One day, you will find me on one of these beaches. I will be the one with the beach bar renting out water toys. Follow the music.
Not unlike St. Thomas, the Tortola port was also semi closed off and vans were the only taxi options. But, we didn’t venture out so please don’t take my word for it.
We went to Cane Garden Beach on the north side of Tortola.
It was everything I wanted it to be.
We found some chairs to keep, we pulled them into the lapping waves and just soaked up the sun.
There isn’t an exciting story about people we met or the amazing sea life we saw. It was just the best day on an amazing beach.
That is all we did. When the time came to leave I was heartbroken.
I vow to return to that beach.
This time our cruise entertainment wasn’t as exciting as the last one. Maybe because this cruise was packed. Either way, we stuck to drinks in the lounge and karaoke for our nightly entertainment.
Our plan for the day was to take a taxi to Magen’s Bay. Getting around from the port was super easy and reliable. The only downside was the taxis were vans and they waited until they had a car full of people before we left. Once we hit the roads, it made sense. It was a long winding drive but so beautiful.
Once we reached the beach we all piled out of the taxi and found someone to rent beach chairs from.
We had to pay for two lounge chairs, I think it was only 25 dollars. Once we settled in we made our way up to Fairchild’s Bar and Grill. It was crowded and lines were long. I guess that’s what we get for going to a popular place.
We don’t have many pictures of our time here and let me tell you why.
We were sitting next to a couple who was on another NCL cruise, the Outlaw Country cruise. {we will call them Carol and Bud.} I asked about their cruise and who was playing on board. I am a country music fan. I didn’t know anyone they mentioned. I guess “outlaw” means someting else. But now we were talking to them for our entire stay at the beach.
The time came for a drink refill so Carol and I went and stood in the long line for rum drinks. While we were waiting she told me that she had been in prison. “Oh, really? I asked. Then she said she’s been out for a few years. She is a whole new person. I mean obviously she is. So, I asked her what she was in for. You guys… She tells me this story. She was arrested in an Oklahoma casino. At the time, she had 40 packs of Sudafed stuffed inside her boots. She told the cops that she “had a cold”…Somehow she ran from them and was on the run for months. I am not kidding you. She told me how she would go to estate sales while evading law enforcement. She’d buy furniture without having a place to put it. Eventually she was caught after a shoot out and a car crash, I mean, of course. HAhahaaa…
She talked about how amazing prison was for her..blah blah blah. She said that she met the man she was now with (Bud ) while incarcerated, (that is another story) That makes sense right? Long story shorter, she got out early for good behavior and made her way to him. Now here they were.
We spent the afternoon drinking, swimming and chatting. They were fun, it was like watching a train wreck happen in real time. But as the day went on, their story changed. They spoke about being clean after their prison stints. They mentioned that they never wanted to end up in prison again. Her loose lips admitted that she keistered some Molley onto their cruise. She didn’t tell him because he has a guilty face.
Good times you guys, good times.
Before we new it, our alarm went off and it was time to head back to our ship.
We shared the taxi with them. These pictures should show you how we were SO glad that they weren’t on our cruise!
Once we poured out of the taxi , we said “Ok Bye” to our friends.
Then we had one more rum drink before getting on our ship.
After dinner we went to the lounge to watch Karaoke.
I took videos but I’ll spare you. It was basically the same people each night. We all sound good on vacation, right?
We decided on a Caribbean cruise for my birthday this year. One week in paradise with warm water and beautiful beaches. This itinerary had us leaving out of Port Canaveral Florida on my birthday stopping in the Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, Tortola and the Bahamas.
Our flight left San Diego late on a Friday night and we arrived in Orlando before 6 am.
We got some coffee and charged our phones while we waited for our ride.
We arranged a transfer from the airport to the port for 9:00 a.m and were at Port Canaveral before 10:00. Unfortunately the previous cruise arrived late {or passengers weren’t disembarking} whatever the truth was, our boarding was behind schedule.
