Grand Princess 10-Day Mexican Riviera Cruise - Photo Review - Jan 9-19th, 2016

[dchip]

Loving your review and wonderful photographs.

 

I will have to catch the rest of it when we return. Boarding the Grand tomorrow. Mexico here we come!!

 

Cheers, Denise

[Colo Cruiser]

Bon Voyage Denise!

[WinksCruises]

 

Our taxi driver, Martine, told us that he was one of the few federally approved cab drivers in Puerto Vallarta and that the company he worked for had exclusive rights to solicit rides from within the gates of the cruise port…. “You are taking your life in your hands if you take a ride from anyone else,” he warned us. “That is why they only let our group within the gates.”

 

And when we asked him if any of the beautifully situated resorts we were driving past offered day passes, he informed us that these hotels had suspended the practice. Too many cruise passengers had taken advantage of their programs, he informed us, and the hotels got tired of "our kind" always overcrowding their beaches, getting drunk, trashing their facilities and causing fights with the overnight guests. “The day of the day-pass is finally over in Puerto Vallarta,” he proclaimed shaking his head. But since Martine was also the fellow who told us bullfighting was outlawed in all of Mexico, even though there was clearly an active arena right next to the pier, we took everything he said with a grain of margarita salt and concluded that he simply wanted us to spend our US dollars with him, not with the Hyatt or at the corrida de toros.

 

He was pleasant enough, a safe driver and always around when we returned from our adventures - so we happily listened to his stories and dismissed the nagging realization that he was probably ripping us off!

 

And since we hadn’t paid him anything upfront, he was always asking us if anyone else had offered us a ride – admonishing us not to go with any other driver because, you know, there had been some recent ugly occurrences involving naive cruisers getting wrapped up in Mexican drug cartels, black market human organ transplants and the sex trade. Something the press wasn’t reporting as much as they should. “So it is best if you just stick with me, amigos,” was his sage counsel.

 

 

As Martine drove us out of the downtown area, he pointed out various local sites, and was especially proud of the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe church and it’s beautiful tower crown. He greeted fellow cab drivers and passersby with a toot of the cab horn as we passed. And along the way, we couldn’t help but notice that several resort properties had huge blinking neon signs claiming “Cruise Ship Day Trippers Welcome” - the sight of which unfailingly caused Martine to twist the steering wheel sharply causing Mrs. Winks and I to jostle together in the back seat and look away. He would always blame the sudden manuever on an iguana running out onto the roadway. “They’re illegal to kill in Mexico, you know.” And then he'd speed past.

 

Twenty minutes later, the little cab whisked down an unmarked side road and down to a nameless beach resort… an establishment that he no doubt had some pre-arrangement with, ‘cause he insisted we settle in at one specific bar - which he equally insisted was the best in all Puerto Vallarta.

 

 

It was really far from the best beach in all PV, but it was sandy and not covered with rocks like the beaches in the downtown area had been. I’m not sure if it was because it was high tide, but our modest stretch of sand was continuously overrun by ocean waves, and it became a battle to hold onto the little plastic table and chairs we'd been set up with. My sneakers got soaked when I was overcome by the first of these waves - before I'd even had a chance to take them off.

 

We eventually moved down to an area of the beach that was prone to less flooding, and settled into an endless routine of $2.50 Coronas and tasty salsa and guac served with handmade tortillas. The site was beautiful, although it wasn’t particularly remote or quiet. Mrs. Winks split her time between sunning herself on the beach and taking dips in the gorgeously colored water (although it was definitely on the cool side). And I busied myself with taking pictures, notes for this blog and filling out some postcards I had picked up during our shopping excursion downtown.

 

 

The main drawback to the beach day (and we found this to be true at every beach we visited on this itinerary) was the unending and relentless parade of trinket vendors who perpetually combed the shoreline repeatedly looking for their next sale. It became annoying when, as with Gustavo and the specialty coffee cards, they wouldn’t take a simple non gracias for an answer.

 

One particularly sullen and very pregnant vendor guilted me into buying some costume piece for Mrs. Winks when she told me she hadn’t eaten in days and the doctors were concerned about the health of the unborn baby she carried. Aye yi yi. Cry me a friggin river! Was everyone in Puerto Vallarta a pathological liar... or just an expert storyteller?

 

And, of course, once the other vendors saw I had reached for my wallet, they all came rushing in like a throng of ravenous mad dogs looking to tear off a piece of my US greenback flesh.

