• Attacks from Mexican drug cartels on the government in the state of Jalisco on May 1 included fires set in Puerto Vallarta, with the worst of the violence was in Guadalajara<\/a>.<\/p>\n • The Celebrity Infinity<\/a> bypassed a scheduled stop in Puerto Vallarta on May 10.<\/p>\n • Royal Caribbean’s Jewel of the Seas<\/a> did the same thing on May 12.<\/p>\n • Disney’s Wonder<\/a> skipped the port, too.<\/p>\n • Tourism officials meeting with cruise executives in Florida said yesterday that the events of that Friday morning were isolated, quickly contained and resolved.<\/p>\n • Both parties in Florida agreed to “improve and increase communications to ensure the cruise lines are kept better informed and receive updates in real time.”<\/p>\n So…<\/p>\n It appears that Celebrity<\/a>, Royal Caribbean<\/a> and Disney<\/a> were reacting on mis-information from who knows where…probably the Internet? And did it take a week for the cruise lines to find out they shouldn’t stop there nine days later?<\/p>\n It also appears that cruise lines, and passengers, are spooked the moment the “V” word and Mexico are mentioned in the same breath, or Internet page. Because there is a violent event in Gaudalajara it doesn’t mean Puerto Vallarta (pop. 200,000) is unsafe. If there was a violent event in Oakland, would a cruise ship abandon San Francisco<\/a> — and they are much closer than Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara (almost 200 miles)?<\/p>\n It also appears Mexican tourism officials are going to have to implement unimaginable means to try and keep the cruise business for Puerto Vallarta, by literally tracking the – Stan Shrebs photo<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n whereabouts of all passengers once they leave the ship. The city “will work with local tour operators, taxi drivers and other tourism service providers to employ new measures that inform the ships of their passengers’ location.”<\/p>\n For visitors to Mexico, this is the new level of fear.<\/p>\n Violent events can happen anywhere, of course…Baltimore<\/a>…<\/span>Newtown<\/a>…Columbine High School and so on.<\/p>\n But when it’s Mexico, there’s an accelerated level of distrust. Based on our visits to many<\/i> parts of Mexico, we think that’s wrong.<\/p>\n In the news…<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/u><\/p>\n • Automated passport machines at Vancouver cruise terminal Today at portsandbows.co<\/span><\/a>m: <\/strong><\/em><\/span>More on Viking's first ocean cruise ship<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Norwegian Sky<\/a> At the risk of sounding like apologists for Mexico, a country we have visited many times and hopefully will visit many more, our observations on the latest reports of cruising-vs-violence in Puerto Vallarta are based on these facts: • Attacks from Mexican drug cartels on the government in the state of Jalisco on May… Continue reading What \u2018V\u2019 Word Means For Mexico<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":24230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,31,36,15],"tags":[137,138,77,238,912,72,35,28,501,507,102,126,375,26,27,641,33,1966],"class_list":["post-24171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-ports","category-reviews","category-stories","tag-caribbean-cruises","tag-celebrity-cruises","tag-celebrity-infinity","tag-crime","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruises","tag-disney","tag-disney-wonder","tag-jewel-of-the-seas","tag-mexico","tag-norwegian","tag-norwegian-sky","tag-phil-reimer","tag-ports-and-bows","tag-puerto-vallarta","tag-royal-caribbean","tag-violence-in-mexico","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Puerto](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Puerto-Vallarta-Stan-Shebs.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\t• Azamara Quest refurbishment bigger…and later (April 2016)<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/DailyDeal-2-e1334202169354.jpg\" "\\"DailyDeal-2\\"")
<\/p>\n
\n\t4 nights
\n\tJuly 13, 2015
\n\tMiami<\/a> (return): Grand Bahama Island<\/a>, Nassau<\/a>
\n\tInside: $499
\n\tCost per day: $124<\/strong>
\n\twww.ncl.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"