Hello everyone,

We just got off 7-dat MX Riviera cruise on the Bliss' January 2 sailing with stops in Cabo, Vallarta, Mazatlan and Ensenada. There were 1700 passengers on board (vs 4000 @ full capacity) and nearly the same amount of crew for 1:1 ratio of crew to guests pretty much.

Embarkation day was painless juat had to lug a bunch of stuff around until we found the right entry door for covid testing. Porters really helpful, and please tip them! He tagges our bags and made sure everything was ready prior to entry to covid testing building (separate from embarkatiom building). You will go im and have vax cards and passports and booking checked so have those things in hand. Then you will wait in a line. Then the service desk will issue you a paper slip with a unique code. Then you stand in line again to be tested. Quick antigen test and you stay with young kids for this, otherwise adults and teens are sent off to separate bootha for the nose swab. You give the swabber your paper and they record the number, give paper slip back, swab you and then send you on your way. Then you line up again to leave the test area where somebody checks your little paper and then lets you into the test result waiting area....where you are YELLED AT to sit down and wait for your results. It took an hour to get back the 3 results we needed 'presumptive negative' so dont believe the 20-30 min test time bullhockey. The results are textes to your phome or show up on the labport website. Its very hard to find your number on a dimly lit projection screen that shows numbers of people good to go. There was a screamer who would yell out numbers of passengers (probably positive tests) and these people would be hunted down and taken off to the side. Waiting an hour or so i had plenty of time to recite a few hail marys while sweating bullets thinking we were going to be assailed by the screamer and kicked off. Thankfully we passed. Then you proceed to a desk to get a littlw paper wristand where you confirm your identity and neg test. Then you line up again and get on a 10 person shuttle bus to take you to the actual embarkation terminal...you haven't even checked in at this point. Read more