 

 

So after spending several, increasingly un-relaxing hours at this beach, we hailed Martine to take us back to town, asking that he please find us someplace with free wi-fi. He dropped us off at a bar set a few blocks back from the boardwalk - and one that, surprisingly, he wasn’t affiliated with - but which did offer free wi-fi - which was an amenity we'd been looking for all day.

 

Here we sucked down more beer and tortilla chips - which really only made us feel gross and bloated. Nonetheless, we enjoyed getting an opportunity to check emails from home and load vacation pics to our social media channels - so we could make all our friends chili-pepper green with envy!

 

Mrs. Winks was relieved when I returned from the bathroom with all my vital organs intact - and the local drug cartel Martine had warned us about must have been busy murdering other Grand Princess tourists, because we got through our drunken bar crawl here in town just fine and unscathed.

 

Martine with Mrs. Winks

 

Finally, we stumbled out of the bar and perused the shopping stalls of a street-side flea market - where I just barely fended off a drunken notion of buying a set of NY Jets Mexican wrestling masks to bring to the game with my buddies next season.

 

Then, back on the street, we snuck up behind Martine, who was sitting up against the side of his cab, jabbed him in the side with our fingers and told him we were kidney thieves and if he didn’t take us back to the cruise ship, pronto, he’d be on dialysis for the rest of his life!

 

We all shared a nervous laugh, hopped into the cab and headed back to port, where Martine made a big show of slipping through the security gate in front of the other cab drivers waiting outside the fence. We gave him a c-note and thanked him for not killing us - before saying farewell and getting back onboard the sanctuary of the Grand.

 

Coming up Next: Where were you when you found out David Bowie died? and the best cultural experience I’ve ever had on a cruise ship.

Edited February 3, 2016 by WinksCruises

[dchip]

Bon Voyage Denise!

 

Thank you, Keith. Looking forward to some sun and long showers. Doing our part in helping the drought by leaving home as often as we can this year. :D

 

Cheers, Denise

Edited February 3, 2016 by dchip

[united4life]

Great review. Love the humour

[Vredenius53]

I recognize that beach! It's just down from La Jolla De Mismaloya! We stayed there several years ago. Did you see the fishermen with their pop bottle reels?

[rocklinmom]

Loving your review! And thanks for posting the dinner menu - any more would be appreciated! :)

[Tedferg]

I have a newbie question about dining times. If we opted for assigned dining but change our minds while on the ship, can we switch to anytime-dining?

 

I believe you can switch to Anytime but cannot then switch back to Traditional

[Star24K]

Thanks for your review.

[shipfriend_max]

Hey, tthank you for the review so far, I am happy to go on reading when it continues! :)

 

We are booked on a slightly different cruise on Star Princess in March 2017 from/to Los Angeles, calling also at La Paz and Loreto, instead of Mazatlan.

Any recommendations for all the ports?

 

Relly liked your illustrated patters and menus!

[WinksCruises]

Here's the Main Dining Room menu from Wed - Day 5 as well as the Princess Patter...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back with more of the trip report shortly...

[!David!]

Enjoying your review at so many levels. By any chance did you have the opportunity to try the Lychee & Watermelon or Calamari & Baby Squid? Did we ever find the name of the private beach in PV?? Did you do pecos???:cool::cool:

[WinksCruises]

 

After our adventure-filled day running around Puerto Vallarta, we found ourselves pretty much wiped out. Was it the excessive tequila consumption? The endless red plastic baskets of freshly baked tortilla flats? Or simply the calories we expended in fighting for our lives against the army of beach vendors and organ harvesters that left us feeling totally zonked-out once we got back to our cabin? Or could it have simply been the arduous climb up 7-flights because the gangway elevators were packed? Whatever the cause, it was all a bit overwhelming for this dynamic duo - who’d hardly gotten their land legs back after three lazy, and totally glorious, as I am quick to remind everyone, days at sea.

 

Surprisingly, it was Mrs. Winks who hit the wall first. Once through our cabin door, she fell face-first onto the mattress, sustaining only a couple of paper-cuts from the mountain of art auction flyers piled there. And I knew she was in for the night, when she pooh-poohed, with a dismissive wave of the hand, my suggestion we go crash the Friends of Bill W. meeting and finally get our lives back on track.

