We had made good time on our two days at sea from Nicaragua and the landmass of Mexico was still wearing a morning haze as a we got closer and closer to the port.

We’d had breakfast and were on our balcony for the initial approach and first sight of Puerto Vallarta and we had a decent view of the pilot boat arriving to let the pilot board and take over the final docking manoeuvre.

The only issue with having a balcony is that you can only see off one side of the ship and I was quite keen to not miss anything so I convinced my wife that we could take our books (and my camera, naturally) down to Crooners and I could duck through to the promenade deck on either side of the ship depending on what things of interest there might be. The reason for bringing books was that due to our early arrival we would still have quite a wait until our planned excursion for the day was due to depart. As it turned out, almost all of the interest viewpoints were still off the starboard side of the ship so we could have simply stayed in our room. But you can’t tell this sort of thing ahead of time.

Spotting wildlife had been a common event on this Pacific Ocean cruise but that didn’t mean it was getting boring. In addition to seeing the occasional frigate bird in the air and a couple of pelicans skimming along over the water’s surface there was a whole host of birds making use of a concrete mooring point and the walkway extending from the land to it.

But, as you’ll no doubt have already guessed from the title of this post, the most interesting thing on view in Puerto Vallarta was the presence of two other ships. This is only interesting if you like ships and as someone who cruises a lot it’s interesting to me. You might not care less. One wonders what you’re doing reading this far if that’s the case. It’s also not that interesting to my wife who steadfastly refused to leave her chair and her Kindle despite me mentioning that it wasn’t just the Carnival Splendor on view.

Royal Princess is here as well.

Uh huh.

She’s got the Sea Witch design on her. Didn’t have that when we cruised.

Mmhmm.

Did you want to pop out and take some photos as well? I can save your seat.

I’m fine.

Carnival Splendor is a ship we’ve not cruised on nor is it terribly likely that we ever would. As a brand, Carnival don’t appeal to us. Carnival is all about the fun and the problem we find with fun is that we don’t enjoy it. There’s another factor to Carnival, too: that funnel. Which also starts with fun and yet isn’t in the slightest. It’s supposedly fashioned on a whale’s tail but looks to me more like the kind of spoiler you see on flashy cars driven by youths with no sense of style; I associate these cars with ridiculously loud exhausts and these people with excruciating taste in music and a genetic abnormality that means they can only listen to it through thunderous vibrations causing cavitations in their body’s fluids. This combination of gruesomely ugly design with loutish connotations and an abundance of fun pushes Carnival way down our cruising pecking order.

As I’ve already indicated, the third ship in the port alongside Splendor and us was Royal Princess and, as you might have been able to determine from the quoted conversation if you didn’t know already, we’d cruised on Royal Princess before, in the eastern Mediterranean in 2016. While I was standing on the promenade deck taking in the sight of Puerto Vallarta and the ships docked there as we swung back and into position ourselves I overheard a conversation between two American women.

Another Princess ship! Is that Regal Princess?

No, Royal. We were on Royal Princess for the two weeks before we joined Star Princess in Chile.

Oh, wow! That’s amazing! How do the ships compare?

Oh, Star Princess is much better. Better food, better staff, better entertainment, easier to find your way around.

Oh no, that’s not good. I mean it is for us but what a shame! It looks such a big ship.

It’s too big. I think that’s the problem.

Personally, I don’t think Royal Princess is too big but we otherwise shared a lot of the same sentiments following our single experience on her. This pair of matching data points as to the quality of a Royal Princess cruise, though, is nothing worth worrying about if this is a ship you’re thinking of cruising on. The problem with any cruise experience is that it’s very specific to one person’s viewpoint at one moment in time. When I write up my travel diaries and cruise reviews I sometimes feel a little guilty for mentioning problems; I worry that they might come across as sour grapes. These are the sorts of things that when they’re shared on Facebook groups lead to helpful responses such as “Well, that’s never happened to us” and “We were on that same cruise and didn’t have any of those issues” and “Can I wear shorts to dinner?” which is why I’ve got my own site to put up that additional barrier of forcing people to enter a name and email address that tends to weed out casual, unhelpful commentary. Yeah, I’m blaming the inherent laziness of internet users on a lack of comments and not my unengaging writing or unwillingness to spam my content everywhere. That’s so me.

Anyway, Royal Princess may not have left a very good impression on us or our fellow passenger on Star Princess but one very good thing I can say about her, though, is that she’s a lot better looking than Carnival Splendor.

In the next post in this cruise diary travel portfolio I’ll cover our day’s excursion in Puerto Vallarta.

Malecón Boardwalk

The first stop was several kilometres to the south of the port, a promenade area along the coast known as the Malecón. We found our bus, got aboard, and set off as our guide started to talk a little about the city, the country, and what we could expect from the excursion as a whole: Mexico with and without make-up on. A running theme of the guide’s commentary during the day would be political digs at Americans (who made up the bulk of the tour group) and the perception of Mexicans in their media. We found it mildly amusing but I’m not sure how some of the American passengers felt about constant reminders that Mexicans aren’t all unemployed, aren’t all trying to get to America, aren’t all on drugs, don’t all walk around with guns, etc. You can hear a little of the commentary in this short clip (temporarily removed) from our bus journey to the boardwalk area.

The Malecón is a long stretch of paved walkways along the beach decorated with palm trees, sculptures, and traditional stone patterns, and off which a lot of bars, restaurants, and gathering places for public events can be found.

