Finding your own special Mexico on a cruise

When we set off for our most recent Mexican Riviera cruise, my husband and I had a mission. No lazing around sipping mai tais and waiting for afternoon tea this time. This would be a scouting trip to find the perfect place to return to for an extended Mexican vacation.

Once on board, we decided to have just one inaugural mai tai to lay out our plan of attack. As our ship, the Diamond Princess, sailed out of LA to the sounds of a mariachi band playing the fast and furious tune "Mariachi Loco," we took inventory of what we wanted to find in Mexico.

We both like historic buildings and gardens. We're not so high on beaches for toasting ourselves. We like art, handicrafts and out-of-the-way places with character. We seek out mild adventure, but do not swing from trees; we leave the zip-line tours to others.

The question is: Can you find your own special Mexico when a ship delivers 2,670 cruisers to a port within an hour?

Surprisingly, we found you can.

This is certainly true of the typical one-week cruise along the Mexican Riviera with stops in Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta and at Cabo San Lucas at the tip of the Baja California peninsula.

A cruise can be a buffet. It lets you sample ports and places along the way so you can choose when and where you might like to come back. It can just as easily inform you of where you don't want to return, saving vacation dollars. This would be our fifth cruise on this route, and along the way we looked for secluded and out-of-the-way places with good value, pleasures and personal bests we'd like to come back to. We discovered them in just the few hours the ship was in each port.

A good strategy is to take a quick city tour or hire an open-air cab and ask the driver to take you to the best swimming beach, the historic section (if there is one), the best shopping area and the best resorts.

If you are not beach people, or don't like shopping, don't waste time; go directly to the area that is most important to you on a vacation. The best way to get a feel for a place is by walking and wandering in a setting that makes you happy.

Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta was our first stop. For those new to this red-tile-roofed town that looks like a pleasantly overgrown Mexican village, ask the cab or van driver to drop you at the Hotel Rosita, one of the earliest hotels built in the city. It's the only one with its own view of the beach, just at the point where the beachside walk, called the Malecon, begins. You can start your stroll along the beach walk here and see the many fine outdoor sculptures along the way. We suggested this to new friends Jim and Linda, who stopped there before their walk, but ended up seduced by the place and spending the whole day around the Rosita's inviting pool, lunching in its shaded restaurant with a view and chilling out in its cool, colonial-style lobby.

We learned the hard way on this trip that it is a good idea to check with the staff at the tour desk on the ship before reaching a port. Even if you don't end up taking a ship-sponsored tour, the staff knows the latest information and can save you time and money.

At Puerto Vallarta, we set off by ourselves in a cab for the long ride to Mismaloya Beach to find the old movie set for "The Night of the Iguana," the film that made Puerto Vallarta famous. All the guidebooks and Web sites on the city said the movie set and two related restaurants were open for visitors. After a $30 cab ride and a slow, half-hour trek in deep sand, we came to a boarded-up and chained entrance: not open.

All was not lost, though, as we discovered the Mismaloya area was fun and funky, with wooden walkways and small boats to rent on the beach for short excursions. We had passed several hotels in the cab along the way that we might like to come back to, and we liked the easy-going attitude at the informal beach restaurants where you could have a cold drink while digging your toes in the sand.

After Mismaloya we headed back to the Zona Romantica, just south of the central part of the city. We had lunch right over the River Cuale at a shady table at the River Café, our meal enlivened by a 5-foot-long iguana that slithered down a tree by our table and sprawled in the path below to sun itself.

After lunch, bidding the lizard goodbye, we explored farther down the Playa Los Muertos beach area and climbed up the hill to find the Casa Corazon, a charming old hotel that recently added a section of rooms, all overlooking the Playa los Muertos. The rooms are large, views from the balconies looked down through palms to the beach, and the hotel served a complimentary breakfast. The staff seemed very friendly. This was a keeper.

Mazatlan

Mazatlan is really two cities: the old historic area and the newer Zona Dorada or Gold Zone, where the glitzier resorts are located.

After jumping on the free people-mover shuttle to the cab area, we hired a pulmonia -- the name is based on the word for pneumonia -- an open-air cab, and asked the driver to drop us at the Plaza Machado in Old Town. This small, lush garden plaza is bordered with 19th-century buildings that have been turned into museums, restaurants, art and craft shops and small hotels with character. There are more than 450 historic buildings in this area, although many are still in the process of restoration, and they make for a fascinating stroll.

After lunch and a Pacifico beer at a sidewalk cafe on the north side of the plaza, and a tour of the historic opera house, the Teatro Angela Peralta, we wandered into the courtyard of The Melville Hotel. The former colonial mansion is named for writer Herman Melville, who stayed in this area in 1844.

A Florentine fountain splashed away as a couple of cats visited with guests at tables among pots of flowers. Rooms and suites were the kind you'd find in an old mansion, full of antique mirrors, fine art, well-used old trunks and Mexican chandeliers.

In fact, this is what the hotel once was, the home of a wealthy Spanish trader who built it in the 1870s. This was another jewel. We could picture ourselves staying here, reading Melville's novels and walking to local restaurants, such as Pedro and Lola on the plaza, listening to music played outdoors in the evenings.

