This was where my family and I had the best experience, My cousin’s dad come from Manzanillo to come see her. We got off the boat as soon as we ate breakfast and again bargained with a vender to take us to a beach that wasn’t crowded. On the way going to the beach we saw many restaurants and places that we recognized from the states, there’s a Walmart right when you get off the boat, but I’ll talk more about that later. We saw dominos, outback, Starbucks, Sam’s Club, and even a Macy’s. If you’re tired of the food from the ship and want something more from home, Puerto Vallarta will be the stop for you. I’m not too sure what beach it was that he took us but there were many little shops and restaurants. We were able to rent lounge chairs and umbrellas through a restaurant and we didn’t have to eat there. The ocean has very many rocks for if you aren’t wearing water shoes you can’t go in very far without hurting your feet. We mainly just relaxed and talked. My brother and 2 of my cousins went parasailing, and they said that they had a great time. It was $100 for the 3 of them, after negotiating. From $45 per person. We were ready to go to the boat earlier than what we had told the driver, we called him and he was there in about 30 minutes. Before we got back on the boat my mom, brother, and I decided that we wanted to stop at Walmart to buy some souvenirs and again more chips and soda. The Walmart was very big and had plenty of souvenirs to choose from for a low price. I highly recommend checking it out to get a feel for everything they have that you can’t get in the states. Again it was really hot and humid, just like Cabo and Mazatlán.

After the tiring day at Cabo we all decided that we did not want to go to the beach, instead we wanted to go have tacos. When you first get off it is a little under whelming as there are crates and such, you take a little shuttle, like the ones at Disneyland but much smaller, to get out of there and into the city. We negotiated with a van driver who promised to take us to a really good taco place and off we went. He dropped us off and told us that he would be back in an hour and a half to pick us up. The tacos were actually pretty good and down the same street there was a Thrifty’s ice cream shop that we went to go eat at. He was right on time to pick us up and took us back to the port. Right across there was an Oxo, which is Mexico’s 711 we stopped there to buy some chips and drinks, this time they let you bring on plastic bottles.

First thing to note is that there is no port to get off the boat at Cabo. The way that you get off the boat is by taking a water shuttle. There are 3 different ways that you can get on the shuttle; the first is by booking an excursion through carnival, you will be on the firsts shuttles out in order to get to your excursion on time; the second is by waiting in line the day prior to get passes, after the excursion people are off they call pass numbers, once yours is called you’re able to get on a shuttle the smaller the number the earlier you can get off; the last is simply waiting until the shuttles are open, about 3 hours later. My family and I got the passes the day before on deck 5, there was a long line and wait to get them, you only need one person to go down to get them for the entire group. They are on a board and are almost like business card style and you grab what you want then go. When our number was called we went down to deck 0 and gave our passes (which they didn’t even look at our count) and we were able to get off. Once we got to the land we knew that we wanted to go to the beach and were trying to find a way to get there. Apparently you have to take a water taxi a short distance unless you want to drive or walk for 2 hours. I don’t know how true that is but we took the water taxi and honestly were upset on how short a distance it took us. After paying the taxi driver, when we got off we had to pay another fee to get off the boat. It didn’t make sense to me, I guess because we used the small port and that was the port fees. I don’t know. Anyways we walked to the beach. After walking on the sand there were things that looked like ice. Turns out they are Jelly Fish, so be careful where you step. They are dead so my cousin touched them and they didn’t sting but you could still possibly get side effects later. If you plan on eating at one of the restaurants on the beach I suggest just taking Uber (it works in Mexico) because the walk was wayyyy too long and that’s what my cousins used to get back to where you get on the water shuttles. Everything is expensive there so be careful on where you go unless you don’t mind spending money. The water and the beach were so beautiful and breath taking that I believe it’s something that everyone should experience in their life.

The cruise ship passes the famous arch so get out there early to get some good pictures. It is extremely humid in the summer time.