Royal Princess in Manzanillo, Mexico

Hello from Manzanillo, Mexico! 

Hubby stayed onboard (he wasn't about to tackle the very long and hot pier) and I headed out and rolled around the waterfront area on my scooter. This is definitely a port that would have been inaccessible to me without one. Those poor folks with walkers and canes sure were struggling. I stayed within view of the ship because once you get very far away you encounter broken up sidewalks and those are definitely not fun on a scooter. In the waterfront area the cobblestones weren't fun either, and the wheelchair curb cutouts were so steep I had to get off the scooter several times to pull it up and down the ramps. But I still had a good time and was able to see some colorful additions to the area.

New sculptures line the waterfront
(Hubby tells me these were here before?)

Just one of the sculptures depicting the horoscope signs

Otherwise it doesn't seem like all that much has changed since the last couple times we were here.

Royal Princess today

The Grand Princess in 2018

Sailfish statue today.
The people walking by give you a sense of the size of this thing.

Sailfish statue in 2018
Did you know Manzanillo is the sailfish capital of the world?

Police presence today

Police presence in 2019

Did you know Manzanillo is the busiest cargo port in Mexico? Yep, the port handled roughly 2.68 million metric tons of cargo just in 2022. That's a lot of goods!

Cargo ship watching in 2019.

Cargo ship watching today 

Today's ship traveled the Hong Kong-Taiwan-China-Korea-Mexico route.

Being today is Sunday lots of locals were out and about, with many taking pictures in front of the ship.

How lucky am I that this is my home for the week?

See you tomorrow from Mazatlan!

Royal Princess in Puerto Vallarta

Hello from a hazy Puerto Vallarta, Mexico! 

I remember several years ago when our luggage was lost for the first time. We were headed home from LAX and instead of the luggage heading to Boise it headed to Puerto Vallarta. As we waited for its return (it took a few days), we kept joking about how our luggage got to go to Puerto Vallarta and we didn’t. At that point we didn’t even know where Puerto Vallarta was. We sure do now!

We've been here many times since. Puerto Vallarta is where I learned to zipline in the jungle, rode a mule, and swam with sea lions. We've been to the beach, hubby has been to the casino, and we had a friend from Mexico City meet up with us for lunch and drinks while she vacationing here. Puerto Vallarta is where I used to get my prescription medications - without a prescription. We've made trips to Walmart to stock up on candy for the crew, and let's not forget how we followed the locals and learned the art of jaywalking.

So much traffic.

Now that we both have lost some of our mobility, we decided to stick close to the ship today. Puerto Vallarta has a new cruise terminal that we hadn't checked out before so we just wandered in it and looked around. Hubby did wind up buying a small pack of cigars he can chew on. (Yuck. But guess it's better than smoking them.)

Once we got back onboard, hubby got a lunch he's been craving since San Francisco. There we'd pass by food carts cooking up hot dogs, peppers, and onions. The smell was amazing. So he got a hot dog from the Trident Grill and grilled peppers and onions from Horizon Court buffet. Throw in some fries and the boy munched away as I sat on the Horizon Terrace watching the cars and people and birds go by.

Up tomorrow, Manzanillo!