Alas, we were making our way onboard. Our rooms weren’t ready so we headed straight to the pool deck we went.
We sat and people watched. Sang along, more people watching, made friends and then found our room to unpack and shower. We had a nice dinner in one of the two main dining rooms followed by espresso martinis and music.
Day two was at sea which meant we slept in. The only downside to that was the pool decks were packed. This cruise was full which we weren’t used to. There were lines and limited seating for most everything. So instead of sitting poolside we decided on wine and chocolate tasting.
Followed by a night of dueling pianos.
Our cabin at the end of the night.
Our cabin stewardess was the BEST!
The next morning we woke up in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. Our plan was to take a taxi to Umbrella Street and Costambar Beach.
Can we talk about the port though?
It took us a good 30 minutes to walk through the port of Taino Bay. I mean it was beautiful and full of things to do, see, drink, eat and swim in…but WTF. Half of an hour just to get to public transportation.
Once we got in a taxi and made it to our first stop. He didn’t just let us out, he parked and walked with us to Umbrella street. Actually, he took these photos for us.
He suggested that we go to Playa Dorado instead, because “Costambar is too quiet”. Stupid me said OK because Playa Dorado was also on our optional to-do list.
We pull up to a beach and a little bazaar. Our taxi driver was greeted by buddies whom walked along side us through a maze of bright sarongs, t-shirts, hand-made ceramics and then to the beach.
It’s fine, we thought…We are where we want to be.
Sun, monkeys and calamari…. I mean what is better than that?
We swam and soaked up the sun until our time was up. Then we bought shit we didn’t need before our taxi driver took us back to the port.
We ended the night with a nice dinner and listening to music, our favorite hobby.
As we were booking this trip I whispered to myself, “this time it will be amazing”.
Because this time we were going to do things different. We were going to stay at a smaller hotel. We were going to forgo San Diego International and leave out of Tijuana. That’s what everyone said we should do, it’s cheaper, easier..
Side note: we live 10 miles away from San Diego International Airport. We live 26 miles from the CBX crossing.
So, I book a flight from Tijuana to Cabo. The Uber showed up on time and 25 minutes later we are at the CBX border. We got out of the car with our luggage and all the of the paperwork filled out. (you have to have your shit together otherwise you’ll be filling out papers leaning against vending machines before they let you through, oh and they don’t have pens so bring your own.)
We proudly show our paperwork and make our way across the tunnel (border) and into the TJ airport. The walk took about 10 minutes. And then we hit the line for the custom passport check and guess what, we weren’t alone. We were in line for about 30 minutes. After that, there was another check point and then there was a luggage check. We left a lot of time, I’m talking hours to get through everything. But luckily we reached our gate with minutes to spare. We jumped in line and then realized that we weren’t even boarding our plane, we were just getting on a bus to take us to our plane. WTF?
We eventually made it to our plane.
We landed in Cabo without any problems. Once we collected our luggage and walked outside I realized that we werent at the same terminal we were used to. I don’t actually know how manyYou know, the terminal that has the bars?
Little things like that aren’t a big deal, shouldn’t be a big deal. but at that moment I wanted to be where everyone else was. I wanted to the terminal with the bars, I wanted to be where everyone else was.
Our transfer arrived not long after and we were headed to our hotel.
This was a smaller hotel that was a short beach walk to Medano beach.
We sat on the beach all day every day . Had the best churros ever.
We ate fresh fish, molé enchiladas. Fireworks every night and stormy weather.
I need to mention that those fireworks went off every night. It sounded like we were being gunned down (Hi, I am that old. ) Also, the flamingos underneath us sounded like they were screaming for their lives. I’m not a fan of either of those.
With that being said, it was a nice trip. But I think Cabo can be put on the back burner for awhile.
The trip home was SO much easier even with a delayed flight, go figure.
LA Galaxy, if you know me then you know that I am a soccer person. We are the OG LA Galaxy fans. When we lived in San Ramon (1990’s) we watched the San Franscisco Bay Blackhawks. This is before there was MLS. Eric Wynalda was on the team and I remember running up to him after a win with my friends. Can’t do that anymore.
