Cruising, Shopping, Wining, Dining...

The Star Princess docked at San Francisco's Pier 35 early Monday, April 27, completing my tenth cruise and my second with the Princess Line.

This 10-day cruise to the Mexican Riviera leaves me more convinced than ever that cruising offers first-rate vacation opportunities at a manageable and competitive cost. Cruises allow you to be as busy or as relaxed as you wish. You have ample time in advance to plan shore excursions, with options to cancel if, once on board, you find yourself overbooked. A cruise that begins as ours did, with a few days at sea, allows time to decompress, leave daily cares behind and shift into vacation mode.

We departed from San Francisco two hours later than our 4 p.m. scheduled time, but the silver lining in that cloud was that the sun was much lower over the Pacific, providing a stunning vista as our 950+ foot ship glided effortlessly under the Golden Gate Bridge and set a southeasterly course along California's coast.

Our first port of call was Acapulco, Mexico's most popular destination with its beautiful harbor, heart-stopping cliff divers and vibrant cityscape. We chose an excursion billed as Learning Mexican Cuisine. We went by bus to the Crown Plaza Hotel, where the chef and his staff taught us how to make margaritas, guacamole, mole sauce, tacos, grilled steak and flambée bananas. And then we ate! The lesson was fun and the food was terrific.

This shore excursion had one more great benefit. If you're like I am you're interested in bringing home both mementos of your trip and gifts for family and friends. On a trip like this you will find many candidates for both of those categories, but I like to keep an eye out for the unusual. I've hauled home such diverse things as a wooden Bedouin coffee grinder, a colorful advertising poster from Cyprus, and colorful water-polished stones and shell fragments from deserted beaches. The trick obviously is to think outside the box, to use a shopworn cliché. You must realize that anything can be a candidate for that offbeat gift.

I wanted an unusual gift for a friend who loves to cook and entertain. As I watched the chefs making the guacamole, inspiration struck. They were making the guacamole in a traditional vessel I had seen in a Mexican restaurant in New York City. I remembered the owner telling me how authentic it was. I inquired and was told the vessel, made of lava rock with an accompanying pestle of the same material, was called a mocajete.

The search was on. None of the souvenir or tourist shops carried them. Finally, while shopping for tiles in Puerto Vallarta, we spotted a store selling culinary implements--which not only had them, but in various sizes! We bought four, three medium-sized and one large one. I will say they made great gifts, but beware if you seek to repeat this adventure. Lava rock is HEAVY!!!

Our second port of call was to have been Ixtapa/Zihauteneo, but trouble in the port arising from a union dispute caused the cruise line to choose Manzanillo as an alternative.. We did some sightseeing and shopping, which was largely uneventful. Manzanillo is building a new cruise pier, which it hopes will attract more tourism.

Our third port of call was Puerto Vallarta, a thriving community and home to the cathedral of Mexico's patron saint, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Puerto Vallarta is in the Mexican State of Jalisco, home of the famed distillate of the Blue Agave plant--tequila. We visited a tequila distillery, following the core of the plant, called a pina because it reassembles a pineapple, from raw state through baking, mashing, squeezing and distilling. Of course we ended with a tasting.

They now make a lower alcohol version of tequila, flavored with coffee or almond. I tasted the almond, which was particularly good. Incidentally you can make an alcoholic beverage from any agave plant, but only that made from the blue agave can legally be called tequila. The distillates of other agaves are called mescal; hence, as tequila aficionados delight in pointing out, a tequila can be a mescal but a mescal can never be a tequila.

At this port call we also visited workshops making fine, colorful glazed tiles, which were beautiful and well priced.

We did not arrange for a tour in our final port of call, Cabo San Lucas, but we did go ashore for some last-minute shopping. It was quite an adventure, being the only stop that required the use of ship's tenders (smaller boats) to go ashore. Conveniently good souvenir shopping was available adjacent to the pier.

The food on board was very good and the service was excellent. We chose to eat dinner in the traditional dining room during second seating, beginning at 7:45. The variety and preparation of the food was very good, with wildly diverse choices and many suitable alternatives.

The main dining room of a cruise ship with a talented executive chef is one of the last places to find some of the classic dishes of days gone by, wonderful in their concept and delicious in their taste. We forget classics such as duck a l'orange, tournedos Rossini, coquilles Saint Jacques, Surf and Turf, and sole amandine. Not only are these on the cruise ship menu, they are well executed.

The fresh fruit and omelettes at breakfast were a treat as were the great hot dogs, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, bratwurst and pizza on deck around the pool. The ship's bakers daily turn out thousands of rolls, breads, pastries, pies and cakes, each one better than the next.

The ice cream made on board is some of the best I have ever tasted--creamy, high quality gelato-style ice cream, meaning lower butterfat but slow churned for a more creamy texture. This delicious ice cream comes in a blizzard of creative flavors such as cinnamon, green apple, tiramisu, nougatine and raspberry in addition to the expected trinity of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. The ship served an hour-long high tea each afternoon, presenting pots of tea accompanied by various finger sandwiches, cookies and pastries as well as scones with traditional strawberry jam and clotted cream. If you chose to sleep in and eat breakfast later, the tea made a nice alternative to a heavier lunch.

Throughout the ship employees of every rank and position provided impeccable, competent service with a genuine smile.

Cruises represent a good value. When you divide the cost by the number of days and compare that figure to what it would cost each day for transportation, lodging, food and entertainment, the value is obvious. Given the number of ships sailing today, the varied sizes of ship available, and the length and variety of itineraries, it is no wonder cruising is so popular.

--Gene Burns