 

Since she wasn’t up for that, I pulled-up my handy-dandy Princess-at-Sea app and saw that a Mexico Folklorico Festival was just starting, two decks below in the Vista Lounge. I’d heard the cruise director regaling this event during one of his upcoming events spiels given at some other function the evening before. This was an award-winning, local troupe that was literally getting on the ship at 5:30pm, doing their show, and then getting off the ship before sail away at 6:45pm. And it was not to be missed, he’d explained.

 

So I grabbed my camera and ran down to the lounge. Finding the venue already packed, I scooted up to an empty couch I spied all the way in the first row and began firing away.

 

 

The show was amazing! It was laid out as a trip through time that showcased various eras of authentic Mexican dance and music. Each segment was introduced with a voice-over detailing the particular dance sequence or song we were about to see – as well as its historic or cultural significance. It was colorful, loud, often humorous and always entertaining.

 

Here are several pictures from it. Highly recommended if they schedule it during your itinerary. Just make sure you’re back on the ship an hour or so before sail away… or you’ll miss it.

 

 

 

 

After the Folklorico show, I headed back to the cabin where I found Mrs. Winks bouncing back nicely thanks to her hour-long cat nap. We decided to catch the “vocal impressionist” Sean O’Shea who was playing an early show at the Princess Theater - and whom fellow passengers had been raving about.

 

We were hoping for a few laughs, but pretty much ended up with a straight-forward singer impression show, with O’Shea bouncing in-and-out of the usual line-up of easily identifiable pop-music personas, from the vintage to the contemporary. It was when he stepped back and did a stirring tribute to David Bowie that we first learned about the music icon’s death - which apparently had occurred a few days earlier. Sheltered from the 24-hour news cycle, we hadn’t yet heard about Bowie’s passing - I'd even missed mentions of it on my Facebook timeline - and it was O’Shea’s tribute and subsequent rendition of “Ziggy Stardust” that let us know. Wow.

 

Vocal impressionist, Sean O'Shea in the Princess Theater

 

After the show, we made the mistake of thinking an ala carte dinner at the Horizon Court buffet made more sense than a full-out meal in the dining room. We should have known that we weren’t ready for such gluttony after a day of over indulgence. So after hitting the dessert bar, complaining how full we were the entire time, of course; we called it an early night and made empty promises that tomorrow would be different. (Right after having the chocolate hearts that had magically replaced the art auction flyers on the cabin bedspread).

 

Next up: Manzanillo, the little port-of-call that could?

Edited February 4, 2016 by WinksCruises

[shredie]

We saw the Folklorico show on the Pacific in December, and it was truly a lot of fun.

[cr8tiv1]

Amazing differences a Cruise Director has on a cruise. Nothing like this on any of my Mexican cruises. On my Alaskan cruise with Sammy Baker (resides in Juneau). Fantastic local talent. Dave Cole finds local talent in Honolulu.

 

Thanks for sharing. Enjoying your thread very much.

[sportsmum]

I am not sure about it being the CD. We were on the Christmas cruise with the same CD and I have been reading the patters posted here. They are different than the ones we had on ours - this cruise being better, IMHO.

 

I collected my patters for a friend who wanted to entice her DH to cruise and we went through them last week. Different entertainers- more varied entertainment. Snowball bingo- we had straight bingo, no snowball. No charades, poolside trivia or mexican fiesta.

 

Not complaining, although it may sound so, we had a fine time - just mentioning the differences. Really enjoying this review!

[WinksCruises]

At the risk of getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, here's the Main Dining Room menu and Princess Patter for Thursday, Day 6 - Manzanillo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming up next: an account of our day in Manzanillo. Is it safe? Is it pretty? Is it worth it? You know, that sorta thing... Plus highlights from The Love Boat Disco Deck Party!

[tourismtessy]

Loving this review with great pics! If you have a regular blog site can you include the website/link here please. I would love to read more of your travels and am a fellow blogger. I especially love blogging about our cruise vacations.

[rocklinmom]

Thank you for the extra menus and Patters! You rock!! :)

[Purdue-IL&TX]

 

 

Hi fellow cruisers!

 

Mrs. Winks and I are back from California - fresh off a 10-Day cruise aboard the Grand Princess.

 

We had a great time, embarking from a new port, San Francisco - Pier 27, and enjoyed a fairly new itinerary for us. I say fairly new, because we’ve sailed the Mexican Riviera once before… back in 2009, out of Los Angeles, for a 7-Day Sapphire Princess voyage. But that was a while ago. The stone arch at Cabo San Lucas has since collapsed and the Princess line has added another port to this classic itinerary. So we were curious to see what new adventures Mexico’s west coast had to offer. (And as habitual Caribbean cruisers know all too well, there are just so many times you can moor in St. Maarten or St. Thomas before getting itchy for a new port experience).