Our tour of Puerto Vallarta started near the lighthouse – the distinctive black-and-white-striped Faro Del Malecón – which was built in the early 1930s and operated until the late 1970s. With the amount of travelling we do by sea and the amount of ports we end up visiting we see a lot of lighthouses on our travels; this has to be one of the smallest.

It was hot, as you might expect, but there was a nice breeze coming in off the Pacific Ocean and we could see not only people taking advantage of it and enjoying some of the watersport activities that this part of Puerto Vallarta is famous for – parasailing and jetskiing and windsurfing, for instance – but also some of the local wildlife in the form of several pelicans that came swooping in close as we gathered to listen to some of the history of the area.

The indigenous people of this part of Mexico are known as the Huichol and during a remodelling of the Malecón in 2011 the promenade had decorative stone patterns placed in it to reflect their culture. You can see some of the shapes in the photos below. The different shapes typically represent living forms but I’m not very good at interpreting the shapes and suspect that the Penguin With Chest Spikes and the Cthulhu Wearing Bunny Ears probably aren’t traditional creatures in the Huichol mythos.

The most prominent aspect of the Malecón are the pieces of public artwork. You can often find temporary pieces such as sand sculptures and some fairly amateur-looking arrangements but along the length of the boardwalk are some excellent commissioned works of art too. The small area in which we wandered included Triton And Mermaid by Carlos Espino and one of the city of Puerto Vallarta’s symbols, the Boy On The Seahorse by Rafael Zamarripa Castañeda, which is located by one of those city name signs that are always popular with tourists. This is the second naked boy riding a seahorse sculpture in Puerto Vallarta, not because you can never have too many naked boys riding seahorse sculptures (although that’s very likely true), but because the original was located on a rocky outcrop that was washed away in a storm. It was subsequently found after the replacement shown below was sculpted so the city now has two.

The Zócalo, Plaza De Armas

Crossing over the main road and heading inland one block from the Puerto Vallarta city sign brought us to the city’s main square, the Plaza de Armas. This square is bedecked with plants and flowers and contains a bandstand for public performances as well as a statue of Ignacio Vallarta, a former governor and the man after whom the city was named.

Adjacent to the plaza was City Hall laid out in a traditional courtyard style. Our group took advantage of some much-needed shade from the sun inside long enough to allow those who needed to use the toilets to do so. We didn’t need to go. On the landing of the main stairwell off the courtyard is a well-known, naive-style mural representing the foundation and growth of Puerto Vallarta by local artist Manuel Lepe.

Parish Church Of Our Lady Of Guadalupe

A mish-mash of architectural styles explains the rather unique look of the city’s main landmark symbol, the Parish Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The impressive feature on the exterior of the building is the crown sculpture atop the tower, the official name of which is Tecuntlanopeuh. This concrete crown was placed on the church in 2009, sculpted by Carlos Terres and replacing temporary structures that themselves had replaced the original crown which had been designed by José Esteban Ramírez Guareño and been in place from 1965 until 1995 when an earthquake hit the region. You can read more about the symbolism of the crown here: The Crown of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish.

We had a few minutes to look inside the church and were then led through the streets, roughly in a southeast direction towards the Cuale River with one brief stop in La Fuente Del Puente restaurant where we saw the first reference to a couple of Puerto Vallarta’s most famous residents of the past, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Isla Cuale

One of several rivers that run through Puerto Vallarta, the Río Cuale has an islet near its mouth, an area with a notable population of stray cats and the former location of lower class housing that was evacuated when flooding during a hurricane in 1971 made inhabitation too dangerous. The Isla Cuale was later transformed into a cultural site. We crossed the river onto the islet (spotting a couple of American white ibis in the shallow water) and were given a short amount of free time to explore which essentially provided for two options: westwards, towards the coast, there was a large market place; eastwards, farther inland, there was a park with local art on display. We did want to do some souvenir shopping but that’s always a lower priority than checking out artwork so eastwards we went.

In addition to a few sculptures there was plenty of street art on display on the walls of buildings on Isla Cuale. The quality and style varied but it was a pleasant walk in the shade of the trees which also helped to deaden the sound of traffic from the city. The tranquility obviously appealed to some locals who we spotted in several places sleeping.

At the eastern end of Isla Cuale was the cultural centre, an open space with buildings on three sides. This is apparently a venue for artistic and cultural events. A statue was pretty prominent, that being of the film director John Huston. Created by Carlos Ramírez, it had been erected on the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie Night of the Iguana which had been shot in Puerto Vallarta and helped to put the place on the map internationally.

The inscription on the base of the statue reads:

“We have no reason to feel any sorrow for him, only for ourselves for having lost him. He is irreplaceable. There will never be another like him.” – Huston’s eulogy for Humphrey Bogart.

It’s quite an odd inscription given Bogart wasn’t in the movie.

We had enough time before our bus arrived to pop into a shop selling typical things any tourist visiting Mexico might want to buy. We were any tourists so we came away with a small calavera because it’s a pretty standard thing to pick up as a souvenir and occasionally we like to be pretty standard just to break the monotony of being exceptional.

