Colorado Springs, CO, Red Carpet Cruises, Royal Caribbean Mariner of the Seas Mexican Riviera Cruise.

Pics and videos: http://gallery.me.com/ric.rooney/100108

Well we’re back on the high seas again.  This time Crystal and I are doing a 7-night Mexican Riviera cruise out of Los Angeles on Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas.  This was unplanned but Royal Caribbean made us an offer we couldn’t refuse.  This particular cruise is a ‘Seminar at Sea’, an educational seminar for cruise agents. 

So we have two days at sea where we’re in class for about 5 hours a day getting an advanced education on the Royal Caribbean brand.  However in exchange, Royal Caribbean offers you a cruise fare price that you can’t say no to!  It’s one of those perks that cruise agents get that makes this business so enjoyable.  I have a pic of one of our boardroom sessions with our instructor Kirk, a great guy who made the experience very enjoyable.

Day 1, Fly & Sail, Embarkation

This was the first time we’ve done a fly and sail cruise.  Unlike east coast sailings, one of the advantages of cruising out of the west coast is that you can usually fly on the day of sailing and arrive in time to get to your ship.  So you save the cost of an overnight stay that you have to do when you sail out of the east coast.  Now, it is more risky since you have very little room for error if problems arise with your flight like delays or a missed connection.

But fortunately for us, our flights were right on schedule and when we arrived at LAX there were the Royal Caribbean representatives waiting in the baggage area to take us to our ship.  Buying transfers from the cruise line is the only way to go when you’re doing a fly and sail.

The LA port is not one of the prettiest ports you’ll see.  Actually it’s a cargo ship port that does double duty for a couple of cruise lines that sail out of the Los Angeles.  Having said that, the Royal Caribbean embarkation process was flawless.  From the time we stepped off the bus at the terminal to stepping on-board the ship it couldn’t have been more then 15 minutes.  Very impressive!

Mariner of the Seas.  Nice ship!

Royal Caribbean is a first class cruise line. They are dedicated to a great cruise experience for their customers and they are dedicated to their ships.  Stepping on-board our ship, Mariner of the Seas, I was totally impressed.  Mariner of the Seas is a ‘Voyager’ class cruise ship.  At 138,000 gross tonnes she is a VERY big ship and the largest cruise ship sailing out of the west coast.

Voyager class ships introduced the ‘Royal Promenade’ concept to the cruise industry.  The Royal Promenade is the social focal point of the ship, a street-like venue with shops, nightclubs, restaurants and more all on one deck that spans four or more decks of the ship.  It is ground zero for nightlife on the ship.

However what I was so impressed with was her condition.  Mariner of the Seas was commissioned seven years ago but she still looks pristine!  This is a wonderful ship, richly appointed with an attention to design detail throughout.  I took a few pics to give you a feel for how pretty this ship is.

We took a standard balcony stateroom on Deck 8 and are very pleased with our accommodations.  The room decor is quite nice and the bed is big and comfortable.  The square footage is typical for a stateroom in this category, not huge but certainly more then enough to be comfortable.

Day 2, At Sea

Today we’re at sea heading to our first port of call in Cabo San Lucas.  It’s also our first day of class as part of our Seminar at Sea requirements.  We were in class from 9 AM until 3 PM with a 90-minute lunch break, so not too bad.  But we learned a ton.  One of the speakers was a really funny guy named Clay. Clay is the Food & Beverage Director for Royal Caribbean and he just happened to be on our ship this sailing.  He gave us a fascinating look at the behind the scene workings of the food and beverage operations of modern cruise ships.

Did you know that the Mariner of the Seas serves approximately 17,000 meals PER DAY! Day in and day out, 7 days a week, non-stop week after week, month after month and they do it nearly flawlessly.  It really is an amazing operation when you get a look at what actually is going on behind the scene.

Great malts at Johnny Rockets!

