Majestic Princess Jan 22 and Feb 19, 2022 live report

[dhanakorn]

Day 4 dinner was Italian theme. 

 

The grilled seafood was very good. I’m a rice person so I replaced potatoes with steamed rice. 

 

Cheesecake was surprisingly tasty. 

 

I walked past Alfredo’s and saw these nice looking pizzas. Alfredo’s on Majestic serves full course menu with appetizer and dessert. 

[dhanakorn]

Day 4 main show was the singing by Colleen Williamson. I thought she’s gonna sing opera music but tonight she sang mostly classic old songs. She’s also very funny. Great performance tonight.

 

Then I went to Liars Club game show. Duke (the Entertainment director) was very hilarious. It’s a very fun show.  

 

Video clip of Colleen. 

 

 

 

 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (1)

This’s my 4th time to PV and I was here just three weeks ago. So this time I wanted to explore somewhere new. While reading the Mexican Riviera board, I came across a place called Las Animas - a small beach south of PV. It’s only accessible by boat, similar to Yelapa. I did Yelapa & Majahuitas excursion before and I remember I saw quite a few beautiful beaches on the way to Yelapa. So Las Animas would be my destination today. Getting there would be quite an adventure. 

 

After some research, I found this blog

 

https://www.michaelandmatt.com/blog/hike-from-boca-de-tomatlan-to-playa-las-animas-puerto-vallarta

You could get down to Boca de Tomatlan, from there hike along the coast to Las Animas beach, then take a water taxi back to Boca. The hike is supposed be beautiful, you can read the reviews from here

 

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/mexico/jalisco/boca-de-tomatlan-playa-las-animas

It’s a long day so I’ll break it into multiple posts. 
 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (2)
 

I stayed up late last night so by the time I got up we’re already docked in PV. We docked on the other side of the terminal that we used on my previous two trips here. NCL Bliss would come in later and dock at the terminal building. 

 

You can see Walmart across the street from where we docked.

 

Since it’s gonna be a long day I needed big breakfast to fuel up my body. The duck salad in small plate was very good (I think it’s leftover duck from dinner). Avocado smoothie was also very delicious. 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (3)
 

By the time I got off the ship it’s already 10am ship time (11am local PV time). Much later than I originally planned. 

I planned to take a public bus to Boca de Tomatlan. There’s no direct bus from the terminal - I need to take a bus to PV downtown and connect to another bus there. Since I started late I decided to skip the bus and called Uber instead. Boca de Tomatlan is 16 miles south from the terminal and it would take about an hour to get there. Uber fare was 350 pesos ($18). I think you can hire a taxi for 500 pesos. Since it’s almost an hour drive I think it’s a fair price. The drive along the highway south of PV was quite beautiful.

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (4)
 

Boca de Tomatlan is the last town before the highway turns toward inland. It’s a major hub to transport people and deliver goods to other small beach towns along the coast. It has a nice small beach with restaurants. The beach looks nice you could actually spend the day here if you don’t want to go further south. 

There’s a small pier where you could get a water taxi. I think it’s 120 pesos ($6) one-way to Yelapa. You could also hire a water taxi to Las Animas from here if you don’t want to hike. 

 

To get to the hiking trail, you need to walk back to the town and look for the suspension bridge to cross the river. 

 

After crossing the river, turn right and follow the trail. 

 

Looking back to the Boca de Tomatlan beach. 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (5)
 

Let’s talk about the trail a little bit. It’s about 2.2 miles hike along the coast from Boca de Tomatlan to Las Animas. There’re some steep sections and no clear marks along the way. We’re going south so if you keep  walking with the ocean on the right hand side you’re heading in the correct direction. Some people say they can walk with sandals but I’d recommend wearing a good pair of hiking shoes. 

 

About 15 minutes, I reached the Colomitos beach. 

 

The famous Ocean Grill restaurant (reservation required). 

You need to get down and walk across the beach to the other side to continue on the trail. 

View from the other side of the beach. 

 

 

[Level six]

wow, thanks so much, we might try doing this, please continue!! 

[julia]

Your pics are great...  just curious, where is this in relationship to Mismaloya?  North or south?

[dhanakorn]

13 hours ago, julia said:

Your pics are great...  just curious, where is this in relationship to Mismaloya?  North or south?

Boca de Tomatlan is about 2 miles south of Mismaloya

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (6)
 

From Colomitos, there’re a couple unnamed beaches along the way before we reach La Troza. 

