Jenn

Day 4: Don’t Eat at Villa Italia Restaurante in Mazatlan

Today was another day of sitting at the beach after we had breakfast at a decent, not perfect, but decent little spot called Mary’s. I wanted to get in as much beach time as possible because we don’t get the luxuries of warm weather and warm water here in the Pacific Northwest.

And no, the previous days pushy sellers didn’t interfere with my decision either. I basically put my sunglasses on my face, laid my chair back and acted like I was sleeping when they passed by. They usually just walked on without bothering me.

So nothing too exciting happened today other than just relaxing.

After we had enough sun and salty water, we went back to the hotel, changed and waited around until it was dinner time. We didn’t have any ideas of where we were going this night so our group decided upon Italian food. Unfortunately, Villa Italia Restaurante ended up being a bad decision. The place had a lot of business inside, mostly tourists, so we assumed if they were all here, it must be okay. Nope, wrong! All of the dishes we had sucked, lacked flavor and were most likely made with pasta-roni or hamburger helper prepackaged boxes of crap! I had salmon lasagna just because I was curious. They seem to use the same sauce you get in a tuna helper. TUNA FREAKING CASSEROLE, seriously? It didn’t taste like salmon at all. My husbands chicken fettuccine had no flavor at all. I mean, I know this is not Italy, but you would expect the food to taste somewhat like Italian right and not bland nothingness? I guess we should have ordered a pizza, it may have been the safer option.

Just remember, if you’re in Mazatlan, avoid Villa Italia Restaurante like the plague… unless you have no taste buds!

Want to read all my posts of Mazatlan?

Jenn

Day 3: Public Beaches in Mazatlan

Today, we pretty much decided we wanted to spend some time relaxing out on the beach that was across the marina. We had to take a shuttle boat over there but it was very quick since it was basically 500 feet across from the resort.

What I didn’t expect when I got there was to be hounded by the sales people trying to sell stuff to you. It’s a public beach so they’re allowed to do this. It’s all new to me since this was my first time in Mexico. Kind of left a bad taste in my mouth because I just wanted to enjoy my day relaxing on a beach chair, enjoying a margarita or 3 and playing in the ocean, not telling multiple sellers, multiple times no thanks every time they made their rounds every 5 minutes.

Other than that, I did enjoy my time there with Federico, the greatest beach server ever! He liked us so much, he said he would give us all-day happy hour prices if we came back the next day. The margaritas were a bit on the salty side, but we started ordering them on the rocks with no salt which helped. We also brought our flasks full of Tequila so that we could add more if they were a little too weak.

After I had had enough of the pushy sellers annoying me, I decided I was going to grab my bag and head to the ocean. My husband and friends decided to go out towards the waves. I, however, stayed to about my hips since I’m not a very good swimmer and I didn’t trust that I could swim very well if a wave crashed into me and pulled me under or out further. The water wasn’t as clear or as blue as I thought it would be, so having no vision of what’s in the water is kind of scary too. We’ve all seen Jaws! LOL, Yes, I am silly.

When we got back from playing in the ocean, I go to sit down and realize a bird had crapped on my towel I had left behind. Not anyone else’s; just mine! So I decided to take a pic of the possible culprit. Yep, that beady eyed bird was eyeing me like he wanted to gouge my eyes out. I swear these birds are racist. I had multiple birds trying to dive bomb me at the pool yesterday. Then today, shitting on my towel. They really dislike gingers in Mexico. lol

After we were finished at the beach, we went back to our rooms, showered and got ready to go find some dinner. We didn’t really know where we wanted to go, so we decided to just randomly pick a spot. We ended up deciding upon El Parador since it had a nice outdoor seating area which seemed to be empty.

My husband and I shared a seafood pasta plate which was decent, and our friends had some Americanized food which one didn’t really care for. I mean, we’re in Mexico after all. The seafood so far had been great, so that’s what we stuck with since we’re on the coast.

