Carnival Pride – Mexican Riviera
by Tim Anderson

Introduction
In late February, a Mexican Riviera cruise was the perfect escape from the Canadian winter. Cruising is an excellent way to visit Mexico.  Any concerns about the water, known as Montezuma's revenge, are avoided as the ship has its own supply of safe water.  Language isn’t an issue either, as all the Mexican ports are geared to supplying services to tourists in English. 

Air Canada / Alaskan Air
The flight down on Air Canada was great.  They have a monitor on the back of each seat and provide a number of free current movie choices.  You can change your choice, stop and rewind to your heart’s content.  Meal service was not included, but there were several good low cost choices.  Be careful about how long you stop your movie for meal time, as you may find you are landing before you’ve finished the show.  Alaska Air on the return was much more bare bones.  There was a free snack but no movie availability. Pricing was the same on either air line.

LAX Transfer
LA International Airport is about 25 minutes from the Long Beach Pier. It works out to be about a $70 cab ride, which is comparable to paying for 2 transfers arranged by the cruise company or a travel agent.  Take the cab and enjoy the flexibility and privacy.

Long Beach Pier
If you have time before the cruise, visit the Queen Mary at the Long Beach pier. It is permanently moored there and you can also book overnight accommodation on the ship.

Carnival Pride 
The Pride is typical of most of Carnival’s ships. Some of the stats from Carnival on the ship are:
Launch Date - 2002
Total Staterooms - 1,062 
Private Balcony Staterooms - 750 
Decks - 12 
Passenger capacity - 2,124 
Total crew - 930 
Tonnage - 88,500 
Ship length – 963 

The Pride cruises the Mexican Riviera from Long Beach, California in the winter and the Caribbean from Miami, Florida in the summer.

Facilities include: 
9 Level Domed Atrium
Taj Mahal Show Lounge: 1,167 maximum guests
Normandie Dining Room: Promenade deck 508 guests, Atlantic deck 718 guests
Mermaids Grill Buffet
Cabaret Lounge 
Starry Night Club
Dance Club
Piano Bar
Wedding Chapel
Card Room
Conference Center
Perfect Game Sports Bar
Notel Library
Internet Café
David’s Supper Club
Two Saltwater Swimming Pools
Three Saltwater Hot Tubs
Walking Track
Gym
Basketball court
Mini Golf
Ping Pong
Waterslide
Casino

The floor plan of Carnival ships is the basically the same on each ship, but the décor is unique to each ship.  The Pride has a Renaissance theme.  If you’ve been on board another Carnival ship, you’ll feel right at home the second you board the ship.

Activities
The activities on Carnival ships are standardized and not dissimilar to other cruise lines.  Activities while on board include a wide variety such as nightly shows, live music, comedians, discos, hairy chest contests, trivia games, newly wed games, scrap book sessions etc etc.  Passengers were mixed in age and Carnival adapts their shipboard activities to their clientele.

When in port, there is always a full slate of options for excursions.  These include snorkelling, kayaking, sight seeing, fishing, shopping and many more.

Attire
Most passengers dress in casual attire or even very informal on the decks.  The dinning room announces a dress code each evening which varies among casual, smart casual and formal.  For formal nights, men can roll an old summer suit coat into their suit case and they're set for two formal nights.  For women, it’s a bit more of a planning challenge.

Meals
There is assigned dinning each evening as well as unassigned seating for breakfast and lunch in the dinning room.  The lido deck also has buffet servings at Mermaids Grill for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The dinner includes one or two choices from the dinning room menu.  The only downside is the Mermaids buffet had gaudy mermaid sculptures on the ceiling looming over you as you eat.  In addition there is 24 hour pizza and 24 hour ice cream.  Specialty sandwiches and Asian foods are also available daily.  Surprisingly, soda or soft drinks are not included and must be purchased separately.  A beverage card for unlimited use can be purchased, but it may not be a better deal than paying as you go.  Also, pay as you go provides a full can each time, while the card gives a full glass (partial can).  Meals in the dinning room are very good and include several options each night, such as steak & lobster and prime rib.  The chocolate melting cake for dessert is a Carnival trademark.  Around 5:30 by the swimming pool you can have a made to order minute steak and french fries. After a day on land, it’s great to arrive back on ship and have this cooked for you immediately.

Cabins
Cabins are approximately 200 square feet and are well designed.  There are typically 2 single beds that are placed side by side to create the effect of a double bed.  There is ample storage space. Suitcases slide under the beds. The seating area makes into a single bed and some rooms have a Pullman for additional sleeping.  The washrooms are very small, but include a workable shower in addition to the somewhat noisy vacuum toilets.  One of the great features is the safe in each room.  It can be locked by your room key or any credit card and will only open with the same care that was used to lock it.

Over 75% of the cabins have balconies. Two downsides with balconies are that you often hear slamming balcony doors from the cabins nearby and you experience smoke from cigarettes of neighbors when out on your balcony.

Staff
All the staff on Carnival ships are extremely friendly and courteous.  They are continuously on duty and maintain high levels of cleanliness.  Staff represent numerous countries around the globe with many from south east Asian, particularly Indonesia.  Direct tipping at the end of the cruise is not necessary, as a fee of $10 per day per person is automatically added to the bill to cover dinning and room services.

Ports of Call
The Pride was on its regular winter round trip run from Long Beach, California to Puerto Vallarta with stops at Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas on the return leg.