The NiArt Galeria on the corner, a former workshop of a family of artists, features leather masks, clay figures and other crafts. It is less than two blocks to the Hotel Belmar, a vintage hotel along the seaside where you could have a drink before strolling the beach walk.

On the way down Sixto Osuna to the beach walk, we stopped at Casa Etnika, an unusual collection of arts and crafts in an 1865-era building built during the French occupation.

Although big resorts are not our thing, we hired another pulmonia to take us to the Zona Dorada, the area of large sprawling resorts on Playa los Gaviotas and Playa Sabalo. To our surprise, we liked it. Having a drink at Joe's Oyster Bar, wandering the beach to watch local families sunning and beach vendors selling kites shaped like pirate ships is a pleasant way to spend time.

We walked from the beach up through the gardens and pools of Los Sabalos Hotel and were welcome to sit and have a drink or a soak whether we were staying there or not.

A short walk away on Calle Gaviotas we found the large and wonderful Mazatlan Arts and Crafts Center, where everything from sculpture to masks to jewelry to woven throws to paintings from all over Mexico are displayed in a gallery setting, with artists demonstrating how they work. The owners were friendly and the prices reasonable; many items cost less than $20.

Cabo San Lucas

As the Diamond Princess neared Cabo San Lucas, we grabbed a place at the rail out on deck as we moored off the prettiest harbor of any Mexican port. The arches of Land's End, on the very tip of the Baja peninsula, beckoned sailors since 1587 when British privateer James Cavendish hid behind them before attacking a Spanish galleon full of gold, jewels and coins. It was the biggest haul of loot ever at that time.

Now the draw for visitors is the many new hotels, resorts and condominiums that glisten along the shore. The best things to do here are on the water, in the water or under the water: snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking, riding on a catamaran, swimming or riding watercraft.

We took a cab to The Office, a beachside bar and restaurant that has a banner declaring it "a time-share-free zone." Under a sea of flapping blue umbrellas, waiters bring lunch to tables on the sand while you keep your eye on your ship in the distance.

We also walked into town, looking for the local museums and the city park, but it's a dusty walk through traffic, so next time we'll stick to the water's edge.

While many people will like the mega resorts with all amenities, we would stay at The Bungalows if we went back. About a 20-minute walk from town, this small, secluded bed-and-breakfast looks charming and quiet. Guests told us the breakfasts were spectacular and the staff warm and friendly.

Personal favorites

Back on the ship, as it sailed back to LA, we found that other cruisers had been picking out their own favorite port to come back to, too.

"My favorite was Puerto Vallarta." said a pigtailed 8-year-old girl in a pink jumpsuit, "because Grandma did the zip-line with me!" Her trim, silver-haired grandmother gave a wry smile and said even though the descent on the wire suspended high over the jungle was a little too fast for her taste, Puerto Vallarta was also her favorite.

A young, single man named Allen leaned over to say his favorite stop had been Cabo San Lucas. The easy-going social life and beach scene where he met a lot of people made him so happy, he was thinking about buying a condo there.

He wasn't alone. In an informal straw poll, many cruisers said Cabo was their choice for going back.

My husband and I were thoroughly charmed this time by the Old Town section of Mazatlan, its restored buildings, hidden gardens and unpretentious old small hotels straight out of a Graham Greene novel.

We didn't all agree, but we didn't have to. We had all taken a cruise to choose our own special Mexico, and we all found it.

If you go

Mexican Riviera cruise

GO: If you are new to Pacific Mexico, or would like another look, and want to sample ports to get an idea of where to return and spend more time

NO: If you are an old Mexico hand, already have a favorite retreat in Mexico, or prefer independent adventure travel

Need to know: For information on port tours and activities in each city, see www.princess.com or go to www.cruisecritic.com and read the reports

Getting there: Princess Cruises offers weekly departures from the Port of Los Angeles (San Pedro). Book a package that includes air or arrange your own air fare. Go to www.princess.com or call your travel agent.

When to go: Cruise lines serve the Mexican Riviera from September to May. Often the best deals are early and late in the season.

What it costs: Online agencies such as CruiseDeals.com, www.cruisedeals.com, or Last Minute Cruises, www.lastminutecruises.com, often offer deals as low as $600 per person, double, for an inside cabin. The Princess Cruises Web site, www.princess.com, shows fares of $599 for an inside cabin, $649 for an ocean-view cabin and $949 for a balcony cabin on the Golden Princess, which cruises the Mexican Riviera this fall.

Destination information: For Puerto Vallarta, visit www.visitpuertovallarta.com or call (888) 384-6822. Casa Corazon: www.casacorazonvallarta.com ($35-$94).

For Mazatlan, visit www.allaboutmazatlan.com. Melville Hotel: www.themelville.com ($90 average per night); Los Sabalos Hotel, www.lossabalos.com ($92 per night, average).

For Cabo San Lucas and surrounding area, visit www.loscabos-tourism.com/cabo. The Bungalows: www.cabobungalows.com ($135 per night, average).

-- Judy Babcock Wylie