Heading Back to the Los Muertos Pier

Although we are experienced travellers, we still get pretty excited when preparing to fly. You see, Jay just got our boarding passes on the Air Canada website. We fly to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico at 9:20 am tomorrow morning which will mean getting out of bed at 5:15.  Oh my!  We have direct flights both going and returning. At around four hours and forty-five minutes, the time in the air is nearly identical to a trip to Montreal. 

Tomorrow our plane will assuredly head south rather than east. We have reserved seven nights at the Playa Los Arcos Hotel in the Romantic Zone. We much prefer the original area.  The stretch of beach by the new resorts is way too far away from the picturesque town. The area to the south of the Cuale River was also our old stomping ground during our first retirement winter abroad.

Interestingly I found an old photo from near the spot where we'll be for Jay's birthday. Yet, the top picture was taken fifteen years ago! This was taken when we first discovered Puerto Vallarta. Our Carnival Cruise ship was there for a mere two-day port stop out of Long Beach, California.   It is interesting to see an image showing the old pier jutting out into the water at Los Muertos Beach.

 

February 2008

 

January 2015

The newer design soon became an iconic landmark representing the tourist destination.  We saw it on two or three trips to the Mexican beach town.  The bottom photo was snapped during our retirement winter spent in PV.  We haven't seen it since though!  Fortunately, as soon as we stumble out of our hotel onto the beach late tomorrow afternoon, this view should be waiting for us.

Packing Two Cities into Five Months

Today, Playa del Carmen felt cold although it got up to 25°C. We'll have been here for three months come February 7th.

Just for variety, we're set for a change of city for our final two months of winter in Mexico.  It feels right to get to the west coast and a little closer to Vancouver until the beginning of April.  In fact, we'll be approximately 2400 km closer if one were driving. 

   

We were only in the other city for a single day.  We were on a 7-day cruise from San Diego. The photo was taken from the deck of the Carnival Pride as we were leaving the port on Valentine's Day of 2008.

Setting Sights on Something

I yawned this morning as teaching from 8:30 to 12:30 was a bit of a struggle. More than having to deal with tiredness, I had a hard time seeing what I was doing. I didn't realize how dependent I've become on my progressive lenses.


On the last evening of last week's Mexican cruise I broke my glasses. That was Saturday. I was in the spa area's steam room and tried to wipe off my glasses with a towel. I don't blame the towel as the last time I replaced my lenses but not the frames, so they were getting old. Three years is old for any pair of mine, I guess.

There was no way to make any fixes onboard other than trying some cellophane tape. I learned once upon a time that I should always pack an extra set of glasses on any trip. Once in Sri Lanka I was swimming in the ocean and lost a pair in an ordinary wave. I couldn't find them and ended up needing to find an optometrist and having a new set made. Not being able to see is troublesome, especially on a vacation where every thing is new. On last week's trip I didn't heed my own advice though.

I made it back to Vancouver taped up. I found several old glasses around the house but none were bifocals. I can see far away with no trouble with what I have on my face at the moment. Yet, going between normal vision and today's class texts just about drove me bananas.

The Cruise is History

It was a rather leisurely day back from Long Beach, CA. We walked off the cruise ship before 9:00 am and were home by 5:00 pm. So, we were on boat, bus, LRT, plane, bus, and SkyTrain. It was necessary to go uptown to buy vegetables just to get pickup truck on the list too.

You can expect me to upload photos and comments from the week during the upcoming one. One surprise is my usual afternoon classes were switched to the mornings. So, I will be up to see the sun rise tomorrow.

Day 6 - Retuning to Long Beach

Here's another day at sea and the last complete day aboard the Carnival Pride. Since leaving yesterday afternoon, we've been heading north to the west of the Baha California peninsula. Early tomorrow morning we'll enter US waters and continue back to Long Beach, California.

This day wraps up the trip. We can eat some of the remainder from last night's Midnight Buffet. The food has been fantastic, varied, and all too available.



It appears a fair number of people consider a cruise as an excuse for overindulgence. The amount of food that is available on this boat borders on being obscene. The amount I've put in my own mouth is enormous. I'm in good company, however. I have never seen such a large number of frighteningly obese people in one small area. Lord, many have asses that would take up three plane seats. Really! I am sure I'm going to weigh an extra four kilograms when I get home. I will still be able to fit into size 36" pants though. This trip has been a real encouragement to continue loosing weight in the long term.

Day 5 - Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

Oh how trendy! What a lot of money has made its way into Cabo San Lucas. The harbour and waterfront strip was nice. I sucked on a $4 Margareta while looking at the million dollar yachts. We also walked around the city. It is so much drier than the tropical south. The sun was brightly shining on the tip of the Baha Peninsula. It also continued to add to my sunburn. I wish I'd bought some lip balm on shore. This is going to hurt in the future!

Day 4 - Mazatlan, Mexico

Another day, another port!

On the stateroom TV, right after waking up, we noticed we were entering the Mazatlan harbour area. We did not sign up for the various tours offered through Carnival cruises.

