Mexican Riviera: Cabo San Lucas

The third port on our Norwegian Mexican Riviera cruise was Cabo San Lucas. Before going on this cruise, it was Cabo San Lucas that I was most highly anticipating. After spending enjoyable days in Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan, I wondered if Cabo San Lucas would be a disappointment, but it was anything but a disappointment!

Cabo was the only port in which we had arranged our excursion directly through Norwegian Cruise Lines and I am glad that we did so. The Norwegian Star had to tether in Cabo and those who had arranged their excursions directly with NCL were not required to take any special action to obtain a favorable time for tendering.

We made it to the dock well in advance of our excursion start time and took advantage of that to look at some of the stores that were just opening. There were quite a few people on the docks selling boat rides to the arch, whale watching, and other destinations. The majority of the cruise ship passengers seemed to be going on excursions that toured Cabo.

We had selected the Two Bay Snorkel by Zodiac excursion. It was impressive how much tour guide Fernando and Captain Julio were able to get in for us to do in the three hours from 9 am to 12 pm (the Cabo cruise day allows for less time for excursions to accommodate the long traverse back to Los Angeles). The speedy Zodiak was a big part of being able to fit so much in.

Fernando and Julio started by taking us out to the sites that Cabo is arguably best known for: the arch of Cabo San Lucas (El Arco/Land's End), Pelican Rock, Lover's Beach (Playa del Amor), and Divorce Beach (Playa del Divorcio, which connects the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Cortez [Gulf of California]). We only got to see these sites from the boat and only very briefly given the snorkeling on the schedule.

On the way to Santa Maria Cove and Chileno Bay, we stopped to watch humpback whales staying close to the surface.

After watching the whales for several minutes, we headed to Santa Maria Cove for snorkeling.

From Santa Maria Cove, we next went to Chileno Bay for more snorkeling.

After snorkeling, Captain Julio took us back to Cabo San Lucas port by going along and near the shore so that we could see the expansive beach more closely. We walked around the dock some more (now with numerous open restaurants), had a fruit-filled churro, and then rode the tether ships back to the cruise ship.

Cabo San Lucas's primary industry is tourism. I was impressed at all the aquatic activities there are to do there. Besides the snorkeling and whale watching we were able to do, there are multiple beautiful beaches, sea kayaking, banana boat riding, and para-sailing activities to readily enjoy. Sightseeing and photography around Land's End may be the most popular activity of all.

Cabo San Lucas has been ranked #2 on U.S. News and World Report's "Best Cheap Spring Break Destinations." I would love to return to Cabo with more than a portion of a cruise excursion day to enjoy more of what it has to offer.

Mexican Riviera: Mazatlan

The second port on our Norwegian Mexican Riviera cruise was Mazatlan.

The cruise ship docked at the Mazatlan Cruise Vessel Terminal, which serves commercial and freight ships. There were numerous vehicles parked there.

After disembarking from the cruise ship, there's a very short (minute or so) ride over to the Mazatlan Cruise Terminal. As CruisePortInsider.com describes it, that Cruise Terminal is indeed a "frenetic atmosphere." There are gift shops and dining and lots of individuals (mostly men) attempting to sell rides and tours. We had our excursion for the day already booked through Costco Travel partner Shore Excursions Group. The tour we had selected was the "Stone Island and Old Town Sightseeing Tour." Mazatlan Van Tours was the tour's operator and Julio Juarez was our driver and guide.

Julio narrated as he drove us around Mazatlan on the "Old Town Sightseeing" portion of the tour and he told us about the Mazatlan. Two of the things he mentioned that stood out to me are his description of Mazatlan's Mardi Gras (Carnaval de Mazatlán) and the fact that 1 million cans of tuna are produced daily in Mazatlan. It was impressive to see Julio narrating while navigating the roads of Mazatlan. He pointed out that there are no street lights in Mazatlan!

Our first stop was near the Mazatlan Cathedral (Basilica de la Inmaculada Concepcion).

Both the exterior and interior of this cathedral are attractive.

We briefly strolled through the park (Plazuela Republica/Plaza de la Republica) that is across the street from the cathedral. The park itself is shady and pleasant, but the views of the cathedral make it even more interesting.

We walked through the Mazatlan Central Market (Mercado Pino Suarez) near the cathedral in which a wide variety of food (vegetables, fruits, meats, etc.) are sold along with purses, belts, other apparel items, tourist items, candies, and much more. Additional details and photographs of this market busy with tourists and locals can be seen on the market's web site as well as here, here, and here.

