Unremarkable. Embarkation: Quite wonderful, it was smooth, accurate and fast. No registration issues whatsoever.

It is a very pretty port area with lots to see and do. No desirable shore excursions were found. A well setup/equipped tourist shopping port. Very easy to navigate around the port. There was some “hawking/annoyance” from the local vendors. No interesting shore excursions were noted. A very educational experience of how people live in other countries.

A very pretty port, but beyond the façade, it’s a big dump. No interesting shore excursions were found. No immediate tourist shopping at the port. A 1-2 km taxi ride is needed to reach a flea /tourist market. No “hawking/annoyance” beyond the immediate port is encountered. Ugly brown sand beaches about 2-3 km away from the port in front of the various hotels. The biggest attraction here is a bus excursion to see the famous cliff divers. There is an old Spanish fort at the port that may be interesting. A very educational experience of how people live in other countries. This was at least our 8th visit to Mexico.

An unattractive port. There are massive mountains (volcanoes) to the east of the port. We originally planned to take an “On you own” tour in which a bus would drop off/pick up, but it was overfilled. Instead, we took a round trip bus tour to Antigua Ciudad with a couple of stops. The bus ride was about 50 miles (1:35) each way. A somewhat boring trip on occasionally very bumpy roads made the journey annoying. During the journey, a strong presence of openly armed Police and Military personnel was noted everywhere. A stop was made to a Jade Museum and store. While at another stop was made at the town plaza. There we were assaulted by hundreds of pushy and annoying hawkers selling various tourist items. In addition, there were numerous crippled street beggars in the area. The topography in this area is littered with volcanoes, several of which are quite active. There were numerous shops and stores just adjacent to the ships dock, but the prices were slightly higher. One member of our party decided to take a hike up a volcano and it was well liked. A very educational experience of how people live in other countries.

An unattractive port, a bit dirty. There are massive mountains (volcanoes) to the east of the port. No interesting shore excursions were found. Instead a 2,000 foot walk on the pier to a big shopping/vendor area to the west of the pier behind a long brown sand (HOT) beach. The 90°+ temperatures and windy conditions made the walk annoying. Almost no hawking vendors. All were friendly, courteous and spoke English. So far, it’s the best Central American country we visited. A very educational experience of how people live in other countries.This was our second visit to Costa Rica.

This was our second visit to this port; therefore a previous Cruise Review covers this port in detail. Numerous excursions are available to take you through a very interesting city. As previously noted, this is an unattractive port with the cruise dock located in a freight/cargo “non-tourist” dock area. But a short shuttle bus ride took us to a few shops adjacent to the dock area. There we hired a taxi to take us to/from the splendid shops at Las Bóvedas (Vaults / Dungeons) in the walled city. The driver gave us a personal tour on this drive which made it a very educational experience of how people live in other countries. Well done.