Norwegian Mexican Riviera Cruise Trip Report number 3 Yesterday was Cabo San Lucas port stop. We enjoyed looking at the various ships, boats, jet skiers, etc in the harbor. The view was very picturesque to look at. Linda elected to stay on board and do line dancing and I went on shore in the tender small boats. An assembly of 9 boats showed up to transport us passengers to shore. I was in group “G” and was concerned I would have a long wait to go on shore. Actually I was the third group to go ashore. And, it was very convenient to do it. We waited in the room before my group was called. It was a choppy ride and the small boat was handled safely. To get off the ship, we were photographed with a camera which was a photo ID system. Returning to the ship, the same system was used and the screen reflected that I was recognized and I was permitted to enter. There is a very strict policy on what we could bring on to the ship and take off the ship. I had a couple of items I was interested in purchasing and neither one of these items would be easy to bring onto the ship. I looked at many coffee mugs and all of them had no lead written on their bottoms and that made me suspect that there was actual lead involved in their manufacture. So, I will wait and buy it off from Amazon when I get home. Safer. I walked a lot on shore and felt safe for the over 8,000 steps (Apple Watch keeps track). There was lots of passengers crawling around the shops and also drinking in the bars. I decided to get a massage and it was a fairly good one. I should have bargained more for the price and was too paranoid throughout the entire process, keeping track of my valuables I had brought to totally relax. Scary for possible theft. No theft and I think that was so because of my constant vigilance. As usual, I over ate and regretted it. We had a crisis in the room where it was too hot. We were in the direct sun light and the AC stopped working. We discovered that the sliding glass door had to have the door shut with the handle in the up position before the AC would work. Who would have known. We did have a maintenance man check it out and by late evening, after we discovered the system of the door handle, it was working. We were going to go to a “Beattles” show last night. When we entered the area for the show, it was already too crowded to be healthy in COVID times. This is not the same area for the big shows. We elected to return to the room after our normal formal dinner. Our next ship stop is “Puerto Vallarta” where we will participate in a tour in the afternoon. January 5, 2022, we visited the port of Puerto Vallarta (yesterday). At this port, the ship had a birth and we walked directly from the ship to land. The entry area reminded me of many modern airports around the world where we were shuttled through a very large shopping areas of twisting pathways. Nice building. We toured on a formal tour in the afternoon called Mexican Fiesta and Lunch. This involved a lengthy bus ride to a tequila factory, tour of the factory, tequila tasting, lunch, and entertainment (performers dancing, guitar playing, horse dancing, busting a pinada). The tequila tasting involved tasting 6 different types of tequila in small shot glasses. Significant amount of alcohol. Personally, I find tequila as being too sweet and still manages to get my shots down (drank). We were entertained on the bus trip by Victor who comes from a large family of 12 children (two additional had died in child birth). He described the history of the area. The down town area has a number of very large apartment buildings and it dominated by them. Our 17 plus floor ship seemed to fit right in. On returning to the city, we were ushered to a shopping area and too specific shops. Linda does not like shops where the items are not priced with a tag and we are expected to “bargain”. So, we did not buy any item. We then followed up with a walk in the down town area and a visit to a very old church. We survived the day and it was very tiring. Boarding and debarking the bus is tiring, and slow. We had many disabled people on the bus and it is taxing to wait for them to get off and get on the bus. Very slow process. We were well behaved and did not stomp on these older ( we are mostly all old on this trip) slower members of our group. Some of our group members appeared ready to do it. The January 5th morning, Linda and I discovered a new area of the ship that we had not been in. It is the forward observation deck (inside) of the ship. It is the most massive area I have seen on a cruise ship. It has a full eating area stocked with a significant variety of food and fully staffed with service personnel. It is a terrific area to eat breakfast, self serve, and then have peace and quiet. Linda and I plan to visit that area in future breakfast stops. The bran muffins and oatmeal are particularly inviting on this part of the trip. Our next stop is in Mazatlan where Linda and I will go on another tour January 6, 2022.