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| Cruising across Banderas Bay |
One t-shirt that was prominently displayed in practically every souvenir shop in all three ports said "Relax...….you're on the fun side of the wall". While there are certainly some significant challenges in certain places on that side of the wall, the slogan certainly held true for the three places we visited.
We've made our way back to San Diego and enjoyed a nice sunny day yesterday exploring the city on bike and on foot. Thanks to some great tips from Ed and Judy Laue and Karla DeChavez, former residents of San Diego, we took in a few of their favorites, including some killer pizza! There will be more on San Diego in future blogs, in the meantime I need to catch up on the last few days of the cruise.
Our ship remained docked in Puerto Vallarta until 11:00 PM. That gave us time to explore the city on our own, which I have already written about in the previous blog. For the evening we did something we don't usually do. We spent some money on an excursion offered by the ship. We decided to do something that had received very good reviews from several people that we talked to as well as from TripAdvisor. We purchased tickets to the trifecta of an evening out in Puerto Vallarta...…….A sunset cruise, dinner and performance of Rhythms of the Night, a show produced by the co-founder of Cirque de Soleil.
We noticed that as we walked from the ship to our smaller boat for the sunset cruise that the wind had picked up a little. This made for a bit of a choppy sunset cruise across Banderas Bay. Instead of mixing and mingling most people sat in their chairs and held on while stories of small ferries capsizing were probably playing over and over in their minds. We were entertained by the boats crew the entire hour it took to get to our destination of Las Caletas, a tropical forest where the dinner and show were held. The reality is that it was a little bumpy, but with the exception of a few people I don't think too many folks felt their lives were in danger.
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| Las Caletas |
The setting for the dinner and show were spectacular. The paths were lit by thousands of small candles, which were accompanied by torches, musicians and performers. The food was served buffet style and was very good, although it was a little salty. The salt wasn't added by the chef, but came from the occasional wave that would crash over the seawall and spray a fine mist of salt water on us, the food and the table. It was more entertaining than annoying as we tried to anticipate which wave was of sufficient size to make it over the wall.
The show, which was titled "SAVIA:The Legend of the Five Suns", was held in an outdoor theater that looked like it would seat around 400 people. Although the singing was in Spanish there was plenty of theatrics, similar to what you would see in a Cirque de Soleil show, to make for a fun and very entertaining evening.
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| Part of the Welcoming Committee...…. |
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| more of the welcoming committee |
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| Posing for a quick picture while keeping an eye out for the next big wave. Notice the water on the table. |
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| Sunset over Banderas Bay |
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| The outdoor theater stage preshow |
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| Singing, dancing and a lot of flying through the air |
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| No Mexican folklore show would be complete without paying tribute to the "Day of the Dead" celebration |
The ride back across Banderas Bay wasn't quite as bumpy as the ride over, although the crews entertainment was very bumpy, by design. They did a very unstable imitation of Queen, that was complete with costumes and fake instruments. As intended, it was quite silly but made for an enjoyable conclusion to the evening.
Our last two days on the Nieuw Amsterdam were very relaxing as we sailed back to San Diego. Although we haven't cruised in a few months, I am sure there will certainly be more in the future, probably even a few more visits to the fun side of the wall!
I've gone back into the three previous blogs and added a few pictures and captions as well as removed the duplicate photos. Take a look!
