Port Rating:

Despite it being a Sunday, downtown La Paz was holiday hustle and bustle. The street fair, with a blocks-long stretch of shopping booths, was full of people. A very real city, with real people. The guy on board who said La Paz was a "nothing" town could not have been farther from the truth.

We had booked (and been waitlisted for) a shore excursion tour to the artisan colony of Todos Santos. The tour was inexplicably cancelled. The explanation from the Shore Excursion staffer was that, since we were calling at La Paz on a Sunday, nothing in Todos Santos would be open. I disagree with her statement. Given the state of tourism in western Mexico, which is lousy at the moment, the galleries and shops in Todos Santos would have been happy to throw open their doors for a busload of cruise passengers, even on Sunday.