doesn't have access to cut over to the beach. I honestly don't know anything about that beach, but maybe @KarmaCruisers can chime in??

I vote that you should take the Carnival excursion and come back to tell us how it went!!! I agree that is probably the easiest and most reliable way to get to Balandra as a cruise ship passenger.

I never saw any taxis when we left the port, but we got a somewhat late start that morning so it is possible there were taxis earlier and they had already left with passengers by the time we got out there. We know there ARE taxis somewhere in La Paz because jerseygirlinAZ took one to get back to the ship, but I'm not sure if they are all lined up at the port in the morning like you find in other more commercial cruise ports.

While we were out on the balcony, we chatted about how nice it was to have an unstructured, low key day in port. I almost always pack my port days full of exciting things to do, so it is very rare that we end up just walking a mile along the beach, getting a beer, then walking back and calling it a day. It was very refreshing and we had a great day. Not so great that I was going to abort the rest of our port day plans, but great enough that maybe I’ll save one port day on our next cruise for a similar low key day… maybe! We were treated to a glorious sunset as we watched the ship sail away from La Paz. Adios, La Paz! Thanks for a fun, relaxing day!

We were having such a lovely time that we ended up ordering a second round of beers. We were both still full from that breakfast burrito at Blue Iguana this morning or I would have suggested we order some food too. When we finished our drinks, it was time for the mile-long walk back to the bus station. At first we walked along the Malecon, admiring the views, but then we got too hot so we crossed over to the inland side because there was shade from the store awnings. We got back to the bus station at 1:30pm and at first, we weren’t sure where to go. There were lots of locals coming and going because the city and regional buses also used this station. We noticed there was a line wrapping around the corner, and when we looked closer, we realized some people had Carnival towels and Sign and Sail cards in their hands. We found the end of the line and asked the people ahead of us to make sure this was the right place. It was, so we got in line behind them. Even though the line seemed really long, it only took 20 minutes to reach the front of the line. This time, the shuttle was a public city bus instead of a coach bus, so there wasn’t space underneath to put the stroller, but they just let us collapse it and carry it on through the wheelchair door at the back of the bus. It took about 30 minutes to drive back to the ship, and there was just a short line of people waiting to board. We went straight back to the cabin so Ian could nap, and this little guy was waiting for us: Jason stayed in the cabin with Ian while I went to Lido to get us a Fungi pizza to share. Like yesterday, it wasn’t crowded and I got my pizza right away. I brought it back to the cabin and we took it out onto the balcony. As pleasant as the weather was while we were out in the sun by the beach, it was actually kind of chilly sitting out on the balcony. We were on the shaded side of the ship, and I needed to wear a light long sleeve shirt to avoid goosebumps.

We walked about a mile down the Malecon until the beach ended in a marina. There was a fun restaurant and bar right on the water called Estrella del Mar. It wasn’t busy and they had lots of tables outside on the patio with shade, so we stopped in for a drink. Dos Equis was 50 pesos (just under $3 USD), so we ordered a round of drinks. Ian had fun dancing around on the deck and burned off some energy while we relaxed in the shade and enjoyed our beers. The thatched roof made some weird shadows across our faces. Too bad, because otherwise this would have been a great photo!

Like most touristy cities, La Paz had the giant brightly colored letters spelling out the city name as a photo opportunity. We waited for a few families ahead of us in line, then we had our turn. It was nice that people just naturally lined up to give each family their own photo op. I have seen similar touristy photo ops when people weren’t nearly as civilized, so everyone ended up with strangers in their photos. No one wants that! While we waited in line, a guy came up to each family trying to sell footage from his drone at the La Paz sign. He said he would get a video of you standing in front of the sign waving, then he flew the drone up and down the Malecon, and then came back towards you from out over the water to capture your image from the other direction. The people ahead of us did it, and Ian loved watching the drone fly, but we opted to just have the people behind us in line take the photo on my phone for free. I do wish I had thought to ask him what he charged as we were curious about it, but we never found out. Ian wouldn’t cooperate and look at the woman taking our picture, and he was getting fussy in his stroller, so we just rolled him off to the side and Jason and I took a nice photo together. After that, we continued walking down the Malecon. There was a nice wide pier jutting out into the water, so we took a detour to walk along the pier and see the views.

As I mentioned, we didn’t have much of a plan for today besides walking along the Malecon and getting a drink or maybe lunch somewhere. The weather was absolutely perfect with temps in the mid 70s, low humidity, and a slight breeze. The Malecon is beautiful with lots of shops and restaurants on the inland side, and a long walking path along the ocean side. There were a bunch of sculptures along the way, so Jason pushed Ian in the stroller and I tried to snap a few photos as we walked along. It was such a perfect day for a walk along the beach! I’m not sure how deep the sand was at the beach where the bus dropped people off, but the stretch of beach along the Malecon was beautiful and there were lots of people swimming and sunbathing. You could very easily have a beach day down here at the beach and skip the other beach stop.