This morning we woke up to buildings on the horizon. We opened up the door to the verandah and stuck our heads out to this sight.
It was pretty funny to see all the other people on verandahs around us doing the same thing.
We had an early excursion this morning so we got everyone up and out of bed to ... you guessed it... BBB. It opened much earlier this morning, I want to say 6:30 or so, due to the early excursions. We ate quickly and then headed back to the room to pack up what we would need for the day.
So, here is my public service announcement. Put sunscreen on the kiddos before you ever leave the room. Oh, and make sure it is your heavy duty, reliable, tried and true sunscreen and not some other strange brand your dd brought home from Daisy Scouts.
Oh and on top of the sunscreen, make sure you pack sunshirts. And once you get to the beach, pool, or wherever, reapply everything. Seriously, we saw so many fried kids & adults after PV (our own kids included). In our case we applied the sunscreen but forgot to reapply.
Okay, but on to the fun stuff. All packed up and ready to go, we headed down to the Promenade Lounge were our Las Caletas group was meeting. At the tour meeting they had towels that you could grab. They also had them as you were exiting the ship if you weren't part of an organized tour. So we got our goofy stickers and after a short wait headed out with our guide. We headed off the ship and down a pathway. When you dock at PV you'll see
Walmart directly across the street. There is also a grassy area with pathways where vendors set up. Off to the right is a marina which is where we were headed this day. Here is a picture that was taken later in the afternoon that sort of shows the grassy area. You can see the marina off to the right.
There were three cruise ships in port that day, the Wonder, the Norwegian Star, and the Carnival Splendor. Why put this in right here? Well because there was a huge line of passengers in life jackets waiting near the docks to get on the various excursion boats. Well we lucked out and got to go past all those people to our boat. Apparently they were waiting for the boat that was going to pull into our berth after we left.
So we got on the boat and found our spots. There were other passengers from the Norwegian Star that were on the boat before us. We ended up finding a spot near the front which worked out well as we were able to scoot up to the front deck. They kicked us off during a short staff show, but otherwise it was a great seat.
So... we had our seats, we had our orange juice and had the option of a choice of pastries, which we declined since we just ate. They made sure everyone had a life jacket which we were happy about because of the kiddos. So we were all set to go ... and we waited ... and waited ... and waited. What was the hang up? Well the Carnival Splendor came in after us and was still in the process of docking and had their engines on. There was a fair amount of room between the Wonder and the Splendor but apparently there was enough of a current that the bigger boats weren't allowed to thread their way between the two ships.
After about a half an hour the Splendor finally turned off their engines and we were all set to go. We were really late getting out so Vallarta Adventures tacked an hour on to our tour.
So, we set off on our boat ride. It took about forty-five minutes or so. The boat ride go a little bit rougher as we got out to open sea. Unfortunately for us ds went down below to go to the restroom and ended up throwing up.
Poor kid spent the rest of the boat ride with his head over the side of the boat. Not a great way to start the day.
So, we pull up to Las Caletas. Now having spent way to much time on DIS and Cruise Critic that it would be a good idea to head pretty quickly over to the activities beach to grab good chairs. Fortunately our spot on the boat made it very easy for dd and I to get off the ship quickly. I left dh and ds on the boat as ds was still feeling quite green. We headed up the path only to be stopped by a photographer that wanted us to wait until the rest of our party came. WHAT?!?
Well apparently they wanted a photo of the whole group.
Okay, so we are about three days in to this TR and what is one common theme you'll notice about our pictures? We do not take family photos. (Well, unless we are at
Disneyland that is.
) I very calmly explained that the rest of our party would be delayed and we'd like to move forward. She was like, "No we'd really like to wait for the rest of the party." As that point I pretty much told her no. My son is sick and they would be awhile and we really just want to get nice chairs on the beach. Finally she let us go. I had to laugh when the guy right behind me ended up having the exact same conversation with her.
So I continued on my merry way to the activities beach.
We were the first ones on the beach and ended up having first pick. So I staked out our chairs and then dd and I checked out the hammocks. Not too much longer dh & ds made their way down to the beach. ds was still looking pretty green so he sat in the shade while the rest of us checked out the beach.
Las Caletas was very well stocked with activities. You could snorkel, kayak, use inner tubes to play in the waves, do yoga, pottery, take a cooking class, or take a nature walk. They also had animals you could interact with although we never made it over there. For a small fee you could also get a massage or they had a kid's canopy adventure that the kids could do for a fee.
Some of the pictures at the beginning look really crowded but once everyone got thier equipment people were off in so many directions that the beach wasn't bad at all. Our kids loved, loved, loved the innertubes. Yes, ds did eventually decide he felt well enough to enjoy the festivities. dd ended up meeting another little girl who was also on the Wonder and actually only lived about twenty minutes away from us. We'd end up meeting up with this family off on on throughout the rest of the cruise.
I know there are lots of questions about water temperature. While the water was a little cool it was definitely swimable. I'm a total wimp and I got pretty far into the water.
After doing lots of innertubing dh and ds decided to try snorkeling.
While the snorkeling wasn't great they had a good time. (dh has decided that our next warm weather vacation will be somewhere where the snorkeling will be good.)
After an hour or so they had a guided walking tour that I went on. It was fun although nothing too exciting. On the tour I talked to someone that did the cooking lesson and she enjoyed it. They made paella and she said the guacamole was really good.
After we got back from the nature walk it was time for lunch. We found a nice table right next to the water. They had paella, chicken, ribs and various other types of food. The food was quite tasty as were the margaritas and best of all, they were all included.
After lunch we were supposed to head up to where the animals were kept but my kids decided they were heading back to the beach. ds and dd got back on innertubes. This turned out to be a potentially disastrous mistake. Everything was fine and then they rang a bell letting us know that it was time to head back to the boat. So we packed up and dd and her new friend headed up to the showers to wash off. I followed her with all of our stuff. ds followed about five minutes later. So I got the kids all washed off and was ready to get them into dry clothes. (dd hates being in wet clothes.) So I looked around for dh who was nowhere to be found.
At this point I'm very stressed out as I could see that people were getting on the boat. dd's new friend's mom offered to watch the kids while I tried to figure out where dh was. At this point I could see him in the water with a snorket. I was fuming.
What the heck was he doing? So I ran down to the beach and asked him just that. Turns out that ds had lost his wristband and dh was diving to find it.
As I watched the boat get fuller and fuller I yelled at him that we would just eat the $50 and lets go. He looked at me confused, isn't it $200. Obviously, dh did not spend enough time on DIS.
But wait, just that second he looked over and saw the wristband floating. He swam over and we were ready to go.
So we went running off to the boat. Believe it or not there was actually one family later than we were.
Okay so I'm tired so I'll be back later with our return trip. Stay tuned for Whales, Pools, Toy Story and more.
