Mexican Riviera Cruise with WONDERful Souvenir in the Works! 6/7 PTR Link!

[Leshaface]

Warning: There are LOTS of pics on this day, so there will be lots of parts.

I was SUPER excited for today. We were doing the one and only excursion of the trip here, and it was Outdoor Adventure where we get to zip-line and rappel.

Our alarm clock woke us up at 6:45am, looked out the window and this is what I saw.

It didn’t take us long to get dressed this morning because we were dressed like we were going to the gym. We got our backpack ready with extra clothes and shoes (definitely going to need the extra stuff) and took one last look out our window before leaving out stateroom

We were in need of some breakfast so we went to the Beach Blanket Buffet (BBB). This was our first time getting breakfast here since the first morning we had room service and yesterday morning was our character breakfast. It was a great selection of food. My plate consisted of oatmeal, fruit, bagel and lox, mickey waffles, Cajun potatoes, and French toast. Yes. I ate all of it. I knew we would be doing some type of workout today and that I would work it off. There was still some time before needing to go to Diversions (that’s where we needed to meet) so I took some pictures of the surrounding area.

Yep. That’s a Walmart and a Sam’s Club right in front of us. Ahh, brought me right back to my hometown

It was getting closer to 9am, so we made our way down to Diversions. Once there, they handed us our towels and put on wristbands. They also double check that your entire party has their KTTW and their photo ID’s. You need both if you want to get off the ship at any port. Finally we were on our way our of the ship where I snapped these

Our group ended up waiting for about 20 minutes for our guide to show up. Not sure why it took so long, but he eventually made it and we all had to board one of these:

We were taking a 20 minute boat ride to the Sierra Madre Mountains. Some pictures while on the boat.

The boat slowed down and we saw this beach

And a little village

That little yellow van you see in the picture is the vehicle we would be taking to get us up to the base camp. We needed two of these vehicles since our group was fairly large.

 

[Leshaface]

continued...


I took a couple of pictures on the way up the mountain. It was quite bumpy.

A tequila factory

Base Camp

The ride itself took about 20-25 minutes. So far we had done 45 minutes of traveling and haven’t done anything yet!

Once we got out of the van, one of the guides led us over to get instruction on what’s going to be happening. We were told we could not bring ANYTHING with us. No cameras, no ID’s, nothing. Our hands needed to be free at all times. So anything that you brought with you (extra clothes, id’s cameras) were placed in a large sack and placed in a locker to get when/if we returned. They gave us a few minutes to use the restrooms since there was none in the mountains. And on the way to the girls bathroom, all I hear is cursing and shouting from people:

This was directly above the Girls Bathroom. We had to duck down a bit to not hit its web. I think the guys were more freaked out than the girls having to walk under it!

We then returned to get fit for our gear. Okay ladies. The guides. Are good looking. AND they flirt like no ones around! They pretty much man handle you while putting on the harness, the bandana, the helmet etc. Not that I cared! Anyway, once we had our gear on, it was time to learn how to zip-line. He showed us what to do with our hands, how to stop, what happens if we stop in the middle, etc. We were then taken to the Military Van that we took up the mountain to take pictures then went to where the mules were being held and were each given a mule to ride.

Oops, need to explain something. So how do we get pictures? In our guide group, there was about 7 people. 5 people working the lines and 2 photographers. The photographers work together in taking pictures of every single person in the group and they did a great job!

Here are the beginning pics

The mule ride took about 25 minutes and it was so funny watching people riding their mules. I’ve ridden horses before so this was nothing to me. But some people were really freaking out and riding really stiff. One of the flirtiest guides, Juan Carlos, kept putting his mule next to my leg and it kept nibbling me….and here comes the one liner folks, “He knows when he sees honey.” – all in his romantic accent. LOL alright, back to the story.

Once we got to the very top of the mountain, it was time for our very first zip! EEK! I was so excited! We were near the back of the line so it felt like forever waiting, when it was really only 5 minutes.

My first zip

AMAZING! It was completely exhilarating!

Then it was Dh’s turn

 

[Leshaface]

We did a few more zips that were all spaced out in these huge mountains, then it was time for rappelling. Not gonna lie. I was a little freaked out. Especially watching other people do it incorrectly. There was a girl in our group that was really scared and not listening to the guide on how to do it right, and she kept face planting into the side of the rock. I was determined to do exactly what the guide said and lay all the way down like I was laying on a bed.

OH MY GOSH! I can’t believe I just did that successfully with no face plants!

Then DH’s turn

You land in ankle-deep freezing water at the bottom of this waterfall. You then take a few pictures.

 

[Leshaface]

It was then time for the next thing I dreaded most….ziping into a pool of frigid water. And I mean FREEZING water.

