tripleboom

We scoped out the sunny side of the Waterfront for a place to sit, but struck out. So we went to the shady side and settled in behind a partition to try to cut down the cool breeze a bit. While Stacy got working on her book, I set off to track us down some tasty drinks. It took heading to two different bars, but I got Stacy her Bushwacker from the Atrium Bar and then snagged my Raspberry Guava Mojito from the Sugarcane Mojito Bar. Unfortunately not even the partition could save us from getting a little chilly on this side of the ship, so I periodically got up to check the sunny side and eventually lucked out. I threw my hat and book down at a pair of seats, mall walked my butt back to grab Stacy, and we hustled back over to the sunny side to settle in. Ahhhh, Much better!! You can't order up a better day than this. I love me some sea days!

Day 6 - Day at Sea #2 After getting a good night's rest, we woke up to a beautiful, sunny day at sea! Landon actually pointed this out to me. Turns out the Aqua Racer slide's clear section was directly above our balcony! Landon was actually up before any of us. He had set an alarm even so he could be on the hunt for cruise ducks first thing in the morning! He'd been on the lookout for them this entire cruise, but finally tracked one down in the Observation Lounge on this morning! While the boys got up and headed out for a day with their newfound friends, Stacy and I headed down to The Waterfront once again to enjoy one of our favorite views at sea. There's nothing better than seeing the wake spread out into the wide open sea! They even have these large glass sections you can stand on to see the water under your feet. Apparently one of those pieces required some maintenance? Yikes. I'd hate to have been the guy that found that out. 😬

After dinner we wandered the ship a bit and then checked in at The Local to grab some dessert. The options at Food Republic were pretty good, but rather than use one of our four items on dessert, we were able to just snag dessert at The Local instead. Stacy's carrot cake looked great! We each had a Buena Vista Irish Coffee as well, though it unfortunately arrived pretty lukewarm. I definitely prefer it piping hot! After dessert we headed to the theater to catch Lord Nil. His illusion and escape show were incredible! Definitely don't miss if it's on your sailing! When we got back to the room for night we discovered an amphibian invader. We turned in and rested up for our day at sea the next day!

Tonight we decided to cash in just one of our two remaining SDP credits by stopping in at Food Republic. Because one SDP credit can be redeemed for four menu items, we felt like we both could be more than satisfied with splitting four items between the two of us, and thus stretch our specialty dining an extra night! So we were able to return again on another evening of the cruise. If you take anything away from this review, it's that you should DEFINITELY do this. Tonight's dinner was outstanding! We arrived fairly early in the dinner service window, so I was able to request and be granted a window seat for our meal. Such a gorgeous view! And the sun and ocean were pretty too. 😉 Soon after being seated the waiver came over, confirmed that we were redeeming a single SDP credit, and activated the tablet for ordering. I LOVE this ordering system as it gave a detailed description of each item AND showed its picture so you knew what you were getting. While the drink menu was displayed on the tablet, the waiter did have to place those drinks orders for us. Stacy opted for the Thai Rum Tonic While I went with the Sancho Panza, a deliciously spicy margarita style drink. Before long our food order began to arrive. It was nice that the food didn't arrive all at once, allowing us to clear some plates from the table. Otherwise I'm not sure we could have fit our drinks and all the food on the small table all at once! These firecracker shrimp were basically glorified taquitos, but they were plenty tasty! However, the chicken teriyaki skewers were a little meh. The glaze was almost syrupy, so it wasn't our favorite. However, the rock shrimp roll was a slam dunk! Avocado, mango, spicy tuna, spicy aioli, and spicy shrimp plopped right on top! This was our favorite of the night! The crispy salmon roll was a close second. That spicy aioli on top provided just the right amount of kick.