 

So a few months ago, Mrs. Winks launched one of her take-no-prisoners cruise investigations and identified a fantastic post-holiday deal down the Baja Peninsula on an itinerary “The Love Boat” show made famous: with Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas (and now their younger, scrappy little step-brother, Manzanillo) as ports.

 

Taking a 10-day cruise offers its own set of challenges (just trying to stay within the airline’s 50 lb weight limitation for checked baggage is herculean enough) but not being a couple that backs down from a challenge, we decided to complicate matters even further by adding a 6-hour cross-country flight to the equation… which, in January, necessitates booking an extra day or two at the front-end in case of one of those pesky superstorms decides to wallop the northeast, which is where Mrs. Winks and I reside.

 

Fortunately, we both had carry-over days from our jobs to burn and friends in San Francisco who we could depend on for entertainment for our two days stay prior to embarkation. So challenge on!

 

 

My biggest hurdle was trying to stay under the 50 lb baggage limit. It was a 10-day cruise, after all, and accounting for both the travel and weather insurance days, we were looking at almost 14 total days "on the road".

 

Mrs. Winks assured me that Princess provided laundry rooms for passengers, so we could refresh our unmentionables... But how was I going to get all my other vacation necessities on board? As you can see, I'm not exactly a light packer.

 

 

That said, the baggage weight didn’t end up being an issue after all. The TSA agents at airport security were surprisingly helpful when it came to choosing what to declutter from my admittedly ambitious packing job... and after their robust interrogation techniques and strip search, I emerged with a new admiration for the art of packing light and still managed to score a cup of coffee before boarding our 6:50 am, non-stop, JetBlue flight from JFK to SFO. But note to self: next time, just leave the curling irons at home!

 

Pre-cruise, we stayed at the Marriot Courtyard Fisherman’s Wharf. This was kind of a silly choice because, as New Yorkers, we would never dream of booking a hotel in, say, Times Square. It’s just too mobbed with tourists. But that's essentially what we did in San Fran - as Fisherman's Wharf is just as tourist centric as Times Sqaure. And it's true, our friends grimaced when they heard about our accomodations. But the fact was, we hadn’t rented a car so we wanted to be in walking distance of all the sights we typically mock tourists for wanting to be close to. And we wanted to check out the actual pier (#27) that The Grand would slide into Saturday, so our tourist centric location made sense - even if the Courtyard itself was kind of a dump.

 

So despite the very damp and cold weather (40 and 50s), we enjoyed our exploratory walks past the unending line of souvenir purveyors and chains stores along The Embarcadero. The food was great and the sights crazy!

 

 

We know most readers want us to just skip all the pre-cruise rigmarole and jump right into the action packed embarkation process, but we’d be quite remiss if we didn’t mention our thrilling day adventure out to Point Reyes National Seashore on Friday. Point Reyes is a prominent land mass sticking out from the west coast of California’s Marin County. It’s known for its numerous hiking trails and opportunities to bird, whale watch and view elephant seals. Our main objective was to have lunch in Inverness, a spit of a town near the park entrance where we’d have access to wi-fi as Mrs. Winks needed to handle a last minute emergency work meeting, and then head out to the remote lighthouse that’s perched 300 steps down a rocky cliff side overlooking the mighty Pacific.

 

Meet Beno (see picture below – and it’s pronounced Bean-oh). We’ve been friends since high school and you’ll be seeing more of him tomorrow when he joins us for the Bon Voyage Experience on The Grand. But for today, he served as our gracious and informative tour guide, picking us up from the Marriott and taking us up along a scenic coastal route, past surprisingly pastoral lands that reminded both Mrs. Winks and I of the rolling hills of Ireland, and out to the dramatically situated Point Reyes Lighthouse. It was a raw and overcast day. The lighthouse fog horn was blaring. We got to see ring tailed hawks, coyotes, elk and elephant seals. And all in all, it was a stunning experience, (not the California we were used to seeing) and a terrific day trip we can recommend if you’re ever in the area.

 

 

Climbing up the 300 steps from the lighthouse to the cliff top was way more taxing than descending them, that’s for sure, and we had to applaud the volunteer docents who make the climb several times a day.

