Review-Paradise-9/06 to Panama Canal-Part 2

[carol459]

Part 2
Next stop- Mazatlan
Sea day- We did most of the usual things except for one thing. Today was the season's first episode for the Survivor series. Carol, Ethel, and Roy (dinner mates) and Jackie (cruisecritic) were all fans. We had to search the ship for a tv (not in a stateroom) where a group could watch this new episode. We finally found one in the Rotterdam Bar. We met at 6pm, dinner had to wait, and watched. It was a good time and Carol and I had dinner at the buffet and the others went to the late sitting for the evening. Good time for everyone.
Mazatlan-We set up a Countryside tour online with Frank, [email]fkole2000@hotmail.com[/email] , and boy was it a tour. He met us at 9am at the dock and we left about 10am, because a couple of the people who reserved were running late. Otherwise, we would have left earlier. We were touring in a couple of AC vans and first went to a brick factory, where brick is made by hand. It appeared as if the one guy who was working was putting in a lot of effort, hand-mixing clay-soil mix and using a mold to form the bricks. Then we were shown a stack of bricks about 10' high, 20' long and 6' wide, which were drying for use in construction. I didn't quite get the significance of all this until we got back on the highway and I saw several dozen of these drying stacks along the highway in this one area. The worker had to make a thousand bricks to earn $22 American per day. Good Grief.
Our next stop was a furniture factory which also housed a pottery factory. Basically, hand-made, all of it. The furniture was old-style Spanish made the same way for several hundred years except for the power tools. There were several small furniture and pottery factories in this one area.
The town of Malpica was our next stop. We were led into a small bakery with a wood-fired stove. The aromas were heavenly but the heat was a bit much for me. I had to go outside and Carol came out a few minutes later with some still-warm baked goodies. Yummm! They were great. Next we walked to a tile factory. I use the term factory a bit loosely, because there is only one tile press and one guy making the tiles. But they are great looking tiles and some of the people bought a single tile for a souvenir. Back to the van.
The town of Concordia was our next stop. We went to a home that had been around for a long time. It was an adobe ranchero type home with gardens, open areas, and beautiful furniture. They had many antiques and had some real meso-American antiquities in a couple of small glass cabinets as you walked in the door. It was a trip. We walked down to the Church, which dates back 250+ years. Great photo ops.
Next stop-Copala- This is a small down-home Mexican village which has cobblestone streets and is built on a hillside. Our vans were able to drive on the streets, but the big tour buses were not. Those people had to walk. There was another fine church there with a statue of a soldier above the front door. Legend has it he will spit on the unpure as they walk into the church. A lot of people decided to use the side door after they heard that. We had lunch (included in the tour) at a restaurant called Daniel's. I thought we would get a snack, but it was a real meal. We each got a sampler platter with a relleno, taco, enchilada, and tamale. A slice of banana coconut pie topped it off. A choice of cold drink, including beer and margaritas, was also included. Yummm!
That finished off Copala on a high note for us. We headed back to Mazatlan, because it was getting late. Frank took us on a driving tour of old Mazatlan and dropped us off at 5pm, totally exhausted and happy. What a great day. Dinner, then bed time
Sea Day-I was sick with a respiratory thing (a cold) and stayed inside all day. Carol did her onboard thing, including the Survivor contest. This was supposed to be a day at Cabo San Lucas, but Hurricane Javier took care of that. This is a tender port and Javier was throwing high winds and waves directly into the port. Carnival did the prudent thing and canceled, giving us a credit in our sail-n-sign account. No big deal as we were not planning on going ashore anyway. Been there, will be back.
Last Sea Day-I felt a little better but Carol was sick with a fever and gastrointestinal distress. She was laid out like a rug and stayed inside all day. I walked around and said good bye to as many of the really nice people we had met on the cruise as I could find. I spent a good part of the day packing while Carol slept. She was able to eat nothing and I went to dinner at the buffet and called it a day.
Long Beach-I can only say, things went pretty smooth, except for customs. They took a little longer than usual and we did not get off the boat 'til about 9:30am. Earlier, about 7am, I noticed about 25-30 officers with a couple of drug dogs boarding the ship. They were literally everywhere, going over the ship's public areas from bow to stern.
Our only brush with the purser's office came into play today. We had purchased air travel from Carnival, from LAX to Miami. Then when we got to Long Beach, there was a matter of getting back to LAX where our car was parked. The story was, we would receive free transfer to LAX because we were Carnival's air-sea guests. This was the story from our TA, who had checked with Carnival and the purser's office, which said the same thing twice, at the beginning of the cruise and at the end of the cruise. But, we never got anything in writing. So, when we picked up our luggage from the terminal, we had a porter take us to the bus which was going to the American Airlines terminal. There were others there in the same situation and all that happened was we had to turn over a transfer we didn't use when we went to Miami. And we were transported to LAX. Whew!! At LAX, we had to cart our luggage downstairs to the arrival level to catch the parking lot shuttle, which showed up within 5 minutes. We were home by 1:30pm, and Carol crashed and I just sat down to unwind.
Comments:
The Paradise-An older ship, but a non-smoking ship. What a treat! It is getting a little tired but it got us there. This was a one-time cruise and was very enjoyable
The Staff- We hardly ever saw our room Steward, but we saw his efforts. The room was picked up, bed made, re-toweled, and re-iced several times a day. Our dining room waiter and assistant waiter did a good job on the whole cruise, dealing with 5 couples at our table with very few glitches. Overall the ships staff was friendly and helpful.
Food-Overall, good. Everything was ok. Pizza was great, prime rib was excellent, lobster was ok.Better than other lines we have been on and not quite as good as others. However, after 14 days, I was ready for a change.
Our cabin-Everything worked. We heard complaints about frayed towels, I only noticed that once.
Entertainment-Saw two dance reviews, both with a lot of energy, but seemed to be reminiscent of routines we had seen on other Carnival ships. Very entertaining, but, it seemed to a lot of people, including us, there should have been three of these types of shows instead of just two on a 14-day cruise.
Saw a lady singer, a violinist/fiddler, and a Tribute to the Temptations by a five man group, which were all a lot of fun. Saw a comedian who was marginally funny and another (I can't remember his name) older gentleman who brought down the house. The showroom has columns and there were complaints about those.
Final comment-There were a lot of people on this cruise who were residents of Florida. Hurricane Ivan was on everyone's minds and now Jeanne is going through the state. We are hoping everything turns out ok for all of them and we hope we might get to cruise together again.
Carol and Rick Howell

See Part 1 for photo link

[kajsb]

Part 2 was a good read just like Part 1. I hope one day to go on a cruise through the Panama Canal.

[dickinson]

Thanks Rick for your review! I loved reliving our cruise!!! and the pictures!!! wow!! You got some beautiful shots.

a couple of things- we never saw any frayed towels. Obviously those should have been taken out of service to guests

The older comedian you were trying to think of was Norm Crosby. He was quite funny! (the other comedian was awful). I told my parents about seeing Norm Crosby and my mother told me my grandmother used to play cards with his mother!

When we were in Acapulco we saw the Woolworths and went to an internet cafe across the street which was only $1/hour.

[PINEVIEW01]

Thanks Rick!

[carol459]

bump