 

The trail goes up and down. And sometimes you need to get down on the beach to continue on the trail. 

Sometimes you hike up along the cliff and looking down to the beach. 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (7)

There’s a barb wire before you reach La Troza - I think they might start some construction soon. You can continue to hike up the hill and get down to the La Troza. Or take a detour by getting underneath the barb wire and continue to the beach. 

 

The beach and the trail leading to La Troza. 

 

La Troza beach

 

At the end of the beach, the trail continues to Las Animas. 

 

 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (8)

After La Troza, we’ll reach Caballo beach. This’s the last beach before Las Animas. We’re almost there. 

 

Caballo beach is much more peaceful than Las Animas. If you want to avoid the crowd, you can stay here before heading to Las Animas to take the water taxi back. 

After a short walk from Caballo beach, I finally arrived Las Animas! From the timestamp on my photos, I started at the hike from suspension bridge in Boca around 12pm (local PV time) and got to Las Animas at 1:25pm. So about 90min hike. If you walk fast, you could do it within 1 hour. But I’d plan for 1.5-2 hour leisure hike so you can take time to enjoy the scenery. 

 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (9)
 

There’re many restaurants on Las Animas beach. It could get very crowded around the pier. If you don’t like the noise, just walk a little further away, then you can the quiet beach all by yourself.

 

 

After exploring Las Animas beach, I settled down at El Coral restaurant. It’s just right in front of the pier. Cantarito (tequila and mixed fruit juices) to refresh myself. 

 

Their signature dish is charcoal grilled red snapper. I saw many tables order this. The fish was very big and could feed 5-6 persons. The price is by weight - 459 pesos ($23) per kilogram. 

 

I just got guacamole instead. 

 

And mango margarita to celebrate the long hike. 

 

The total bill was 537 pesos ($27). It’s a little more expensive since it’s a beach front restaurant. They have nice facilities with wifi, clean restrooms, and showers. Friendly service. Credit card is accepted. I walked around to check out other places but El Coral seems to be the best. 

 

 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (10)
 

Around 3pm, I started to pack up and walk to the pier.

 

There’re water taxi available to hire by the pier. You can hire the boat just for yourself or wait for other people to share the cost. There’s a ground of 5 people waiting to get back to Boca so I joined them. The water taxi originally wanted 100 pesos ($5) for each person. A nice English lady helped negotiate down to 70 pesos (she said 70 is the usual rate). 

 

It’s only 10-min boat ride back to Boca de Tomatlan. So I think 70-100 pesos is a fair price. If you don’t want to hike, you can take the water taxi to Las Animas instead. Although I prefer to enjoy the beautiful hike then take the water taxi back. The boat by the pier was the water taxi I took from Las Animas. 

 

There’re taxis available by the pier to take you back to PV. Since I still had time so I decided to take the local bus. I followed the English lady and hiked up from Boca to the highway since the bus doesn’t go down to the town. There’s a bus stop right there when you reach the highway. 10 pesos ($0.5) from Boca to PV. 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (11)
 

Despite making multiple stops along the way it only took 40 minutes to get back to PV. You can enjoy the scenic ride along the southern coast of PV. The bus makes the last stop at the corner of Constitucion and Badillo st in Zona Romantica. This’s also where you take the bus from PV to Boca. 

 

I stopped by Eulo’s bakery for some snacks. I think I mentioned this place earlier during my last trip. 

 

Tres leches cake and pecan pie for 90 pesos ($4.5). 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (12)
 

While I was waiting for the bus to get back to the terminal (take bus with Walmart written in the front), I saw a bus with Pitillal sign coming to the stop. I remember reading about Pitillal before the trip. It’s a small village within the greater Puerto Vallarta area and is still maintained the traditional Mexican charms. Since I still have about 2 hours before all aboard time, so I decided to take the bus and visit the town.

 

I got off at the main Plaza del Pitillal.

 

The main attraction here is the Church of San Miguel Arcangel. 

 

 

Wooden sculpture of Jesus. 

 

Local seafood vendor. 

 

 

There’re many local shops and restaurants here. It’s not very far from cruise terminal. You could walk back within half an hour. It’s been a long day so I called Uber. 60 pesos and 7 minutes later I arrived at Walmart in front of the terminal. 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (13)

I did some shopping at Walmart then walked across the street to the terminal. Nice view of NCL Bliss in front of Walmart. 

