deladane

Oye, something tells me Ian will give me the sticking out his tongue phase at some point too. Don't these kids know their mothers love taking photos and want their kids to look their best?! Aww, thanks!! So did you book the cruise yet?? I want to know when it becomes official! And a note about my photos... I just got to the part in your review when you mentioned you switched to using your phone for photos instead of your camera. I did too! All of the photos from my entire cruise were taken on my iPhone, except for a few photos at the all inclusive in Mazatlan because we were at the pool and I didn't want to risk dropping the phone. My TG5 stayed in the cabin the entire rest of the cruise and I didn't miss it at all. You're right that it was so nice not having to charge the batteries and schlep the bulky camera in addition to my phone, when I was going to take my phone everywhere anyway. I think the phone takes photos just as good as the camera, if not better because it has live mode which I need for every photo with Ian 🤣

There were several moments with both embarkation and debarkation when I questioned if the port workers had ever worked there before. Even with the Panorama out of service for a few weeks, you would think most of these people work at the port several times a week because the Radiance and Miracle also sail from Long Beach. People on the Christmas cruise also said embarkation was horrible, so it's not just due to the King Tides as they didn't have that issue the week before us. It would be nice if they could get their act together so passengers can start their cruise off on a good note!

Aww, I love that you guys had your own private NYE party! And even better that you had first dibs on fresh pizza! I saw some photos of the NYE party on Lido from our FB page, and honestly, I'm not even sure if I would have had fun there. It looked PACKED! Like seriously 90% of passengers must have been there, maybe more! You probably made the right call with hanging out somewhere else. And your daughter is so cute in those silky pajamas!

Thank you!! Happy embarkation day!! I hope you have a wonderful cruise and that you come back to tell us all about it afterwards!

Wow, that's a great feature! I haven't seen that feature in my iPhone, but we do have "live" mode where it captures a few seconds before and after you take the photo. Kind of like a mini video for every photo I take. It has been a lifesaver since having Ian because I can scroll back and forth within that photo and find the moment his eyes are looking at the camera.

I seriously cannot wait until he outgrows this phase! We used to get the cutest photos of him up until about 6 months ago, but now it's such a battle! I used to use an app called 1 Second Everyday, where I took a short video of him every day and it puts them all together into a video. I did it every day of his life from birth until he turned 2 years old, but I had to stop because he flat out refused to cooperate anymore! At least I have a great 12 minute video to show at his wedding one day 🤣

Yes, I think that is correct, although I'm not 100% positive about PV. With 12 hours in port and no specific tour planned, the exact local time didn't matter and I never verified it with anyone. I do know that PV is in Central time zone, whereas Cabo and La Paz are on Mountain Time, and we did not change our clocks between Mazatlan and PV.

Soooo soon!!

After that, they turned the boat around and we headed back into the Sea of Cortez. I assumed that was the end of the tour and we would head back to the marina, so I was surprised when the boat aimed straight towards Lover’s Beach! We had no plans to go to the beach today since our original tour was just going to be on a boat, but apparently some of the other people on our tour wanted to go to the beach. There were guys waiting on the beach to help hold onto the boat as we bobbed along in shallow water. The families who wanted to go to the beach hopped down off the boat into knee-deep water, then Jupiter handed them their bags to carry overhead to shore. When the last person was climbing down from the boat, the water got choppy and she almost fell under the boat. That was scary! She was okay, just a little startled. Once they were all ashore, 2 other people who had been at the beach climbed onto our boat. I am not sure if Jupiter was the one who brought them there earlier in the day, or if they came out on a different boat, but my guess is the latter and all the boats share passengers interchangeably. Jupiter gave them both life jackets and now it made sense as to why ours were wet at the start of the tour. These people just came from the beach, and they were only wearing bathing suits, no cover ups, because they had to wade through the water to get back on the boat. I don’t really blame them for not bothering to put on dry clothes first, but eww! Once we were all settled, we motored back to the marina, passing close by the Panorama on our way. Jupiter docked the boat at Breathless Hotel, and the people who joined us from Lover’s Beach got off, but we asked if we could stay on until he swung around to the other side of the marina. He said that wasn’t a problem because he was going there anyway to pick up more passengers from the cruise ship. We had no interest in walking an hour back from the Breathless Hotel to the cruise tender dock, so this saved us a few dollars on taxi fare. It was a short 3 minute ride across the water, and we docked again on the other side. We gave Jupiter a tip, then climbed off the boat onto terra firma. Obviously I wouldn’t pick this as my first choice of what to do in Cabo, but it was fun as a last minute option to try to save our day, and at least we got out on a boat and did something fun for Ian.