One of the specialty restaurants on many of the Royal Caribbean ships is Johnny Rockets, a throwback to the malt and hamburger joints of the 50’s.  It’s a lot of fun, the staff is great and at times spontaneously breaks out in a dance routine (usually when they hear Staying Alive by the Beegee’s).  The food is good but the malts are to die for!  So go ahead and indulge in one (or more).  After all, what’s a few hundred more calories when you’re on a cruise vacation?

Day 3, Cabo San Lucas

Today was out first port stop and all of these ports of call are new to me, so I’m really looking forward to it.  Sailing into the bay this morning at Cabo San Lucas was beautiful.  I’m sure many of you have seen the iconic images of the rock formations at the mouth of the bay here.  But actually sailing by them and seeing them in person is totally different. 

This is a postcard perfect port stop.  The beaches are beautiful and the bay is a water wonderland filled with sail boats, parasailing and jet skis.  If deep-sea fishing is your game, you’re in the right place, as you’ll see from some of the pics we took of the charter boats ready to take you out on a fishing adventure.

The temperature when we left Colorado Springs was a chilly 45 degrees, lousy even by Colorado standards for nearly mid-May.  The temperature today at Cabo San Lucas?  A wonderful 93 degrees!  Cabo San Lucas doesn’t have the facilities to dock a ship as large as Mariner of the Seas so we had to be tendered in.

Being tendered into town is always a little more inconvenient then docking and simply walking off the ship.  And with a ship that carries 3,200 passengers, getting them all to shore in small tender boats takes a little time, in our case about 45 minutes in line waiting our turn to board.  But it was worth the short wait as there’s plenty to do once you get in town.

All in all Cabo San Lucas is a port stop that gets a big thumbs up as a place we’d come back to for a longer stay in the future.

Day 4, Mazatland

If Cabo San Lucas got big thumbs up, Mazatland gets a sideways thumb, in our opinion.  Now I know there are beautiful beach areas here, so maybe I’m being a little too hard.  I guess a big part of the turn off is that your first impression of Cabo San Lucas is breadth-taking beauty as you enter the bay.  At Mazatland you dock in an industrial port in a run down part of town.  It’s just a turn off.  So much so that we decided to stay on board and just enjoy the ship functions that day.  Next time we’re there I’ll give it a fair shot and get out and tour the area.

Chops Specialty Restaurant

We tried one of the two fine dining specialty restaurants tonight, Chops.  Chops is a steakhouse, so of course we had filet mignon.  The steak was very good and the meal overall was fine.  Chops has a $25.00/per person charge and with a bottle of wine, we racked up a $100.00 bill for the night. 

While the dinner at Chops was very good, the free meals in our main dining venue were well above what I was expecting.  Main dining meals and dining experience will give both the specialty restaurants, Chops and Portifino’s a run for their money.

Day 5, Puerto Vallarta, Zip Line mania, One Ton Tomato

Today was our third and final port stop in Puerto Vallarta and as it turned out for us, they saved the best for last. This port was much nicer then Mazatland.  We didn’t have anything planned for the day when we walked off the ship and finally decided to take a five-hour motor tour around the area.  We took off with another couple, John and Laura and were on our way.

Mama Lucia Tequila

One of the stops that turned out to be pretty interesting was our visit to Mama Lucia, a small family run business that hand produces some of the finest Tequila in the world.  They use no automated equipment whatsoever, everything is done by hand.  They make three grades of Tequila that take between 8 to 10 years to produce!  They don’t ship; so the only way you can enjoy this Tequila is to go to Puerto Vallarta and bring it back yourself! 

We got to sample the products with little mini-shots in tiny plastic cups.  Man, even with just a small sip, those babies packed a wallop!  And with three regular and three flavored Tequila’s to sample, we weren’t quite walking the straight line we did when we first arrived!  The funny part was talking to the Tequila tour guy, who did these tours all day long.  No wonder he had such a goofy grin on his face while telling us how much he enjoyed his job!

Lunch in the Mountains, High Diving.