Once we got back to the ship and cleaned up for the evening (washing a LOT of sand down the drains in the process. I swear we tried to get it off before we got back aboard! 😬), the boys high tailed it out of there to raid the buffet with their newfound friends while Stacy and I prepared for specialty dining night #2. Just as we prepared to walk out of the cabin we started to pull out of port, so we watched Mazatlán shrink away from the comfort of the balcony. Having some time to kill before our reservation time, Stacy and I headed to The Waterfront to do a little reading and soak up some of the last rays of the day. It began to get a bit cooler, and since it was mid-afternoon, we decided to go to the Observation Lounge and grab a couple of snacks to tide us over until dinner. Before long it was time to head to the restaurant, but not before catching one last glimpse of the sun for the night.

We wrapped up our day with a couple more drinks (note the bobby pin used to mark the more... ummm... mature drinks 😁). With our day on the beach near its close, we packed up and trudged our way back to the restaurant entrance to load back onto the tractor drawn trailers for our return trip to the pier. On our way back onto the ferry, Landon managed to misstep and kick his flip flop off into the water. 🤦‍♂️ I had chalked it up for being a goner, but the crew managed to somehow retrieve it and return it to us before we pushed off! The boys headed to the back of the ferry to squeeze in a few more minutes with their friends as well as make plans to meet back up that evening. Before long we were back at the cruise pier and headed back on board.

Of course once the food showed up, the beach dogs started showing up too. Plenty friendly, and Landon was quick to make friends with them. This guy enjoyed having the shade of the umbrella almost as much as we did. After lunch, the boys cashed in their activity tickets. I'm not sure what all the options were, but the boys snagged a couple of boogie boards and headed back out into the surf. They have an awesome time! Though some runs went better than others. 😄

After getting pounded by the waves for a bit, Stacy and I retreated to the beachfront for a bit. When we first arrived, the tour guides let us know that we could hang out in the restaurant all day where they had plenty of seating available. Alternatively, we could rent a table with an umbrella and four chairs right on the beachfront for the day for an additional $12. Worth it! It was a bit of a hike through the soft sand back to the bar, but you can't beat the sights and sounds right here! Before too long, the staff of the restaurant made their rounds and collected the paper slips we were issued earlier in the day which was good for one lunch per person. While we waited, the boys got busy with their friends doing.. well.. I don't know what they were aiming to accomplish, but digging holes and getting muddy seems like a very appropriate activity for a bunch of boys hanging out. 🤣 About 30-40 minutes later they started delivering the food. The combination platter wasn't terribly flavorful, but it was enough to sate us for the day before our return to the ship, so you won't hear me complain. The meal included a small quesadilla, chicken leg, fried fish, rice, beans, and a small lettuce salad along with some tortillas, chips, and salsa for the four of us. I made myself a makeshift taco that was pretty good! While we were eating, the vendors on the beach were plenty active. I know this is an annoyance for some, but again, a polite "no, gracias" was enough for them to move on each time without any further pressure. But there was one vendor that made the boys hit me with some puppy dog eyes and convinced me to pull out the wallet. Stacy was NOT interested in this particular photo op!

The boys were quick to make some friends on the beach and spent a good chunk of the morning playing out in the waves. These aren't your gentle Bahamian beaches lapping at the shore. These are some big Pacific waves tossing you around pretty good! Stacy and I eventually wandered out into the water as well to have some fun with the boys too. It was none too warm yet as you can hear from our voices, but wouldn't miss it for the world!

I'm back and hoping I can grind this thing out over the next few days! Sorry for the delay. Apparently if I don't keep working, they'll stop paying me, and then I can't take cruises. It's really a vicious circle. 😉

Highly recommended! I think the same or similar excursion was offered through NCL, but it would have set us back $750 as a family. I booked it for under $400, plus I got a Rakuten rebate that paid us back another $30+ after we got home. Great deal for a family of four for an incredible experience!

