2022 February Vacation: Part III - Puerto Vallarta

In Puerto Vallarta we booked a dolphin encounter excursion. It didn't start until 12:30pm, so we checked the kids into Camp Ocean and took a walk around the city. We found a Starbucks where we could finally use WiFi and catch up on our emails and messages. 

There were too many people on the streets trying to sell us timeshares, so we went back to the ship and walked along the beach. 

The first part of our excursion included a sea lion kiss. Here's Oscar getting a smooch.

Tyler giving the sea lion a kiss and a hug

Me getting a sea lion kiss and an unexpected lick

Allison didn't want a kiss, but she still pet the sea lion and stuck her tongue out with him.

Cute family picture before getting in the water

They taught us hand signals to direct the dolphin which noises to make. 

Petting the dolphin's belly

Me getting a dolphin kiss

And having a dolphin dance

Tyler getting a  dolphin kiss.

Tyler doing a dolphin dance

Allison getting a  dolphin kiss

Allison having a dolphin dance

And Oscar getting a dolphin kiss and a dolphin dance

We got several cute family pictures with the dolphin.

The dolphin did a few tricks for us before we said goodbye, changed, and had a yummy buffet lunch. It was a fun excursion, but I wish I'd known we could have paid $35 more to get a swim across the pool with the dolphins. The excursion brochure didn't make that clear. I thought the price difference was being in a small group verses being in a large group, and I wasn't willing to pay $140 more just to be the only ones in the pool with the dolphin. I would have paid it for the swim though. I also wish we'd known in advance that we wouldn't be able to take our own pictures and would have to buy theirs if we wanted to keep any photos of our experience. We'd brought water proof phone carriers, but they made us take off everything on our bodies, even our rings and the kids' glasses.

After 2 late nights at camp, Allison slept on the shuttle ride back.

We took the kids to the beach to enjoy the remaining daylight, but Allison kept napping there. Tyler played in the sand and borrowed a shovel and bucket from some kids who were visiting from Mexico City. The older girl was in an English immersion program at school, so she spoke to him in English, but the rest spoke to him in Spanish. Somehow they figured out how to understand each other. What was really cute was when Tyler was knocked over by a wave and slammed his knees onto the little rocks in the sand. It scraped up his knee, and the other kids sympathized with him by showing him they also had scraped up knees from similar experiences. They also brought me several buckets full of water to help wash the sand out of his wound. 

The ship stayed in Puerto Vallarta until 8:30pm, but the kids wanted to go to the evening camp session, so we got back around 6 and grabbed them some dinner before dropping them off. Oscar and I took a lovely walk on the outer deck enjoying lovely views of Puerto Vallarta at night. It was around 72 degrees after the sun set, which felt great.