9December2008
Terence Chang’s Cruise to Mexico
Posted by Debo Hobo under: Cruises; Guest Blogger.
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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