After our tour of the city and Tequila call at Mama Lucia’s our next stop was lunch and that’s where things got really interesting.  We ate at this restaurant set in the hills of Puerto Vallarta.  The restaurant overlooked a river that had thirty-foot high boulders in it and made for some really pretty waterfalls. 

Standing at the top of one of these boulders was our lunch time entertainment, a guy who for a couple of bucks would do the insanely stupid thing of taking a running start, jumping and just barely clearing boulders on the way down to the river below.  So I guess Acapulco has its cliff divers and Puerto Vallarta has its boulder divers.  But when he pulled out a bandana and blindfolded himself, I just had to get the video camera out.  Take a look and see what happened.

Zip Line Blast!

The highlight of our day in Puerto Vallarta had to be the zip line tour we did after lunch.  This is the largest, longest, biggest, baddest zip line experience in Mexico and we had an absolute blast.  I tried the zip line experience in St. Maartan and had fun but this was a whole other level of Wow!  I got some great footage actually up on the zip runs, although I had to let go of the camera once or twice because I was moving so fast I needed both hands for control when I came in for a landing!  It’s pretty funny to watch and listen to on a couple of those video clips.

One-Ton Tomata (ta’may’tah)

During lunch that afternoon we were serenaded by the local troubadour who sang the storied and touching Mexican ballad; ‘One-Ton Tomata’.  I was shocked that Crystal hadn’t heard the story of ‘One-Ton Tomata’.  So this is what I told her:

Once upon a time there was a young boy named Pablo.  Pablo came from a poor Mexican family that made a modest living as tomato farmers.  One year, just a week before the annual tomato harvest, there was a terrible storm that destroyed their entire crop!

With no crop to sell, the family faced certain financial ruin.  Seeing his parents so distraught, Pablo asked if there was anything he could do to help.  His father despondently told him that only a miracle or a ton of tomatoes could save them. 

Pablo thought his father said “only a one ton tomato” could save them.  So that night he said a prayer to St. Tomaseto, the patron saint of tomato farmers, and asked for a miracle of a giant tomato that would make up for the destroyed crop.

And as the legend goes, the next morning the father awoke to find a gigantic, 2,000-pound tomato in the middle of his field.  Mysteriously, all the ruined, squished tomatoes that were in the field the night before were nowhere to be found!

I recorded the song the troubadour sang.  If you listen carefully you can plainly hear him singing the chorus “One ton tomata, we need a one ton tomata, one ton tomayyyytahhhh, we need a one ton tomayyyyytahhh”.  Listen and hear for yourself if you don’t believe me.

I can’t believe my wife fell for that story!  Although I don’t think she bought the explanation about how Pablo and his family managed to get the one ton tomato to the marketplace.  But she’ll probably never read this write up, so let’s just keep this tall tale between us, OK?

Day 6, At Sea

We’re heading back to LA when it seems like we just got on the ship yesterday.  That’s the problem with cruising, your having such a great time that it’s always over way too fast.  The solution of course is to take longer cruises!  This is what Crystal and I did last year with 10 and 15 night cruises to the Southern Caribbean and Panama Canal.  We loved it and can’t wait for our upcoming 12-night Mediterranean cruise this September to Spain, France and Italy.  Once cruising is in your blood, you’re hooked and want longer voyages to explore new and exciting destinations around the world.

Day 7,  Hey, Hey, Goodbye.

Well tonight was our good bye from Royal Caribbean and they threw us a party on the Royal Promenade.  I’ve got a clip of what went on but I can’t tell you how impressed I am with how hard Royal Caribbean and this crew worked to make our time with them so enjoyable.  They do this week in and week out for months at time, yet they made us feel like we were the first passengers they had served.  My hat is off to them and Royal Caribbean for providing such a great vacation experience at an incredibly affordable price.

Cruising, it’s the only way to vacation in my opinion.  That’s why Crystal and I got into the business and we’ve loved every minute of it.

Until our next cruise in September,

Ric Rooney/Red Carpet Cruises

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