Mazatlan

Our second stop was in Mazatlan. Very industrialized city...we docked by a big freight yard and were taxied back and forth between the boat and a little gift shop type set up. Basically a place to buy a lot of touristy stuff. We ended up going on a tour of the city. Our tour guide, Dora, was born and raised in Mazatlan so she was very knowledgeable about the city.

This picture is for Roke...we didn't know you owned property in Mexico??



Looking pretty sweaty in this picture...it wasn't the coolest time of year.



Here is a view of the city from the ninth flour, you can see the ship in the background. Very pretty!



Drew decided we could use a little extra money while on our vacation, and decided to help load a truck :)



We stopped in the middle of our bus tour to use the bathrooms...we had to pay a dollar to use them. The city doesn't clean and keep up the bathroom so one of the locals does so for tips. Here we are right by the ocean.





These were outside in the little shopping center. We hung out there for a few hours before the ship set sail again. We met up with our dinner friends...fun times :)




Watching the sunset from our balcony :)

Puerto Vallarta

Our first stop on the cruise was in Puerto Vallarta. First thing we discovered was that it was very hot and humid. We set off looking for the beach, getting stopped a million times right off the ship, mostly taxi offers. You have to learn to say no many, many times.



Drew found some random cows along the way...not sure what they were all about, but fun nonetheless :)







We found a random pirate ship set up on our walk, it looks like I'm posing in the mermaid one but he really just caught me playing with my hair.




Finally made it to the beach and for as much as Drew hates sand, especially in his shoes, he looks pretty excited!




After exploring a small part of the city, we headed back to the port. Our excursion in Puerto Vallarta was a Zipline Tour up in the mountains. We had to drive about an hour in an old jeep. It was a long ride but it was fun to be able to see more of the city, especially the non-touristy parts. We saw a lot of beautiful, blossoming trees and old buildings and houses along the way. We finally made it up to the mountains where we had a brief orientation. Our tour guides were very witty and entertaining. We could tell those guys had done the tour many times, they had their process down very precisely and knew how to make the experience fun and safe. We got to go on about 12 ziplines and do a couple of rappels and bridge climbs as well. Drew was the only on in the group to get eaten up by mosquitoes, poor guy! In case you were curious, we also learned that mosquito in Spanish is still mosquito, much like taco is still taco (the tour guide gave Drew a hard time for even asking haha). We had a lot of fun and wish we had pictures to show but "for safety reasons" we weren't able to bring our camera along. However, they were kind enough to have a camera man along with us taking the pictures of us along the way, but we found their price much too steep! Here are a couple of pictures on our way to the jeep and then right after we had done the tour.

Honeymoon

We went on a 7 day Mexican Riviera Cruise for our honeymoon.



This was our view from the balcony of our room. The balcony was definitely worth the little extra $, minus our smoking neighbors!




While we were at dinner our room steward would come in and turn down the bed for us, and leave cool towel animals for us :) Drew is by a dog and I was brave enough to pose next to the giant scorpian.



We ended up purchasing the unlimited soda...we had to drink a lot of soda and juice to try to get our money's worth!!



Here we are at our first formal dinner night. We had a three course meal served to us every night...hard to leave that behind.



Another picture on the balcony. These were the first 2 days on the cruise...stay tuned for our three days in the ports we stopped at.