It only took about 10 minutes for everyone to take their photos, then we were on our way around to the Pacific Ocean side of Cabo. The middle rock was the backside of Scooby Doo: We went around the corner to see Divorce Beach. It was much longer than Lover’s Beach, but also much less crowded. Looking closely, we could see off to the far right side where there was a break in the rocks and the sand connected back to Lover’s Beach. A view of the arch from the Pacific side: Jupiter said lots of famous people have stayed at this hotel, and he named a few people but I don’t remember who he said. I should have taken better notes!

As we approached the next turn, Jupiter explained that this was the point where the Sea of Cortez became the Pacific Ocean. And then we saw it… the famous Arch of Cabo San Lucas! There were 2 or 3 other small boats ahead of us, so we waited our turn, then got a little closer to get an unobstructed view. I really appreciated how Jupiter handled this moment. He called us up one group at a time (there were 4 families on the boat), and used our own phones to take a bunch of pictures with the arch in the background. It didn’t feel rushed at all, and each group could take as many photos as we wanted. Then Jupiter helped us get down safely, and he went on to the next group. Jason and I removed our life jackets (as did everyone else for their photos), but we left Ian’s on for safety. Of course Ian wouldn’t cooperate for these photos. When I texted one of these photos to my mom right after the tour, she said “Ian doesn’t look very comfortable. Is he enjoying it?” I just wish he would smile for these photos so people could see how much fun he was having, rather than always fighting it and looking miserable! #Toddlers! Jupiter was very cautious when helping us get Ian down off the front of the boat, and he held onto him while Jason climbed down (and while I snapped this selfie, because, why not?!)

Next, we had a view of Lover’s Beach. I think Jupiter said something about this side having calmer waters where it was safe to swim because it was on the bay side. The other side of this beach was called Divorce Beach because it faces the Pacific Ocean where the waves and ocean currents are very turbulent and it is not safe to swim. We then came up to a keyhole in the rocks where you could look through and see the Pacific Ocean. If you looked at the right angle and if the timing was right, the currents from the ocean and the bay crashed together, causing the water to splash up like a fountain. I just took his word for it… we did not see anything like that. Looking between the rocks, we could see a rock shaped like Scooby Doo. We took a family trip up to Sedona in October, so I had lots of practice with looking for recognizable shapes in the rocks (Coffee Pot Rock, Snoopy Rock, Chimney Rock, etc.). Earlier on this tour, Jupiter pointed out a gorilla in the rocks, but I couldn’t see it. This time, I could definitely clearly identify Scooby Doo!

We went out along the rocks and Jupiter explained a little about the rock formations but we still couldn’t hear him. I guess we could have asked him to speak louder but we didn’t really care that much. This was the reverse of the ride we took in the tender from the ship to shore, so while we had seen this view already, we were now a lot closer to the rocks. Ian had fun looking at the boats, birds, fish, and sea lions. I could tell he would have loved our original tour, but at least he was enjoying this one too. I was surprised to see people snorkeling out here. There seemed to be a lot of boat traffic and I didn’t notice any buoys or ropes to mark off a safe place to swim, but I can only assume there is some unspoken rule about how close the boats can get to the rocks.