Nevertheless we are still a footy family. OG Galaxy fans!
LA Galaxy MLS Champions!
Now onto my Averi.
I want to be her when I grow up. She’s just so confident, she has that chutzpah, you know.. so sure of herself.
As we were booking this trip I whispered to myself, “this time it will be amazing”.
Because this time we were going to do things different. We were going to stay at a smaller hotel. We were going to forgo San Diego International and leave out of Tijuana. That’s what everyone said we should do, it’s cheaper, easier..
Side note: we live 10 miles away from San Diego International Airport. We live 26 miles from the CBX crossing.
So, I book a flight from Tijuana to Cabo. The Uber showed up on time and 25 minutes later we are at the CBX border. We got out of the car with our luggage and all the of the paperwork filled out. (you have to have your shit together otherwise you’ll be filling out papers leaning against vending machines before they let you through, oh and they don’t have pens so bring your own.)
We proudly show our paperwork and make our way across the tunnel (border) and into the TJ airport. The walk took about 10 minutes. And then we hit the line for the custom passport check and guess what, we weren’t alone. We were in line for about 30 minutes. After that, there was another check point and then there was a luggage check. We left a lot of time, I’m talking hours to get through everything. But luckily we reached our gate with minutes to spare. We jumped in line and then realized that we weren’t even boarding our plane, we were just getting on a bus to take us to our plane. WTF?
We eventually made it to our plane.
We landed in Cabo without any problems. Once we collected our luggage and walked outside I realized that we werent at the same terminal we were used to. I don’t actually know how manyYou know, the terminal that has the bars?
Little things like that aren’t a big deal, shouldn’t be a big deal. but at that moment I wanted to be where everyone else was. I wanted to the terminal with the bars, I wanted to be where everyone else was.
Our transfer arrived not long after and we were headed to our hotel.
This was a smaller hotel that was a short beach walk to Medano beach.
We sat on the beach all day every day . Had the best churros ever.
We ate fresh fish, molé enchiladas. Fireworks every night and stormy weather.
I need to mention that those fireworks went off every night. It sounded like we were being gunned down (Hi, I am that old. ) Also, the flamingos underneath us sounded like they were screaming for their lives. I’m not a fan of either of those.
With that being said, it was a nice trip. But I think Cabo can be put on the back burner for awhile.
The trip home was SO much easier even with a delayed flight, go figure.
LA Galaxy, if you know me then you know that I am a soccer person. We are the OG LA Galaxy fans. When we lived in San Ramon (1990’s) we watched the San Franscisco Bay Blackhawks. This is before there was MLS. Eric Wynalda was on the team and I remember running up to him after a win with my friends. Can’t do that anymore.
Nevertheless we are still a footy family. OG Galaxy fans!
LA Galaxy MLS Champions!
Now onto my Averi.
I want to be her when I grow up. She’s just so confident, she has that chutzpah, you know.. so sure of herself.
When I wonder what she got from me, she runs into walls and spills shit.
He did it, the captain managed to dock in Costa Maya! And so did the captain of another large vessel that was there with us.
The ocean was super choppy the wind was busy but we hit the ground running, okay walking.
The port was riddled with sale sharks and I had to literally drag Shawna out of the mouths of two of them. The port has a lot to see and do, you don’t actually have to leave the port at all but please don’t actually just stay at the port. They had a pool with lounge chairs, a full service restaurant, bar and all sorts of shops. We finally made it out to where the taxi’s were and hopped into one with another couple luckily heading to the same beach.
We landed at playa Mahahual, where we popped a squat in chairs that had the warm waves lapping at our feet.
The water was warm and so clear.
We walked the Malecon for a ways toward the ships general direction popping into stores now and again. Once we had all that we wanted we were back at the port.
One last passion fruit margarita before we embark.
We enjoyed a nice dinner in the main dining room that evening. This was our view.
After dessert we got ready for prom night!
