Before I go any further, let me make one thing VERY clear. These guys were great. Safety was #1 in this whole thing. We never went anywhere or stood anywhere when we were not clipped into a rope holding us from falling (too far anyway). so there was never a concern that things would go terribly wrong
and again I'm not afraid of heights, but this was hard for me.
We finished this up with a small zip line, and then what they called a tarzan swing. The tarzan swing was different that the other zip lines where you had access to brake yourself and control your speed, on this one you were clipped in and the goal was to hang free and swing around. At the end the guide would catch us. I came in there flying so fast that he had to grab me and swing around to stop my momentum. Pretty cool stuff.
Here is Video of DW on the Tarzan Zip Line. Click in the middle of this, it will pop a window and show you the video.
And me doing the same. She had more fun.
So I made it to the end, and had no idea where DW was because I was now 2-3 steps ahead of her. I was very concerned that she would not make it, that she would freeze part way up the ladder, or on the wire bridge
I was a little scared for her. But about second to last along she came. Don't tell her this
.but I was so proud of her for working through this and getting through one of her biggest fears. That was really cool.
We then walked over a bridge, and then another wire bridge like the one up top (except this one was only about 2 feet off the ground..what, we couldn't do that one first???), and a final rappel. On the final rappel the guy up top asked me if I wanted to go really fast. I said yes. Rappelling was really neat. There is a clip that they use which forms an S with the rope. you then hold one hand by your butt and one hand above on the rope. The hand below you can stop you only needing for you to take something like 10-20% of your weight while the S clip holds the rest. So it is really easy to stay in control. If you let it go you go fast, grab on to slow yourself down, etc. Get the idea? so I wanted to go fast, right?
So I sat down and let myself go
I was flying. They have a guy at the bottom who also is holding your rappel rope
his job is to keep you safe, and if he holds the rope you will stop. He decided to hold the rope for me about 1/2 way down. I went from flying to being jerked up. Yikes! and ouch! Got a few pictures and some video and then we were down
got to take off our sweaty helmets, gloves and gear.
Here comes DW down the final Rappel
And me. Note that I'm hamming it up for the camera. I was thinking picture not video. duh!
I highly, highly recommend doing something like this. It was a blast. However I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect to hike as much as we did. I thought we would just be going down, but didn't think about the up part of it which was a climb. Some of which were really, really steep. So be prepared to hike ALOT, and to be extremely tired. I would find out the next day just how much of a core workout it was as my stomach hurt for about 4 days. I think from the wire bridge and the ladder. Not so much that I wouldn't go, but hopefully if you are reading this and decide to do it you will be prepared!
After we were done we had a chance to get cleaned up and then they had some snacks for us. This was the only part that was a bit frustrating because we knew we were supposed to have snacks, but it wasn't clear that what was out was for us. They had chips and salsa, and some sort of guacamole thing (very thin), and some crackers. For a while I thought we had to buy that but it became clear that it was not the case. Again, worried about how they washed the vegetables, etc
but we were very hungry.
OH, that brings me back to the water. They had big orange jugs of water at many of our points. they frequently encouraged us to drink
but we were not sure if the water was safe or not. Eventually we all gave in because we were thirsty and we all turned out ok. It was filtered water. Same went for the salsa, etc
no issues after so they obviously use filtered water to wash everything.
The salsa was very good, definitely have that!
Eventually our pictures were ready so we took a look. They were pricey at $29/person. It included two videos as well. We decided to go ahead an buy them as we were not able to take our own pictures. And obviously we did buy them as you would not have seen them earlier!
DW and I in front of a truck that had nothing to do with our excursion. But they wanted to take it so there you go. Note that sticker that we all had on (ours was Ariel). Don't forget to take the sticker off. Bet you can't guess how I know you should do that? Yup, it got washed. I spent 3 days picking sticky sticker off of my shirt. it does come off. Eventually. Save yourself the headache.
Gettin' a little smoochin' in the jungle. I'm a lucky, lucky Man!
Finally it was time to head back. We piled back into the van and headed back. This time straight to the ship which was nice! We had thought about running over to Wal-Mart, but ultimately I was just too lazy. One nice thing this time we were in PV, was that the exit from the port right across from Wal-Mart was open. When we did the Mexican Riviera we had to walk all the way around. It was quite a distance to get there and wasn't a quick trip. So those of you reading along who were on this cruise should be happy!!
