April Part 5: Cruise Day 4 Puerto Vallarta Dolphins

Since the time we started giving our kids allowance last fall, Rachel has been saving to go on a cruise. We had told our kids if they wanted to go on another cruise, they needed  to save their money. Rachel was the only one who tried, so when she wanted to swim with dolphins while on the cruise (that we let our kids go on for free), we knew we had to make it happen for her. In our exploring, I found two of our ports had dolphins, and since we had the most time in Puerto Vallarta, I was most drawn to that location to make it happen. We didn't want to split up our group, so when we discovered that the Puerto Vallarta dolphins were located inside a waterpark, we decided that we could all go to the water park, and whoever Rachel chose to go see the dolphins with could just take her over when it was time. I subtracted the cost of the waterpark from the dolphin swim cost (which included park admission), and "charged" Rachel that amount. I offered the same opportunity to the boys, and they all managed to save up the amount, and we all swam with the dolphins together. Rachel was quiet and withdrawn after the RZR excursion, but as soon as she saw the dolphin place, she perked right up! 

I had been nervous that they wouldn't allow us into the water to swim with the dolphins, due to some confusion about a weight limit, but thankfully, we were good! The weight limit was for the zip line, but when I'd asked for clarification online, they had said that we needed to be under 110 pounds to swim with the dolphins. That seemed quite ridiculous because I weighed more than that when I was at my absolute thinnest (after reaching my full height, of course). We crossed our fingers that there was a translation error in there somewhere, and we were right. 

We got there just in time to check in, put our things in a locker, and then we were getting our life jackets and heading to the pool. I was a bit put out because I couldn't pull up data on my phone to check us in, and they had said there would only be 12 people in our group and there was at least twice that many. The clerk who checked Brian in had said that we paid a lot for pictures (which we had prepaid in an attempt to save money), so by the time I got in the water, I was still a bit irritated. All that went away when the dolphin swam past us and I got to touch him. 

First up, the two dolphins pushed the boys through the water by the heels, one dolphin pushing on each heel. 

Gabe was so small that he got pushed by only one dolphin. 

During this rotation, all the girls held onto the dorsal fins for our first swim. 

Next, we each got a turn getting a kiss, a little dance, and a high five of sorts. 

All of the kids loved this time with the dolphins, but Rachel was just in heaven! 

After we each got a turn interacting with Simba, we got a group picture. We only had to share Simba with one other family, so apparently this more intimate interaction only had 12 people max in it. By this point, I didn't care. We all LOVED swimming and interacting with these dolphins. 

After our dancing and kissing, we went back out taking turns swimming with both dolphins. This time, the boys did the dorsal pull, and the girls got to do the heel push. 

I got a lot of chuckles after my turn because everything always shows on my face. 

Gabe couldn't figure out how to hold the pose for the heel push, so they made a decision to let him ride on one the dolphin's belly instead. He absolutely loved that. 

By the time we had arrived at the Dolphin place, we were pretty worried about our cash supply and making it back to the port. We had way underestimated how much taxis would cost. It was frustrating to us because we had plenty of cash--just not with us! We had been too generous with tips and things prior to that, at least based on the amount of cash we had with us, not that we regretted being generous. We probably would have been okay if there had been one taxi that could fit all of us inside, but there weren't any that could fit us all and we had to split up. Thankfully, after more serious digging, we came up with a decent offer to the drivers. We were about $4 short, but they had pity and took us anyway. We really wished we could have paid them a tip, especially since they saved us. Rachel nearly fell asleep on that short ride. 

The girls' taxi arrived at the port just before the boys taxi, and we had already gotten in line. Gabe jumped the line to be with us, and while we waited for Michael and Brian to get through security, we got a picture with our ship again. 

Brian ended up carrying Rachel back onto the ship. We headed up to our rooms to shower, and I snapped a photo of the city from our balcony. 

By the time we were all showered, the sunset was so beautiful, so my mom and I took another one. 

And before too much longer, we were sailing away. 

Best

Michael - UTVs

Rachel - Dolphins, I can't pick, I loved everything

Gabe - Dolphins, when I rode on their belly

Brian - UTVs and the swimming hole, my "cliff" dive, though the dolphins are a close second, and  being able to make it back to the ship was a closer third

Devri - everything came together the way it was supposed to

Leta - dolphins, and watching Brian and Michael jump a cliff (too bad there was water at the bottom [she said facetiously after hearing how that sounded!])

Worst

Michael - waiting at the dolphin place

Rachel - having a headache

Gabe - I don't know

Brian - not being sure if we'd make it back to the ship

Devri - Rachel having a headache

Leta - overestimation of how much money we had

Things we wrote down while on the cruise about our time in Puerto Vallarta:

Razor ride to Sierra Madre Mountains

Booked local time without checking ship time. Thankfully realized in time to get there on time

Didn’t take enough cash for taxis…barely made it back, thanks to kind taxi drivers who let us shoot them $2 each of two taxis

Driving Rzrs in town was an adventure…rules of the road seem to be optional, but “it wasn’t as bad as India”, according to Brian. On a scale off U.S. to India, Brian says it’s a 7. 

There were a lot of speed bumps. The streets we drove were mostly competitions cobblestone. Our guide kept stopping traffic to help us get through to the mountain areas. 

They’re coming up on the end of the dry season, so the waterfall wasn’t very as waterfally as we expected, but the pool beneath it was really deep. Brian and Michael both jumped off the cliff into the deep pool. Brian and I didn’t want to have Lake Geneva regrets, so he jumped off the cliff into the pool and I completely submerged in the water, even though I figured it would make my swim shirt a muddy mess. 

We got super dusty. Tequila tasting was in a beautiful spot, and we were grateful another family also didn’t drink so we didn’t feel so weird. (All the tours here involve tequila tasting). Grandma treated us to 3 delicious smoothies instead of tequila. Michael played in the sprinkler in the parking lot and got muddy prints in the parking lot. We can’t take them anywhere!

We ate lunch at a cute open air restaurant next to the river. There was a mama hen with her chicks hanging out there. The River bed was littered with huge boulders. Gabe waded in the water before lunch and after lunch.  And would have during lunch if we would have let him.

Rachel got a bad headache from the noise of the Rzrs, so we to get Tylenol from a pharmacy near the rzr tour place. 

By the time we took a taxi across town to the dolphin place, we started to realize that we probably wouldn’t have enough cash to make it back to the cruise port. Rachel looked sad and pitiful most of the way to the dolphins, but as soon as she realized we were finally seeing the dolphins, she perked back up. 

We made it just in time for our dolphin Royal swim. It was so cool. Gabe was disappointed. He said, “I thought we’d be swimming with the dolphins more.” We think he pictured more of a party where he swam in a fun pool and the dolphins were playing with him. The rest of us just loved being so close to the dolphins. We got to have two dolphins push our feet so wet went up into the air like Superman, and on another pass, we got to hold onto their dorsal fins. We got to touch them, get a dolphins kiss( look up the description online). Gabe couldn’t figure out how to hold onto the dorsal fins, so he rode on one Dolphin’s belly instead. 

Made it back to the port after begging Taxi drivers and finding every last bit of cash we had. We split into two cars, Rachel was feeling really terrible and nearly fell asleep in the taxi. Brian carried Rachel into the port because she felt terrible, but according to her face, she loved the dolphins. She went back to the room, showered, and went right to bed. Migraines are the worst.