This is a Guest Post written by Terence Chang.
As promise, I want to share my cruise trip to Mexico with Debo Hobo dot Com’s readers.
First of all, I love travel and love to travel light. Recently, my wife and I took a second cruise trip to Mexico. In 2006, we took Norwegian Star cruise ship to Mexico. It starts at LA and stop at the following Mexico cities. Acapulco, Mexico, Ixtapa, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
Our second cruise trip to Mexico is just few weeks ago in 2008. We took CARNIVAL PRIDE.
We visit the following places.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
Mazatlán, Mexico
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Now let me stop here a little bit. The first time cruise to Mexico is extraordinary, however, we have learned a lot. It makes our second cruise trip to Mexico again easier. So here is I want to share with readers about our experience.
- Don’t take Norwegian Star cruise ship to Mexico.
There are few reasons. Their price may be higher. Their foods were not as good as we thought. The excursion tour offered on the ship were not as good as we expect and they were expensive
- Buy ticket two or three weeks before you leave for cruise vacation. Go to Priceline.com to bid the ticket. In most cases, they will give you free upgrade to higher level or better room with window, which is even cheaper than booking directly from the cruise ship company’s web site. We bid on the CARNIVAL PRIDE. They give us upgrade to a nice room with big windows.
- Do not take the excursion tours on the ship unless it’s scuba diving and sea sports, which will take more time to do and may delay your boarding time. The shopping excursion or show related tours are expensive and worthless. You can pretty much take taxi or bus and tour around in the city.
- Keep your watch on-time with the ship time. Norwegian Star will not wait for people who took self-tour in the city and were late to get back to the ship. They will left behind in the Mexico. So make sure you keep eyes on the watch.
- Always prepare changes or one dollar bills. You will spent a lot of one dollar or 5 dollars in the city to take tour bus or take taxi.
Now let’s have some fun! When we left Long Beach, CA and head to the sea, there is a firefighter boat sending us out to the ocean with water show. It’s a show that you don’t want to miss the first day of your cruise vacation, which you don’t see that in LA harbor. Don’t get on the boat and go straight to the buffet. You will have plenty of time to eat as much as you can in the following days.
Don’t take excursion tours for city tours on the ship. It is easily cost you US$35 per person, while you can take bus, taxi and local tour guide for about US$40 total for 4 people. Trust me. My wife and I don’t speak any Spanish. We use the most common international language to communicate with Mexican – The hand gestures! In most cities, the bus costs your US$0.50 per person, while Taxi cost you from US$3.00 to $12.00 depends on the distance. Most Mexican in the tour cities are very friendly. So don’t be afraid to have some nice trip with their guidance.
If you decide to take Taxi, make sure that you tell the driver exactly where you are going and exactly how much you will pay him before getting into the Taxi. This is very important to protect yourself. Keep eyes on the street sign and make sure they take you to the right place. We were little scared and not sure where the taxi driver were taking us to, because it was a 12 miles ride. It only cost us $12 round trip while it costs you $100 with cruise excursion. That was an exciting experience. 
If you are taking cruise vacation to Mexico, make sure you will stop by Cabo San Lucas, the only place on earth with a so-called lover’s beach, which is between two different seas.
Remember to get up early at 5:00AM and get ready to go to the deck with your digital camera. It’s the best time to take photos of the famous Land’s End – Cabo San Lucas, while most of the people are sleeping in their room and miss the best view of Cabo San Lucas. The above photo of Cabo San Lucas was taken at 6:00AM, while I was the only 10 people on the desk. It’s a WOW and OMG experience that you don’t want to miss.
Remember, when you get back to the ship at Cabo San Lucas after an all day tour. Make sure you grab some quick dish to fill up your stomach. 20 minutes after the ship cruise away from Cabo San Lucas, you may see something like this. Many people miss the great show of dolphins and whales.
If you are lucky, you may see 100 or even thousand dolphins around the ship at full speed. I wish I have enough time to share more great experience of my cruise vacation with you. You can visit the following Flickr album to see more photos of my trips.
A little bit about Terence Chang. Terence Chang quit his job after the first cruise trip to Mexico in 2006. He has became an Internet Entrepreneur since. Two years later, he celebrated his important decision on the second cruise trip to Mexico in 2008. If you would like to know more about Terence Chang’s adventure, please following him on his blog and twitter.
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Looks like you had a good time Terence. You have also posted quite a bit of useful information on dos and donts that would make the trip a bit more enjoyable and would also save people a few dollars. Thanks!
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[...] am so glad that I was able to make a guest post about my cruise trip to Mexico on Debo Hobo dot Com – Travel Entrepreneur. It is about how you can take a short cruise trip to [...]
Gerri:
Thank you! I very much enjoyed my cruise vacation to Mexico. Especially, Cabo San Lucas. I saw Dolphin, Whale and Flying Fishing (they really fly).
It was an awesome trip that many people have missed. I am hoping that my post influence others to take a trip and enjoy their family time. That’s the purpose of the post.
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Good post, Terence, with some cool tips.
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Terence, I’ve been to a few cruises to Mexico and they are a load of fun…. and the best part is, it’s probably one of the most safest ways to visit the country.
Now that the ships have started to reposition from their Alaska cruises Vancouver to other ports aside from the Pacific Coast and Mexico, I can’t wait for our 12 day cruise to Hawaii in September next year. Got such a super duper good deal too!
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@Beth and @Sharon:
Thanks! My wife and few other friends are planing to go to Alaska cruise in April. 2009. It’s going to be fun when go with more friends. You can have some great fun with them on the ship and still have your own choice of tour.
Will love to eat lots Salmon…. Looking forward.
Cruise to Hawaii sounds fun. Not sure if they will take you to all 7 islands or just some of them.
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Sharon Reply:
December 14th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Wow, Terence, you are going on the first month of the Alaska season. It’s really nice because you can still see a lot of the glaciers before they stat melting for the summer.
Let me know if you need any sightseeing info if you are starting / ending in Vancouver.
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Terence Chang Reply:
December 16th, 2008 at 11:06 am
@Sharon:
Thank you so much for the offer. I will keep that in mind.
I actually went to Vancouver in 2001 We stop by the Victoria Island (is that right?) and Whistler from Seattle, WA.
We also visited Microsoft Headquarter to meet with my best buddy – Bill G.
Just kidding!
We do plan to take a road trip and drive cross North America some day, when the gas price goes down to $0.90 again. Vancouver will be on our road trip for sure.
There are too much to see and too little time to do so.
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I *heart* Mexico. Its really beautiful there.
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I have yet to go on my first cruise, I think it will be to either locations; ?Hawaii or Alaska…
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Terence Chang Reply:
December 16th, 2008 at 11:07 am
I would recommend to take Alaska first.
I heard that the ice start melting. It will be gone in matter of few years.
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Great job with the post, some of those tips are really great for newbie cruisers. I’m more of a Caribbean kind of guy but Mexico cruisers are also fun. As far as Alaska goes, it is definitely someplace you should go. While it is true the ice caps are melting they will be there for quite some time so you don’t need to rush.
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Awesome pictures and great tips. I hope the trip was as fun as it was reading the post.
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Good advice on not taking the cruise ship shore excursions. In most cases they will gouge you for the added convenience. Besides, there is always more adventure to be had when you do your own thing! Sounds like you had a great trip. Thanks for sharing your experience.
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I would love to travel to Mexico one day have only been around Europe so far and I am looking forward to going on my first Caribbean cruise in July looks like you guys had fun!
- and I am the same for packing light lol
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