10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part VI

Our next stop, was Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa Mexico. Actually, Ixtapa is about 2 miles North of where we were.


The ship had to tender us in at this location as it's a kind of small bay/inlet but the trip from ship to shore was around 8 minutes, so we were very close.

We knew ahead of time that this was going to be our beach day, so we decided to go to Los Gato beach, on the other side of the bay. So, as soon as our tender docked, we got on another small boat to go across the bay. 
This area had a bit more vegetation than the others we'd visited, and the homes were a bit nicer.


You can see at right, how far we were from our cruise ship. The beach itself was soft sand, and gentle waves as we were in a gorgeous little cove.

As we walked up the beach, a local man came to us and asked if we were going to spend the day, then led us to his place up the beach, with comfortable chairs, umbrellas and tables with tablecloths on them which was surprising considering you're at the beach. When we asked him how much for the chairs, he said no charge, just tip well when we drink or eat. Sounded like a deal so we sat down.
We were literally 10 feet from the water, it was about 88 degrees out, and we were all very relaxed.


We all watched as fishermen would occasionally come in and bring freshly caught fish to the various places like ours. 

Lunch was something that'll be hard to describe, but I'll try. 
I had beef fajitas, Mike had a dish of small soft taco's, but his wife Jeralynn had the special of the day. They cut a pineapple in half top to bottom, hollowed it out, put in some of the fresh fish, shrimp, mango, papaya and pineapple chunks and baked it with a tiny bit of local cheese on top. Words won't do it justice.

Now, I don't know if you see it, but the thing with the  flowers sticking out of it is actually Jeralynn's drink! It's a pina colada made inside a hollowed out pineapple! The flowers were breathtakingly beautiful, and the drink was great.
At right is a better picture of her lunch, and the drink, don't forget to click on any picture to 'embiggen'.


The food and drink were outstanding, and the prices were so inexpensive.. it's embarrassing.  By far, this was one of the best stops yet on the trip.


One last picture, to show you the beauty of this place:

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part V

Our next day, was at sea as we were travelling from Mazatlan, down the coast to Acapulco.

The day at sea was relaxing, and we basically hung around the pool, or played some trivia, or found some things to do around the ship. In the afternoon, I found that the movie theater on board was showing Avatar, so my wife and I watched it. While I enjoyed the visual part of it, the storyline/plot was horrible. It's been done so many times before, that it was disappointing.

At a informational session on board for shopping in the next 3 ports, I won a bottle of Tequila Cream! We enjoyed it in my room after chilling it on some ice that evening!

That evening, I took this gorgeous picture of the sun setting alongside the ship from my balcony.

The next day, we arrived in Acapulco. Now, I have to say, there wasn't too much exciting to do in Acapulco, so we basically just wanted to walk around and get to see the city.

The city was really nothing nice to look at from the ship.. and we were beginning to debate even getting off. We were told that Acapulco wasn't the best or even safest place to go, but we plodded outside anyways. We left the cruise ship area, walked around a bit and window-shopped a bit before my wife asked me to go back to the ship, as she didn't feel safe. I obliged her, and we went back and spent the rest of the day on the ship.

All in all, I was disappointed in Acapulco, picturing it being something out of an old Elvis Presley film. Even the people that went to see the cliff divers, weren't very happy about it. Oh well, hopefully the city will have a resurgence and come back to it's old glory.

To the right is one of the few pictures I took there, the other, directly below it of some of the beautiful flowers there.

Coming up in my next post, Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa Mexico.

Remember, click on any picture to 'embiggen'!

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part IV

Our next day, we docked at Mazatlan, and as you can see, it was a gorgeous day, with temps again around 80F at mid day, with bright sunshine and blue skies.

We were beginning to notice, there was no humidity to speak of there which is surprising to me, as I would have thought prevailing winds coming from the ocean would have made it very humid. Nope, none at all.

(Click on any picture to 'embiggen')

On this day, we took a trip to La Noria, Mexico, to a Tequila factory that makes Los Osuna. Now, to set things right, fermented Blue Agave can not be called Tequila here, as by Mexican law, Tequila can only be produced in the state of Jalisco, and we were in Sinaloa. So, if you click on the picture at left, it's not really called Tequila, but "100% Agave Azul" or, 100% Blue Agave.

We saw fields of agave plants, the ovens that they cook the big pineapple like parts of them, the machines that mash them, ferment and distill them into this wonderful alcoholic beverage that I enjoy so.

At right, are the in-ground ovens that we saw, with the stainless steel tops. They're more or less pressure cookers, and when done, the large pineapple looking things at the base of the blue agave plant is mushy, and sweet. When they extract the liquid from that, it makes Tequila (again, after fermentation and distillation).

The place was absolutely beautiful, with Blue Agave plants as far as the eye could see, and I wasted no time getting a picture of me and my friend Mike in front of one of these large plants.

The part that makes the Tequila, is actually just at the base of those large leaf like things.

Quite honestly, the plants look like Aloe Vera plants on steroids! *L*

After looking around a bit, they had a tiny straw market there that we poked around in, then we tried some of their delicious Los Osuna Agave Azul.

Well, I'll have to say it's probably one of the best Tequila's I've ever had, extremely smooth and delicious. I ended up buying 2 bottles to take home,

one for me, and one for my friend Dave who also loves good Tequila. After many, many shots of this nectar, I remembered to take a picture of my friend Mike, hoisting his... oh, 13th or 14th shot. (hey, I only had around 11... so I behaved!)

