Mexican Riviera on the Jewel

[YVRteacher]

The menus for the main dining rooms are posted outside the doors to each restaurant daily and are not on the app.  Specialty restaurant menus are on the app.  Main dining room menus have a rotation so it doesn’t make sense to put them on the app.

[carohs]

We had pre-dinner cocktails at Shaker's, virgin for the littles, of course. It's so fun to have a drink package and be able to include the kids in fun drinks they wouldn't otherwise get at home. 

 

[carohs]

4 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

The menus for the main dining rooms are posted outside the doors to each restaurant daily and are not on the app.  Specialty restaurant menus are on the app.  Main dining room menus have a rotation so it doesn’t make sense to put them on the app.

I'm sure they have an idea what the rotation will be, since they do have to provision for it all. DCL does post a daily MDR menu although to be fair they only have 3 dining room options. I think the newer ship has more but we haven't sailed her yet. I can certainly look outside the doors but it's not the most convenient to run around from door to door before making a final decision. This is why having them available on the app would be an improvement. 

[carohs]

[DorothyB]

53 minutes ago, YVRteacher said:

The menus for the main dining rooms are posted outside the doors to each restaurant daily and are not on the app.  Specialty restaurant menus are on the app.  Main dining room menus have a rotation so it doesn’t make sense to put them on the app.

I was also disappointed that they didn't put the current day's dinner menu on the app each day.  Since they rotate through the same menues it seems that it wouldn't take that much to put the current menu up each morning (and they could head it "main dining room menu for Wednesday" etc to make it less confusing for those looking late night or early morning)

[carohs]

Just ate the best lava cake ever. I'm talking to you CCL. MIL had tiramisu; she said it was delectable. DD is signed in to Splash and DS is going to rest a little more. MIL and I will see what's what maybe get another martini or two. 

[cmph]

On 4/9/2023 at 5:01 PM, carohs said:

Here's the 4th bed solution. Needless to say this solution creates more problems than it solves. DD and I will get lots of snuggles on this vacay. 

 

 

 

I am still in disbelief that they would allow people to book a room for 4 that doesn't have 4 beds. what the heck??!! It's a good thing you have younger kids! And also - no wonder the ships seem overcrowded!! 

Edited April 12, 2023 by cmph

[cruiseny4life]

13 hours ago, carohs said:

I'm sure they have an idea what the rotation will be, since they do have to provision for it all. DCL does post a daily MDR menu although to be fair they only have 3 dining room options. I think the newer ship has more but we haven't sailed her yet. I can certainly look outside the doors but it's not the most convenient to run around from door to door before making a final decision. This is why having them available on the app would be an improvement. 

I agree completely! In my case, it costs NCL money. We never remember to go down to the main dining room to look at the menu, so a few times after dinner in the Haven Restaurant, we'll wander down to gamble, shop, shows, etc. and remember OH the main dining room! What do they have? If it's something I just want to have, we'll go be gluttons with a second meal. And feel terrible after, because we're so stuffed. If they'd just be like Holland America or Disney or Royal Caribbean or Carnival and post the damn menu, they wouldn't have to worry about me having a second dinner. I'd just have one. 

[carohs]

8 hours ago, cmph said:

I am still in disbelief that they would allow people to book a room for 4 that doesn't have 4 beds. what the heck??!! It's a good thing you have younger kids! And also - no wonder the ships seem overcrowded!! 

Absolutely!! I will have to take a much closer look at the deck map and stateroom designations. We have POA booked for Oct with a gty and now I'm even more nervous what we end up with. 

[carohs]

53 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

I agree completely! In my case, it costs NCL money. We never remember to go down to the main dining room to look at the menu, so a few times after dinner in the Haven Restaurant, we'll wander down to gamble, shop, shows, etc. and remember OH the main dining room! What do they have? If it's something I just want to have, we'll go be gluttons with a second meal. And feel terrible after, because we're so stuffed. If they'd just be like Holland America or Disney or Royal Caribbean or Carnival and post the damn menu, they wouldn't have to worry about me having a second dinner. I'd just have one. 

ROFL 😂 if I could like this three times over I would. 

[carohs]

Good morning from Puerto Vallarta!!! It's 15 minutes from our scheduled arrival time and we have not yet docked. I can feel the ship inching closer but at least I now have service again. MIL agreed we didn't need to rush out first thing, so when I woke up in our pitch black room I checked the time and snuck out for caffeine. I hope I didn't wake anyone, but I'm 0 for 2 so far. 