This was our first time visiting Mexico and this trip was a sort of fact-finding mission. We wanted to get out and see three, oft-mentioned west coast ports. There are tons of winter specials for Canadians wanting to get away during the winter. People even flee from Vancouver not so much because of cold weather but due to seemingly endless rain. We thought a cruise fit the bill as far as being about to take in different places while enjoying the comfort of the ship.

 

Mazatlan is a bit more industrial and a city in its own right. Most tours whisked people off to adventure activities such as whale-watching, scuba diving, or trips in an ATV or Jeep. The remaining ones brought people over to the so-called Golden Zone. There, there was the choice of visiting luxury resorts or trying international shopping. To which I can comment both counts a resounding "Yuck".

We walked out and around to the church by the town square and the market. I think we probably enjoyed the day more than those who were rounded up like cattle on tour, for those people had a chance to only interact with other tourists.

We left the city right at sunset. It was a rather stunning one from aboard the Carnival Pride.

Day 3 - Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Okay, this is it. Puerto Vallarta is nearly perfect on account of being both tropical and close. Our ship got into port before seven o'clock and well before we had breakfast. We still got out and to downtown Vallarta by mid-morning. The new port is in a harbor area across the street from a Walmart Store. But if one gets past the traffic down to the Malecon and the old town, one can find the original allure of the resort.

As the Carnival Pride wasn't due to set sail until 10:00 pm, we rode back to the ship for lunch and showers and returned to walk around some more. I have some nice sunset photos to prove it. We used the regular bus service. It costs the equivalent of fifty cents to use public transit. I prefer to travel with the locals. I hate tourists who never really step out into the actual environment of the places they visit.

Day 2 - At Sea

We got up fairly early considering there was the formal dinner last night. We asked and were scheduled on the second seating which begins at 8:15. So by the time we finished it and the show in the Taj Mahal theatre it was nearly midnight.

Today, we finished finding everything on the ship. There's a gym with sauna and nice hot tub in the front of the ship. We lucked out with an eighth deck room. Walking up to the Lido deck is a snap. Similarly, going down to deck 2 or 3 is easy in the elevators. Most things can be found on these three levels.

Of course there was some nice weather outside. Things are warming up a bit as we travel at about 19 knots an hour southward. We saw the end of Baha California today but we stay pretty far away from the shoreline.

Day 1 - At Sea

This boat's not too big as it holds only about 2100 passengers and the 900 crew to take care of us. It does have quite an amazing atrium with as strange mixture of Italian and Greek artwork throughout.

Oh my! The Lido deck has not only these pools but more food than I've ever seen in one place.

A Blog Break

We are leaving for the airport in a taxi at 4:30 am. We'll be at LAX by 9:30 in the morning. Well make it to Long Beach well before the afternoon boarding of the Carnival Pride. Next week, it'll be three full days at Mexican ports!

My laptop is staying home. I will not use the on-board Internet at all. I'll see what it's like to be completely Net-free for a week. So, expect a deluge of notes and photos after February 17th. I'll keep a paper journal and enter my thoughts here after returning.

See you in a week!

The World Assumes Web Access

Things really pile up during the final week of a course. Generally, these things include a little bit of extra stress. This is the week that the students' oral presentations are given. There are also many things such as course evaluations which must be completed. Simply getting the photocopies of the final examination adds to the burden of tasks which must be wrapped up.



So, a few minutes on the Carnival Cruises website seemed to be just want the doctor ordered. I had to change the FunPass information to include the earlier flight on which we'll be returning. I wonder how many passengers are really Internet savvy to make use of web capabilities. It will be a rush but we can easily be at LAX for the 12:20 pm return flight as the ships gets back into the port at Long Beach at 9:00 am. While at the website I discovered that our stateroom had been assigned. We knew for the cheap price, we'd not have a balcony or even a window. Just about the only hours we plan to spend in the room is when we're sleeping, so it really doesn't matter. Still, it was nice to discover we'll be way up on the eighth deck.

Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, & Cabo San Lucas

We tried entering all the FunPass data necessary for next weekend's departure on a Carnival Cruise to Mexico. It's just an easy way for passengers on an upcoming trip to speedup check in by filling in the required information online. I hope they have good security considering they now have all sorts of data about us including our passport information!

It was when were entering all the data last night that we noticed a rather obvious error made by our travel agent. The cruise leaves from Long Beach on Sunday, February 10th and returns the following week. Yet, Aerin at the Lougheed Mall branch of the Flight Centre had mistakenly noted the end as February 18th and, consequently, booked us return tickets from LA on Monday. We'll be working on Monday. Our agent won't be in the office until tomorrow, so I hope she won't have any trouble changing our Alaska Air flights to the correct day. I emailed last night and will leave a voice mail message soon.


Speaking of Alaska and cruises, I didn't put this image from our very first cruise ship experience. We left downtown Vancouver for a week's itinerary to Alaskan ports in May of 2001.

Let the Sangria Flow

It wasn't part of any of the plans for 2008. When I noticed my current class ends in just four weeks, I thought we could spend my week off somewhere.

We just got back from booking a 7-day Mexican cruise for February 10th to 17th.

We'll leave and return to Long Beach, California. The Carnival Pride stops at the ports of Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas.