Several cruise lines are canceling trips to Mexico, and replacing them with cruises to the tropical paradises of San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Francisco. No rebooking, no refunds.
From Consumerist:
Kathy’s Princess “Mexican Riviera” cruise, leaving from Los Angeles and visiting three different ports in Mexico, has been modified to stop at the ports of San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Francisco! Not exactly the trip she booked.
How can they sell a cruise to Mexico that doesn’t even go there? This seems like misrepresentation. If they are concerned about the CDC reports, then the cruise should have been canceled, not rerouted to locations totally different from those in the original itinerary.
Princess maintains that they “retain the right to change ports at any time”, but this is a change of country!
Thanks to Slog tipper Anne-Marie.
I’m starting to fear for the first time that the June Mazatlan vacation my family has been looking forward to for over a year is going to get canceled on us.
Hell
Seattle isn’t even Juarez.
Yeah, but we do have some exceptional diving here, if you don’t mind wearing a full-wet suit even in the height of summer.
Read your contracts.
Nothing like a romantic get-a-way to San Diego.
That’s what you get for choosing a cruise. Here’s a tip: cruise ships don’t go to Mexico even when they go to Mexican ports. The airconditioned mall across from the marina in Puerto Vallarta is not Mexico. You haven’t been anywhere. Tulalip casino is a deeper cultural experience.
@6,
Exactly. What’s the difference? They spend 90 percent of the time sitting by the pool on the boat anyway.
Class action lawsuit!
But seriously, some of the poor people stuck with this are *from* San Diego or San Francisco.
@6 – True enough, but a short cab ride to the old part of Puerto Vallarta isn’t expensive at all. The cruise ship destination of Cozumel is a very short ferry ride to Playa del Carmen. Even Cancun has it’s hidden charms. I went by pick-up and I speak decent Spanish, but the adventurous can wander off the port o’ call beaten path without too much difficulty.
Well, the old part of Puerto Vallarta and Playa del Carmen, nice as they are, aren’t really Mexico either. And very, very few of the cruise shippers make it even that far — and when they do, they come not by taxi but by giant bus, and STILL never get any further than the made-in-China trinket-sellers.
But then, people who travel by cruise ship eat corpses, so who cares about them anyways.
Even if “all they do is sit by the pool” part of the desire for taking a cruise like this is WARMER WEATHER. Ain’t gonna get that cruising into Seattle right now.
Sure, they’re Mexico, Fnarf. I mean, I’ve been to dusty backroad towns, too. They’re all Mexico. I see your poing, but just because the country has huge dollars coming in from tourism doesn’t mean parts of the country don’t count anymore.
@10: and cities aren’t the real America.
@12, I just mean there aren’t hardly any Mexicans there, in comparison to real cities. Towns that live solely on tourist dollars, for tourists who are not there to see Mexico but to lie on a beach, which could be literally anywhere in any of a thousand similarly tropical areas, are not representative of national life. Disneyland isn’t the real America, either.
@13, yes they are.
My boss just had her similar cruise rerouted- SF, Astoria, Seattle and Victoria. However, they are basically going for free now. While she’s no longer getting a “tan and massage from latino men while sipping cocktails with tiny umbrellas,” I’m donig my best to convince her the PNW has plenty to offer.
Fnarf, PV is a big town, about 200k people, with industry, television stations, and classic Spanish architecture. I see what you mean about going there and not leaving the beach or thinking that you’ve “seen Mexico” because you took a bus to the zip line, but you can spend weeks walking the streets of the old part of town eating street food, naming the roaches, and never seeing the same building twice.
When I lived there I was in an apartment complex with 36 units, and nary a single gringo neighbor (though that’s generally not true of the nicer/newer buildings).
Like Seattle PV has it’s touristy parts but it is also a bona fide Mexican city. Also the Woolworth’s will blow your mind.
I can’t imagine anyone would really want to take a cruise anywhere right now. A cruise sihp is a perfect place to spread flu, or any disease for that matter. When thousands of people in close proximity touching things coughing, sneezing there isn’t much one can do to get away from others who are ill. The Norwalk virus is commonly known as “cruise ship diarrhea” now for just this reason.
@16: not as much as Tres Hermanos blew it — or the fabric store.
I like Puerto Vallarta. It’s a small, pretty city and the boardwalk along the water is pretty entertaining. Puerto Vallarta is a nice place to return to from other destinations in Jalisco or Nayarit or whatever before flying back out. There’s something to be said for being able to find a turkey and cream cheese bagel after a couple of weeks trying to hang tough on the corn and bean spice-ometer.
I’ve been surprised — perhaps out of the expectation that every place on the ocean in Mexico must be a tourist destination — that there are some coastal cities I’ve seen that have little tourist throng in them. Vera Cruz, Merida, Chetumal. Even Guadalajara. It’s an international city more than a tourist city. Of course, once you’re inland, there really aren’t many tourists. But then again, if that’s where you are, you didn’t come to go swimming.