Day 5 - Mazatlán Ok. I fancy myself an excellent planner, and pride myself on being the capable, competent leader of our family when we cruise. But on this morning, the good Lord decided I could stand to be taken down a peg or two. 🤣 We put out a room service card the night before so that we could have breakfast delivered to the room since we had such an early call for our NCL-booked excursion. We also received the usual NCL Daily in the room the night before. In what can only be described as a not-so senior moment I read the Daily for Day 5, and read the portion that reminded us to set our clocks back. So... like an idiot... I set my clock and watch back an hour on the Puerto Vallarta night. NOT the Mazatlán night that hadn't yet arrived. 😬 So our food arrived at the expected time, but I, still fighting off the early morning cobwebs in my head, thought they had delivered it a full hour early. Great!! It wasn't until Stacy looked at the ALWAYS CORRECT time on the cabin's phone that we realized that we were about 15 minutes away from needing to be to our excursion meeting spot in the theater! Fortunately we largely had gotten everything packed last night that we needed for today, so we scurried, scarfed, and skedaddled out of the cabin and to the theater, arriving about 20 seconds before they called for our group to head down to the gangway. Three out of the four ports on this itinerary were arriving in port at 11am or later, so the 7am arrival time for Mazatlán was cruel enough without the late night rendition of Sweet Caroline from 8-shots in Sarah from Schenectady below our beds the night before. So to say we were dragging tail a bit would be an understatement. But we made our way off the ship, grabbed the pool towels from the stations set up on the pier, and then followed the leader just down the pier to a waiting ferry that would take us across the harbor to Stone Island. There weren't a ton of NCL offered options in Mazatlán that looked tempting, but after two days in a row of very active excursions, we were ready to chill on the beach for a day, so the "Stone Island Beach Getaway" excursion is what we chose. Once the ferry was loaded up, we were told the stories of Mazatlán's history as we puttered to the other side. Once we arrived there we were loaded onto tractor pulled carts for the short drive down to the beach itself. We were then deposited at Restaurante Casa Cardon for our day at the beach. I found this beautiful drone shot from Jose Antonio Hernandez Morales on Google Maps! The arrow shows where the cruise ships dock with the restaurant/beach club we arrived at shown circled in red. While others took their time on the beach waiting for the sun to warm up the water a bit, the boys escaping a cold, snowy Iowa would not wait another minute! I managed to take a decent picture with Stacy and I, but the boys couldn't be pulled from the water to participate. 🤣 But that's fine. The Magic Eraser feature on my Pixel phone made short work of them. You can still see their reflections in the water though even after they were erased. 😏

Fortunately guys and/or gals better at math and physics than me were likely involved in this bridge's construction. I assume that's the case since I'm still breathing! 🤣

On the issue of the MDR, it just felt like an odd confluence of events that led to such a poor night. We've never experienced something quite like that during our previous cruises, so it just stood out so starkly as an ordeal. Things only got better from there the rest of the cruise, but at the time there had just been so many little things that had begun to pile up that it was cumulative frustration more than anything else. Grateful that things gott better from there! As for the young age for learner's permits, it's been that way since I was a kid. My wife was actually a fully licensed driver without restrictions at 14 years old up in South Dakota! I think particularly in the agricultural midwest, there are some driving laws loosened up so that kids can chip in on the farm at a younger age. Heck, while I was an in-town kid, probably 20% of my high school class was driving a tractor for years before they were driving a car! 🤠 I recognize your username from some of my previous reviews, so thanks for stumbling back onto my latest review! 🙂 Maybe it won't be perfect every night, but we really were very pleased. If you're thinking about Food Republic, stay tuned. 😉