At some point we had decided to buy an internet package so we could e-mail the kids. Even though the internet is insanely expensive and incredibly slow, we did want to keep in touch. So we did that, sent out a few e-mails and got ready for Dinner. Tonight we are in Parrot Cay, my least favorite from a decoration perspective.
Before dinner and before we pulled out of port it was back on the balcony for a last look at Puerto Vallarta. And the other ship in port.
How sad these people must be. The funny thing was the amount of pictures taken of us as we sailed away. Tons of flashes. Then we heard from someone at dinner that their ship was in port for 2-3 days because they had to do some repairs. Yikes! Can you imagine? Jealousy anyone?
buh-bye Carnival!
At dinner DW had Jamaican Chicken Tenders, asparagus soup, mixed grill and lemon meringue pie. I think this is the last time I share that because DW never bothers to write down what I had which is more important and I could comment! Eventually I'll catch up and my memory might kick in. Might. That is definitely not a promise!
After dinner it was time to do something we had never done, we headed to Promenade Lounge to do Disney Tune trivia. Basically they had a guy at a piano who would play a tune from a Disney movie. We had to guess the movie, and the main character, and then they had a bonus question about the main character as well. We were there with Doug, Audrey, Zac, Jennifer, Jim, and Billy. Billy spent most of the time playing on Zac's phone.
We had a great time, but ultimately lost. We had fun heckling the CM who was running the show trying to convince him to give us credit for some of our
well, less than correct answers. To no avail though, he held the line and refused! All-in-all it was a good time. They key is definitely to play these games with others who are of a like mind and who want to have fun!
So it's time to talk about the shows a little bit. This is a longer cruise (obviously), and clearly Disney is not making a lot of money as they have a lot of nights with no shows
or shows that cost them very little. This is a little annoying as the quality is definitely down from past cruises that we have taken. Yes there have been some great ones (which I will talk about), but there are so many that are not shows
.just cheap on Disney's part. Particularly because I think there is a large number of repeat cruisers on this one
way to make an impression Disney!
Tonight was no exception as we had Who wants to be a Mouseketeer? For those of you who cruised long ago, the used to do this show in the Walt Disney theater, and they used to give away a cruise if you went all the way. Then they demoted it to Studio Sea and you could get a pin and some sort of little keepsake. Now because they have slots they need to fill it is back in the Walt Disney Theater. If you answered 5 questions you got $50, and if you get all 10 right you win $250. If you have this on your cruise, you want to sit on the far right side of an empty row. The computer will pick a row, and then a seat. If no one is in that seat it goes to the next seat to your right as you are facing the stage. This continues until someone is in a seat. So if you are in an empty row you have a much better chance of being picked. We weren't picked. Bummer!
I don't mind so much not getting picked, but it does always seem that the people that *do* get picked don't really care about Disney or don't really know about it. I realize that they cannot control it
but I'd much rather see as Diser up there who would know a lot of the questions or are a big fan of Disney. You know?
Apparently this was game show night
so after that we headed over to Studio Sea for "The Wheel" which was basically wheel of fortune with Disney. We had most of the same group of people from the Disney Tune trivia and they split the room in half. We were right in the middle and went with the left half. Then the game started. Now, the funny thing was that our side kept getting bankrupts (I think we had 5 or 6 during the game) and were way behind at the beginning. Don't worry I'm getting to the funny part. Seriously, you need to be more patient!
The funny part was that the guy clicking to spin the wheel and to stop the wheel was the guy we heckled during Disney Tune Trivia. Hmmm
coincidence? I think not!
But at the end we landed on $1,000 and nailed some letters and came back to win. It was fun
particularly once we realized that the kids made better decisions than the adults did. I could solve the puzzle, but guessing the letters definitely not my forte! The CM came over after to assure us he wasn't out to get us. We knew that, but it was fun to mess with him a bit.
After this we headed over to the Walt Disney Theater to watch Scott Pepper perform a magic and comedy act. Here is one of the exceptions to the quality of shows as he was great. His magic was fun and he was hilarious. He will be doing a family show as well with big box tricks
.that is definitely something to look forward to. I am 42 years old and I still am amazed by magic and how they make stuff happen. I know it is all slight of hand and stuff
but that stuff is neat for me. More on that later.
That was it, another late-ish night for us old fogies. We headed back to the room, quick shot of the towel animal and off to bed!
A Dinosaur!
next up:
Day 6: up at the crack of dawn for pins. Really?
me. 
