The wife and I decided to take our 2nd cruise to the Mexican Rivera and we really didn't have many options for the dates that we chose. Only Carnival and Disney were available and I didn't think I could stomach the Happy, Happy Disney theme for 7 days (We live 10 minutes from Disneyland). So, Carnival was our choice, I wasn't thrilled, hearing about the Teeny Bopper atmosphere or food poisoning that I'd heard of, but we decided to give it a go!
On this cruise we decided to take our "10" year old daughter Adriana, she was thrilled! I won't take time describing the embarkation, debarkation scene, the downer of the trip. We decided to enroll our daughter in the camp Carnival, a supervised kids club that had its ups and downs. By the end of the trip, she loved it! I'm convinced it really depends on who they meet onboard, she met a couple of sisters and they had a blast the remainder of the trip!
Due to a tropical storm in the area, the ship changed to a Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo pattern. No big deal, Puerto Vallarta was beautiful, tip, hire a bus for the day, we paid $25 for "5" hours and shared it with the parents of the girls my daughter met onboard. He took us to a spot in the jungle called Chico's, excellent seafood platter, at about $60, not cheap, but feeds 3,,, Lobster, crab, shrimp, fish,,, Yum!!!! Mazatlan was as out last trip, lots of stores, beggars or salespeople. We took our daughter the Senor Frogs; she loved it but talk about hard sales! They literally had "7" men waiting for you when you seat hitting you up for Jell-O shots to balloon figures to magic trips to shots while shaking your head,,, it was never ending,,, definitely a turnoff. Cabo San Lucas: Wow did they build up this place! A beautiful shopping center with restaurants on the prestigious dock area, we didn't do much traveling into the city, but did enjoy the food at the Shrimp Factory.