(then again, I brought 2 shots on our tour bus "to go", so I was no angel either)

The good news was, everyone had a great time, I wasn't driving and no headache or hangover happened. Back near the ship, we did poke in and out of a few stores just to see what kind of trinkets they had, and I bought myself and Mike a Los Osuna shirt.

All in all, a wonderful day!

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part III

On our first full day at sea, I woke up, opened the door to the balcony and sat outside for a bit watching the water. Honestly, this was the first balcony cabin for us, and I was already loving it. Then, it was a leisurely breakfast, then bathing suits and a trip up to the Solarium for some quiet time by the pool and hot tub. I brought my iPod Touch with me as I'm reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes on it (free from Gutenberg.org).
The day out was still a bit cool (around 70F), but the Solarium roof was closed and it was gorgeous with bright sunshine out.
Around 1pm, we played some trivia in one of the lounges, then walked the ship some more, working off lunch.
Nothing more exciting going on this day, so after dinner we saw the show and hit the sack, as the fresh sea air was making us tired still.

The next morning, we pulled into Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The views were outstanding (you can see from the pictures here). The weather was around 75F already, and the water a beautiful blue. (click on any picture to 'embiggen')

We used tenders to get into Cabo (small boats as the city has no big pier for our ship), and around 9am, we slipped off the ship to our first stop.

At left, this is the first store we see over by the pier. Did I mention, I love Tequila? *L*

I found one bottle I had been looking for here, but figured I'd look around town to see if I could get a better price (which I did).

At this point, there were a bunch of stores around we poked our heads in.. including a Senor Frogs (great watering hole).

At this point, my friend Mike and his son Ryan were about to go their separate ways as they were going zip-lining out somewhere and the rest of us didn't wish to go. Did I mention, that one of the zip line runs was over 1800 feet above ground? And me, deathly afraid of heights... I don't think so! *chuckling*

So, the two girls and I started wandering around the downtown area, just window shopping mostly. I was looking for something for my God-daughter for her Confirmation which happened just before we left on this trip.

I found it amazing how desert-like Cabo was, outside the city. The houses were built right into the sides of the mountains.

Not finding too much to buy, but interesting to window-shop in nonetheless, we walked through a beautiful marina, and stopped in a restaurant there for some lunch.

The food was excellent, the Margarita's were delicious, and they even had wandering mariachi's for musical entertainment!

By later in the afternoon, we found Mike and Ryan having lunch at Senor Frogs, and we headed back on board ship, having loved Cabo!

More coming soon....

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part II

On the morning of April 23rd, we woke up, casually packed our bags and with our friends in tow, went down to the hotel restaurant for a breakfast as we looked out the windows at our ship right across the street! It was great not to have to rush to get a cab or transfers, and I'd like to do this again if I could.. going out a day early.

At around 11am, we checked out of our rooms, and walked across the street and were on the ship in under 15 minutes. Once onboard, we went to check out our dining room table which was great, a 10 person table up against one of the windows on the lower deck of the dining room. (again, click on any photo to 'embiggen')

Next, we went to check out the Africa-themed Solarium (quiet area with pool and hot tub for adults). As you can see from the pictures, it's gorgeous!

The chairs aren't plastic with straps across them, they're wood, with nice padded cloth tops. The place just made my jaw drop at how gorgeous it was.

The hot tub was very inviting, but we had more to see... and it was getting after noon now, so we headed up to the "Windjammer" restaurant on the 11th floor, rear of the ship for lunch.

Lunch was very good as usual, and when finished we finally got a look at our rooms. Now, keep in mind this was our first ever balcony room, so we didn't know what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised when our balcony was oversized due to the deck we were on (our friends had a smaller balcony than us as they were three decks above us).

Well, enough for right now.. more coming up soon including the Sail-Away from San Diego!

April 23, 2010, 10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part I

Itenerary:
San Diego, CA
Day at Sea
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Mazatlan, Mexico
Day at Sea
Acapulco, Mexico
Zihuatanejo, Mexico (Ixtapa)
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Day at Sea
Day at Sea
San Diego, CA

This ship is in the "Radiance Class" of ships that Royal Caribbean International (RCI) has.
Other ships in it's class are:
Radiance of the Seas
Brilliance of the Seas
Jewel of the Seas
Serenade of the Seas        (Click on any picture to 'embiggen')

Ship Facts

Maiden Voyage: March 10, 2001
Passenger Capacity: 2,501
Godmother: Margot Pritzker
Gross Tonnage: 90,090
Length: 962'
Beam: 105.6'
Draft: 26.7'
Cruising Speed: 25 knots

The trip to San Diego was non-eventful, and we met our friends Mike, Jeralynn and their son Ryan at the    Holiday Inn On The Bay, directly across the street from where the ship would dock. (Click on any picture to 'embiggen')
They got in a bit after us, and we noticed they gave them the next room to us when they popped out on the balcony to see us!
After a bite to eat for lunch, we proceeded to explore a bit of San Diego before meeting a friend I know from San Diego for dinner (another Ryan). We took a trolley to Old Town, San Diego, and it was a great look back at San Diego around the turn of the century.

A bit later, we met up with my friend Ryan, and had some Tequila and dinner.

The place he chose, El Agave, must have had over 500 Tequila's. We tried a few, and Ryan finally got a chance to try my favorite, Tres Mujeres Reposado.

The food was great, the Tequila even better, and we just had a great time. I wish we had more time in San Diego to browse around.

I'll end this post now, with more to come about the cruise very soon.

Until then, 'Carpe Tequila' (Sieze the Tequila!)