Silver Shopping In Puerto Vallarta

A short bus ride took us to the dedicated shopping part of this excursion, a store called Jewelry Aviles. It’s not a place with great reviews on TripAdvisor but we had no problems there. We all had a welcome drink on arrival which might have been lemonade and might have been alcoholic. It was nice, whatever it was; that was the important thing. The store itself offered artisan jewellery pieces in one area and more conventional souvenir shopping next door and there was a toilet for customer use that saw a lot of action from our tour group. We didn’t need to go.

Prior to the cruise my wife had expressed an interest in buying some silver in Mexico because that’s something she claimed it’s famous for. I didn’t bother to check if that was true because if my wife wants some silver then silver she shall have no matter what fantastical tale of renowned elements around the world she concocts to explain away her desires. She picked up a silver skull to add to her charm bracelet.

El Set Restaurant

This Puerto Vallarta tour was short enough that food was not included but our next stop did take us to a restaurant. The bus headed south for another couple of kilometres until we reached El Set. On the cliffside overlooking the Pacific Ocean this was a very attractive venue offering some gorgeous views if you were to eat here and coming with some local history too, naturally, as it had been a favourite place for Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor to dine at during the filming of Night of the Iguana. Facing west it’s easy to imagine how spectacular the sunsets must be. Reminders of the movie and the famous diners of the past was present and there was even one of the actual film cameras from the movie shoot on the upper terrace.

One of my most favourite travel experiences ever (so far) occurred during our visit to El Set in Puerto Vallarta. Our group had some time to nose around the restaurant so some people were on the main floor, some were probably seeing if they could get another coffee fix in the restaurant, some were doubtlessly making use of the toilets again (we didn’t need to go), and some were admiring the views out to sea. There were about a dozen or so of us doing the latter activity and while all eyes were distracted elsewhere I glanced to the right where a building a little farther along the coast had a gazebo with a low glass wall. Two men – probably in their late 50s or early 60s – were laughing and making some mildly obscene gestures at our group, none of whom bar me were looking in the right direction. I was prepared to ignore them until one suddenly dropped his shorts and mooned us. The good thing about my camera is I can have the camera resting in my hand to up and shooting in a fraction of a second and I did. The mooning guy’s companion spotted me and laughed and started speaking to his friend who quickly whipped his shorts back up and shuffled away, obviously not expecting to be caught. I smiled and gave the thumbs up to the man who’d spotted me and got a thumbs up back from him. I looked back at our tour group and nobody else had seen a thing. A fabulous moment to experience.

Quinta Las Rosas Garden And Río Bendito Tequila Distillery

We would now be experiencing what our guide described as “Mexico without the make-up” as the final part of our tour took us northwards and away from the shoreline to Quinta Las Rosas, an events location set in some attractive gardens beside a river. While the venue itself would be pretty we would be travelling through a considerably poorer part of Puerto Vallarta to get there.

We very quickly saw a change in the buildings and apparent standards of living but our guide was at pains to point out that things weren’t quite how they looked. Building regulations were pretty much non-existent and the only requirement was to have a water tank connected to the city’s supply so that the risk of everyone trying to use the water supply at the same time could be removed. Mortgages were also apparently not something that really existed so people tended to build when they had saved the money and bought the materials, and stopped when they didn’t. Houses could look a little unfinished as a result but, we were told, inside them it was perfectly typical to find the latest TVs, the best computers, high speed internet, etc. because Mexicans liked their luxuries while the outside appearance didn’t really matter. It was at this point that my wife and I wondered whether we might have Mexican blood in us.

You can see some of the buildings and hear some of the commentary from our tour guide in this short clip (temporarily removed) of our bus ride towards Playa Grande where Quinta Las Rosas was located.

Quinta Las Rosas was a lovely little spot, a great location for weddings or conferences, although you might want to have a word with the venue’s owners if you’re thinking of doing either of those things but don’t like the idea of chickens running around. Quite a few kids riding horses bareback trotted through occasionally too.

The thing we’d really come for, though, was the tequila-tasting operated by Río Bendito which took place after we’d had a tour of the area and an explanation of the distilling process. As much as I like to drink alcohol it never ceases to amaze me how people first came up with the idea of making it.

Several buses had arrived at Quinta Las Rosas at roughly the same time for the tequila explanations and tastings and there were benches lined up in several spots around the garden. We were pleased that we had the only spot under cover as I’m not sure whether what came next would have been quite as enjoyable had the sun been beating down on us during it. Small plastic cups were handed out to everyone and we were then given very small measures of eight different tequilas, four of them flavoured liqueurs; descriptions of the drink, a toast, and drinking then occurred for each of them in turn. I don’t mind tequila in a drink but it’s usually with a mixer rather than neat while my wife is proud to say she hates the stuff. You might be wondering why we wanted to do the tasting at all but when in Mexico as they say, and part of the appeal of travelling for us is experiencing what other cultures get up to even if that means putting up with a little discomfort every now and then.

Not only were all the tequilas surprisingly lovely – even their most basic one with the shortest ageing was smooth with none of that harsh taste we normally associate with tequila – but we decided to pick up a bottle of their longest aged product as it’s the only one they apparently don’t export. Had to be done.

We had time at the end of the tasting to have a wander around the garden a little more and for anyone who wanted to use the toilet to do so. We finally needed to go. A young boy was doing a roaring trade getting dollar tips for effectively handing people paper towels from the pile supplied to dry their hands after using the facilities. Fair play.

