Captain's Log, Days 13-19

aka: Post-Apocalypse

Day 13 – we didn’t die of dysentery and nobody suffered a prolapsed rectum! Instead, we opted to not eat breakfast in the morning in the hopes that we could actually get off the ship and walk around in Manzanillo, and it worked! Manzanillo was nothing really to write home about, but it did have open WiFi on the Malecon, and a nice breeze, so we had really turned the corner on my discomforts. We were able to take some time for me to schedule massages in PV the next day, and look up how far away a nice beach would be from the port, followed by  wandering the streets for a bit. We found a pharmacy, only to find out that you actually need a prescription (you don’t, as we found out in Cabo, need one everywhere, it’s just hit or miss depending on the location) at that pharmacy to get anything necessary, like Cipro or more Azithromycin (good thing, in the case of the latter, since I’d clearly already OD’d), let alone anything fun, like Adderall or a Semaglutide.
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Day 14 was the first of my favorite three days of the vacation. Dinner the night before had treated us well, and our game plan of no breakfast had worked, so we were game to repeat the process in Puerto Vallarta. After three games of Yahtzee, in which I got three Yahtzees (going to the casino later, for sure!), we met up with our new friends, Chris & Sarah for a day of sun & fun. We rented four chairs and an umbrella (so that Chris and I didn’t die of sun), and Sarah and I took off on a beach walk. It was breathtakingly beautiful, chock full of pelicans (talk about prehistoric relics; those things are modern Pterodactyls if I ever saw one), and beautiful driftwood. Naturally, this is the one time that I didn’t take my phone with me to take pictures.

The morning was spent lounging on the beach, playing in the water (those waves are no joke, and that tide comes in FAST), and people watching. I thought parasailing in the DR was weird, until I saw how they do it in PV…..they just hook you up on land and send a boat out. That part is fine, but landing on the same spot had my sphincter clenching for the riders….what if the guys didn’t catch you and you just thunk on down?

In the afternoon we took a cab to the marina, and after a short scavenger hunt, landed on Armonium’s Spa for our massages. I was hesitant at first, based on the slightly musty smell of the headpiece and the complete lack of English spoken (I tried my best at Spanish, but kept thinking of everything in French, which just confused everybody), and Jack was super apprehensive since this was only his second massage, and his first one did not have the intended result, but 90 minutes later, everyone emerged relaxed and discombobulated. I was so discombobulated that I put my shorts on inside out, and these weren’t the kind of shorts that it wasn’t obvious in.

The general consensus was that everyone loved PV, and we all can’t wait to go back. Preferably  together.

Day 15 was the second of my favorite three days of the vacation, and took place in (the severely underrated, but also let’s keep it that way) Mazatlan. Whenever possible, I try to not take organized excursions, and I’d read enough on Mazatlan to have a reasonable idea of how to get to Stone Island without professional help. Going to Stone Island via a cruise ship tour would have cost us $149pp, without any refreshments. Going to Stone Island by ourselves (just me and Jack this day; Chris & Sarah had their own things planned already), including 6 drinks total, heaps of guacamole, a pile of ceviche, and unlimited salsa and chips cost us $86 total, and that was with a healthy tip. I love love loved Mazatlan. We met a couple on the water taxi over, Barb & Mike, who snowbird it down there from Canada for a couple months a year, and let me just say, they have the right idea. In fact, as soon as I get done blogging, I’m going to get on real estate websites to see what’s available. I want a little piece of Mazatlan for my own.

Anyway, it was a super chill day that was 20 minutes from disembarkation to sitting our asses in chairs drinking margaritas. We chatted with Barb & Mike, and noticed something we hadn’t seen in a lot of the other countries - a strong sense of community. It was a mix of locals and ex-pats, and everyone seemed to know each other, or even if they didn’t, were incredibly friendly and helpful. To boot, on Thursdays at El Velero (the restaurant where we stayed for the day – the premise is that they’ll let you hang on their beachfront and use their chairs and umbrellas with the understanding that you spend money in their establishment), they have a live band in the afternoon, so we got to enjoy that (in between the too-much-tuba-playing mariachi bands on the beach).

I loved the beautiful colors that were on display. I loved the mini horses that were being led around for tips (and you bet your booty that as soon as one came up and nuzzled me in the neck, I couldn’t get my $$ out fast enough). I loved the local boys that let Jack join them in kicking a soccer ball around.

