Observations on a 7 day Mexico Cruise

1. Got a great deal on an arrival hotel in Long Beach downtown Holiday Inn rather than on of the breach.

2. Great pick up of the two jet blue passengers in and out of Long Beach airport from the bay area Micheal and Heather.

3. Easy on to NCL's Star ship in San Pedro, LA's cruise ship docking area. Temp in LA was low 70's beautiful.

4. Plugged in the two for one martini hour before dinner each night.

5. Food was really pretty good in the main dinning room. No lobster, but Beef Wellington, and Prime Rib. Highlight of my lunch picks was Chicken Melansa, a chicken fried Chicken cutlet. It was always available with Spring Rolls from Viet Nam with chili lime sauce. Service was great. We had a server a couple of times that had been with NCL for over 30 years. He was happy to show off his watch and ring that signified that.

6. No afternoon tea on this ship.

7. Left my Cpap machine on shore in the overnight bag by mistake. Won't do that again. Lack of sleep was not fun for Sue or me. We survived.

8. Lack of programing on the ship due to taking over since the last cruise of public areas such as a movie theater, a card playing room and other meeting places. Replaced by more lux cabins and suites.

9. About 40 preschool age kids on ship. Looked like they were having fun they had their own parts of the ship. Not many school aged kids on ship.

10. At least 3 families from Merced on the ship. One man stopped me in the buffet and asked if I was from Merced. He mentioned that he had seen me walking through his neighborhood daily.

11. Met a nice couple from Idaho, Idaho Falls. Retired from running a produce trucking business from the Central Valley to Montana and Idaho.

12. Had 3 great wine tasting sessions and got to taste wines from areas that I wouldn't normally try.

13. Entertainment by Kerry Stokes, a Vegas style hypnotist that also sold an improvement CD step for self hypnosis. We bought it.

14. Had two great specialty dinners. We treated everyone to the French Bistro. It was a 20 dollar surcharge. I thought it was worth it. Wonderful food. I had the french equivalent to Italian cipino, Bouillabaisse. I also had a delicate lobster/shrimp cream sauced rolled in a footlong puff pastry. Yum. Linzi had the standing lamb chops, Sue had shrimp risotto, and Michael and Heather split a 32 oz boned rack of beef, very tender. The sides were great too.

The second specialty meal was hosted by the kids. It was at the Italian restaurant. The cappacio was paper thin. Great antipasto and a super meal too.

15. Some of us found the ice cream center, where they dipped four kinds of ice cream all afternoon. The desert buffet had a soft serve that dispensed choc and vanilla throughout the lunch and dinner venues.

16.Sue moved out of her "safe" element. She usually is up for shopping only at the portside stores. This time she wanted to see some more of Maztalan. He hired a taxi that threw her wheelchair in the open area area of a chopped VW dune buggy kind of vehicle and were taken to the gold zone for 10 dollars each way. He dropped us off at a gallery where we found some really cool things to buy. We brought back a nice margarita glass set. A few doors away was place selling dresses. Sue got a nice gauze blouse and a gauze dress, both of which had embroidery. Our last call as a place selling serving dishes. I bought a three of which one got broken on the way back to the ship.

17. The next day was Puerto Vallarta. It is a growing bigger every day with more time share structures and tourist facilities. It still has one of the nicest malecons (ocean walks. We bargined for a great price to get all of us to the river walk flea market. We were let off at the swinging bridge. We all nogotiated the swing and headed down the walk.

Its a beautiful walk along the river. We stopped at a very upscale indoor/outdoor cafe and had a round or two of margaritas and a couple of steaks and shrimp from their barbie. We will remember this as gentle mariachi players with harps and guitars strolled the restaurant playing to customers. It was the first time that Sue had been on the walk. She thought it was great. She would love to do it again.

18. Linzi negotiated her parents return on a 8 dollar taxi that took us back to the ship while the kids stayed in town a little longer.

19. We all made it back on the ship and we were headed home. 3 nights and two days later we were make in LA where the weather had changed and the clouds and arrived with the colder weather.

20. We dropped Heather and Micheal off at Long Beach where they picked up a rental car and toured the fabulous Getty museum. Linzi piloted us home over the storm swept grapvine up the 99 and made dinner for us that night.

21 Sue and I are so fortunate to have such sweet daughters that are such a joy to travel. Mexico in February is delightful. the lows were in the upper 60's with highs in the low 80's. Couldn't ask for a better place to be in the winter.