Just got back from a great Mexican Riviera cruise!!! Before I write my review, a challenge to future cruisers. One girl in our group brought a backpack full of clothes to give to some Mexican children when we were at port. She gave the pack to our cab driver who said he couldn't thank her enough. Why didn't I think of this!!!

This was our 5th cruise. Third Mexican Riviera, all on Carnival. One on Costa to the Eastern Caribbean and one on Royal Caribbean to the Western Caribbean. This time we went with 2 other families. 6 adults and 7 teenagers.

Last cruise on Carnival we got to Long Beach earlier in the morning and spent hours in line so this time we got there about 1:30 and there was no line and we practically walked straight onto the ship. Just as other reviewers pointed out, the decorations were a little tacky. Pink and grey and a little too blingy. But whatever. We ate in the Black Pearl dining room. Our maitre-D was Dessi. She was great! We had 13 in our group. 6 adults and 7 teenagers. On the second night she took my extremely shy 14-year-old son and danced with him during the "showtime". She made a point every night to come to our table and talk with us and made us feel like we were her best friends. The last night the teenaged kids wrote her a thank you note. Amir was a guy who came to our dinner table and did magic tricks which were really, really good and he was a lot of fun. We all took pictures with him the last night too. Yup, amazing!!! Read more