Including the handful of photo stops along the way, it took us 45 minutes to walk to the Breathless Hotel. At first, we couldn’t find our meeting spot at “Dock 0” so we asked someone working at the dock. She asked what tour we were taking and we told her Aquabulle. She said “That boat isn’t coming until 4pm.” Ummm, what?! We booked a 1pm tour. I took out my confirmation email that I had printed out at home and she suggested we call them. There was another employee named Max who was fluent in English and very helpful in translating with the first lady. I called the tour company and someone answered right away. He said they emailed me yesterday that the tour was canceled. Ummm what?! I booked this tour in August and you waited until the day before to tell me it’s canceled?! I was in the middle of the ocean on a cruise ship yesterday and had no email access. I didn’t get that email and had no idea the tour was canceled. Had they notified me more than one day before, I would have seen the email because I checked all my messages right before sail away on Saturday. And the craziest part of it was that he actually called me a liar when I said I had to way to read emails on a sea day on the ship. He insisted that everyone gets wifi access on the ship. Ummm, no sir, we don’t! I explained that Carnival charges a lot of money to purchase a wifi plan and I did not want to spend my money on that, especially when I had full use of my phone and normal data access for our 4 port days. I only had 3 days to be ‘disconnected’ and I found that appealing, so how dare he tell me that I am lying about being able to read my emails on a sea day! I was livid. We just spent 45 minutes walking in the heat and humidity to the far side of the marina all for nothing, and now we were left with no plans for our few hours in Cabo. Max offered to tell us about some other tour options available from that side of the marina. It was less than ideal because our original tour was so perfect for us, but it was this or nothing. I was very concerned about Ian’s safety. Our original tour was on a bigger boat, and the lower level for viewing the fish was fully enclosed so there was no way Ian could fall out. The only tours Max had were either on big party boats with loud music, or small boats where Ian could fall off the edge if he wasn’t cooperating and sitting nicely on the seat. Jason really wanted us to do something in the water today, so he convinced me to agree to a tour on a small boat. The planner in me hated this situation. I have heard from many people on our FB page that you can get a tour from the tender dock for $10pp out to the Arch and Lover’s Beach, and then it will drop you at the beach and pick you up later and bring you back to the tender dock. Max wanted to charge us $25 per adult and $12 for Ian for the same tour. This was going to cost us nearly the same price as our original tour, but it was 45 minutes instead of 2 hours, and it didn’t include the tacos for lunch or the unlimited beer, or the underwater viewing level. It was honestly a terrible deal but it felt like we had no choice. Either do this, or do nothing, so we said ok and paid for the tour. They had life jackets for everyone on the boat, including a kids vest for Ian (although it was huge on him and might not have helped if there was an emergency. Jason emptied out his pockets and gave me his phone and wallet to put in my backpack in case he had to dive in and rescue Ian). The one good part was the boat was already at the dock and we could leave right then to start the tour. The tour was with a boat called Broadway II and our guide was Jupiter. He and Max helped us get down onto the boat and get settled with our life jackets… our wet life jackets. Eww. I wasn’t thrilled that our life jackets were wet. We were dressed in T-shirts and shorts, not in bathing suits since we had no plans to go to the beach today, so it just felt kind of gross to put on a wet life jacket. First, we went back across the marina and picked up more people from right near the cruise tender. Those people paid the same price as us so I’m not sure how you get the $10pp price. Maybe $25 is just the going rate in peak holiday season? I think there were 11 of us in total on the boat. As we motored out of the marina, Jupiter told us some information about Cabo, but honestly, I have no idea what he said. He spoke very softly and was sitting at the front of the boat, so we could barely hear him from our seats. Once we got moving, Ian had such a great time on the boat. This was a totally new experience for him, and he was loving every minute of it!

Haha yea, I think most people are understanding. The table sitting next to us had a son who was about 20 years old. He liked watching Cars over Ian's shoulder every night, so even big kids need some screen time to make it through MDR dinners! Funny enough, I think we created a monster because Ian now associates going out to dinner with watching Cars on his phone. Last night, we told him we were going out for dinner, and his immediate response was "I watch Cars!" so now we have to work on breaking the habit!

Do you have iPhones? There is a setting in my iPhone under the Time and Date settings to "Set Automatically." I'll bet one of you has un-checked the setting and the other has it checked, which is why your phones are reading different times. This is the same feature that knows to adjust the clock on your phone when you are on an airplane and land in a different time zone than you departed from.