That brought our half-day Highlights of Puerto Vallarta tour to an end and all that remained was to jump back on the bus and make our way back to the port where Star Princess was waiting for us. You can see a little bit more of the buildings and the way the landscape changes on the journey back as well as hear a few more bits of information (as well as one final dig about stereotypical misrepresentation from the American media and the country’s current president) from our guide in this final (temporarily removed) short video clip.

This was a very good tour, very well-priced, with plenty packed into its relatively short duration. Puerto Vallarta was a lovely city and the areas along the Malecón and around Isla Cuale in particular look like they have plenty to keep a visitor occupied. Even the less touristy areas through which we drove felt safe and looked to be full of character and it’s a place we’d have no hesitation in recommending or revisiting ourselves, or possibly even moving to if it turns out we really do have Mexican heritage.

Freshening up for us involves hitting a bar nine times out of ten and this wasn’t one of those one-in-ten outliers so it felt the right time of day for a glass of wine in Vines. Zander was there as usual to tempt us with some tapas and, because we’d not had anything to eat ashore, we gave in.

Back in our room and what other people might refer to as freshening up – showering and changing clothes – then occurred with us taking turns to gaze out at Puerto Vallarta during sunset from our balcony. Royal Princess, which had been there during our cruise into Puerto Vallarta in the morning, had obviously left at some point during our city tour but Carnival Splendor was still docked and we noticed a pirate ship across from us too.

I recall that there had been a tour offered by Princess that included time aboard a pirate ship and I can only assume it was this very same one; as much as I like pirates – my niece thinks I am one (I might have had something to do with that perception) – we hadn’t been interested in this trip because the pirate ship visit had also included words such as “party” and “music” which typically trigger a reflexive action in us akin to Dracula spotting a crucifix. It was a pretty still evening with the heat of the day becoming that warmth of the evening that’s such a wonderful thing to experience on cruises nearer the equator, and the views of the port area as the sun’s setting lit the horizon on fire was the perfect counterpoint to the thump-thump-badump-thump of bass notes travelling across the water accompanied by peals of laughter and shrieking.

“Fuck me, they’re annoying!” announced my wife, emerging onto the balcony, clean and ready for the evening.

“Indeed they are,” I agreed, as I stepped back into the room for my turn to wash and change.

By the time I was ready there was barely a hint of sunlight in the western sky – it takes a while to get me looking this average – and the pirate ship had vanished. Sailed away to party where it could only irritate whales or deservedly sunk by a broadside from the cruise ship’s cannons while I’d been scrubbing my nethers? Who can say? The darkness in the sky not only brought some tranquility to Puerto Vallarta but also served to hide that funnel on the Carnival Splendor, making it very nearly almost look appealing all lit up at dockside.

Star Princess had started to move as I’d made my way onto the balcony so we stayed long enough to clear the port entrance before commencing with the evening’s activities.

The evening’s activities started with dinner which included one of those sorbet refreshers between the appetiser and main course and a Chocolate Journey for dessert. It’s almost a nautical law on Princess ships that we take both of them.

Now, you’ll quite likely have picked up on the fact that we’re not what you might call party people already unless you’ve scrolled down the page without reading until the food stopped you dead or your comprehension skills are about on a par with a Brexit supporter’s. Just to reiterate: we’re not party people. But we still headed up to the top deck for a while even though there was a party taking place under the Movies Under The Stars screen because:

• unlike the pirate ship party, this one was free to attend
• unlike the pirate ship party, this one was safe from cruise ship cannon attacks
• the odds of catching an old couple dance headfirst into the pool were reasonable

Sadly, nobody fell into the pool while we were there but it still seemed like everyone had a reasonably enjoyable time regardless. Like the previous time we’d been at a deck party on Star Princess there did seem to be far too much organised dancing straying into zumba-exercising territory taking place so we eventually headed off to grab some drinks in some inner venues on the ship before calling it a night.

Still to come in this cruise diary travel portfolio of our South and Central American cruise aboard Star Princess are two final sea days which include cruising past Cabo San Lucas and a second meal at Sabatini’s because the first one was just so good, before disembarkation at Los Angeles and a tour of Santa Monica and Venice Canals prior to catching our flight home.

The morning delivered to us clear blue skies, piercing blue sea, and just a hint of early sea mist dissipating on the land we could see from our balcony. This was the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, the lower part of the peninsula on Mexico’s Pacific coastline.

Dragging ourselves away from the balcony we had a quick peruse of the Princess Patter, as you do.

They’ve got a Traditional Chinese Medicine lecture called Herbs That Heal!

No.

And it’s in the Hearts and Minds Chapel. We’ve never been there.

No.

It could be interesting.

I didn’t come on this cruise to listen to you tutting loudly through a sales pitch to the gullible.

I suppose you just want to read and swim and quiz and eat like usual. No, you’re right, that does sound more appealing.

And so this sea day shaped up to be like most of the others and that’s not a bad thing at all. There’s something to be said for trying something new but there’s an argument for a relaxing routine too. We like to mix it up a bit when we take cruises but, to be fair, I’d already annoyed some passengers earlier in this cruise so there wasn’t a pressing need to leave my mark again on this trip. We had breakfast, we did atrociously in the morning trivia, then we hung around in the piazza for a while to watch the Egg Drop Challenge Finale. Enjoyable, but it lacked the engineering efforts and artistic expressions in the egg drop challenge on our Diamond Princess cruise prior to this one.

