Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – 墨西哥普托巴亚尔塔

Nov 24, 2021

The last port of call was Puerto Vallarta, a beach resort city situated on the Pacific Ocean's Bahía de Banderas in the Mexican state of Jalisco. The Majestic Princess was docked at Terminal 3 in the early morning. Once we walked out of the terminal, the taxi drivers and tour operators wanted our business. Instead, we were brave enough to get on a public bus nearby under the current COVID situation, costing $1 to go to Malecon Boardwalk. Along the boardwalk, there was a range of gift shops, restaurants, art galleries, and art sculptures. The first attraction that caught our eyes was the Flying bird-men of Papantla, an impressive and color-filled ritual performance. The ritual started with one person playing music on the top of the pole; four men climbed up the pole. After a few dangerous dancing movements, four men headfirst down to the earth started rotating and flying like birds. The performance was colorful, dangerous, and spectacular.

The sculptures along the boardwalk are beautiful, some eccentric. As we walked along the beach, we saw brown pelicans flying at the height of tens feet above the ocean, then beak first diving into the water to catch fish. We watched them for more than 30 mins. It was amazing. 

We continued to stroll along the boardwalk into the Romantic zone. The beach was beautiful and crowded. There were a lot of restaurants along the beach. We found a place, Langostinos, serving Huachinango Entero Frito. We were pleased, as shown in the picture. The fish was fresh but could be more tasty and salty. After lunch, we walked to the nearby Lazaro Cardenas Park. The whole park is decorated in brilliant mosaics by local artists. You can also pay to get your love note on mosaic-decorated benches. The entire area was filled with colorful, energetic, and exciting atmospheres. 

After exploring the old neighborhood of Puerto Vallarta for a little while in the afternoon, It was time to go back to the ship. We called Uber cheaper than the regular taxi without even bargaining the price. A few mins after we confirmed the pickup, we saw the car towards us, but it didn't stop. We didn't know what was going on and quickly texted the driver, and he promptly replied that he needed to drop off someone first. Thanks to the technology that solves the problem, we were in a non-English speaking place.

Crossing from the cruise terminal, a big shopping mall and Walmart were nearby. We went to both the mall and Walmart to learn about the local life a little, and it's not much different from any shopping mall or Walmart in the US. After returning to the ship, from our room balcony, we watched the last few people rushing back to the ship before our ship sailed away. Goodbye Mexico, see you next time. 

Mazatlan, Mexico – 墨西哥马萨特兰

Nov. 23, 2021

The second port of call is Mazatlan, the Mexican state of Sinaloa, only 196 nautical miles from Cabo San Lucas. The vessel was docked at Mazatlan in the early morning. We chatted with a couple of volunteers at a street corner; they were snowbirds from Canada and were very friendly and helpful. They provided us with some tourist information and recommended the walking route marked with the blue line. 

The downtown Mazatlan is centered at a plaza surrounded by many art galleries, restaurants, and colorful impressive sculptures. The streets, along with colorful buildings, were clean and quiet. Police or security guards were standing at some of the street corners. We strolled to the Immaculate Conception Cathedral with tall twin towers. We went inside, and it was beautiful as always. From the Cathedral, we headed to José María Pino Suarez Municipal Market, which started more than 100 years ago. The market had a range of vegetables, fruits, meat, and seafood vendors booths. The seafood selections in the market were limited, smaller than expected. We didn’t buy anything. We needed to get back to Teatro Angela Peralta, the theater, for a public tour at 11:00 am. The guided tour costs $2.00. We had some language barrier with a worker at the ticket office. Fortunately, the wife of another couple who came from Mexico provided the translation. The theater was built in 1883 and was destroyed by a hurricane in 1975. Standing in ruin for years, the theater began a restoration in 1987 and re-opened in 1992. The theater was beautiful and elegant. We learned a little about the interesting story of Angela‘s wedding and death.

After seeing the theater, we were hungry and started to look for a lunch place. Two days ago, during the destination lecture on the ship, Vickie, the presenter, recommended a traditional Mexican dish, Percado Frito, a whole fried fish. It was on our must-to-do list in Mazatlan. We asked a volunteer at the plaza to recommend a local-style lunch place and hoped to find the fried fish. He pointed us towards Mariscos Preparados “Chon,” two blocks away from the square. It is a small restaurant with a Mexican vibe. We were the only customers there, and they didn’t have whole fish and only had fried battered red snapper steak. It was delicious.

