Karen's Diamond Princess 7 Night Mexican Riviera Cruise, Apr 05

Two adults celebrating their anniversary on this cruise.

Our stateroom was great. I found it very cozy and comfortable. Plenty of storage space. I feel very fortunate that we were on Baja instead of Caribe or Dolphin. The balconies on Aloha were flush with our balcony, so they couldn't look down on us. But the balconies below us were tiered, so we could see the full balconies of both Baja and Caribe. Next time I will make certain that nobody can look down on us. The fact that the balconies were tiered made it noisier as well. It was more of a party scene at times, not the quiet and privacy I was hoping for. But all-in-all, it was good. I don't think I will ever cruise without a balcony again. That is such a huge part of the trip for me. Our best day was the day at sea that we just stayed in our room, ordering room service! I had to bundle up to sit out on the balcony, but it was worth it.

Were the transfers to the port handled well?

From port to LAX, it was great. Very efficient. We were to the airport by about 9am and were able to fly standby. Next time I won't be so worried about my return flight. It seems that they just let you off the boat earlier if you have an earlier departure time.

From LAX to port, the transfers were terrible. Next time I will make my own arrangements. It will be cheaper and faster. The terminal that we were at was the last stop for the bus. By the time it got to us there were usually about 5 seats left. For a crowd of 40 people, that was not acceptable. We were lucky, but some people waited for 2 hours at LAX.

Did you enjoy your shore excursions and would you recommend them?

We were late to Puerto Vallarta, so they cancelled all the morning shore excursions. My feedback to Princess was that they should have rescheduled on a first come-first served basis (whoever signed up first gets to choose whether to cancel or reschedule, bumping the last person to sign up). I know we scheduled very early, so we should have had first chance to reschedule our shore excursion. Instead, they just cancelled ours and the afternoon crowd still got to go. In the end, there were a couple spots left in the afternoon and we got those. But I had to bug the desk quite a lot to make this happen (In retrospect I might not have spent all that precious vacation time trying to rearrange). We did the mountain biking and it was great. Got to go through some villages. It was the same trail that the horses, hikers, and ATVers used.

At Cabo, we really enjoyed the sea kayaking. They were cheap sea kayaks, though, and there was no room for anything onboard. We couldn't take our camera, so that bummed me out. I had even planned ahead and brought my dry-box, just for this shore excursion, but they wouldn't let me take it. But the scenery was great. On past sea kayaking adventures, they used nicer kayaks that had areas to store things. In the end, I'm glad we didn't take the camera, as the guide was not very experienced (apparently), and caused us to turn over and fall out. Next time I think we will just do our own kayaking and skip the guided tour.

At Mazatlan we used a private hire for a city highlights tour and a hike. It was okay. He was 45 minutes late and we were just about ready to give up when he drove up. Then he had his girlfriend with him, so it was pretty cozy in his 2-door car. It was nice to get away from the city (for the hike) and to do whatever we wanted when we wanted. But we could've done that by renting a moped. So I wouldn't do this again. Robert Hudson was his name.

How did this Princess cruise compare to your past cruises?

The Anytime Dining was good for us. We had to make reservations a day ahead, though, to get the restaurant and close to the time we wanted. So it wasn't really as convenient as I thought it would be. I would do it again because of the change in restaurants. The downside is that the waiters were not as attentive. The service was definitely better on past Princess cruises. They had a really good procedure for storing your wine and retrieving it at the next night's restaurant.

This isn't that important, but I was bummed that no running was allowed on the Promenade deck. When we first were looking into the cruise, I made sure that there was one deck that wrapped all the way around, so that I could run. I saw deck 7 did wrap around (although it required a set of stairs at the front end, not a problem). So I went for my run as planned. Then the Patter had a note the next day saying that running was not allowed on deck 7. You have to go to 15 or 16, which is 10 or 11 times around for a mile. I just couldn't stand the heat and tedium up there, so I didn't run again.

I was also surprised at how chilly it was in the shade when we were at sea. Either you had to sit directly in the sun and out of the wind, or you had to wear long sleeves/pants. I was not expecting that.

Overall the cruise was great fun. We had such a nice, relaxing time. The comments above are to help future cruisers, not to complain. I don't think I'll go to Mexican Riviera again (seen it once, don't feel a need to return), but it was a really nice time.