Mexican Riviera: Cabo San Lucas

The third port on our Norwegian Mexican Riviera cruise was Cabo San Lucas. Before going on this cruise, it was Cabo San Lucas that I was most highly anticipating. After spending enjoyable days in Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan, I wondered if Cabo San Lucas would be a disappointment, but it was anything but a disappointment!

Cabo was the only port in which we had arranged our excursion directly through Norwegian Cruise Lines and I am glad that we did so. The Norwegian Star had to tether in Cabo and those who had arranged their excursions directly with NCL were not required to take any special action to obtain a favorable time for tendering.

We made it to the dock well in advance of our excursion start time and took advantage of that to look at some of the stores that were just opening. There were quite a few people on the docks selling boat rides to the arch, whale watching, and other destinations. The majority of the cruise ship passengers seemed to be going on excursions that toured Cabo.

We had selected the Two Bay Snorkel by Zodiac excursion. It was impressive how much tour guide Fernando and Captain Julio were able to get in for us to do in the three hours from 9 am to 12 pm (the Cabo cruise day allows for less time for excursions to accommodate the long traverse back to Los Angeles). The speedy Zodiak was a big part of being able to fit so much in.

Fernando and Julio started by taking us out to the sites that Cabo is arguably best known for: the arch of Cabo San Lucas (El Arco/Land's End), Pelican Rock, Lover's Beach (Playa del Amor), and Divorce Beach (Playa del Divorcio, which connects the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Cortez [Gulf of California]). We only got to see these sites from the boat and only very briefly given the snorkeling on the schedule.

On the way to Santa Maria Cove and Chileno Bay, we stopped to watch humpback whales staying close to the surface.

After watching the whales for several minutes, we headed to Santa Maria Cove for snorkeling.

From Santa Maria Cove, we next went to Chileno Bay for more snorkeling.

After snorkeling, Captain Julio took us back to Cabo San Lucas port by going along and near the shore so that we could see the expansive beach more closely. We walked around the dock some more (now with numerous open restaurants), had a fruit-filled churro, and then rode the tether ships back to the cruise ship.

Cabo San Lucas's primary industry is tourism. I was impressed at all the aquatic activities there are to do there. Besides the snorkeling and whale watching we were able to do, there are multiple beautiful beaches, sea kayaking, banana boat riding, and para-sailing activities to readily enjoy. Sightseeing and photography around Land's End may be the most popular activity of all.

Cabo San Lucas has been ranked #2 on U.S. News and World Report's "Best Cheap Spring Break Destinations." I would love to return to Cabo with more than a portion of a cruise excursion day to enjoy more of what it has to offer.

Mexican Riviera: Mazatlan

The second port on our Norwegian Mexican Riviera cruise was Mazatlan.

The cruise ship docked at the Mazatlan Cruise Vessel Terminal, which serves commercial and freight ships. There were numerous vehicles parked there.

After disembarking from the cruise ship, there's a very short (minute or so) ride over to the Mazatlan Cruise Terminal. As CruisePortInsider.com describes it, that Cruise Terminal is indeed a "frenetic atmosphere." There are gift shops and dining and lots of individuals (mostly men) attempting to sell rides and tours. We had our excursion for the day already booked through Costco Travel partner Shore Excursions Group. The tour we had selected was the "Stone Island and Old Town Sightseeing Tour." Mazatlan Van Tours was the tour's operator and Julio Juarez was our driver and guide.

Julio narrated as he drove us around Mazatlan on the "Old Town Sightseeing" portion of the tour and he told us about the Mazatlan. Two of the things he mentioned that stood out to me are his description of Mazatlan's Mardi Gras (Carnaval de Mazatlán) and the fact that 1 million cans of tuna are produced daily in Mazatlan. It was impressive to see Julio narrating while navigating the roads of Mazatlan. He pointed out that there are no street lights in Mazatlan!

Our first stop was near the Mazatlan Cathedral (Basilica de la Inmaculada Concepcion).

Both the exterior and interior of this cathedral are attractive.

We briefly strolled through the park (Plazuela Republica/Plaza de la Republica) that is across the street from the cathedral. The park itself is shady and pleasant, but the views of the cathedral make it even more interesting.

We walked through the Mazatlan Central Market (Mercado Pino Suarez) near the cathedral in which a wide variety of food (vegetables, fruits, meats, etc.) are sold along with purses, belts, other apparel items, tourist items, candies, and much more. Additional details and photographs of this market busy with tourists and locals can be seen on the market's web site as well as here, here, and here.

After our stop to see the cathedral, the plaza, and the market, Julio drove us to the top of a hill overlooking Mazatlan.

Our next stop on the "Old Town Sightseeing" portion of the tour was to view the Mazatlan Cliff Divers, a very popular attraction with the tourists (it felt the most crowded of all the things we saw in Mazatlan). It was hard to believe that these young divers would do this, but they did so repeatedly.

After witnessing the cliff divers, we headed to the "Stone Island" portion of the excursion. Julio drove us to a small pier where we boarded a ferry to "Stone Island."

When the ferry reached the other side after a few minutes of travel, we were met by several locals holding iguanas for people to have their photographs taken with the iguanas (and would accept donations for providing this). One iguana was particularly large and another rode around on his handler's shoulder as the handler drove his small motorbike. A tractor pulled some wagon trailers we rode in to the main "Stone Island" resort area.

