Spirit to Mexico(10/7/11)-Review with pics :)

[shonandsuzie]

Here we go again......

 

This was a lucky year for Shon and I. We cruised our usual anniversary cruise in September and then got to cruise again in October for Shon's 40th birthday! We chose the Mexican Riviera on Carnival Spirit due to the 9 days and LOW price. We have cruised the Mexican Riviera a couple of times before but this was our first trip on the Spirit. We were excitied when we found that it was similar to the Miracle that we were on in September. We love that design!

 

Some background... We love cruising. We have cruised a bunch of times on several cruiselines. We dont have a favorite cruiseline but do prefer the carribean islands. We are silly and fun and nice. We love eachother and we like to match our outfits.

 

We flew to LAX a day early and stayed in San Pedro at the Crown Plaza. The Crown Plaza is pretty nice and very clean. We have stayed here for previous cruises and love the simple -FREE- shuttle to the port. A few others from our Cruisecritic roll call were staying at the same hotel. We planned to meet up at the San Pedro Brewery for dinner but we got in so late that most everyone was gone by the time we actually got there. The flight from Michigan is 4 1/2 hours and some psycho parent had a screaming baby in our ear the entire way---no really. The mom kept shaking the baby awake so it wouldnt sleep until they got to California. Not sure what the reason was, dont even care... Anyway, with that in mind, by the time we reached our hotel we needed more than dinner at the ol' brewery! Dinner was good, drinks were better but the place was a bit weird.

**I didnt take pictures of the hotel or dinner. We can blame the crazy airplane mom. :)

 

The next morning we walked around San Pedro (which had changed quite a bit since our last stay). We had breakfast, picked up some mini-bottles from the corner liquor store and then jumped on the shuttle to the port. This hotel is only a minute from the port which makes it super convenient.

 

Embarkation was LONG. On our last few cruises we had suites which gave us VIP embarkation. This "extra" cruise had no suite and no VIP. Never again. (The good news is we will be platinum on Carnival now so even without the suite we will be VIP. Wooooooo Hooooo! No more crazy lines!) It took about an hour and 1/2 this time.

 

 

 

 

But we survived and when that time was up.........

 

 

[foxesden1]

Looks great!

[iwannacruznow]

Yippee I've been waiting for this one and what are these "mini bottles" you speak of?

[shonandsuzie]

 

This was the view from the lido deck. You can see the Crown Plaza. :)

 

 

 

The background view from this angle is not as cute-but it shows the slide which spills out into a holding tank of sorts and not a pool. The deck below is the Aft pool/hot tub (adults only). Our roll call met here for an informal get together at sail away.

 

Before we headed out to the sailaway, we made stop by one of our old friends from a previous cruise. He was our bartender on the Grand Cabana Oasis on Half Moon Cay! He remembered us and our friends. Of equal importance is the fact that he still made a mean MOJITO! He said he'd be bartending in the casino for the entire cruise. Yippeeeee!

 

 

[shonandsuzie]

Yippee I've been waiting for this one and what are these "mini bottles" you speak of?

Well, funny you would ask my friend;

 

 

I learned from a great friend (or two) that these go great with lemonade!

 

 

and Sprite!

[shonandsuzie]

Our cabin was #7151. It was a balcony cabin right by the front elevators on the starboard side of the ship. It was okay but I fear we have been spoiled by a few good deals on suites. It's hard to go back. I think it has plenty of space but Shon really felt it was cramped. The location of the cabin was excellent. Loved being near the elevators and never heard any noise from them at all. We could go straight up to the pool deck or straight down to the theater and comedy clubs. Also, the balcony of this cabin is at the end of a row of balconies that are farther out from the rest. This means that there was no balcony next to ours to the right. Well, there was a balcony over there but it did not come out as far as ours so we only had balcony neighbors on one side.

There was a huge issue with our cabin. There was a knocking/dripping sound over the closet, near the door, almost continuously. It would get louder and louder and then quieter and then stop for a few minutes and then start up again. Initially we thought someone was hammering on the pipes or something until it never stopped. It woke me up a few times and made it hard to just sit in the cabin without the t.v. on. No morning coffee in bed unless I kept my earplugs in :( . I started thinking maybe they were doing an experiment to see if humans would go crazy from ongoing sounds. It was so annoying! We called guest services who had maintenance come out and check it out almost every day. They tried a few quick fixes but never found (or more realistically- never admitted) the issue. We tried to figure it out ourselves. Shon thinks it has something to do with the airconditioning unit that he found a floor above us. Funny thing, on the very last night, guest services called to see if we wanted to sleep in another cabin. You mean we suffered through that for 9 days and they had other cabins open?? You have got to be kidding me! We just aren't demanding or rude enough which (I honestly feel) is how you have to be to get things done sometimes. Oh well, we're too old to change now so we'll stay nice and suffer occassionally, I suppose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[iwannacruznow]

Very nice. I like the way you roll.

[goingsailing]

Great review so far and great pictures! Thank you

Looking forward to my turn on the Spirit!

[iggy's mom]

Nice review! We were on the same cruise as you so I am looking forward to the rest of your review to compare experiences. Hope you guys had a good time. We did. :)

 

Clair

[nathand95]

Great start! I love your pictures and I can't wait to read more!

[Kokopelli2]

Subscribed!