Had I landed the opposite way, you would have seen my face in pure shock. I couldn’t talk for a few seconds. It was ridiculously cold. In fact a few other guys that went after us, their faces were just like mine, not being able to talk for a few seconds.

Then DH’s turn.

We then zipped down to another waterfall area. Pictures of us leaving

And took these pictures in front of that waterfall.

 

[Leshaface]

From there we did a few bridge courses over little streams and then we do another rappel, but this time it was a free-fall rappel off a bridge. Kind of like the rappelling you see on movies like the soldiers do from the helicopters.

That was so neat!

We had one last zip and it was the ‘racing’ course. A side by side zip!

After all that, you have to hike back down to the base camp, going through more streams, going on more bridges. It was a nice little hike down. The scenery was gorgeous and it gave us a chance to dry off as it was getting warmer. We then took a group picture with a couple of our guides - not sure where the other guides are.

Once we got back to camp they take all the gear off of you and they return all your stuff back to you. I’m so glad we brought extra socks and shoes. There’s nothing I hate worse than walking around in wet socks. I brought extra clothes, but by the time you hike back down the mountain, you’re almost dry.


A picture of the course:

They showed us where we could get some drinks and food, and where we could buy our pictures. We each got a shot of tequila and a cheese quesadilla. I mean, we have to celebrate coming back to camp alive and unhurt right?!

There’s a bunch of computers right in the middle of this hut area where you can view the pictures. You can buy one 8X10 for $15 and two for $30. But for the entire CD with as many pictures as you want, plus 2 free 5X7’s for $58. Sold! She even through in another 5X7 for me.

Honestly, this was the BEST excursion we’ve ever done. They could definitely be charging more than what they are (I think it’s about $20 cheaper if you book directly through Vallarta Adventures than Disney). If you like adventure, DEFINITELY consider doing this. There was even a young boy, maybe 10 on this excursion and he loved it. I know there’s a weight/age requirement so check that out before signing up. Here’s the website for more information - http://www.vallarta-adventures.com/

 

[Pinkocto]

That looks AMAZING!!!!

 

[stephielela]

That looks absolutely amazing! I can't wait until Jack is old enough to do excursions like that!! It really looks like you guys had an awesome time!

 

[DISNEYaddict4evr]

so I have been lurking the last few days since I will be doing this cruise, in fact the last MR cruise (Dec. 2), for our honeymoon. I have to say I had looked at this excursion and after seeing your pics I don't think I want to go I have a fear of falling and when I first looked at it I had no idea it would be so high , DF will be sad I don't want to go now.

So since you went as a couple what do you do to make the trip romantic have any tips for first time disney cruisers?

 

[Shell54]

Wow what an exhilarating port adventure..my DH would love that..me I'd be kinda a scare-dy cat..but it looked like a blast Amazing photos!

 

[Dream426]

That is an amazing excursion. My DH and I would have loved to do that. He loves anything physical. I don't know about that cold water though...haha That turns me off a little. I am a huge wimp when it comes to cold or freezing water and I also HATE walking around in wet socks. Love the pictures. They really took awesome pictures of you guys. They really captured everything.

 

[Leshaface]

That looks AMAZING!!!!

It WAS!! I still think about it all the time!

That looks absolutely amazing! I can't wait until Jack is old enough to do excursions like that!! It really looks like you guys had an awesome time!

Oh he would have a blast!

so I have been lurking the last few days since I will be doing this cruise, in fact the last MR cruise (Dec. 2), for our honeymoon. I have to say I had looked at this excursion and after seeing your pics I don't think I want to go I have a fear of falling and when I first looked at it I had no idea it would be so high , DF will be sad I don't want to go now.

So since you went as a couple what do you do to make the trip romantic have any tips for first time disney cruisers?

Oh no! It's the best thing i've ever done! There was a woman that was scared to death of heights and she was doing it for her son (the 10 year old) because he really wanted to do it. I saw her later on the ship and asked her what she thought, and she was so glad she did it.

We went to the lounges and clubs a lot. And if the weather was better we would have been at the adult pool more often conversing with others. We love meeting other people. Palo dinner is SO worth it! I'll be reviewing that the day after Puerto Vallarta. It's very romantic and special.

Wow what an exhilarating port adventure..my DH would love that..me I'd be kinda a scare-dy cat..but it looked like a blast Amazing photos!

It was so much fun! Didn't they do an awesome job with the photos? I was worried that they weren't going to be getting great shots, but they turned out amazing.

That is an amazing excursion. My DH and I would have loved to do that. He loves anything physical. I don't know about that cold water though...haha That turns me off a little. I am a huge wimp when it comes to cold or freezing water and I also HATE walking around in wet socks. Love the pictures. They really took awesome pictures of you guys. They really captured everything.