 

This time they allowed you to walk around inside the terminal area. So I wandered around to take photos of the ships. 

 

 

NCL Bliss and Majestic Princess side by side. 

 

I got back on the ship around 5pm (6pm local time). I made it back a little early before the aboard time’s at 5:30 pm. 

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (14)

View from my balcony looking at the marina. 

 

 

We started to pull away on time around 6pm.

 

It’s already 7pm local time so the sun already set.

[dhanakorn]

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (15)

Tonight MDR menu

 

Twice-baked goat cheese soufflé was very delicious. 

 

Grilled Cornish game hen was good. 

 

I ordered Bouillabaisse fish stew as a backup just in case I didn’t like the game hen. But the server brought the trout instead. The trout turned out to be very tasty. 

 

Sea salt caramel cream pot for dessert. 

 

Tonight entertainment was the magic show by Naathan Phan. Even I already saw his show twice during my last cruise, he’s still very entertaining. 

 

So that’s it for the very long day in Puerto Vallarta. I got to visit new places in PV that I’ve never been before. A trip down to Las Animas was my favorite on this cruise. Like I said earlier getting there was already an adventure. I was a little concerned at first since it’s quite far away from the terminal. I was also worried if I’d get back to the ship in time. But after I did it, I think it’s very doable and easy enough to go there by yourself. 

[Coffeeluvr05]

@dhanakornyou should have your own travel blog! What an excellent read that has been. Thank you! 

[c-boy]

13 hours ago, dhanakorn said:

Day 5 Puerto Vallarta (9)
 

There’re many restaurants on Las Animas beach. It could get very crowded around the pier. If you don’t like the noise, just walk a little further away, then you can the quiet beach all by yourself.

 

 

After exploring Las Animas beach, I settled down at El Coral restaurant. It’s just right in front of the pier. Cantarito (tequila and mixed fruit juices) to refresh myself. 

 

Their signature dish is charcoal grilled red snapper. I saw many tables order this. The fish was very big and could feed 5-6 persons. The price is by weight - 459 pesos ($23) per kilogram. 

 

I just got guacamole instead. 

 

And mango margarita to celebrate the long hike. 

 

The total bill was 537 pesos ($27). It’s a little more expensive since it’s a beach front restaurant. They have nice facilities with wifi, clean restrooms, and showers. Friendly service. Credit card is accepted. I walked around to check out other places but El Coral seems to be the best. 

 

 

I see 15% tip included .... wonderful !

[Mike45LC]

On 1/25/2022 at 10:10 PM, dhanakorn said:

Patters from Day 4 and Day 5. For me the JourneyView on Medallion app is very hard to use. You’ve to scroll left/right up/down. I just wish they upload the Patter images to the app instead. A simple photo of the Patter is more practical since you can see everything in one place. So I just take a Patter picture and use it instead of JourneyView. 

I just tried the JourneyView on the Medallion App, and I found that I have to swipe down through 8 pages to view all of the activities at a given time.  And approximately 24 screens to cover 24 hours in a day.  So that is 184 screens per day!  

 

I cannot shrink the font to reduce the number of pages needed.  (A very new iPhone 13, so the phone is not old.)  

 

Other than dhanakorn's solution of using the Patter instead (and taking a photo of it, if need be), has anyone come up with a solution to this high-tech problem?  Will I once again be using my highlighter on the paper Patter?

[Coffeeluvr05]

13 hours ago, Mike45LC said:

I just tried the JourneyView on the Medallion App, and I found that I have to swipe down through 8 pages to view all of the activities at a given time.  And approximately 24 screens to cover 24 hours in a day.  So that is 184 screens per day!  

 

I cannot shrink the font to reduce the number of pages needed.  (A very new iPhone 13, so the phone is not old.)  

 

Other than dhanakorn's solution of using the Patter instead (and taking a photo of it, if need be), has anyone come up with a solution to this high-tech problem?  Will I once again be using my highlighter on the paper Patter?

You could use the Notes app on your phone to scan the Patter.  I think it creates a PDF and will allow you to highlight.  That way you don't have to carry around the paper. The JourneyView is pretty useless.  

[Mike45LC]

5 hours ago, Coffeeluvr05 said:

You could use the Notes app on your phone to scan the Patter.  I think it creates a PDF and will allow you to highlight.  That way you don't have to carry around the paper. The JourneyView is pretty useless.  

I'll probably end up taking a photo of the Patter after I mark up the physical pages, so I can stretch it as needed.