 

Hey guys, I have a picture of you taking a picture. :D

[jobell]

Here we go again......

 

This was a lucky year for Shon and I. We cruised our usual anniversary cruise in September and then got to cruise again in October for Shon's 40th birthday!

 

First off, Happy birthday Shon!!!!

 

Ya'll are too cute and I loooooooove reading your reviews...plus you are from Michigan (my homestate) so that makes you extra cool.

 

Seriously...I can't wait to read this review and maybe convince the hubs that we should do a Mexican cruise. ;)

[jobell]

Well, funny you would ask my friend;

 

 

I learned from a great friend (or two) that these go great with lemonade!

 

 

and Sprite!

 

Another great mini to buy and take is Firefly Vodka (Peach Tea, Sweet Tea, Raspberry) go great with iced tea or lemonade. ;)

[kath00]

Can't wait to hear the rest!

 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[daydreams]

Thanks for taking the time to tell us about your vacation! Loving the review! :)

[daydreams]

ooh, forgot to subscribe!

[BudweiserCouple]

we will be on the Spirit in March 2012. Enjoying your review and pictures. Keem em coming.

 

:D

[shonandsuzie]

Thanks for all of the positive comments! and teh great "mini's" tip. ;)

 

Kokopelli-You should post the picture of me taking a picture here! Well, unless it makes me look crazy or something! :)

[shonandsuzie]

First off, Happy birthday Shon!!!!

 

Ya'll are too cute and I loooooooove reading your reviews...plus you are from Michigan (my homestate) so that makes you extra cool.

 

Seriously...I can't wait to read this review and maybe convince the hubs that we should do a Mexican cruise. ;)

Awwww thanks! :)

Where are you from in Michigan?

You should find my old review from the Splendor to the Mexican Riviera. That would convince him!

[shonandsuzie]

Now on to the itinerary. The ever changing intinerary... :rolleyes:

Due to alot of craziness with the weather (and I assume some other reasons dealing with the general atmosphere in Mexico right now) our itinerary changed a few times. For us personally this was no issue. We cruise more for the cruise than the stops and are always ready for a change. I must admit, however, that when it changed to 3 days in Cabo, I was thinking that was a bit much. But low and behold, it changed again and the end result for our stops was: Ensenada, Cabo, LaPaz, Cabo, Puerta Vallarta.

 

Ensenada-

We haven't enjoyed Ensenada in the past so we chose to stay on the ship this day. We had thought about doing wine tours but then read conflicting reviews about it and decided to pass. Ensenada did appear to be built up alot more this time (from the view from the ship). The Paradise was in port with us which was very sentimental to Shon and I since that was the first ship we ever cruised on back in 1999 (back when it was a totally smoke free cruiseship). What sticks out in my memory of the port was the thousands of seals that were "honking" at the pier. They were funny as they tried to get attention from everyone! There was a soccer field just outside of the port area and some of the staff told us that they sometimes have soccer matches with the staff from other ships in port there. That would have been fun to see.

We simply spent most of the day relaxing. We spent some time at the aft pool area to hear the calypso band. It was strange to me that they had them at the aft pool area so much. Usually, it seems that they are at the middle pool to make it more "festive". This middle or main lido pool area was pretty quiet most days. They had some quiet old soft rock type music playing but not the usual fun-excitement that you might find on other ships- or other sailings. (I will say that this changed on about the 7th day when for some reason the music changed from slow sad songs to upbeat fun songs.) For us, it is not so much the genre of the music that matters. We just like "happy" songs not "everything is going wrong in my life" songs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JaniceB]

Happy Birthday to Shon! Can't wait to read the rest of your review.

[beach410]

You too are too cute, matching outfits!!

 

Love your reviews, thanks for sharing!

[futuresoonermom]

Well, funny you would ask my friend;

 

 

I learned from a great friend (or two) that these go great with lemonade!

 

 

and Sprite!

 

Loving your review... and definitely how you roll too! :D

 

This is totally my plan too, for my cruise in two weeks. Take these bad boys up on deck... here and there on the ship.. .yeah, SO... what was your tactic for getting them on board? Would love to hear!

[shonandsuzie]

Hold the brakes!!!!

This is where I have some explaining to do. On one night, we were trying to take pictures and set our camera on the ledge in our cabin and set the 10 second timer (to get our close-up matching-outfit shots) and the stupid thing fell and broke :eek:. I think it jumped b/c I refuse to accept responsibility for my poor choice to put it on such a shallow ledge. This led to all kinds of issues and so on and so forth. It wasn't until 2 days were gone did it occur to us that our phones are cameras (DUH!!! Can we blame it on our age ?) and we began to take pictures with my phone. Well, this was an issue because my phone saved them on the "phone" instead of the "SD card" everytime and I had to transfer them occassionally. THUS, long story short.... all of my pictures are out of order in my Snapbook account now. So.... the Port of Call post that I just did is out of order. And some of my next posts will be too since I usually use my pictures to remind me of what happened when and where.

 

So with that all said, I will continue. :o:)

[jobell]

Awwww thanks! :)

Where are you from in Michigan?

You should find my old review from the Splendor to the Mexican Riviera. That would convince him!

 

From a small town outside of Ann Arbor called Manchester...nobody knows where it is so I just say Ann Arbor. ;)

It doesn't take much to convince him really...just have to sell the whole package with airfare/hotel/cruise. lol. :D