Mexican Riviera: Memories of a Lifetime

Author: Joy Valcarcel
Date of Trip: April 2006

This year we decided to cruise the Mexican Riviera out of San Diego. Being from Florida, we searched the web to make the best reservations we could for our trip.

Starting with Continental Airlines for our flights. The times were quite convenient for us…Florida to Houston to San Diego. Things went quite smoothly with actual food served onboard.

Next we contacted our hotel for shuttle pick-up…we chose the Best Western Bayside at 5th and Ash Streets, downtown. What a good choice that was…the rooms were clean and well furnished. The service was great including our breakfast in their nearby restaurant. They offered shuttle service to the cruise terminal. Service was above and beyond: The night we arrived, they furnished us with their shuttle to take 8 of us to and from an excellent restaurant, Casa Guadalajara, in Old Town. We stayed there an extra day after our cruise too…and they allowed us access to their computer to print out our boarding passes for the return flight. We highly recommend them…they are centrally located and within walking distance to restaurants and other attractions.

The cruise was aboard Celebrity’s ship Mercury. We had a Cruise Connections group of over 50 people who had met online and were anxious to establish the friendships in person. We did just that at our Sailaway Party and the CC party hosted for us by the Ship. They also arranged for us to have a Farewell Party on the final sea day. Can’t say enough good things about Celebrity…the Mercury is a comfortable ship with pleasant staff and great food. We were pampered for ten days and felt like royalty the entire time. Our cabin was always attended to with no interference from the cabin stewards…our dining servers were alert and attentive. We would rate this cruise a definite 9 out of 10.

Mexico was warm and wonderful. We saw the Cliff Divers in Acapulco which was a dream come true…the ports were all clean and friendly and oh so different from the Caribbean. We visited Cabo San Lucas, Zihuatenejo and beautiful Puerto Vallarta as well…the ship had some maintenance to do so we did not see Mazatlan but stayed in Acapulco for two days to really explore the area. It is our hope that relations between USA and Mexico continue to be cordial to allow visiting our old world neighbor to our south.

The only negative was the weather in San Diego…it was in the low 60s, overcast and windy each day we were there, and for Floridians that is cold. But it is a wonderful place to visit with lots of things to do.

Memories of this trip and the new friends we met are bountiful, and will warm our hearts when thought of in future times.