Becarfull about purchasing the shopping books and such if you have ANY excusions in the ports... we pre-booked all of our excusions and bought the shopping books on the ship... we never used them, and the shopping lade was hard to get a hold of.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
The embarkation process at Ft. Lauderdale was almost walk on the ship. We arrived at 12:30 pm, we pulled up to the curb and our luggage to the baggage handlers and walked into the terminal. We filled out a quick health form and walked into the line to check our passports and receive our cruise cards (that process took all of 3 minutes). Then we proceeded to walk onto the ship. Once on the ship we were surprised to have our cabin ready for us to go into and drop off our carry on luggage and then we were free to explore the ship. SUPER EASY!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
5 out of 5
All of these locations on the ship were excellent. We ate in the Main dining room for Dinner every night except the nights we went to the Bayou which was OUTSTANDING, and then we had an Ultimate Balcony Dinner (which I would HIGHLY recommend, this service was just amazing!). We also had a pizza in Sabatini's which was really good... I was not aware that you could go to that restaurant for lunch and get a pizza at no cost.... it made the pizza they serve up on desk taste like a frozen pizza. The buffet was just that a buffet... the food there was so-so, but I never had high expectations for the buffet which is why i am not rating this lower.
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
We did not take part in many activities onboard, but we read about them and also looked on as many were happening. If you like onboard activities, they had a wide variety of them to choose from.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
While everything was very clean, I think the decor of the ship looked a little dated to me, I was expecting something much newer since this ship is a little over 15 years old, and went in for refurbishment 1 year ago.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
The cabin was great... Having the extra room in the Mini-suite was great compared to just a balcony suite.
We did the UTV excursion. However, we were only in port a REALLY short time... we only had enough time for the excursion and a quick t-shirt buy at the vendors that are right when you get off the ship.... WE NEEDED MORE TIME.
We did the emerald jewelry making class. It was fun to do however, they also include an "emerald museum" stop... I would use the word museum very loosly. It was several dark cramped rooms displaying emeralds and other items. in a large group you cant hear what the person is saying because you cant fit into the room together.
This was GREAT! We turned on the ships Deck cam on the TV, and had somebody talking about the canal and what we are seeing... then we just sat out on the balcany and watched... When we wanted to see what the ship was coming up on we looked at the TV. We never had to deal with all the crowds on deck.
We did the coffee plantation tour... This was a long cramped bus ride to the plantation... However what upset me was that once we arrived at the plantation, our same tour guide was giving the coffee plantation tour and speaking about how they make the coffee. I would have rather had an employee that knew more about the process than out tour bus guide. She was great about the landscape, but not great at the plantation.
LOONNGGG Bus tour on the Granada, Masaya Market & Volcano, Lunch & Shopping tour.... not a good tour... in fact on the way back we ended up falling alsleep as we were both bord out of our minds.
Normally i would just say basic things about Puerto Vallarta as we have been there many times on cruise ships... but this time we went to Las Caletas Private Beach Getaway OH MY GOSH this was great... They had an open bar on the boat taxi over and never stopped until we were docked back at next to the ship. This place was great and the food was great as well. There are some items that cost extra, but i did not think they were over priced on the extra things. they had many things to do that did not cost extra. We also got to hold a monkey and a parott.
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