Puerto Vallarta
I was unaware that the ocean temperature in the low 60’s would be such a major influence as we headed down from Long Beach.  On the morning of the 3rd day we arrived in Puerto Vallarta and even the unusual types of birds circling overhead indicated arrival at a foreign port.  I had decided to scuba dive at Las Caletas and my wife decided to stay in Puerto Vallarta.  The trip to Las Caletas was over an hour in a catamaran that was a party boat – open bar at 10:30 am and they were eager to serve free drinks.  It was chilly with the sea breeze, unlike my wife’s experience, as she roasted on shore.  The highlight of this excursion wasn’t the scuba dive, but coming up along side a baby humpback, a mother and a male escort.  We got to watch them flip their tails at us several times.  The baby looked quite large until you saw the backs of the adults roll by.

The beach at Las Caletas was extremely beautiful.  Only 2 of us had signed up for scuba diving and it was a challenge for me as a first timer.  I gasped in air that sounded like Darth Vader breathing, my vision was obscured by bubbles and my hearing was obscured by the loud volume of the bubbles.  I fought back the claustrophobia and started my 15 foot descent.  Visibility was poor that day, but I did see angelfish and other tropical fish. I held a pufferfish and an anemone that the instructor handed me.  Other scuba divers on the cruise ship said it was unfortunately poor conditions all over Puerto Vallarta that day, as some had seen visibility of 80 feet in previous dives at this location.  Quite an experience, but one I doubt I will ever do again. 

In the evening sunset, we walked along the beach in Puerto Vallarta.  My wife told me about discovering a Starbucks in the sweltering heat earlier in the day.  She ordered a frapachino and said it tasted marvelous, but about half way through, she remembered the warnings about not drinking the water in Mexico and in a panic decided to abandon the rest of the drink.  It turned out to be a false alarm, as there were no complications from the drink.

We also sat in a small square by the ship and listened to a band playing soft music in the warn night air.  My wife let me know that she had navigated across 8 lanes of traffic earlier in the day with the help of locals who showed her how to cross in stages where there was no light.  On the other side was a Walmart where she bought 4 outfits for our grand daughter and a couple toiletries for herself.  She said she paid in pesos on her credit card and she had no idea how much that was, but she figured with Walmart, it couldn’t be too bad.  When she finally got the bill online, she found out all the purchases came to $15 US in total.

Mazatlan
The next day we arrived in Mazatlan.  We decided no to do any cruise tours and walked off the ship into the town.  We were inundated with people trying to take us in vans, taxis and open vehicles that looked a little like overgrown golf carts.  They were relentless and there must have been 50 vehicles looking for business.  One driver shouted “how cheap are you” to other ship passengers who turned him down.  When we finally got to the end of the hawkers, an elderly gentleman asked if we’d like a tour.  I said no, but something in his voice and his willingness to let us go made me change my mind. Hernan took us on a 1.5 hour tour of the city, which we enjoyed immensely.  We watched the cliff diver take a plunge for tourist tips, stopped at several viewpoints on the coast and went inside a magnificent church called the Immaculate Conception Cathedral.  It was fun in the open air vehicle and we had a great time.

Cabo San Lucas
Our last destination, the next morning, was Cabo San Lucas.  This is a picturesque city at the tip of Baja California.  It is mainly hotels in an arid bay with a magnificent sandy beach.  The ship anchors in the bay and tenders are used to reach shore.  We took a kayak and snorkeling expedition and I highly recommend it as my favorite experience on the cruise.  Although they indicated at first that it was too rough to reach El Arco, the arch at the tip of the peninsula, we ended up making it there.  It was eerie as ocean from the Pacific side swelled through toward the Sea of Cortez where we were.  I was excited and enjoyed it, but one of the other kayaks swamped and they had to be rescued by the boat that accompanied us.  On the return from the point, we were almost at the snorkeling location when there was a loud splash about 75 feet away.  We got the pleasure of watching a baby humpback play.  It jumped about 5 times as it made it’s way from the bay toward the open ocean.  It was accompanied by a female and an escort who only showed their backs – very large when contrasted against the playful youngster who had seemed large itself on first sight, but was dwarfed by the adults. 

The snorkeling was a thrilling experience, starting with the rush created by jumping in to 65 degree water.  There were tons of fish and the clarity was excellent.  We saw a giant pipe fish, lots of sergeant majors, angels, colorful damsels, parrot fish, eels and just about everything you could imagine.  We even saw a shore bird diving under the water.  I thought it was an otter or a seal at first.  The instructor allowed about 20 minutes of snorkeling for those from Washington state or Canada but considerably less for anyone else.  In fact, only 6 out of 11 went in and 2 were only there for 5 minutes.  I was first in, last out at 16 minutes.  I would have stayed longer, but hypothermia was setting in. I spent the next several hours trying to warm up.  After this experience, I invested in an underwater camera, because I have no record of the best day on the trip. Back on board the ship, I spent the rest of the day on our balcony with the pleasant breeze and the view of the rocky point. 

Recommendation
This was an excellent cruise but the 64 degree surface temp along Baja California serves as a reminder that a winter Mexican Riviera cruise probably shouldn’t start north of Cabo San Lucas.  Unfortunately the cruise ship industry is all geared out of Los Angeles and San Diego.  I’d choose not to cruise on my next visit to this area.