We danced the night away sipping our own spiked drinks.
Meeting the crew was a great way to end the trip.
And just like that… we were at the airport waiting for our flight home. But not before crushing some catfish and beignets.
And that’s it. Our flight was nonstop, had zero hiccups and we were back at home and gasp, unpacking by 5:00 that same day. Norwegian Breakaway was a great ship, a billion times better than the Jewel. The entertainment we loved and obvi favored the four singers and their band at Syd’s Pour House. Food was fine, drinks were pretty good. Ports, we would rate a 4 out of 5 because I’ll always be bitter about Belize.
We took advantage of the extreme temps and low rates that Cabo had to offer at the end of summer. A favorite spot on our Mexican Riveria cruise, we thought exploring it more than a day sounded like a nice getaway. We chose a RIU resort and as beautiful as the grounds were, we didn’t love it and wouldn’t recommend it.
This was the view from the lobby bar, by far the best bar at the resort in terms of drink options, bartenders and service.
We hung out staring at this view until our room was ready. A few beers and tequila shots later we unpacked our luggage in our just ‘fine room’. The room seemed damp the entire week, and had a musty smell but it was extremely humid during our stay, maybe that is why.
Then we hit one of the two adults only pool. They both were smaller infinity pools with a swim up bar. It was so hot outside we were sweating with excitement to jump into some cool water. You guys ALL the pool water was warm and there wasn’t any shade, that was a tough pill to swallow.
But it was beautiful.
We found a couple of lounge chairs, pulled over an umbrella, walked down to the beach and bought two hats.
For dinner we ate at a fusion restaurant. I think we ordered a fish dish and a lamb dish which was obviously not memorable. Unfortunately none of the food or drinks for that matter, were great. The buffet which we hit up for breakfast had a lot of options but some of it was questionable after sitting out for hours.
The next morning we had some coffee and fruit sent up to our room and enjoyed our patio.
We spent a couple of our days in town. The beach in front of our resort (and most of the resorts nearby) wasn’t swimmable. I researched this before we booked and never saw that it was dangerous, so that was a real let down when we found that black flag waving. We took advantage of the ocean (which was cooler than the pool) down at Medano beach. Reachable by foot but way too hot for that, we took a short taxi ride to town. Our first stop was at the Sand Bar, a favorite of ours from our cruise stop to Cabo.
We also popped into Cabo Wabo for a drink.
A little window shopping and then a stop at another favorite of ours, The Monkey Bar.
A very small bar with a handful of stools, great margaritas and country music.
Then we walked by an even smaller bar, or so they claim.
Our resort had some questionable entertainment each night. Karaoke night was by far the most fun. I was a judge which I took very seriously.
I started having some stomach issues halfway through our stay. Luckily OTC meds helped enough and allowed me to enjoy the last few days.
We spent another day at the pool chatting up the people we had met. But the pools were sort of gross, and it gives me chills thinking back on it now. Older folks sitting in the pool at the bar for hours, never getting out to use the toilet. Questionable things floating in the corners of the warm pool water, ew.
On our final day we decided to stay out of the pool and head back into town.
After some souvenir shopping for the girls, we stopped at Uno Mas for a margarita, it’s another cute little bar outside the marina.
We ended up back at the Sandbar where we sat for hours eating the most delicious octopus and fried fish. Sipping cold Chardonnay and floating in the ocean.
Our last evening we walked to the steakhouse for dinner and then the lobby bar for a couple of espresso martini’s.
We both wound up feeling terrible by the time we were heading home and were sick for a good week later. I blame the buffet, the pools and one pool bartender.
Final thoughts; find a better resort to spend your money on.
Isn’t it great when you stumble upon a great place by accident?