After our stop to see the cathedral, the plaza, and the market, Julio drove us to the top of a hill overlooking Mazatlan.

Our next stop on the "Old Town Sightseeing" portion of the tour was to view the Mazatlan Cliff Divers, a very popular attraction with the tourists (it felt the most crowded of all the things we saw in Mazatlan). It was hard to believe that these young divers would do this, but they did so repeatedly.

After witnessing the cliff divers, we headed to the "Stone Island" portion of the excursion. Julio drove us to a small pier where we boarded a ferry to "Stone Island."

When the ferry reached the other side after a few minutes of travel, we were met by several locals holding iguanas for people to have their photographs taken with the iguanas (and would accept donations for providing this). One iguana was particularly large and another rode around on his handler's shoulder as the handler drove his small motorbike. A tractor pulled some wagon trailers we rode in to the main "Stone Island" resort area.

Each group was provided with a table under a roofed area with close proximity to the beach. We were able to choose from a few different meal options on the menu and everyone in our party chose the "combination" plate. The scenery and activities were definitely the highlight compared to the food. Drinks were also provided at a station near the dining tables. Many people in the greater group at the Stone Island beach that day simply relaxed in the shade and looked at the Sea of Cortez and the beach.

Each person received tickets for two activities. Members of our group covered three different activities between us. We used one of the activity tickets to borrow a boogie board to use. A couple of us rode the banana boat that was pulled by a speed boat around Isla Cardones. This was obviously a fun ride for kids, but I found it to be more interesting than I anticipated as the boat that pulled us went pretty fast, we bounced around on the waves made by the boat quite a bit, and we got to see Isla Cardones up close and on the opposite side from the beach perspective.

As we had done in Puerto Vallarta, we also were able to sea kayak here as well. We did not ride the horses, but the people we talked to who did ride the horses were not very impressed with that particular activity. They stated that it was really short and there wasn't much interesting to see. Activities on the beach and in the Sea of Cortez seemed to be the better choice for this excursion.

At the end of the day (cruise ship port excursion "end of the day"), we rode back on the tractor-pulled seated trailers to the ferry and then rode the ferry back to the other side where Julio drove us in the van for the short drive to the cruise terminal. Now that we knew what Stone Island was and where it was, we could see that it was viewable from our cruise ship.

"Stone Island" is featured in the immediately previous image and in the next image. Julio explained to us that it's now really a peninsula instead of an island, but that it'd take significantly longer to drive to the tremendous beach we enjoyed if we had not ferried to it. The Google Maps representation of Stone Island shows its peninsular nature.

We enjoyed our first visit to Mazatlan. The "Stone Island and Old Town Sightseeing" excursion combined the Mazatlan Old Town sightseeing tour with several hours on the beach of "Stone Island" and provided a nice mix of interesting introduction to the city along with active enjoyment of the beautiful beach and sea access.

Mexican Riviera: Puerto Vallarta

Our first port for excursions on our Norwegian Mexican Riviera cruise was Puerto Vallarta. One of the advantages of a cruise is the ability to see multiple destinations, but this comes at the cost (especially with most sea cruises) of typically only being able to see each destination for a fraction of the time you could see it if you visited in a different manner. This was definitely the case for us in Puerto Vallarta, which offers far more than we were able to see in this single day.

We had purchased this Mexican Riviera cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines through Costco Travel and we purchased our Puerto Vallarta shore excursion from a Costco partner called Shore Excursions Group. Our particular excursion was the Sea Kayaking and Snorkeling Combo with tour operator Eco Tours de Mexico.

For this particular excursion, we needed to arrange our own transportation from the docked Norwegian Star to the Eco Tours dive shop. This shop was a short drive away from the port and it took only 5-7 minutes to get there.

We were quite a bit early, so we walked around that Marina Vallarta area for a bit. There weren't a lot of customers or tourists yet and many of the restaurants and shops were just opening.

Ecotours de Mexico conducts the sea kayaking and snorkeling tour in conjunction with their hiking and snorkeling tour. Our party of three were the only ones kayaking, but the overall group was larger because more people were doing the hiking and snorkeling. We all (kayakers and hikers) rode together in a van to the small fishing village where the hikers would hike to the cove for snorkeling and the kayakers would kayak to that same cove for snorkeling.

This was my first time in Puerto Vallarta, so I enjoyed seeing Puerto Vallarta as we rode by van to the fishing village. From the van, we experienced a portion of old town Puerto Vallarta with its cobblestone streets, the Malecon Arches, and other aspects of downtown Puerto Vallarta.

The van stopped for us to enjoy the view of Los Arcos.