Once we were back aboard we hightailed it to our room to get cleaned up. When we arrived we found our room nicely made up, including another towel animal friend! After everyone had made a thorough trip through the shower and the dust covered clothes had been safely packed away in the "dirty" suitcase, the boys headed out for an evening with their friends at the buffet and the arcade, while Stacy and I prepared to head to Q Smokehouse to redeem one of our specialty dining credits. We worked our way down to Deck 6, forward, and prepared to dig in! We were greeted with a "Howdy, y'all," and were shown to our seats. This same space on other ships had been used for the dinner theater shows, and I must say I much prefer what they've done with the space on this ship. The large dining room arced in front of a stage where The Wanted and other bands played throughout the cruise. Folks were welcome to come in and have a seat at the back of the restaurant and could order drinks from the bar too if all they wanted to do was enjoy the music, but as we'd soon find out, the meal is worth spending a specialty dining credit! We both started our meal with one of the recommended cocktails on the menu, the smoked peach margarita, which was delicious! Of the many tempting options available on the starter menu: Stacy went with the Lone Star Chili While I opted for the Texan Crab Cakes These were both great! The food arrived at a relaxed pace that allowed us to enjoy each item until we were ready for the next batch to arrive. For no upcharge, I was able to order the pitmaster platter, which included 1/4 lb. each of beef brisket, pork spare ribs, smoked chicken, and jalapeño and cheese sausage links. It also included coleslaw potato salad, pickles, BBQ beans, and jalapeño cheese cornbread, though I subbed some of the jalapeno cheese grits in for the coleslaw. This was SOOOOO much more than I should have eaten, but I don't back down from a challenge (or delicious food) easily! Stacy was a bit more reserved with her choices, opting for the beef brisket platter which she found to be outstanding, adding a loaded sweet potato as a side. There were three house bbq sauces on the table including a run of the mill smoky sauce, a tangy/spicy option, and a Carolina style bbq sauce for the mustard based fans out there. I sampled all three and found the spicy/tangy sauce to be the winner, though I don't think anyone would be left out in the cold without a sauce they would like. Having stuffed ourselves and then some, dessert seemed like a folly, but I knew I'd be sad if I walked out without trying the warm skillet brownie. We would actually return on a different night just to have the brownie again for dessert! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Honest, we hadn't decided which restaurants to try for this trip until the last possible minute. As I said before, there's some great BBQ spots to be found here in the Midwest (we're only a couple of hours from K.C.'s plethora of BBQ options and Omaha has its fair share too), so I was expecting the distinct possibility of disappointment. Nope!! I've read reviews complaining about the food here being dry, but that was not our experience in the least. Everything we tried was delicious and could go toe to toe with some of our favorite spots around home. A++ grub and a fun atmosphere! After supper Stacy and I headed back to the room to digest and recover, but on the way we saw this gem magnetically held up on a cabin door. Yup. That's a novelty pair of comically large women's underwear. It's a bit tough to read, but the note says, "Eric, Thank you 4 Last night!! For You, Honey. XOXO" Eric, if you're out there, your friends gave us a pretty good laugh. 🤣 And on that note, we called it an early night. Mazatlán was going to be an EARLY wakeup call!

Here we go!!! Incredible!! Our tour ended just on the other side of the bridge as we arrived back at the hacienda. We had the opportunity to review and purchase photos the tour provider had taken throughout the day, as well as have a bite to eat at their restaurant. We took the opportunity to connect to WiFi and check in at home with family as well as take in the beautiful scenery one last time! Not my music, just what they had pumping as I was recording. 😄 After that we were loaded back up in the trucks, made our trek back down the mountains, and the truck dropped us off just outside of Puerto Magico again, making the return to the ship seamless.

After a short drive we arrived at a scenic overlook pit stop. Breathtaking! They had a number of refreshments available, including tequila for those needing liquid courage to cross the continent's longest suspended bridge. 😱 Our chariots were looking a little dirtier from their day's work! The boys were absolutely living their best life today. After a bit, some of the folks that were present when we arrived started their crossing of the bridge! If you squint you can just make out their ATVs crossing! After a few more pictures... ...It was our turn to go next!

Connor went next! Awesome job! Stacy caught my jump from the shore. And I caught it in first-person, with Landon jumping again right after me. And then Connor again too! Landon made one last cannonball leap, and then it was time for us to head back out! We made the very long, steep walk back up the stairs. We were huffing and puffing pretty good by then! Once we were all loaded back up, we made a short drive to our next pit stop.

Connor turns 14 at the end of August, so that's when he'll be eligible for a permit. Yikes. 😬 By the end of the second day they did have our shower draining effectively again. Still no 4th glass for teeth brushing, but we struggled through somehow. 😆 Thanks for following along! I've really enjoyed putting this together. Just wish our life schedule made it easier to sit down and bang this out a bit quicker, but such is life with a couple of active boys!