Cabo San Lucas

Something not listed in the Princess Patter but announced by the captain over the ship’s speakers then sent me scurrying back to the room for my camera before heading out to the promenade deck: we would be cruising past Cabo San Lucas close enough to see its famous arch formation. Famous is a relative term here because while the name Cabo San Lucas triggered a vague sense of having heard it before deep in the recesses of my brain I had nothing more than that to draw on and its arch, whatever that was, meant nothing to me. Almost nothing. It was a thing to see and I like seeing things. We didn’t know on which side of the ship the thing we’d be seeing would be hence us hitting the promenade deck to keep options open.

There were plenty of other people doing the same thing and the gentle breeze and shade cast from the promenade deck (the reason we’d decided not to head up top) made for a very pleasant time slowly slicing through the water and past the landscape off our starboard side.

We weren’t entirely sure what we were looking out for but assumed we’d know it when we saw it. Meanwhile, it wasn’t just the landmass that had our attention. The water was still filled with turtles which we were almost becoming blasé about by this time (almost; maybe a little less than almost; okay, they were still fricking amazing) but we also watched a hummingbird flitting about the ship for a while. That generated gasps and oohs from everyone around and generated an “I’m not even going to try to take a photo of that fast-moving bastard” from me much to my wife’s disappointment; there’s nothing she likes more than seeing me fail to get nature to sit still for a shot. We also heard people mentioning seeing rays in the water but didn’t spot any until one leapt out and splashed back. He or she – I’m not a ray-sexer – got a very deserved round of applause but the surprise action wasn’t repeated. Always leave them wanting more. What a professional!

And it wasn’t just nature drawing the eye. Naturally, as most cruisers do, we love spotting other cruise ships when we’re cruising the world so it was nice to see one anchored at Cabo San Lucas as we passed. We could tell it was an NCL ship because of the hull decoration visible from the distance but it took zooming in on the high-res photo and confirming with ship timetables after the event for it to become clear this was the Norwegian Star. We’ve not cruised with this line and I can’t honestly say they’ve ever figured in the running for selecting trips but we’ve heard good things about them and I wouldn’t be averse to giving them a go in the future.

Cabo San Lucas is Baja California Sur’s third largest city and a popular holiday resort, particularly with Americans. The Baja California Sur peninsula fractured away from mainland Mexico around two million years ago and archaeological digs at the tip where Cabo San Lucas sits have shown humans have lived there in some form or another for around the last ten thousand of those. Cabo San Lucas itself was founded in the late eighteenth century but remained very lightly inhabited until Mexico’s government decided to put in place the infrastructure to promote the area for tourism. This led to an explosion of hotels and timeshare apartments from the 1970s onwards, a lot of which could be seen on the cliff faces and beach fronts we passed.

It took for me to decide to get a photo with some of the other passengers in the shot before I suddenly realised that the thing we’d come to see, the Arch of Cabo San Lucas, was already behind us. In my defence it probably wasn’t easily visible until this point as it’s difficult to spot an arch from a side-on angle.

So, we can now say that we’ve seen what the locals refer to as El Arco and it’s always nice to see natural formations like this. It’s not quite as impressive as Durdle Door in my opinion but a good thing to experience nonetheless, and it’s apparently a popular spot with sea lions who have reputedly good taste where these things are concerned.

We stayed out a while longer until we’d passed the headland and most of the developments along it in search of that oh-so-desirable tourist dollar.

Afternoon Activities

We had a swim, grabbed something to eat from the pool grill, listened to a bit of music from the band for a while while we did so, then went for a read in the company of some drinks. My wife stuck to her cider and I continued with Operation Try All The Beers to see if there were any stars amongst them. Answer: not really. Princess are no P&O where beers are concerned.

We have a theory that we need just a little amount of alcohol to get our brains working. This is why we’re hopeless in morning trivia competitions usually. This is why we do considerably better in the afternoon trivia competitions. For the second time on this cruise we won the trivia and managed to bag a reusable bottle as one of the prizes and a pointless wine stopper as the other. Seriously, who leaves a bottle open with wine in it? Wine heathens, that’s who! The Elite Lounge opened just as the trivia concluded so we took our prizes up with us and celebrated with a couple of drinks.

We dropped our bottle and stopper back off in our room (and grabbed a few more shots of the ocean view from our balcony because my name is Mark and I have a problem and just can’t help myself) then decided to eat up a little more time before the evening with something we’d tried to do a few days earlier.

That thing we’d tried to do was try the wine flight. We’d seen the group of gay guys with whom we’d had an aborted stargazing but boozy and fun evening previously try these flights one day while we’d been in Vines so we’d asked Zander if we could do the same. The wine flight includes three wines and three chocolates for pairing but at the time we’d asked we’d been told that they had none of the white chocolates in although they hoped to restock in Puerto Vallarta. Well… that didn’t happen so we accepted an improvised offer when we asked again on this day and that’s why you can see two chunks of white Toblerone.

And how was the Princess wine flight? Okay. The chocolates were a nice touch and two thirds of them were great quality and very tasty although it’s arguable that they really made a difference to the experience. The problem was that the flight included a rosé wine. Our wine-drinking preference is for red wine and the more full-bodied the better. After that, our preference is for something that’s not wine because white wine is like drinking watery piss and rosé wine feels like an evil scientific experiment in the mouth.

I have taken the flavours, the aromas, the blitz on the sensations of a red wine…

Oh, I like that master!

…and I have taken the insipid, pale, almost offensively pointless presence of a white wine…

Master! You’re scaring me!