After lunch, we strolled towards the beach and planned to walk back to the ship. Along the coast, there were a few scenic viewpoints. A vendor was frying the whole fish on the beach, which we had been looking for earlier. But it was too late, and we were too full from our lunch. So we just kept walking. The weather was nice, sunshine and a little hot. After walking for one hour under the sun along the beach, we were tired and hopped on a Pulmonia Taxi, gas-powered open-air taxi that looked like a golf cart, and went back to the ship.

We were exhausted. But there was still one more place to visit in Mazatlan, El Faro Lighthouse, one of the highest lighthouses in the world. Chenggang decided to go out again while Connie stayed on the ship. He walked 2 miles to the bottom of the hill and hiked 745m up in gravel and 336 pave stairs path to reach the summit. The lighthouse is old and not very impressive, compared to the lighthouses we visited in Oct on the east coast, but the view of the city of Mazatlan and the Pacific ocean from the top of the hill was breathtaking. The lighthouse seemed to be a popular place for locals. As the sun was setting, it was time to return to the ship. We like Mazatlan a lot, and it is beautiful and has its characters.

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - 墨西哥卡伯圣路卡斯

Nov. 22, 2021

Cabo San Lucas was the first port of call in Mexico, but this was not our first time to see its beauty. Nineteen months ago, after we left Los Angeles starting our 90 days world cruise, we had a medical emergency on the vessel, and the captain decided to reroute the ship to Cabo San Lucas to drop off the patient. We couldn’t get off the ship at that time. However, we glanced at Cabo San Lucas and the famous sea arch, El Arco, from the ship. 

Cabo San Lucas is a resort town at the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. Our ship anchored at Cabo around 11 am, and we were tendered to the shore. They packed us into a lifeboat used as a tender boat. Of course, there was no social distance on the boat, but at least everyone wore the mask. As soon as we stepped on the marina, we were swamped by many street vendors trying to sell the tour tickets or water taxis. Since we did some research and knew the price range for the water taxi to Love Beach, we settled down with a $30 round trip for both of us to the beach. We had to pay $20 first, would pay the rest one hour later when they picked us up from the beach. On the way to the beach, we changed our mind to only stay there for a shorter time. We asked the water taxi driver to wait for us on the beach. He seemed to be very nice and nodded his head and agreed. The boat ride to the beach was terrific, while there was quite a bit of traffic on the water near the Love Beach. The beach was beautiful and calm. We did a short walk to the other side of the peninsula, called “Divorce Beach.” It’s less crowded, but the water is much rough.

After snapping a few pictures, we went back to the water taxi landing area. Our boat was nowhere to be seen. An English-speaking local helper on the beach assured us that our boat was coming. We had waited for another 40 mins, and suddenly, we saw our boat coming towards our way. We waved, and the local helper tried to call the boat on a two-way radio. But the boat went to go around the Arco and sailed away. As the boat disappeared on the horizon, we decided to find a water taxi back to the city. The local guy found another boat to take us back to the Medano beach. The beach was very crowded, and we didn’t feel comfortable staying for very long. We walked away from the beach and headed back downtown, walking along the marina shore. Even just a few blocks away from the beach, the area was very friendly and quiet. We had the fish tacos and calamari at Baja Cantina, facing the marina. They were delicious but more American style.

After lunch, we went to the resort corridor on the west side of the town to check out Waldorf Astoria Pedregal, a luxury resort where our friend would stay in two weeks. When we walked into one of the resorts, the gate guard stopped us as he could tell that we were not their resort guests since we asked for beach access. He told us to turn around and access thru the Grand Solmar. We followed his direction. This time, we were little smart and walked passing the resort guard of Grand Solmar without acting suspiciously. The resort was lovely and luxurious. The beach was just as beautiful as other places but without the crowd. We walked along the coast to Waldorf Astoria Pedregal, taking a few pictures and sending them to our friend. It was a time for us to go back to our cruise ship. As the sun was setting down behind the mountains, our ship sailed away. We enjoyed our first visit to Mexico very much.