There were other great views from this same vantage point.

The final destination for the van ride was the village of Boca de Tomatlán. From here, the hiking group set off on a hike and we boarded kayaks.

The sea kayaking was great, but unfortunately, the water was too choppy that morning to kayak into the intended Colomitos Cove for the snorkel, so we spent our time kayaking around the harbor and enjoying the beach and Mexican food (especially the different flavors of shrimp) at the restaurants on the beach. It was disappointing to not be able to snorkel in the cove, but it was nice to relax on that picturesque beach.

One of the surprises for us was how many dogs were wandering around on the beach area. One dog, named Lazlo, was obviously there with his owner. Lazlo liked it when his owner or any other human willing to participate would throw a tennis ball into the water of the small harbor. Lazlo was adept at watching the waves and swimming out to the tennis ball when the waves were not at their highest and bringing the tennis ball back to shore to the human who threw it out. There were a few other dogs on the beach that did not seem to have obvious human counterparts, but they were comfortable around the people and would setting under our chairs and tables to get some shade while lying there lazily.

After our day in Boca de Tomatlán, the van took us back to our cruise ship.

Puerto Vallarta has been named #1 in U.S. News and World Report's Best Cheap Spring Break Destinations.

There is much more to do in Puerto Vallarta than we had time for, so I hope to some day return there for more than a cruise port excursion to experience some of those things.

Mexican Riviera on Norwegian Star

For Spring Break 2019, we sailed on a Mexican Riviera cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) on their Norwegian Star cruise ship.

Although this wasn't our first cruise, it was our first cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines. This post summarizes some of our experiences on this Norwegian Star cruise to the "Mexican Riviera."

We purchased this cruise and flights to Los Angeles (John Wayne Airport [Orange County/SNA]) as a Costco Travel package. The cruise departed from (and returned to) the Port of Los Angeles World Cruise Center. The World Cruise Center is closer to LAX than to John Wayne Airport, but Costco Travel automatically selected the John Wayne Airport and a major advantage of the Orange County airport is that it's far less busy and stressful than LAX. Norwegian Cruise Lines arranges (for a fee) transportation between LAX and the World Cruise Center, but does not provide arrangements for transportation between John Wayne Airport and the World Cruise Center. Because we departed and returned on Saturday mornings, the traffic between John Wayne Airport and the World Cruise Center was relatively light and it only took about 45 minutes each way. We arranged for private transportation for each direction. The World Cruise Center made for an interesting departure point because there is significant loading of cargo ships that takes place there and that was fascinating to watch.

Norwegian Cruise Lines hypes their "Freestyle Dining":

Enjoy a four-course meal and a great bottle of wine. Or grab a burger hot off the grill. Dress up. Dress down. Sit with your friends or make new ones. Dine inside or Oceanside along The Waterfront. Only Norwegian offers the freedom and flexibility of Freestyle Dining, which means no fixed dining times or pre-assigned seating. So follow your mood, not a schedule.

This "freestyle dining" approach turned out to be pretty desirable. We enjoyed having so many options for when to eat, where to eat, and how dressed up to be when eating. We tended to eat at the buffet-style Garden Cafe when time was of the essence or we were dressed most informally or just wanted a snack. We only ate in one of the main dining halls (Aqua) once and never ate in the other main dining hall (Versailles) because they tended to be busiest and have the longest waits at the most desirable eating times. Also, the meals in those main Norwegian Star dining halls are more formal and take more time (a positive for some and a negative for others). The meals in the Garden Cafe and in the Aqua and Versailles dining halls are generally included in the cost of the cruise.

There are a few smaller and more focused dining establishments on the Norwegian Star that are also generally covered in the cost of the cruise. These include Ginza's (Asian restaurant we tried), O'Sheehan's Bar & Grill (Irish pub), and Topsiders.

Our package included three specialty dining opportunities for each passenger and these were our favorite meals. These generally require reservations and they are longer meals than the buffet, but the time is enjoyable and the food and service are great. The three specialty restaurants we selected were Cagney's (steakhouse), Moderno Churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse), and Le Bistro (French) and we were happy with the service and food at all three (two of the three of these are featured in the blog post "3 Specialty Restaurants Not to Miss on Norwegian"). Other specialty dining options on Norwegian Star include La Cucina (Italian) and Teppanyaki (Japanese Hibachi). The food items can be purchased individually at these specialty restaurants, but purchase of the specialty dining package allows for choice of appetizer, entree, and dessert for the single price of the specialty package.