Wow! I'm so honored that your first ever comment on Cruise Critic was in my thread! Whoever you spoke to when you called Carnival did not give you an accurate answer to this question. I have always been told that it is up to the Captain's discretion if the ship changes time to match local time or not. I have been very lucky on all my previous Carnival cruises (actually, on my Celebrity cruises too!), and the Captain has always opted to change ship time to match local time throughout the cruise so I have never had an issue where ship time and local time were different. That is extremely confusing for so many passengers! As I tried to explain, but maybe I didn't do a great job, I think the way the Captain handled things on our cruise was an anomaly because of New Year's Eve. Of course I cannot guarantee anything, but I would think that on this itinerary, they will tell you to set your clocks forward one hour on either the first or second night, so when you arrive in Cabo on day 3, ship time matches local time. If you look closely at the Fun Times, they actually listed the time change as an activity on the ship at 2am the night we were in Cabo (it's the very last thing in the What's Happening column). It was also mentioned in the Hub app. I hope you have a great cruise, and let me know if you have any other questions!

Thanks! We've done it for all of our cruises together, so it's a fun tradition!

We docked in Cabo and the crew helped everyone get off the boat safely. We walked down the pier, passing lots of vendors and Carnival excursion line ups, until we reached the exit. One of the port employees checked our backpack to make sure we didn’t bring any fresh produce off the ship. We knew Ian would need snacks throughout the day, so I bought tons of pre-packaged single-serve snacks that I knew would be safe to bring into port in Mexico (ie: graham crackers, pretzels, cheese and crackers, plus the little bag of goldfish he was holding on the tender). She dug through my bag, saw all of our snacks, unopened water bottles, and diapers, and waved us on our way. I always took a photo of this sign as we got off the ship as an extra reminder of all aboard time. We didn’t plan to be ashore nearly that late, but you never know what could happen! Once we were out of the port area, I took my phone off airplane mode and opened up Google Maps for directions to our starting point for the tour. I noticed the time on my phone was one hour ahead of the time on my watch, confirming that ship time and local time were not the same. I always find this so confusing to keep track of, so I really had to pay attention to what clock I was reading. On Saturday, I had turned off the feature in my iPhone which automatically syncs the time on the phone with the time on my Apple watch, that way my watch would always stay on ship time. I wasn’t 100% sure that this would work, but I can now confirm that it does work correctly. (Just an FYI since we are on the topic… The next day when we were in La Paz, I had to manually set the time on my watch to somewhere in the Mountain time zone (I chose Denver) to reflect the time change.) Ok, back to Cabo… Google said it would take us 27 minutes to walk to the meeting spot for our tour. The walk looked very easy- we just followed along the path lining the perimeter of the marina, and that would take us to the Breathless Hotel where the tour started. We actually saw that hotel towards the end of the tender ride, so we could spot it from the other side of the marina. Here are the directions from Google Maps: We considered taking a taxi, but decided against it because it was a beautiful day, the marina area looked safe enough for us to walk it, and then we didn’t need to stress about haggling with taxi drivers over the price. Plus, the views were very pretty! We tried to take a cute photo with the Cabo sign, but Ian wasn’t too excited about that idea. #Toddlers! Up to that point, Ian had been holding one of our hands and walking with us, but we were now 20 minutes into the walk and only one third of the way to the Breathless Hotel. Ian’s little legs were slowing us down! What should have been a 27 minute walk would take 60 minutes at this pace. Luckily, we brought along our backpack carrier as a Plan B. We thought it would come in handy if Ian was being unsafe on the boat because we could just strap him onto Jason’s back and then he wouldn’t accidentally fall overboard if he was misbehaving. We found a bench nearby and pulled over to get Ian situated in the carrier. He got a free ride for the rest of our walk! I thought this map was convenient for anyone who didn’t have access to a smart phone… We found another version of the Cabo sign later in our walk. With Ian still in the backpack carrier, he couldn’t object to posing in the photo!