I especially loved the Great Dane, Bella, who came walking down the beach with her owner. I was up in a flash to say hi, and the owner told me this heartbreaking story: The previous owners had gotten Bella as a puppy. When COVID hit, they wanted to quarantine with one of their kids, but the kid said, “You guys can come, but the dog can’t.” And those shitsticks said, “Okay; we’ll just leave the dog in the ‘care’ of our housekeeping staff,’ so for the next TWO YEARS, Bella was kept on a balcony, being ‘looked after’ after every 2-3 days by the staff. Then (and this is the cherry on this fucking dog-doo sundae), when the owners went to sell their house during the COVID real estate boom, told the new owners, “Comes with a dog; you deal with it.” Which is how this nice man ended up with this charmingly sweet girl. Seriously, if I ever come across those previous owners, I will punch each of them in the snotbox, in turn. She has a nice life now, at least, and spends 8 months hiking in the forests and mountains of the PNW and 4 months running the beaches of Mazatlan. That’s really the right idea as far as I’m concerned, just swap the Upper Peninsula in for the PNW.

Day 16 was our last port of call, Cabo San Lucas, and the third of my favorite days. Jack and I had booked our excursion through NCL, since this was a tender port, and a fairly short day. If you’re not booked through one of the cruise line tours, if you don’t make it back in time, they’ll leave your ass on the dock. Our excursion was the ‘Luxury Sail & Snorkel’ adventure, and was run through a company called Cabo Adventures. Out of 10 cruises and a boatload (pardon the pun) of international travel that has included more than two handfuls of tours, this was one of the top two excursions I’ve ever been on. The only other one that even comes close was my first trip to Northern Ireland when I had a private driver taking me around the entire Antrim Coast and through Belfast city.

Anyway, even though it was a cloudy day, it wasn’t raining, and we set off for the infamous Arch, followed by a trip down the coast to a snorkeling spot. The only thing I didn’t love about snorkeling was that people who stayed on the boat instead of snorkeling had bread to throw in the water to coax the fish up to the surface. Now I don’t mind swimming with fish. I don’t love it when they’re touching me from all angles, but absolutely nothing will get me out of the water faster than a bunch of kamikaze seagulls dive-bombing me to get that motherfucking bread. That aside….. after snorkeling, we had lunch (to include the BEST ceviche I’ve ever had in my life), and we were supposed to have a ‘sails up’ kind of situation, but there wasn’t enough wind. It didn’t matter, because it’s whale migration season, and they were putting on a show. I don’t know where the other sailboats went (we only had 14 people per vessel, so probably about 4-5 different sailboats went out), but our captain was on a mission! We saw lots of blowholes, a baby trying its best to learn how to do a tail flap, and several breaching. It was magical, and one of us may or may not have cried.

Although it was an early all-aboard and we departed at 3pm, we actually had to turn back because of a medical emergency onboard, so didn’t get out of the area until 5pm or so. This was fine with all of us, particularly Sarah and Jack, who were getting slightly annoyed because Chris and I were still on a whale hunt while we were supposed to be playing Yahtzee.

That night ended with a production of Jersey Boys, which neither of us had seen or had any expectations of, but LOVED. I will say that NCL’s entertainment lineup, in general, left something to be desired, but the two musicals (Jersey Boys & Six) were spec-tacular.

This was followed by a trip to the casino where I got 4 Deuces in Deuces Wild, and Jack found $100 laying on the casino floor.

Day 17 had a tinge of sadness to it, since it was our last full day onboard, but we spent it playing Yahtzee with Chris & Sarah, and doing a stint in the go-karts that they have on the Bliss. Go-karts on a ship are not my thing, and I personally would rather have the space for a basketball court which is not only free, but I would participate more frequently in, but Jack and Chris really seemed to enjoy lapping me multiple times over. We ended the day in The Local for our final hoorah.

Day 18 was disembarkation day, and it was the absolute easiest disembarkation I’ve ever experienced. We were lucky in that we had absolutely no idea where it was going to take place, but when we went to say our good-byes to the A-Team at The Local, saw a line already forming, so we hightailed it back to our cabin to grab our shit (we did a great job of packing the day in advance again (it’s like we’re getting good at this!)) and get in that line before it grew exponentially. We spent maybe 45 minutes in line while the cruise ship was still docking, and then once the line started moving, were through customs in maybe 20 minutes.

That put us in an Uber and at the Santa Ana Airport by 9am. Our flight wasn’t until almost 2pm, which sucked, but our rockstar agent got us on the last two seats on the 11:30 flight to Chicago. This took the sting out of being a hair’s breadth away from us both being bumped on the outbound flight to the tune of $1800 only to make it on the plane at the very last second. This flight did have turbulence and plenty of it; it was well noted by the Captain at take-off saying, “If you have to use the bathroom, do it as soon as the seatbelt sign comes off, because it’s going to shortly go right back on for the duration.” Funsies! But I survived, and so did Jack’s sweatshirt.

We made it to our usual stopover, the NW Milwaukee Hampton Inn, by the fourth quarter of the Superbowl (and really, who cared since the Lions weren’t playing?!) and had another really fast drive home the next day.

Up next, the icing on the cake – the takeaways and weird shit that happened that don’t flow freely into a blog but are delightful little blips. 


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