…and behold my creation! It lives!

Master! What is it!?

I shall call it rosé. People will think it is a bridge to better drinking experiences for white wine drinkers! People will be so wrong! It is worse! Far, far worse!

Sabatini’s Speciality Dining

This penultimate sea day was a formal night. We don’t object to formal nights but I don’t find wearing a suit of any kind terribly comfortable. I take a tuxedo and I do wear it at least once on a cruise but we’ve found ways to not have to dress up too much and not worry about feeling out of place as we’ve become more experienced cruisers. One of those ways is to book speciality dining for the formal night. Speciality dining venues tend to be a little more relaxed about what you’re wearing on formal nights because you’re paying a little extra for the privilege. We’d had an absolutely stunning meal already in Sabatini’s thanks to a free offer when we’d booked the cruise; stunning enough, in fact, that we’d booked another sitting which we worked out should be on this final formal evening.

But first, a formal night tradition needed to be followed. A Vodka Martini with three olives for me, something fancy for the lady. I never used to like Vodka Martinis. I didn’t like the taste of them. I really didn’t like the olives. I still don’t like the olives. I have, however, acquired a taste for a Vodka Martini and worked out the purpose of the olives: firstly, they’re to look sophisticated to people impressed by revolting fruit; secondly, they’re to impart a little saltiness into the drink and tweak its flavour as you sip further down the glass; thirdly, they’re to be thrown at people irritating you once you’ve consumed about half the drink and don’t fancy the idea of finishing off with brine.

To Sabatini’s. We made a few changes from the first meal we’d had here so that we could try a few new things but there were some courses that were simply too good to not have again. The wine, as well, was one we had for the third time, having had it recommended on our first visit then selecting it when we’d dined at the Crown Grill just ahead of crossing the equator too.

Our pinot noir was delivered to the table along with another incredible basket of bread and the Stuzzichino Della Casa: “warm rustic whole-wheat loaf, tuscan zonzelle with roasted tomato & bell pepper passata, prosciutto crudo, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar.”

For my wife, the first course was Arrosticini di Agnello: “grilled lamb skewers marinated with oregano and extra virgin olive oil, arugula salad.” I went for Alici: “fried zucchini & yellow squash, smoked scamorza, toasted house made crostini.”

In the eternal battle between soup and salad we side with the forces of soup. Grana Padano Fondue: “celery, foraged mushrooms, toasted hazelnuts.”

The pasta course for my wife was Buckwheat Pappardelle: “wide ribbon pasta, celeriac, nebbiolo-braised beef cheek.” I repeated my previous choice of Tortelloni: “mint-speckled pasta, roasted lamb, pecorino crosta nera, cacio e pepe sauce, broccoli rabe.”

My wife’s seafood course was Roman Seafood al Cartoccio: “grouper, shrimp, black mussels, scallops, potato, artichoke.” I went for the Iseo-Style Lake Trout Rolls: “lemon, capers, extra virgin olive oil, rosemary polenta.”

We’d been disappointed by the deconstructed tiramisu for dessert on our first meal at Sabatini’s so chose differently this time around with my wife picking the dessert samples and me picking just one huge, chocolatey one.

Finally, the only problem with a meal as large as this is that the wine doesn’t last long enough so you’re compelled to dip into the exclusive cocktails list for the dining venue. Compelled.

So full were we from another stunningly good meal from the new Sabatini’s menu that we forewent our traditional evening end in Skywalkers and opted to slip into food comas in our room instead.

Tomorrow would be the last day aboard Star Princess.

Our excursion at Cabo San Lucas took us about seventy kilometres north to the town of Todos Santos and because you’re the sort of person who can read titles on websites and comprehend the meaning conveyed this won’t be news to you. You possibly even searched for details of the cruise excursion that includes a visit to this town in Mexico and its famous tourist attraction, Hotel California. In this first post about our single day on this cruise anchored off Mexico I’ll go through some of the elements of the town we saw on a guided walking tour.

Our tour began at the Professor Néstor Agúndez Martínez Cultural House.

The professor was a poet, choreographer, composer, and theatre director, and this building was inaugurated in the late 1970s to preserve and promote local art, history, and traditions of Todos Santos. Our guide took us through the large, spacious gallery rooms, pointing out some of the more noteworthy pieces of art, and I particularly liked the old photographs and portraits of local men and women. The building was well-designed with its high spaces and thick walls to feel cool too, despite the high heat outside.

Anyone who’s read other travelogues on this website may know that I’ve a thing for architecture so the next part of the tour that walked us past some typical houses for the area was a delight. None of these buildings were significant in any way but there were touches of Art Deco lines and colours in places and a lovely familiarity that comes from seeing buildings like this on television and in movies. It didn’t hurt that the sky was a cloudless, deep, vibrant blue that just made every other colour just pop.

Our guide was keen to point out the local flora for those unfamiliar with cacti in particular. It actually was interesting for us to see plants like on pavements beside parked cars rather than somewhere out in a more desert-type landscape.

Our short walk from the cultural centre brought our group to the Plaza del Pueblo, beside another small square, the Plaza del Beso. Both were charming little public spaces with some nice public artwork and I was particularly impressed by the colourful sculptures made from junk. These were pieces by a local sculptor called Juan Sotomayor and we would end up seeing an awful lot more of his art pieces a little later in the day here in Todos Santos.