Majestic Princess, at Sea -盛世公主号

Nov. 20 – 27, 2021

Once cruising restarted gradually, we were eager to go out and cruise again after we were fully vaccinated. We bet that the pandemic would be all over by the fall after most people would be vaccinated, as all experts predicted. We booked a seven days Bahamas cruise trip on Crystal Serenity for early November, the same ship of our 2020 world cruise trip. We were excited about going back to the vessel again. However, as the Delta variant virus quickly spread worldwide during the summer months, we didn't feel comfortable doing a cruise and getting out of the country. Everyone on the cruise ships were required to be fully vaccinated, and there were multiple COVID-19 tests required during the cruise trip, starting from getting the travel health visa and before embarking. However, there were still a few breakthrough cases on the cruises. Fearing that we might be quarantined outside the states if we were tested positive for COVID or became a close contact of someone who had been tested positive while on the ship, even we had no symptoms, we had canceled our booking at the last minute before the final payment was due. A couple of months after our Bahamas trip cancellation, we had spotted a good deal of seven days cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico by Majestic Princess for the Thanksgiving week. When both kids decided to stay in New York City during the holiday, we jumped on the deal. Los Angeles is only six hours away from home, and we can drive there instead of flying. Another main reason for taking this cruise was that the Princess has a much preferred COVID protection program that gives us peace of mind. In the worst-case scenario, if we were infected with COVID, we would not stuck anywhere outside the states and could still come back and drive home. Princess requires the negative COVID-19 test result taken two days before embarking. We went to CVS to take the Rapid-Antigen test, which our health insurance covers. Less than one hour after the test, we got our test result. It's NEGATIVE! 

On Nov. 20, we left home at 6:30 am and drove directly to the world cruise port of Los Angeles. After 6 hours of driving, we parked our car and walked about 200 feet to the check-in tent. The check-in process went very smoothly. After showing the vaccination certifications, the negative test results of COVID-19, and our passports, we were on our way to the ship. We felt very exciting, in the meantime, kind of nervous as we stepped on the gangway. "Is it safe?" "Do we risk our lives?" 

With precaution, we had set a few rules for ourselves. We decided not to go on organized shore excursions to avoid close contact with others for an extended time. Using elevators was not an option for us, and we used stairs going up and down. Sometimes, we felt exhausted after taking ten flights to the Sun Deck or eight flights to the Marketplace for a buffet. We dined most at the main dining restaurants or specialty restaurants. We didn't share the tables with others and always chose private dining options. We participated in some activities, like lectures and concerts, only when we could find the seats keeping social distance from other passengers. We wore masks all the time in public areas. Fortunately, the ship was not crowded at all, with only about 45% occupancy, and almost all were wearing masks in public. Once we were on the ship, we felt safe and comfortable as on the previous cruises.

Since we explored the ports by ourselves, we spent most of the onboard ship credits on specialty restaurants on the ship. There are three specialty restaurants on Majestic Princess, Harmony, Crown Grill, and Bistro Sir La Mer, each charging $29 per person. Harmony is a Chinese restaurant. We dined there on the first night. We started with Peking duck salad and steamed pork spare rib as appetizers, followed by hot sour and wonton soups. The main courses are Kung Pao Chicken and Stir-fried shrimp with sugar peas and mushrooms. Cantonese chow mein with assorted vegetables and braised crispy tofu with shiitake mushroom and baby bok choy were served as side dishes. In addition, we ordered wok-fried lobster with winter bamboo shoot and dried scallop chili sauce for an additional $12. The evening was wrapped up with two desserts, red bean crème brulée and green tea cheesecake. The dinner was delicious but not as good as we expect to be the creations of the one Michelin star chef.

On the fourth day of the cruise, we went to another specialty restaurant, Crown Grill, a steakhouse. Both appetizers, Mediterranean-style lobster cake and seared jumbo sea scallops with herb beurre blanc were excellent. We ordered 16 oz premium beef chop, and Chilean seabass and brioche-breaded king prawns for the main courses. The beer chop was tasteful, but it was too much meat to finish it up. The seabass and king prawns were perfect. The triple chocolate treasure, a Princess signature desert, was not disappointing.

The last night on the ship, we went to the French restaurant, Bistro Sir La Mer. Each of us ordered Bisque de homard, a lobster bisque. The soup was served in a bowl covered with pastry top hat, and it had a lot of lobster chunks in it, and it was the best lobster bisque we had ever had. The waiter was super friendly. He brought in two appetizers, Pate en croute and Salade de saison, followed by the main courses, seared duck, and roasted jumbo scallops. Every single one of them was delicious. Finally, we had Ile flottante aux agrumes, crème balls covered with netted egg shield, and Barre chocolat for dessert. They looked beautiful as well as tasted delicious. We consider Bistro Sir La Mer the best among the three specialty restaurants.

We couldn't stop comparing the food between the Princess and Crystal. Overall, the foods at Princess' three specialty restaurants are decent, but they are still a couple of notches below Crystal's. Besides the food, there is no comparison for the onboard entertainment and enrichment program. Crystal is way much better. We never got bored on any of the sea days during our world cruise on the Crystal Serenity. There were so many excellent enrichment programs and entertainment we could attend. But we did get a little bored on the sea days during this Princess seven days trip.

P.S. The blogs about the experience at three call ports will be posted later on.