May 31, 2018 – Jots by John

On Monday afternoon, the Splendor left Cabo San Lucas and started heading to Mazatlan. There was actually a dock so we didn’t have to take tender boats.

When we got off the ship, there was a short walk to the boat that we were taking. We were in the area where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez.

We even saw sea lions!

sealionmazatlan — Sea lions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once we exited the boat, there were 2 buses. Obviously, we took one. They were actually pretty comfortable. There was a statue of the Virgin Mary. It was built after a hurricane struck and there had never been one since. We drove down some streets and learned about the area.

Our first stop was at the cliff divers. They dove about 20-40 feet to earn money for their families.

After seeing that, we went back on the bus and drove down the boardwalk. It is 16 miles long. Mazatlan’s main industries are tourism and shrimp. One time, a hurricane hit and a couple ships full of shrimp sunk and 72 people died.

We went to eat lunch after that at a Mexican restaurant. (Can there be a Mexican place in Mexico? I don’t know if there can be an American place in America). The other cruise ship from Norwegian stopped there too. It was super crowded.

lunchmazatlan — I forget what I was eating in that picture.

Our last stop was at the cathedral. It looked like most other cathedrals that I have seen. Pretty impressive. I don’t know much about cathedrals so I can’t really comment on it besides the fact that it was cool.

Finally, we went back to the cruise ship via a short trip by the bus. Because a Norwegian cruise ship was there too, the line at the terminal was really long. After we boarded, we ate in the formal dining room.

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Carnival Splendor: Part 5 of 5

Carnival Splendor in Puerto Vallarta: Part 4 of 5

Carnival Splendor in Cabo San Lucas: Part 2 of 5

Carnival Splendor: Part 1 of 5

On Monday, we arrived at our first port stop. It was in Cabo San Lucas. In the morning, we woke up and ate breakfast. At 8:30, we went to the Specatular Theater to wait for our excursion to start. When it did, we went down to level 0. That’s what it was called because it was mostly a staff level. Because Cabo San Lucas didn’t have a dock big enough for us, we had to drop anchor (Yes, Carnival ships get anchors. The sailboats that I sail don’t).

Once we arrived, we took smaller tender boats to the Carnival terminal at Cabo San Lucas. Next, we waited in a sitting area until our tour guide took us to the dolphin pool at Cabo Dolphins. We went into a cool looking building and waited in a sitting area until a guy took us to the actual pool. It was pretty fun. Kahal, the dolphin’s name, tried to clap but his fins weren’t long enough to touch. We were actually able to swim with and ride the dolphin. He did some other cool tricks. After the dolphins, we got free quesadillas.

Finally, we went on a boat ride tour of the arch. One part was just a calm tour but then we went to max speed and it was insanely awesome. We were probably going 50 mph. The boat slowed down, turned around and started going fast again. We docked and the tour was over.