The purpose of the visit to these town squares was to visit the Misión Santa Rosa de las Palmas (it’s known by a few names). The mission church was the first European settlement in Todos Santos, founded in 1733 by Jesuits. Native people were the mission’s congregation and attempts to convert them to Christianity and turn them into farm workers was constantly upset by European diseases decimating the local population and some of the local tribes deciding that coerced conversion and disease-driven eradication and the kidnapping of natives’ children as hostages required a violent response. Seems fair to me too.

Unlike the cultural centre which had been delightfully cool, the church was stifling so I spent most of it outside, waiting for the guide to finish talking about the building’s history and admiring the vivid colours around the area instead.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll move onto the next part of our day’s excursion in Todos Santos which sees us paying a visit to the Hotel California for some lunch and a lot more artwork.

Do you like very vibrant, abstract art? Well, if you do then you’ll like Todos Santos.

A short walk from the mission church brought us to the final stop of this cruise excursion where we’d be having lunch and this took us past some street art on the way. Not the best quality street art, admittedly, but a distinctive style that didn’t believe in subtlety of colour; a prevalent theme in the artwork in the town.

We would be having lunch in Hotel California and much was made of its connection to the song of the same name, even though there was no connection. The hotel’s original name was Hotel California which it changed, then changed back after the song’s popularity. The song was not about this hotel. Any of the half-dozen times you hear Hotel California by The Eagles playing while you’re there is purely coincidental.

It’s likely that nothing requiring courts getting involved about this situation would have happened had the hotel then not tried to trademark the name’s use in America which led to The Eagles suing to prevent this under the persuasive argument that it was heavily associated with their band by common usage. The settlement details of the case have never been made public but the hotel stopped trying to get a trademark in America although retains use of the name today in Mexico.

Because I’d been behind the main part of our tour group to take photos of the street art after everyone had passed it by and allowed clear shots, we were the last ones entering the bar and dining area where place settings had been arranged for us all to have lunch. This just left us seats at the bar rather than at tables, which we were fine with, then exceedingly happy with since the barman, having just made a margarita for a paying customer, had some left over that he put into a small shot glass and handed to my wife for free. Would it surprise you to learn that this was the absolute best margarita we’ve ever had? It was outstanding. There is something about drinking tequila in Mexico that elevates it out of sight of any competition elsewhere in the world. If we’d had more time to spend here before we needed to leave then we’d have ordered more for ourselves.

We didn’t have a huge amount of time once we’d finished our food so we made the most of it by popping into the courtyard area attached to the hotel and to the gallery of artwork there too.

The courtyard was a source of more Juan Sotomayor sculptures (we’d seen some in the plaza beforehand) and the metal elements formed into humanoid and animalistic forms with their bold, metallic paint finishes was something we really liked. Nature meets steampunk.

The art gallery was lovely and cool with some refreshing, calming colours dominating largely abstract paintings and sculptural pieces.

We bought a bottle of Hotel California-branded tequila largely because the bottle shape and stopper were fabulous. The tequila itself was okay, but absolutely not a patch on the stuff we tasted and bought years before in Puerto Vallarta that we still have some left of because we sip it only infrequently to keep the memories lasting longer.

In the next post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series we’ll return to Cabo San Lucas for a fun encounter with one of the locals, and a lovely sail away from Mexico with another very interesting encounter aboard.

For this first visit to this Mexican port we’d woken to glorious sunshine, vibrant colours, sights of the famous rock formations in the area, and a couple of other ships visiting. Cabo is a tender port – the cruise ships anchor off shore – so the calm, deep blue water was humming with shuttle boat activity.

The excursion we had booked for our day in Cabo San Lucas was one that took us to Todos Santos for a guided tour of some cultural and historical highlights, then to the Hotel California for some lunch and a chance to admire some fabulous local artwork, and if you’ve not already read those travelogue accounts and it sounds of interest then you can do so by clicking on the links above. That’s right: I’m explaining how websites and links work to you, a person using the internet.

I don’t often take photos from buses when we’re on excursions because bumpy roads and tinted glass and reflections annoy me immensely – it doesn’t take a lot to annoy me immensely – but the landscape of Mexico was worthy of a few shots. Mountain ridges and cacti all over the place in the Baja California peninsula!

We arrived back at Cabo to be greeted by a long queue of people waiting for a tender boat back to Ruby Princess; long enough for us to have to trek some way between bars and shops just to find its end. The bars held some appeal (well, we are us, after all) but given the length of the day’s excursion and the fast-approaching point of all aboard time we decided to simply shuffle along and get the first boat back we could. In fairness, the line moved fairly swiftly.

A very fun encounter with a local at Cabo then took place as we neared the boarding area.

“Are you a professional photographer?” came a loud voice from one side. It was a young woman outside a shop a dozen or so metres away, and the comment was directed at me because I had my equipment out. Camera equipment, you filthy-minded person, you. I’m an introvert so I simply smiled, shook my head, and mouthed “No” at her, and that would have been the end of it except that about twenty seconds later I heard “Well, you can take my picture anyway.” She’d crossed through the queue to the other side of us and adopted a pose right next to me. I didn’t need a second invitation, snapped a quick shot, and thanked her. I don’t know who she was but she gave me a fabulous memory to attach to the end of a lovely day in this port in Mexico and it was especially fun to hear a few men in the queue around jealously muttering about what I’d done to deserve that special attention. I have an ineffable quality.