Yesterday, Nino delivered a letter to our cabin with instructions for the tender process. General passengers on the ship had to get tender tickets yesterday, but with FTTF, we could skip that process. We had to meet in Liquid Lounge deck 4 at 9:45am and the crew would escort us down to the tenders ahead of the rush. When I originally purchased FTTF, I didn’t realize how valuable this head start would be. People who have cruised with this itinerary before can let me know for sure, but I would assume that the Captain usually has the ship change its clocks on the night before arriving in Cabo since Cabo is on Mountain time, but the ship starts the cruise from California in Pacific time. Last night was New Year’s Eve, so I am assuming he opted to not change our clocks on a night when most passengers would be out very late and not want to lose an hour of sleep. We did change our clocks tonight before arriving in La Paz tomorrow, so since Cabo and La Paz are in the same time zone, my assumption was they held us back an hour specifically for New Year’s Eve. Anyway, that meant that ship time was one hour behind local time, giving us one hour less to reach the starting point of our excursion (something I did not know until I received the Fun Times last night, and certainly did not know when I purchased FTTF!). I knew there would be tons of people going to the Liquid Lounge for priority tendering, so we arrived there 15 minutes early at 9:30am, just to be sure we didn’t miss out on anything. The crew members working there said there was a tender waiting for us at the midship elevators and it had space for 200 passengers. The problem was that we were sitting forward of the forward elevators on deck 4, nowhere near the waiting tender, and there were more than 200 people sitting in the theater. At that point, it was like a stampede for who could get out of the theater first and follow the crew members through half of deck 4, then down 3 flights of stairs to deck 1. Meanwhile, other people who happened to be in our path figured out what was happening and they joined our parade. I don’t know if they had priority tender access or not, but the whole thing was very unorganized. There was a door tucked away behind the mid-ship elevators which led to the exit and access to the tender, and there was another crew member standing at that door who counted each passenger. Of course, as luck would have it, they stopped the line one party ahead of us, closed the doors, and said the tender was full. We were soooo close to the 200 person cut off but we just missed it. It was very hot, with hundreds of people crammed into the elevator lobby, and Ian (and all the other little kids around us) got fussy waiting around. #Toddlers! We stood there for 25 minutes, then finally, they said they could take 50 more people on the next tender from the forward elevators. Oye, here we go again! Had they said the tender was waiting here at the midship elevators, it wouldn’t be an issue for us to get on that next tender. Now we had to walk forward again on deck 1, passing a bunch of cabins. When they heard all the noise in the hallway, I saw people open their cabin doors and join our line. That was very frustrating since we had put in the time waiting on line, and who even knows if they had priority tendering. When we got to the forward stairs, the security guard had no idea why we were there so he called on his walkie talkie and eventually let us down the stairs to board the tender. That was way more work than it should have been, but we were finally on a boat that would take us to shore! It was a surprisingly small boat (I had assumed they reserved 50 seats for us on one of the ship’s lifeboats, possibly combined with people on Carnival excursions, but this was one of Cabo’s tenders and only had a 50 person total capacity). but we got seats and the tender left soon after that. The tender ride took 12 minutes, and gave us some beautiful views of the ship. That’s my favorite part of tendering: the chance to take an unobstructed photo of the ship, which is usually very hard to achieve when the ship is docked in port and has lines and buildings blocking the view. While we waited to board the tender, Ian was going bonkers and on the edge of a meltdown. Luckily, he calmed down once we got on the boat, and he sat nicely in Jason’s lap for the whole ride. I ended up sitting opposite them along the side of the boat.

We were finished eating by 8am, and we were still sailing into Cabo, so we walked around the outside decks admiring the view. It was a picture perfect day today, with partly cloudy skies and temperatures predicted to reach the high 70’s. As soon as we passed the Arch, we knew we were getting close to anchoring, so we went back to our cabin to apply sunscreen and grab our bags.

Ian slept in this morning and woke us up at 6:30am. We all got dressed and went up to Lido for breakfast. Ian had French toast and hash brown patties. Jason and I had Blue Iguana burritos and arepas. This is definitely my favorite cruise ship breakfast on a port day. It is very filling so it holds me over until I get back to the ship after my excursion and I can often get away with not eating anything on shore if I don’t want to, plus it tastes really good! There were a few people on line ahead of me, but they had two guys working to make the burritos so that saved time and there was only a few minutes delay to place my order. I found a table by the window in the outdoor seating area nearby. Yummmmm! Those crunchy crumpled hash browns really make all the difference!