 

After the lighthouse visit, we swung over to Chimney Rock where elephant seal births had been reported earlier in the day. True enough, once we got to the overlook, two park rangers let us use their telescope to get a close up view of the newborn seal pups down on the rocky beach below. Incredible site. Elephant seals are as loud as they are large, and it’s mesmerizing to see them socially interact (which, like with humans, is mostly a lot of grunting and moaning and jockeying for turf!)

 

Back on the drive home, we firmed up plans with Beno to meet at Pier 27 the next morning at 11am. He had successfully signed up for Princess’s Bon Voyage Experience about a week prior and would be joining us for lunch (and some lounge hopping) prior to sail away.

 

Beno made the smart choice of by-passing Friday evening rush hour traffic and dropped us off at the Bay Ferry where we took an uneventful half hour ride back to the city. Once outside of the Ferry Building, we simply picked up street car service along the Embarcadero (which we rode for free because the tram’s cash machine was on the fritz) - getting dropped off about a block from our hotel.

 

Even though the weather wasn’t cooperative, we very much enjoyed our two days in Fog City. We got to stop in at In-and-Out Burger to remind ourselves how bad it is for us and checked out the city as it prepares to host Super Bowl 50, as you can see the Ferry Building is decked-out for already.

 

 

Next Up: The cruise… finally! We’ll cover the bumpy embarkation process, the Bon Voyage Experience, Our first impressions of the ship, Our cabin (spoiler alert; aft facing suite) and what it’s like to spend three consecutive days at sea - with your spouse! Along the way we’ll post the Princess Patters and dining room menus. Plus plenty of pictures and rambling exploits of our assorted hijinks. So, if you’d like to come along, be sure to subscribe to this thread.

Love, love, love your Part 1 write-up and I think you've got many of us hooked to have to wait for Part 2! Thank you for taking the time to share your trip details and the pictures were a thoughtful addition, also. We're here in sunny (not lately) Chicago and your article was as well written (or more) than many we find in the Sunday Travel Section of the Chicago Tribune. Have you given thought to submitting your articles for newspaper or travel magazine publication? I think you should look into this! Cheers.

[damiross]

PLEASE! When you quote a post that has pictures in it please remove the picture. You can do this by deleting everything from the . Also, trying editing out the stuff you aren't directly remarking on. It will make it much easier for others to read your post.

 

Thanks

David "Fighting windmills"

[jchris1230]

PLEASE! When you quote a post that has pictures in it please remove the picture. You can do this by deleting everything from the . Also, trying editing out the stuff you aren't directly remarking on. It will make it much easier for others to read your post.

 

Thanks

David "Fighting windmills"

 

I agree. Especially when trying to read on a phone. Sometimes a quote will take up a whole page, it's annoying. Not every has to be quoted.

[WinksCruises]

 

Months prior to cruising, I did some research on this port, which is Princess’s newest addition to the classic Love Boat itinerary. The night before mooring, our cruise director Dave Cole referred to it as a “sleepy little fishing village”. Which was funny, because the articles I read during my pre-cruise investigation described Manzanillo more as a hotly contested port city that drug cartels and the Mexican government were battling to take control of. Since Manzanillo is the largest and most active port in Mexico, it’s a highly prized and strategic asset for drug kingpins and capitalists alike.

 

When we docked that morning, Mrs. Winks and I took some solace that, when we peered out cautiously from the cover provided by the steel flanks of the ship’s bow, we didn’t hear any gun fire or explosions. True, it was only 7am. But what hotly contested port city lets the time of day dictate its police ambushes and rival gang beheadings?

 

Funny enough, perhaps more uninviting than the threat of gang warfare and kidnapping, was the city’s lackluster skyline. For a sleepy little fishing town, it welcomed Grand passengers with a rather rusty and industrial looking downtown (between the hills we could see oil refinery smoke stacks spewing pollutants into the Caribbean’s cloudless blue sky). Also disconcerting was the fact it didn’t feature any familiar safe havens, like a Walmart, Sam’s Club that we could seek sanction in should we find the locals getting hostile. And the real kicker? This port didn’t have a Diamond’s International shop! Talk about scary!

 

Because of all this, Mrs. Winks turned to me and suggested, for the first time in our cruising history, that maybe we should stay on the ship. Scrambling, I replied “Oh come on; It’s can’t be THAT bad,” trying desperately to recall something positive I’d read during my pre-cruise reading on Manzanillo.