Each group was provided with a table under a roofed area with close proximity to the beach. We were able to choose from a few different meal options on the menu and everyone in our party chose the "combination" plate. The scenery and activities were definitely the highlight compared to the food. Drinks were also provided at a station near the dining tables. Many people in the greater group at the Stone Island beach that day simply relaxed in the shade and looked at the Sea of Cortez and the beach.

Each person received tickets for two activities. Members of our group covered three different activities between us. We used one of the activity tickets to borrow a boogie board to use. A couple of us rode the banana boat that was pulled by a speed boat around Isla Cardones. This was obviously a fun ride for kids, but I found it to be more interesting than I anticipated as the boat that pulled us went pretty fast, we bounced around on the waves made by the boat quite a bit, and we got to see Isla Cardones up close and on the opposite side from the beach perspective.

As we had done in Puerto Vallarta, we also were able to sea kayak here as well. We did not ride the horses, but the people we talked to who did ride the horses were not very impressed with that particular activity. They stated that it was really short and there wasn't much interesting to see. Activities on the beach and in the Sea of Cortez seemed to be the better choice for this excursion.

At the end of the day (cruise ship port excursion "end of the day"), we rode back on the tractor-pulled seated trailers to the ferry and then rode the ferry back to the other side where Julio drove us in the van for the short drive to the cruise terminal. Now that we knew what Stone Island was and where it was, we could see that it was viewable from our cruise ship.

"Stone Island" is featured in the immediately previous image and in the next image. Julio explained to us that it's now really a peninsula instead of an island, but that it'd take significantly longer to drive to the tremendous beach we enjoyed if we had not ferried to it. The Google Maps representation of Stone Island shows its peninsular nature.

We enjoyed our first visit to Mazatlan. The "Stone Island and Old Town Sightseeing" excursion combined the Mazatlan Old Town sightseeing tour with several hours on the beach of "Stone Island" and provided a nice mix of interesting introduction to the city along with active enjoyment of the beautiful beach and sea access.

Mexican Riviera: Puerto Vallarta

Our first port for excursions on our Norwegian Mexican Riviera cruise was Puerto Vallarta. One of the advantages of a cruise is the ability to see multiple destinations, but this comes at the cost (especially with most sea cruises) of typically only being able to see each destination for a fraction of the time you could see it if you visited in a different manner. This was definitely the case for us in Puerto Vallarta, which offers far more than we were able to see in this single day.

We had purchased this Mexican Riviera cruise on Norwegian Cruise Lines through Costco Travel and we purchased our Puerto Vallarta shore excursion from a Costco partner called Shore Excursions Group. Our particular excursion was the Sea Kayaking and Snorkeling Combo with tour operator Eco Tours de Mexico.

For this particular excursion, we needed to arrange our own transportation from the docked Norwegian Star to the Eco Tours dive shop. This shop was a short drive away from the port and it took only 5-7 minutes to get there.

We were quite a bit early, so we walked around that Marina Vallarta area for a bit. There weren't a lot of customers or tourists yet and many of the restaurants and shops were just opening.

Ecotours de Mexico conducts the sea kayaking and snorkeling tour in conjunction with their hiking and snorkeling tour. Our party of three were the only ones kayaking, but the overall group was larger because more people were doing the hiking and snorkeling. We all (kayakers and hikers) rode together in a van to the small fishing village where the hikers would hike to the cove for snorkeling and the kayakers would kayak to that same cove for snorkeling.

This was my first time in Puerto Vallarta, so I enjoyed seeing Puerto Vallarta as we rode by van to the fishing village. From the van, we experienced a portion of old town Puerto Vallarta with its cobblestone streets, the Malecon Arches, and other aspects of downtown Puerto Vallarta.

The van stopped for us to enjoy the view of Los Arcos.

There were other great views from this same vantage point.

The final destination for the van ride was the village of Boca de Tomatlán. From here, the hiking group set off on a hike and we boarded kayaks.

The sea kayaking was great, but unfortunately, the water was too choppy that morning to kayak into the intended Colomitos Cove for the snorkel, so we spent our time kayaking around the harbor and enjoying the beach and Mexican food (especially the different flavors of shrimp) at the restaurants on the beach. It was disappointing to not be able to snorkel in the cove, but it was nice to relax on that picturesque beach.

One of the surprises for us was how many dogs were wandering around on the beach area. One dog, named Lazlo, was obviously there with his owner. Lazlo liked it when his owner or any other human willing to participate would throw a tennis ball into the water of the small harbor. Lazlo was adept at watching the waves and swimming out to the tennis ball when the waves were not at their highest and bringing the tennis ball back to shore to the human who threw it out. There were a few other dogs on the beach that did not seem to have obvious human counterparts, but they were comfortable around the people and would setting under our chairs and tables to get some shade while lying there lazily.

After our day in Boca de Tomatlán, the van took us back to our cruise ship.

Puerto Vallarta has been named #1 in U.S. News and World Report's Best Cheap Spring Break Destinations.

There is much more to do in Puerto Vallarta than we had time for, so I hope to some day return there for more than a cruise port excursion to experience some of those things.