Oh man, that water was horrible! I don't even think there was anyway around it. Walking around in wet socks wasn't so bad, because it started heating up after the water part. But I changed my socks as soon as we got back to camp.

 

[dvc4life]

What a great excursion you went on. It looks like you both had so much fun.

 

[Goldeelox9]

I can't wait to read more. I love romantic trips!!!

 

[franandaj]

You will NOT believe this...on Thursday, my cold took a turn for the worse and I actually had a horrible fever and chills on Thursday night. What the heck is wrong with me?!? Anyways, we had to go to LA for a funeral on Friday and came back Saturday evening and was busy catching up with laundry. Today I worked on my TR and am so excited to get to my favorite part of the trip.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I'm so sorry you had to attend a funeral, and that your cold got worse! I hope that you are feeling better now.

That adventure was insane! If I was 20 years younger, I would have probably loved to do it, but at my age and physical condition, I doubt I would make it. They probably would tell me I was over the weight limit for the mule ride! I think the dolphin encounter would be more my speed!

I'm so hoping we can rent all our apartments quickly and I can find time to book one of these cruises before the Wonder leave San Pedro!

Oh, and I wish one of you had ordered the mixed grill at Parrot Cay, sausage wrapped in bacon sounded so decadent, I was hoping for a picture of that. I can't believe everything you've done and the trip isn't even half over yet!

 

[Linda67]

Wow what a wonderful looking excursion

You must have been totally buzzing at the end of it

The photos are really, really good as well and that's a really good price to buy the photo CD

Looking forward to reading more of you excellent trip report and thanks for answering my question about the tasting seminars

 

[Pinkocto]

I forgot to say that that spider scared me so much! I don't know if I'd be able to walk underneath it. Just the thought it could jump on my back

 

[PrincessSophiesMom]

Alicia, your latest adventure looks like SO MUCH FUN! too bad I can't take a 2 year old ziplining ha ha. Can't wait for more posts! I'm starting to get desperate for MR TR. I think I've reread what you've posted twice now.

 

[Leshaface]

What a great excursion you went on. It looks like you both had so much fun.

It was ridiculously fun!

I can't wait to read more. I love romantic trips!!!

Thanks Goldeelox! Cute name btw!

I'm so sorry you had to attend a funeral, and that your cold got worse! I hope that you are feeling better now.

That adventure was insane! If I was 20 years younger, I would have probably loved to do it, but at my age and physical condition, I doubt I would make it. They probably would tell me I was over the weight limit for the mule ride! I think the dolphin encounter would be more my speed!

I'm so hoping we can rent all our apartments quickly and I can find time to book one of these cruises before the Wonder leave San Pedro!

Oh, and I wish one of you had ordered the mixed grill at Parrot Cay, sausage wrapped in bacon sounded so decadent, I was hoping for a picture of that. I can't believe everything you've done and the trip isn't even half over yet!

I'm feeling so much better now. I think I needed to get that fever to finally get better. It's like, i've been waiting for that fever to come for the past two months and it finally came!

Ugh, Alison, they are so cheap right now! Here's hoping you can rent out your apartments ASAP!

I'm sorry I didn't order that! There was so many other wonderful things to get.

Wow what a wonderful looking excursion

You must have been totally buzzing at the end of it

The photos are really, really good as well and that's a really good price to buy the photo CD

Looking forward to reading more of you excellent trip report and thanks for answering my question about the tasting seminars

They could have charged way more for the photo cd. It turned out being under 1 dollar per picture which is great. Way better than what DCL charges for their pictures!

I forgot to say that that spider scared me so much! I don't know if I'd be able to walk underneath it. Just the thought it could jump on my back

That spider was disgusting. I wish I got an actual photo of it. It was as big as my hand. I would pray every time I walked under that darn web that it wouldn't land on my head

Alicia, your latest adventure looks like SO MUCH FUN! too bad I can't take a 2 year old ziplining ha ha. Can't wait for more posts! I'm starting to get desperate for MR TR. I think I've reread what you've posted twice now.

Maybe when she gets older! I'm working on my next update right now. Your trip is coming up so fast!!

 

[Leshaface]

After everyone was done buying their pictures and eating, we loaded back up into vans and headed back to the beach area. Nearly everyone fell asleep on the way back, including DH who kept nodding on this guys shoulder, but he didn’t care cus the other guy was asleep too! I stayed awake through the entire ride. I didn’t want to miss anymore of the beautiful scenery.

Once back to the beach, we needed to wait, for the other van that got a late start, so DH ordered us a negra modelo and sat around waiting.

Finally the other van showed up and we all loaded back into the boat. Our guides decided to do a little detour and took us by the famous Arcs.