 

How's the coffee? Well since you asked it's tolerable and does the job. It is piping hot which I know is a requirement for some. Today the drink station had brand new machines too, however they did not mark them. Or my uncafffed head did not see a sign. Anyway, despite common practice, reg on the left, decaf on the right, I managed to pour myself decaf first. Bleh. There are two sized mugs but even the larger of the two is half the size of a standard mug. I guess they really want the serving crew to be singing coffee jingles. The handles are small and I can only fit one finger through. They are also heavy. This all in combination is just a big ol conspiracy to limit my joe intake making it impossible to carry more than one cup at a time. Oh, I tried to carry two in one hand and one in each hand, but the darn mug is too hot to hold by anything else than the handle. My index finger is getting quite the workout. 

For milk substitute, they have rice, soy or almond milk available. I'm having mine with almond milk. 

[carohs]

I realize I left a small gap last night. So what was what? This time the line at Splash only went as far as down the stairs, not too bad. DD went to be with her friends while DS stayed in the room watching movies. MIL and I skipped the theater and went to Spinakers to listen to D'Revelations. There was almost no one there and the bar was empty. I got a bartender special and MIL got the...shoo I'll ask her later.

 

Spinakers had trivia after so we went to Bliss to listen to New Sensations latin music. The we got a Mr. Worldwide. Good if a little sweet. MIL and I must be lightweights because this is only the second cocktail since dinner and we're happy. For anyone who's counting, we also had 🍷 at 🍽️. 

 

MIL and I did get up and danced at least one. She knows how to Cha Cha 😉

 

New Sensations took a break and I checked on the littles. DD says she's still having fun: she's obviously wired. Unlike DS and I she has not taken a nap. DS was still awake and watching Minions. It seems his energy has returned just a little, good sign. I turned the TV off and headed back to Bliss.  

 

We finished out their set and then headed to bed. Yes I did remember to pick up DD first. 

[carohs]

8:10 and we're still inching towards the dock. Celebrity Solstice will be our neighbor for the day and she's already here. 

[dexddd]

38 minutes ago, carohs said:

Absolutely!! I will have to take a much closer look at the deck map and stateroom designations. We have POA booked for Oct with a gty and now I'm even more nervous what we end up with. 

Depends what you get with a gty, but at least POA has some insides that have two beds on the walls for pax 3&4.

[carohs]

I finished my cup and went to bring back a cup for MIL. When I grabbed by lanyard to head out I didn't bother to check it. It turns out that if you wanna get back into your stateroom you should have your key card inside your lanyard. Whoopsy. Good news is I didn't wake anyone up when I exited, bad news is they're not answering my knocks. Luckily I saw our Steward Roland and he let me in. He even remembered which room, nice.  

[carohs]

 We walked across the street to Walmart. I was looking to see what the selection of souvenirs and tequila would be but I didn't notice anything special. We got some papitas and suero for DS. Chips and Mexican Pedialyte and got a taxi to the malecón. 100 pesos. We walked around and took lots of pics. The statues were cool and DD wanted to stack rocks.

[carohs]

At 3pm we had a workshop scheduled at the Chocomuseo. We started out learning the history of chocolate while we picked which toppings we wanted to add to our molded chocolate. 

[carohs]

Next the cocoa beans were roasted, we were a group of 8, 5 of which were minors. DD took a turn stirring the beans. After they were roasted, Rodrigo spread them out so we could shell them all. 

 

[carohs]

Then we enjoyed a Tea, but not with the nibs but with the shells. Rodrigo said this is called Trash Tea. Very healthy and delicious. 

[carohs]

He then took the tea and added honey and chili powder to make another drink. This was mixed using coconut shells. Mmmm.

Edited April 13, 2023 by carohs

[carohs]

We then ground the beans into a paste and then re-grinded with sugar added. We had fun making the chocolate into shapes.

[DorothyB]

My friends and I were upstairs doing the 2 hour "Beans to Bar" while you were on the second floor doing your workshop!!

[carohs]

While we played with chocolate Rodrigo passed around spices we could smell and made hot chocolate with milk and the chocolate paste. The kids took turns with the molinillo. Another yummy drink, and the end of the workshop. 

[carohs]

26 minutes ago, DorothyB said:

My friends and I were upstairs doing the 2 hour "Beans to Bar" while you were on the second floor doing your workshop!!

How did you like it?

[carohs]

We demolded our chocolate and walked a bit more. I wanted some souvenirs I had seen on the way in. We found the line of parked taxis and got one back to the port. Originally I had said to Walmart but at the last second I mentioned we would cross the street to the marina. Welllll the taxi quickly maneuvered into the turn late and left us at the entrance. Then he charged me $5pp. That's almost 4x more than our ride there. Seems they charged a premium for the convenience. I knew that would happen but whatevs we were tired.