Hi everyone, We just returned from a week on the Diamond Princess Mexican Riviera cruise. My husband and I took our 2 kids, their spouses, and our 2 grandkids to celebrate our 40th anniversary. It couldn't have been a better way to celebrate. Everyone had a blast. It's a great way to take a family vacation, because there is something for everyone.

The trip started out badly, because the ship was late coming into port. We had to wait in the terminal for hours, unable to board until about 4:00. No food or water, except in vending machines, and not even enough seats for everyone. Princess handled the problem very badly, not really apologizing or making any accommodation. When we were finally able to board, there was a mad crush for the buffet, since everyone was starving. There were no reservations that night for dining, so people were eating wherever they could. It was a mess. I would have handled it so differently----even free nachos and margaritas on boarding would have been an acknowledgement of the bad start, and would have put everyone in a better mood--a cardinal rule of customer service. But there was nothing. Even the ship photographer was telling people as they were boarding to "hurry up and look happy"! So we ended up at the buffet, which was crowded but fine. We had all hoped to settle in that first afternoon, explore the ship, have a nice dinner, etc. But we felt we almost lost that first day. Since everyone boarded at once, it was impossible to reach the concierge by phone the first day. We finally went to one of the restaurants, and the maitre'd got through for us. I was able to make reservations for the whole week at that point, which was great. We went to all the restaurants at least once, and our favorite was Vivaldi's----definitely the best service both nights.

After that first day, everything was great. The food was great, we loved the Horizon buffet being available at any hour, loved the ship, our cabins were great, we had fun at all the ports, etc. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.

Can you tell us a little about the shore excursions and what you liked about Mexico, versus the Caribbean. We need to decide on an anniversary cruise for August. Mexico sure would be easier to get to from California.
Katy

We have been to Mexico many times, as well as the Caribbean. There are pluses and minuses for both. The water in the Caribbean is definitely better. But we were all commenting on easy it was to sail out of LA. We live in the Bay Area, so were home early in the afternoon of debarkation! We were all grateful for not having to travel all day, especially since we had small children with us. As for shore excursions, the kids did tours in PV and Mazatlan. My husband and I just did the beaches, since we have seen the sights.

KatyDee,
We went on the Mexican Riviera cruise in March.
We've been there before but went back this year to explore more. Last year we took the shore excursion in PV called Off the Beaten Track to Liz Taylor's house that Richard Burton had built for her. That was interesting. In Mazatlan and Cabo we just went into town and browsed.
This year, we browsed in PV which we really enjoyed and in Mazatlan we booked the shore excursion from Princess
called Stone Island Beach Getaway.
It was nice and we had a carriage ride around. I was surprise at the carriage. I thought it would be fancy but it looks like a flatbed with wood plank seats but that trip was fun.
In Cabo we booked thru Princess again,
Land's End Boat Tour and Beach Visit.
I don't think I'd recommend that. It sounded good initially but on the boat to Los Arcos the gnats. or whatever they were, were so bad. They were hitting everyone in the face and we couldn't really enjoy the trip for swatting the gnats off our faces.
The beach part of the tour wasn't good either because the water was too cold.
I would recommend you just tour Cabo on your own.
Happy Cruising,
Lydia

chicgeek: We are taking the sister ship, Sapphire Princess, this fall on a 10 day cruise out of S.F. to the Mexican Riveria along with San Diego and Catalina. Thanks for the in-depth description. Did you try Sabtini's restaurant and if so what did you think of it?

Frank, we didn't try Sabatini's. We were quite content with the range of restaurants without paying extra for Sabatini's. There is a wide range, including Asian, Italian, Southwestern, Steakhouse, and buffet. Each has its own specialty menu, plus the traditional menu that changes every night. Make all your dinner reservations as soon as you board----you can always change them later if you need to. Let me know if I can answer any more questions for you. If you are traveling with others, this may interest you: we had adjacent veranda cabins with our kids, and we were able to open the doors between the verandas. This was so great, because we could visit back and forth outside (without going into the hallway) and have cocktails on our adjoining verandas.