 

I did remember the unintentionally hilarious tourist site, GoToManzanillo.com, that tried its hardest to allay any tourist’s fears about the port. It was full of pithy assurances that visitors to the city weren’t likely to be kidnapped, explaining that “There are plenty of rich Mexicans that are far easier targets. The odds of a foreigner being kidnapped in Manzanillo are slim to none.” Comforting to know. The site went on to actually belittle any concerns about visitor safety. “Don't be afraid,” it commanded. “And don't pass us by because some overpaid elected official in your country makes a blanket statement about Mexico before he has all his facts straight.” Good point. I guess they’d been keeping up with the Trump campaign! [bTW, these are all actual quotes from the site; I’m not making this stuff up!]

 

 

“In Manzanillo you can go anywhere, and never have to worry,” assures the GoToManzanillo site. “Even the "red light district." This small, 2-block-long area, is also called the "zona tolerancia," or tolerance zone. There are a couple of bawdy houses, where women do the Mexican version of bump and grind to pulsating loud music. Naturally, since Manzanillo is a port town, the sailors and merchant marines frequent this area for their night on the town.”

 

That made sense, and when I explained it to Mrs. Winks she agreed that yes, there seemed to be some cultural merit here, and it didn’t sound so bad after all. So after our usual breakfast in Sabatini’s we went back to our cabin to pack a day bag, grab the camera and head down to the gang plank.

 

Once off the ship, we had our picture taken with a couple of members of the Princess photography team who were dressed up in their goofy costumes for shipside snapshots. We were glad to see they were having fun with the whole “Manzanillo is a dangerous drug capital” theme, too. And we liked the picture so much, we ended up buying it:

 

 

Here’s the upshot; if you’re going to disembark in Manzanillo, you’re probably better off reserving a ship sponsored shore excursion, the majority of which take you to destinations outside of Manzanillo… to historic (and presumably safer) villages like Colima, Nogueras and Colama. The one excursion within Manzanillo is really nothing more than a day-pass to a local gated-hotel resort located along a stretch of scenic beaches just outside of downtown. I say this because, once we got onto the main drag of Manzanillo, there was really nothing to do but stroll along the waterfront, where we got some nice shots of the ship, and visit the world’s largest sailfish sculpture.

 

 

The strip of stores in town is largely utilitarian and mostly targeted to the locals. A pharmacy, a fabric store, a smoke shop. I did find one souvenir shop where I was able to pick up a couple of postcards, though I was a little disappointed they were all touristy shots of resorts and not of the military soldiers or police squads that we saw everywhere as they patrolled the streets from the back of armed pick-up trucks.

 

Continuing along the waterfront, heading now away from the giant sailfish, we came across a pretty marina of sports boats, where the Grand served as a beautiful backdrop for some cell phone shots. Down on the rocky shoreline, we spied a colony of cats sunning themselves and up on the boardwalk there was a guy running around from one group of passengers to the next holding what appeared to be a large, freshly reeled-in grouper. He was soliciting a dollar for the opportunity to take a picture of him holding up his scaly, smelly catch.

 

Other than that, and watching the mile long freight train hold up traffic in town, there wasn’t much to do.

 

 

Manzanillo has the potential to be a nice port stop. But right now, it’s too underdeveloped. And while we’d normally welcome something other than the typical, commercialized, cookie-cutter, faux village, pier experience, there was little charm or quaintness in what currently stands in its place here.

 

So after about an hour of walking around, we headed back to the ship to salvage the rest of the day. Disappointed that we didn’t witness any gangland activity firsthand, I realized that maybe the GoToManzanillo site was on the mark after all as I recalled the sage advice they leave all visitors with: “Don't look for trouble, and you won't find any.”

 

 

Coming up Next: The Ultimate Love Boat Disco Deck Party.

Edited February 7, 2016 by WinksCruises

[GweninTX]

Great review! We are doing the Mexican Riviera this December - minus Manzanillo! Darn / you had me sold!

Edited February 7, 2016 by GweninTX

[judyjudy56]

We were in Manzanillo early in January and took a ship excursion that was a bus tour with a stop at a flea market and a restaurant. Our tour guide was constantly telling us how great it was there with little crime and lots of jobs. The flea market was a joke. A small makeshift building with a bunch of booths with sellers begging and bugging us to buy from them. The restaurant was actually nice. It was on the beach. We received a free drink. We ordered chips salsa and guacamole which were good. The restrooms were clean. I can't see this being a port that will ever be a good stop. We were happy to get back on the ship.