Monday, January 1 | Cabo San Lucas | 10:00am to 7:00pm Let’s chat a little bit about planning our day in Cabo… Jason visited Cabo with his parents and extended family on a cruise many years ago, long before he knew me. He has great memories of the day he spent with his cousins at Cabo Wabo, so at the very least, I knew that was one possibility of something we could do today. I’m not so sure how toddler-friendly it is (the biggest concern being how loud they play the music), but I do know that Cabo has plenty of bars and restaurants close by the tender port, so going out for lunch was one option. I looked into a day pass for an all-inclusive resort, but everything I found cost more than I wanted to spend. Whale watching tours are very popular in Cabo, especially at the time of year we would be there. We did a 3-hour whale watching tour in Puerto Vallarta in December 2018, and honestly, it was kind of boring. It wasn’t until the very end on our way back to the dock that we finally saw 2 whales swimming alongside the boat for a few minutes. Yes, that was very exciting, but we spent the whole rest of the time unsuccessfully searching for whales and it just got monotonous by the end. Obviously, I understand that we are looking for wild animals in their natural habitat so there is never a guarantee you will see a whale, much less see one leap out of the ocean into the sky, putting on a show for us, but I didn’t want to repeat that experience while also trying to entertain a toddler. I searched on Cruise Critic for ideas of things to do in Cabo with a toddler, and someone mentioned they used to have a yellow submarine that took you underwater to see the fish. OMG! That would be so perfect for us!! Ian LOVES animals, and this would be even better than going to an aquarium because he could see the underwater animals in their natural environments. We used to do multiple snorkeling excursions on each cruise, so this would sort of be the next best thing in a toddler-friendly version. None of the comments I read mentioned a specific company name, so it was very hard to track down more information on how to book this tour. After a bit of searching on Google, I found what looked like the right company. It talked about all the details of the tour, with pictures of the yellow submarine, prices for adults and children, and contact information including a link to a website to book the tickets. Unfortunately, when I went to the website, I got a “404- page not found” error. After a bit more research, I found out that they no longer have the submarine used on this excursion and it is no longer an option. What a huge bummer!! Back to square one, I kept searching until I came across a tour on Viator with a company called Aquabulle. There wasn’t a single mention of them on Cruise Critic or Trip Advisor, so I was very hesitant. I was able to find their Facebook page, but everything was in Spanish and there weren’t many comments or reviews. So why did I even consider this company? Well, in theory, this tour was perfect for us! Aquabulle is like a combination of a whale watching boat and a submarine, and gives us the best of both worlds. It is a bigger boat, allowing a maximum of 50 passengers on each tour, with an upper deck so they can take you out to see the famous Arch and possibly to see some whales. It has a middle deck that is all indoors with windows all around, so if it is cold or rainy, we can still see all the sites above water. But the most exciting feature on Aquabulle is the lower level which is below the surface of the water, with huge windows along both sides of the boat so you can see all the fish without actually getting in the water! Here are 2 of the photos of their boat from their Facebook page: I sent Aquabulle a message through their Facebook page to clarify a few of the details and logistics. They said that they were indeed operating tours on New Year's Day (I just wanted to double check to be sure!), and the cost was $65 for adults, and children age 5 and under were free. While they could not pick us up from the cruise ship tender dock, they said it’s a short ride to their boat and they gave me directions. They also confirmed that the price includes alcoholic beverages, soda, bottled water, and chicken tacos for lunch. They said I could book directly with them, but it was the same price as if I booked through Viator. I opted to book through Viator because if anything were to go wrong, at least Viator’s customer service could help resolve the issue.

aww, thank you!!

Oh yea, if you want to see the deluxe OV cabins (the ones with two bathrooms), read my Carnival Dream review from 2019! We had that cabin for just the 2 of us HAHA We each had our own shower (I used the one with the tub, which was so nice and spacious), and we each had our sink, but we had to share the toilet. Good idea about how to handle meals. Hopefully by our next cruise, Ian will be older and things will go a little smoother. I'll start the Cabo posts tomorrow!