There's a bit of evidence that the trails were dusty on this day. 🤣 Once we had all crossed the bridge we made our way down a very long, steep, uneven staircase. Again, it didn't pose a danger to us, but for those less steady on their feet, this may be an issue. But the payoff at the end? 🤯 That ladder shown in the picture could only mean one thing. The boys and I were going in. We quickly stripped down to our swim stuff and waded in. As you'd expect, all the rocks on this little creek bed were super smooth, meaning that it was difficult to traverse them in bare feet. The sooner you can get brave enough to duck your whole body down into the cold creek water the better! Then you're able to navigate a bit easier. It may have been cold, but it was well worth the trip in! Some serious beauty in here. We had to swim well out of the creek's current in order to make our way over to the ladder. It was a tough fight with the current out in the middle. I'm a pretty good swimmer and had to keep a pretty good stroke rate up just to stay in place. Before long, Landon made his way up and then worked up the courage to jump! With a little prodding from the group ashore, Landon took the leap first!

We spent probably 20-30 minutes tearing around, up and down the hills. Even managed to run into a traffic jam all the way up here. Eventually we arrived at and crossed a lengthy bridge as advertised in the tour. What lay on the other side of the bridge was unforgettable. 🙂

We walked from the Hacienda up a bit on an incline to where the ATVs and UTVs were waiting for us. I mention the incline because there was a woman in our group that had crutches. With her mobility limited somewhat, she struggled to make her way up there, but the staff at Canopy River were great, and instead ran a RZR down to her so they could fall in line with us after the rest of us had gotten outfitted. Once we had our bandanas, goggles, and helmets on we were ready to roll! And we tore off into the hills! As you can see, the trails were very dusty, but they did have a few lower lying areas where they had pumped some water in to up the mud factor. No good pictures there since the phone got tucked away to protect it in the splash zone, but here's a couple of photos from the excursion company's website to give you a better idea.

We did the Bliss on this itinerary back in November 2021. Loved every minute of it! 60% capacity didn't hurt any either. 😄 We really did enjoy the cruise. I would imagine 10 days would be wonderful! Still biding our time until we can do a longer voyage like that!

Day 4 - Puerto Vallarta With a full day ahead, we were up and at 'em well before the ship made port. In fact we were able to grab a good breakfast in the buffet and then return to our room to pack up for the day and watch our approach into port. We had another Viator excursion booked for today, so we headed off the ship, snagged one of the People Mover shuttles that dropped us of at the entrance to Puerto Magico shopping area, exited the port, and walked the couple of blocks to the tour operator's office neat the cruise port. After an issue-free check in there, we were loaded into the open air (with a canopy top) trucks, and snagged a bench seat for the ride. While we had been waiting at the office, one other family from a cruise ship arrived under the guidance of a local, so presumably this same tour was being offered to passengers as they disembarked as well. After one stop in the hotel district to load on another 15 or so passengers, we were on our way through the congested main drag. Once we were clear of the congestion we made our way up into the foothills and then well into the mountains surrounding Puerto Vallarta. There's lots of stops and starts with the numerous speed bumps, so again, something to be aware of for the potentially motion sick. After the ~30-40 minute ride we arrived at our destination, Canopy River's Hacienda in the hills. And today we'd get to tear around the surrounding trails in our very own RZR 4x4 UTV.

Royal Princess started to leave port a little earlier, and was clearly going to miss out on a great sunset in Cabo! As the sun finished its dip below the horizon, the Cabo lights started to shine. This place is BEAUTIFUL at night! Sadly, it was our time to head out too. The thrusters came alive, and we started making our turn back out toward open water. Until next time, Cabo! Having had such a late lunch, Stacy and I put off our dinner until after the early comedy show. Larry Omaha was fantastic and worked the crowd a little bit, including a whole slew of kids seated toward the front. Very fun night! I really liked this space for comedy over Howl at the Moon on the Breakaway and the Escape. Larger, WIDER room made for better viewing. After a late snack, we wrapped up our evening and headed back to the room to get some rest. A big, active day laid ahead of us in Puerto Vallarta!