Then the guide stopped the boat and threw slices of bread into the water and here’s what we saw

I also took video since you can’t see much:

LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuMzHL8Suf4

It was really neat!

The whole boat ride back to the ship, we ended up talking to this really nice family from Sacramento, talking about Disney cruises vs other cruises. They were so surprised that we were on a Disney cruise WITHOUT kids. Then we made several different points as to why we cruise with Disney (besides the fact that I’m OBSSESSED with anything Disney) and they got to thinking, that maybe they’ll do Disney without kids someday.

We finally got back onboard the ship at 3:30 and we were FAMISHED! We had done so much today without hardly eating anything. We went straight up to Pinoccohios Pizzeria and ordered some pizza and sodas. But we were still hungry and didn’t want to go back up….24 HOUR ROOM SERVICE FOLKS! So we placed our order and we both took showers, waiting for our food. It showed up within 20 minutes.

Ooooh we went overboard:

But we were hungry!

We got a cesaer salad:

International Cheese Plate:

Macaroni and Cheese:

Buffalo Wings:

Cheeseburger with fries:

Ask if we ate it all….WE DID! We were also kind of embarrassed that maybe the CM bringing our food would be like, “All this for 2 people!?” But luckily he didn’t.

What happens when you spend all day hiking, riding mules, ziplines, rappelling, and filling your stomach with awesome comfort food? You take a 2 hour nap of course! I woke up at 6:20, which meant we ended up missing the 6:15 showing of Toy Story the Musical. However, they have a channel on TV where it has all the shows live so you don’t have to leave your room. Awesome! I woke DH up and we started getting ready for dinner. But the one thing I hadn’t done today was order my DOTD! So while DH finished getting ready, I headed upto the Promenade Lounge and ordered one of these.

It’s the Mariachi and has tequila, banana flavoring, crème de menthe, and grenadine. Yummy!

 

[Leshaface]

Then we were on our way to dinner. Tonight we were dining at Tritons, FINALLY!

Pretty menu..

DH told our tablemates that we had just ordered all this food at around 4 and said we probably weren’t going to be eating much. Such a lie.

My app:

Prine Eric’s Escargot Gratines – Herb-marinated Snails with finely chopped mushrooms topped with garlic butter.

Good! But not nearly as good as the ones we had at Chefs de France over at EPCOT.

DH ordered the Chef Louis French Onion Soup – with Gruyere Cheese Crouton

For entrees, I went with the Slowly braised Lamb Shank with a creamy polenta and portabello mushroom in a red wine sauce.

Very tender and juicy.

Dh went with the Crispy Roasted Duck Breast with braised Napa Cabbage and potato cake, with Pomegranate Jus.

His was very good too!

Dessert time. I can’t believe we still ordered dessert after all the food we’ve eaten today!

I really, REALLY wanted to get the Grand Marnier Souffle, but since I had already tried it on the Dream, I figured I’d go with something different. The Chocolate Mousse – a silky chocolate mousse with brandy-marinated cherries.

Ugh! Definitely glad I got this. I only wish there was more cherries!

DH surprised me tonight and ordered dessert. The Ice Cream Sundae served with vanilla ice cream, praline petite choux, chocolate sauce, and a hazelnut croquant.

After dinner, we were going to the adult show at Wavebands and would be meeting up with the one of the couples from our table…Okay so I forgot to say this. We made drinks to bring with us to dinner, and DH put a lot of vodka in his. After dinner, we went back to the room and made more drinks, his getting stronger each time. We headed to Wavebands early and met up with Melanie and Tim. I’m not sure if I said something to Melanie or if DH did, but someone ended up telling her that I had a huge crush on the keyboardist. Well DH needed to go use the restroom, but when he got up, he went over to where the keyboardist was playing and yelled something at him and pointed at me! Then the keyboardist and the guitarist looked over at me and smiled! UGGGGH! Then Melanie started laughing at me, and I was so embarrassed. I could not take any more pictures of the band for the rest of the night! DH came back from the bathroom and I asked him what the heck he said. He said, “That girl over there has a huge crush on you and thinks you’re hot!” Geez. I’m never telling my love interests to DH ever again.

Tonights show was Match Your Mate. We absolutely LOVED this show on the Dream so we knew we had to see it tonight. Of course there was super embarrassing questions being asked, but it was hilarious hearing the different answers from everyone. Just to let you know, if you participate, you get a free drink out of it AND the winner takes home some type of spa package. BUT both the losing couples also got passes for the Rainforest room! So if you’re interested in winning something and not caring what people think about you, definitely participate in this. It’s so entertaining!

After the show we headed back to the room and found this guy on our bed.

We went to bed watching more Disney movies, of course! Tomorrow was our first day in Cabo San Lucas and our first time having dinner at Palo.