We paid the bill and expected them to return with the change. Nope. No one came back for at least 10-15 minutes so we assumed they thought they were going to keep the rest as a tip. Mazatlan tourism places seem to be lacking in professionalism and courtesy. We tip you on your service, not what you think you should keep from the bill tab!

After that, we ventured off to find a good margarita and unfortunately didn’t really find one.

This is supposed to be Mexico, the land of good margaritas yo! Where they at!?

Want to read all my posts of Mazatlan?

Day 1
Day 2

Jenn

Day 2 at El Cid Marina in Mazatlan, Mexico

We immediately woke up and went to have brunch at the El Cid Marina Resort. The food was okay but wasn’t my favorite. The service is always decent though.

After that, we went and chilled in one of the El Cid Marina pools. It had a cool cave inside that was a lot bigger than I thought which was pretty awesome.

We kind of had a mellow day at the pool all day long. Then before sunset, we made it to one of the other resorts and found a beach, so we checked it out for a little bit since it was our first time actually getting out onto the beach.

After we were done at the beach, we headed somewhere to eat, I can’t remember the place. The thing with the restaurants in Mexico is some are catered to be more Americanized, which makes them not that appealing. If you see locals at a restaurant, you know it’s good, so stop there. Avoid empty places on the strip as much as possible!

It’s kind of weird going on vacation and ending your night before 10 pm. Almost every single night we were there, we were ready for bed before then.

We must be getting old.

Want to read all my posts of Mazatlan?

Day 1
Day 3

Jenn

Vacationing in Mazatlan, Mexico

One of my husband’s friends had a timeshare that he booked and asked us to come along with him and his g/f and of course we had to go!

I must say, I was a little bit nervous to fly to Mazatlan since it would be the longest time I’ve ever been in the air. Granted, we made a little stop in Phoenix to switch planes, but still, it was about 4 hours and 20 minutes and I’m only used to 2 hours from Portland to Vegas. LOL, It was fine though.

I was a little nervous about customs once we arrived in Mexico, but surprisingly it was a breeze. They do this weird thing where they have you press a big red button. If you get a red, you get all of your bags searched regardless if they’ve already been scanned thru the machines or not. If it’s green, you get to proceed. Well lucky us got red. Thankfully I didn’t have anything too risque in my bag other than a lingerie piece. It was annoying, to say the least. You’d think they’d want to make the process a lot speedier than that. But, what can ya do?

After getting out of the airports, we got on our free bus to the El Cid Marina Resort where the timeshare people try to up sell you stuff. Thankfully, the owner of the time share got there an hour earlier than us ( we shared a 2 room suite), and we told them that we had no idea what their plans were and that we’d talk to them when we got to the resort. We were never really bothered again after that.

This was my first time in Mexico and I must say, it’s an entirely different experience than what I am used to. There was tons of graffiti everywhere. I’m thinking it’s more of an art form and not so much seen as vandalism because some of them were very creative pieces. Kids were riding in the back of trucks (don’t you remember doing that back in the day?), people didn’t wear seat belts and didn’t obey the same traffic laws we do since they drive down the road on the middle lines and don’t use blinkers. Honestly, it was kind of scary. I can’t even imagine driving in Mexico… I think I will forever stick to a taxi whenever we visit. LOL

Once we got to the Resort, we found our friends and then went up to the room to put our bags up.

El Cid Marina room and view

After we checked out everything in the room, we decided it was time to go get some food since we were starving as we only had a breakfast burrito and a half a sandwich while at the airport from 6:30 am to 4 pm.

So we set out on our adventure while using the free shuttle at the resort and ended up stumbling upon this place called F.I.S.H. You know it should be good when locals are eating there, so we decided to take the chance. Service was kind of slow, but once we got our food, our taste buds were in heaven. It was certainly worth the wait!

My husband had the shrimp taco, calamari tacos, and something else. We both thought the shrimp tacos were the best. I had a burrito with calamari that was decent, but I think I enjoyed that one small bite of my husband’s shrimp taco a little bit more.

Overall, it was a nice first day in Mazatlan!