Another item included in our package was 250 free Wifi minutes. The 250 minutes are per cabin (not per passenger) and only one device can be logged onto the Wifi at a time. Because the cruise featured three days "at sea" without a port, we used the 250 minutes relatively early and purchased the unlimited Wifi plan (still for only one device at a time). The Wifi is not particularly quick, but does work for smaller data uses such as e-mail and simple web browsing.

We rented a mini-suite with balcony and the balcony definitely made the three "at sea" days easier. We also liked the location in toward the middle of the ship on the eleventh deck. The Garden Cafe was one deck above (Deck 12) and the mid-ship location made it easy to access several parts of the ship that we frequented.

Our particular seven-night cruise had three port stops: Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. There were three full "at sea" days (my least favorite), but the three days in port were fantastic. I'll cover each of those three "Mexican Riviera" destinations in separate blog posts. We purchased the excursions for two of the destinations (Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan) from a Costco partner (Shore Excursions Group) and purchased the excursion for Cabo San Lucas directly from Norwegian Cruise Lines. I was happy that we purchased the Cabo San Lucas excursion directly from NCL because that gave us priority debarkation in Cabo San Lucas (where tethering is required because there is no place for ships as large as the Norwegian Star to directly dock).

One of the advantages of a cruise is the ability to easily experience multiple destinations without needing to check in and out of lodging and packing and unpacking. However, a related disadvantage is that the time in each destination is very limited and I almost always wish I had more time in each port than the cruise allows. This is especially true of sea cruises.

It appears that this was the final "Mexican Riviera" cruise for the Norwegian Star, at least for the near-term future. The Norwegian Star was sailing for 14 nights from Los Angeles to Miami after our cruise. The Norwegian Cruise Lines ships now associated with the Mexican Riviera cruises are the Norwegian Joy and the Norwegian Bliss.

Norwegian charges a mandatory fixed onboard service charge. These are currently $14.50 per person per day or $17.50 per person per day depending on the stateroom type, but these prices are rising slightly as of 1 April 2019. These can be prepaid or paid at the end of the cruise, but definitely should be considered when budgeting for the cruise because they are mandatory charges. Although the idea of a mandatory service charge bothers me a bit, I didn't mind having prepaid it once on the ship because all of the staff worked hard to make the cruise a comfortable and satisfying experience. In fact, the most impressive part of the Norwegian Star was its staff.

Des Moines

We attended the first found of the NCAA men's basketball tournament ("March Madness") in Des Moines, Iowa, this year. Although we enjoyed the games on that first day, it was also interesting to experience Des Moines for the first time and this post provides a quick summary of some of the highlights of Des Moines.

The thing that stood out most to me about Des Moines was that it's a great example of the advantages one can find in a small city and its airport was one manifestation of this. The Des Moines International Airport provided one of the least stressful experiences I've had at an airport. It is small, was not very crowded and had no long lines when we were there, and it was easy to hear announcements. The car rental and return was also easy and the cars were parked next to the airport and its can rental facilities. I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was to go through the security "lines" (the wait was about 2 minutes when we were departing). Getting out of the airport and getting back into it were both extremely easy and quick.

Other than when near the Wells Fargo Arena (Iowa Events Center) where the tournament was being held, it was surprisingly easy to get around Des Moines and surrounding areas. I was particularly pleasantly surprised by how open the interstates and freeways we used were and how easy it was even to get around downtown (although downtown does have several one-way streets like many cities' downtown sections have). The parking at the Wells Fargo Arena was not particularly plentiful, but there were plenty of options nearby in parking garages that were surprisingly low cost compared to the parking prices I'm used to in other cities (particularly for special events).

All of the locals we encountered at the restaurants, hotels, and attractions were friendly and seemed eager to make the visitors to the city feel welcome. For example, when we enjoyed a lunch at Big Al's BBQ, Big Al approached us and introduced himself and checked on us later during lunch as well. We enjoyed two of the Big Al BBQ specialties for lunch.

We spent some time in the Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden (GDMBG).

Because it was a bit early in spring for outside plants, we spent most of our times indoors in the conservatory.

Although we spent most of our times indoors in the conservatory, we did take some time to see the small number of gardens available outside already and enjoyed looking at the Water Garden with partially frozen surface and birds as well as the view of downtown Des Moines (DSM) in the background.

We also enjoyed a dessert at the botanical garden's Trellis Café.

One of Des Moines's most impressive visuals is its waterfront setting on the Des Moines River.

We went to Des Moines to see the first round of the men's NCAA basketball tournament and really enjoyed that, but a nice unanticipated consequence of this visit was experiencing the many qualities of Des Moines, Iowa, and its friendly people.