Puerto Vallarta: April, 2008

Princess does a great job with all their shore excursions, and it can be difficult choosing from the many offered in their colorful and descriptive booklet. Booking shore excursions through the cruise ship makes life simpler, and that is worth some premium, but with four of us taking shore excursions in three ports, we opted to book online in advance through an independent company, Tours by Johann & Sandra. While no third party shore excursion company gives you the total security of booking through the cruise ship, Johann and Sandra offer more flexibility than many operators, and the prices of most tours are $15 to $30 per person less than similar tours through the cruise lines. We had a very good experience using Johann & Sandra, but you should always use caution when booking with an independent excursion operator, whether on line or at the pier. Not all similarly named excursions are equivalent offerings, and there are scam artist happy to take your money to leave you high and dry. Also, always be certain that your scheduled excursion fits in the time frame you will be in port.

In Puerto Vallarta, we took a $16 taxi to the Adventure Tours office about 20 minutes away. We tend to be cautious about arriving on time, so this put us there over an hour before our report time, which was another half hour before our scheduled departure time. We checked in and walked to a nearby shopping zone, which was a series of shaded booths and restaurants lining a trail leading to the beach. A good selection of merchandise and friendly merchants tempted us, but we didn't want to carry anything with us to our Canopy Tour. We decided to get cold drinks and snacks before returning to the tour office, and in a nearby park we found a nice palapa patio restaurant called Cafe Bolero. Two beers and beef nachos for $11 was the special, but they let us sustitute Diet Cokes for the beers, so we bought two orders. The salsa and guacamole included were terrific side dishes. We enjoyed the great meal and pleasant setting, but soon it was time to go.

We arrived back at the tour company a few minutes before our 1 PM scheduled departure time, but even after putting on bug repellant in preparation for our trip to the jungle, the bus still did not arrive. Sitting around a hot tour office without enough seats for three dozen tourists waiting for an extra half hour and then taking in a bumpy bus ride through a traffic mess was less than pleasant, but sometime around 2 we arrived at Pancho's Last Resort, and Puerto Vallarta became quite wonderful again. Outfitted with equipment and educated with humorous instruction by our crew of "jungle monkeys," as they called themselves, we were ready to start hiking up the mountain to our first platform.

Los Veranos Canopy Tour is not for people who are not in good physical condition. It involves a lot of hiking between platforms. The long hike through the jungle to the first platform culminates with a circular staircase. The first zipline is to take photos, and I would also guess to weed out anyone who cannot handle soaring through trees connected only to a strand of cable. The first one is only about 20 feet above the ground and maybe 120 feet long, but subsequent ziplines cover chasms hundreds of yards wide at heights above 500 feet. To generate maximum speed for the terrain, we frequently would hike back uphill to catch the next platform. None of the exhilerated participants was complaining about the workout.

A videographer would suddenly jump on the cable right next to different ladies and film them as they ziplined through the trees, encouraging them to let go of the "Mexican motorcycle" handlebars and look at the river far below from an upside down position. With Julie and Amy both filmed while zipping, we had to buy the video, which at $40 was attractive enough to get a cheapskate like me to buy it. I still kick myself for not buying the video of Julie and I swimming with sharks and stingrays in Moorea on our Tahiti cruise because the French videographer wanted $79, which just seemed too high. How much is too much to capture a once-in-a-lifetime experience? You have to answer that for yourself.

Anyway, while waiting for our video, we headed over to Pancho's cantina for Margaritas, sodas, chips and salsa. The cantina overlooks a swimming part of the river we had crisscrossed over while ziplining, with two stone slides that dropped us into the cool water. We liked the higher one with the ten foot drop best, and we made the trip up the rocks and across the rope bridge several times to plummet into the cold water.

The bus driver offered to take us back to the ship, but we had promised Danielle we would return to the little flea market to buy a painting she liked, so we got off back at the tour office. The shops were still open in the early evening; mission accomplished. We caught a taxi to the WalMart near the port so Amy could buy a Mexican Coke (made with real sugar instead of corn syrup) for her boyfriend as a souvenir. In retrospect, there were large lockers at Pancho's Last Resort, so we would have been better off to have bought the souvenirs earlier and taken the bus back to the ship, saving an extra cab fare as well as time, but because we had Personal Choice Dining, we didn't need to rush back to the ship for dinner. We thought about staying in Puerto Vallarta for dinner, but only briefly.

The dining room menu wasn't quite as good as other evenings. Later this night there would be a Mexican Fiesta by the pool that probably diverted some culinary efforts, but the Mediterranean style scallops and raspberry creme brulee I had weren't bad.

That night, we were all tired, but Julie and I went to watch juggler Dan Bennett. Hearing jugglers will perform turns off some people, but I've frequently found jugglers to have hilarious, engaging shows. Dan Bennett is among the best. A former physics professor at UCLA (his parents must be so happy that he gave up that frivolous job to become a juggler on a cruise ship), his funny but intellectual patter stretches what you think about juggling. He must have been an amazing teacher.

Julie and I walked briefly through the Fiesta, but we were worn out. Danielle and Amy spent some time dancing there and even stayed awake long enough to see the buffet, with which they weren't overly impressed. For me, this was the very best day on the trip.