I knew nothing of this bar aside from some good reviews that I saw on Trip Advisor. I had some notes saved for days like these when we were going to be wandering around. It was an open air bar on the Malecón with around 12 bar stools, we soon found out that this was in fact a Sun Devil’s bar, yeah that college football team from Arizona. That took the illusiveness out of it but we stayed and we were happy with that choice. The owner of the bar graduated from ASU back in the day and then moved to PV and opened this place. It’s prime real estate so I imagine he is riding high on the hog. The bar menu was written on the walls in chalk, I ordered a passion fruit margarita, Shawna ordered a mango colada and we also threw in two flaming Dr. Peppers because somehow, she has managed to go through life without ever having one, truthfully she still hasn’t. Her amaretto never left the shot glass and she just chugged Modelo, ha!
Once we finished our drinks we decided that it was time to get some food. I don’t know why we chose the place we did but it was a good decision.
We sat to this view while chatting with an American man who just recently moved from Washington state to Puerto Vallarta with his wife. He went on about how good the food was and how great it was to live there. Then my molé enchiladas arrived and it went silent.
Happy and full we hopped back into a cab to our hotel and I bet you can guess what we did next.
That’s right, back to pool and this view.
Teleport me back!
Before dinner we popped into the Mojito bar where the service was slow, the drinks were worse but the spectacular view helped us swallow the poorly made drinks.
One drink at the Mojito bar and then we made our way to Gulietta, the Italian restaurant. The porcini risotto was the highlight, so good in fact, we would go back for more.
The next morning (day 3) we had coffee and breakfast delivered to the room and then….headed down to the pool. The fun pool, not the boring pool. The fun entertainment took place in the pool with the booze, the pool without the bar was for the boring people and the boring fun, well that’s what Emilio (see below) said daily .
We played Bingo and water volleyball and then we met new friends. Toby and Lord were from our neck of the woods aka California. We became fast friends and after dinner, which I am sure we had, we met them at their hotel room for some tequila. Sounds shady right? It wasn’t, they are really great people and they even convinced us to try this tequila that was….sippable. gasp! Still seems shady huh? Ha, we sipped and talked and talked and sipped and then went up to the sky bar. The people watching was on point, I am sure drinks were spilled but the laughing and dancing never stopped. I am sorry to say that we didn’t take a picture with them, but we will someday.
Wash, rinse and repeat. Same routine, different day. Day 4 and we had found our groove, we knew what activities we wanted to participate in and which ones we did not. For instance, I played Texas Hold Em’ and Lord was part of the Juego Loco.
I mean, what even was that? Ha, ha. After that brilliant and brave performance by Lord, we took a moment to salute the Mexican Air Force.
Mexican Air Force
We met another couple in the pool that day and they were self appointed avid Karaoke singers. They told us about a bar called Kooky’s in town that had Karaoke on Thursday’s and it just so happened to be….Thursday. We tossed the idea of leaving the resort around and decided to make a decision after dinner.
Dinner.
We ate well at the Japanese restaurant and committed to a night out, we called an Uber into town for some Karaoke.
We ordered some drinks, said hello to the ladies that invited us and took this all in.
AMAZING!
Fun times. It was a fun time to sit back and watch magic happen…. from a safe distance away.
Sadly, it happened. We woke up to our last full day of our trip. The people we had met and spent our days with were starting to disperse and new guests were arriving. We took advantage of one more day. We floated in the warm ocean water, enjoyed the slight chill of the pool and watched a pretty remarkable belly flop contest.
We had a really good lunch at the Cevicheria and an even better dessert.
The coconut ice cream was incredible.
We decided we needed to have the mushroom risotto one more time before we left, so off we went to the the Italian restaurant again. Finally, I ordered a really good drink.
The one and only, espresso martini.
We went up to the Sky bar thinking that since it was a Friday night and new people had rolled in that it would be a busy, great music situation. That was not the case. Turns out that most everyone went into town for their Friday night and we watched some musicians play instrumentals that lullabied us down to our room.
That’s it, that’s how it ends. We slept in, packed, ate one last meal, said our goodbyes and hit the road to the airport.
We had a great time. Cheers Puerto Vallarta, thanks for the fun!
Now…. Since we have been to both Secrets and Grand Fiesta, which resort would we revisit?
The Art of Thyming 