More luck was on our side as we reached the front of the queue for the tender boat as a new one had just arrived. This gave us the chance to sit up top and allow for some great views heading back to the ship plus some fresh air to take the sting out of the heat of the day. The dry, rocky landscape and some sheltered beaches were quite nice to see from the water but we particularly enjoyed watching a fishing boat heading out with an entourage of frigatebirds overhead and a pelican sat on its aft.

You can get some spectacular photos of cruise ships if you’re sat up top on a tender boat. However, the pirate-style vessel to the right in the photo below is far away. Cruise ships are big, but they’re not that big. Feel free to imagine Ted explaining this to Dougal in your head right now.

Back on board we enjoyed a little bit of the early evening sunshine from our balcony and looking at not only the two other cruise ships in the port – Navigator of the Seas and Celebrity Eclipse – but listening to the party music from tour boats taking in close views of El Arco (the famous arch formation) as sunset approached.

And then the second interesting encounter with someone of the day took place.

We’d been out on the balcony so had missed a phone call to the cabin. A message had been left and we could play it back but couldn’t make it out clearly enough. All we knew was that it was a manager on the ship and he wanted to speak to us and could we contact him. We couldn’t because we couldn’t work out which manager he was or how to contact him, and we couldn’t work out how to replay the message either.

We headed down to guest services and explained that a manager had left a call for us but we didn’t know who or how to play the message again. The person helping us checked a few things on the computer then made a phone call. “Yes, they’re here at reception now,” we heard her say on the phone before hanging up. “If you’ll just wait, the manager is on his way to see you now.”

I won’t lie: this was not exactly the most comfortable thing to hear because we still had no idea what this was about. Within seconds we saw a member of staff come quickly down the stairs and head straight to us. A quick handshake and introduction – Prishant – helped put our minds at ease a little and he then looked around and dragged us along to the nearby bar to have a seat. Seeing his manager there, a waiter came scurrying over and orders were taken (with no need to check our medallions, of course) with a little small talk to settle things down. Then…

“Is everything fine with the ship?” he asked.

“Everything’s lovely,” we assured him.

“No problems?” he asked.

“No, we’re having a lovely time.”

“And you do go to Skywalkers in the evening? No problems there?”

“We love Skywalkers.”

“But did you post a message about it online?”

Ah.

Finally, we’d reached the point of this meeting. If you’ve read the account of our first night aboard Ruby Princess then you might know that for rather less than twenty seconds I had posted on Instagram a “Do a better job, Princess Cruises!” mini-rant because while we’d been okay we’d seen some other passengers get overlooked in the nightclub as the staff were clustered around the bar and not circling enough. Less than twenty seconds. I deleted it once I saw a typo and couldn’t remember how to edit the post quickly enough.

What had clearly happened was that someone at Princess – and I’d tagged their main account and media team – had been able to still see the message (or more likely get a copy of it prior to deletion through some forwarding system) and had got in touch with the ship where it had made its way to one of the managers in charge of this area.

What then took place was about fifteen minutes of “I want to make it up to you” from Prishant and lots of “There’s nothing to make up. We weren’t affected. The service has been superb ever since then. It was just a first night thing. It happens. We don’t want anyone to get in trouble over this. You don’t have to do anything for us. There’s nothing we need or want. We’re very happy on Ruby Princess” from us.

“Can I buy you dinner at Crown Grill?”

“We ate there yesterday.

“What about Sabatini’s?”

“We’re eating there tomorrow.”

“And you’re already on the top drinks package?”

“Yes. Please, we’re absolutely fine. If it helps you can just go back to your bosses and say you’re resolved the situation. You don’t need to do anything, we swear.”

He seemed to relent and we had a little more general chat before he said goodbye. It was interesting to see some of the other stewards and staff paying attention to the scene of this manager sitting with us, drinking in a public bar (cocktails for us, he was on water as he was working, just to clarify), then lots of smiles and shaking of hands. That would work in our favour quite a lot for the rest of the cruise too. We would also bump into Prishant numerous times from this point on as we’d walk around the ship with many “Any issues? Everything fine?” from him and more handshakes and more crew members wondering just who we were to be getting this attention. Possibly.

Some photos of food from the main dining room now. We’d eat, listen to some music, and head to Skywalkers as usual to conclude this very enjoyable and very memorable day ashore at Cabo San Lucas and aboard Ruby Princess.

Well, almost conclude the day.

During our general chit-chat with the manager we’d asked about the dry dock changes to Ruby Princess and he’d been happy to tell us about some of it, and he’d also asked if there were any changes we didn’t like.

“Well,” said my wife, “the only disappointment is that you can’t get Belle Glos by the glass in Vines any longer. That was our favourite wine to drink in there. But otherwise, it’s all good.”

A throwaway comment, but one the manager retained because we got back to our room to find two bottles of Belle Glos waiting for us. How good was that service from Prishant and Princess Cruises? You cannot help but be impressed by that.

We hadn’t asked for the wine and hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

“He probably needs to go back and explain what he’s done to make us happy,” said my wife.

“You’re right,” I replied. “We’d be doing him a favour by accepting this and drinking it.”

So we did. Not right there and then, of course. We’re fond of a drink but come on!

In the next post in this Ruby Princess cruise travelogue series I’ll cover some of the highlights (and one lowlight) of four relaxing sea days on the ship as we make our way towards Costa Rica.