It was about 80 degrees and overcast all day. The beach goers were probably crying for sun, but gray skies were perfect for what we had planned. We went on the Canopy Tour offered as a Star Princess excursion in the morning and went to town in the afternoon. Here’s the scoop:

The Canopy Tour is a Tarzan-like adventure where you glide through the treetops using pulleys on cables. We figured it would turn out to be pretty lame compared to the description. Wrong! This is one incredible adventure, not for the faint of heart! My husband snapped a few pix of us doing it with his new toy, the credit card-sized Casio Exilim, which he could pull out of his shirt pocket, point and shoot while standing on the platforms. Here are a few of the shots. (We met more people this cruise just because they couldn’t resist coming over to ooh and aah over this little camera! If you’re still in search of a digital that you’ll be sure to use because it’s so light and convenient to carry on your person or in your purse, check it out at Exilim's home page.)

The tour is operated by Vallarta Adventures as a franchise of The Original Canopy Tour out of Costa Rica. Watch the movie at The Original's site and read both websites to get an idea of what this activity is all about and the restrictions (e.g., minimum age 8, no one over 250 lbs.) and recommendations (e.g., wear shorts or light pants and tennis shoes, bring insect repellent). The PV operation is new as of Summer 2002 and reportedly features a few more thrills than the original, plus state-of-the-art equipment. We were favorably impressed with (and reassured by) the quality of the equipment and personnel and the extent to which a "safety first" attitude was demonstrated every step of the way.

We were on the first tour of the day, scheduled to meet on the pier at 8:00 a.m. A Princess staffer gathered up our group of 13 and put us in the hands of the Vallarta Adventures driver, who loaded us into a van. It’s about a 1-hour drive to the remote forest where the activities take place. Once you arrive, you are encouraged to use insect repellent, but then wash it off your hands because the chemicals can damage the equipment. (It’s been a week since we did the tour, and my "I don’t need to spray" husband is still itching from mosquito bites—and I’m not!—so definitely use bug spray.) It’s a good idea to take the suggested bathroom break, as well—it’ll be your last opportunity for a little over 2 hours. With the sun hidden behind clouds, we enjoyed a pleasant morning with no sun glare or sticky heat, but it was a little cool in the shade of the forest. However, we warmed up fast with the physical activity and adrenaline rush and were glad we didn’t wear a jacket—it would have been difficult to peel off that layer once we were up there hanging on for dear life. Just kidding. There are lockers to stow your things.

A friendly staffer—or guide as they like to be called—fits you with a helmet, a harness that goes through the legs and is tightly secured around your waist and all sorts of connected safety straps and gear. The men were especially proud of the effect produced by the rigging—muy grande! Of course, for us women, the emphasis shifted to the rear—just the look I wanted, a bubble butt. Everyone is seated in a small amphitheatre for a brief, but thorough, safety and instructional lecture. After Q & A, the leader says it’s time to head out for 2 hours of fun, and off you go!

Way up high, scattered throughout the jungle, are 10 platforms wrapped around tall, very tall, trees. I don’t recall the minimum platform height, but I definitely remember hearing that we’d be as high as 100 feet above ground. You walk to the first launch point, which is at the edge of a steep drop off. You can see the target yellow platform girdling a tall tree across the way. In between, looking down, there’s a sort of ravine filled with vegetation. A guide sails across the gorge to illustrate how to do it and to receive you on the first platform. Then, it’s your turn! A guide hooks you into the overhead pulley; one hand is extended in front of you to hold onto your straps; the other hand (you are wearing leather gloves) is placed slightly behind your head, loosely circling the cable; when the "go" signal is given, you drop your seat into the harness, lift your feet from the platform and take off! Your first glide is relatively short, just long enough to allow you to figure out how to do it and get that first thrill. The second one is longer and higher, and the third, I think, is the first on rope cabling, which is a lot faster, requiring you to use that trailing hand as a hand brake on the call of your receiving guide, who evaluates your personal speed and capability and knows just when to make the call to "brake." The course gets progressively more challenging and exciting. The trickiest part of the whole deal is not freaking out while you are standing on the platform (I think it was 2-feet wide, yikes!) while you wait your turn for the next glide or when you are required to traverse the two suspension bridges. Don’t look down, and you’ll be okay! It’s important to emphasize that at no time while you are on the course are you off a safety line.

They moved the 13 of us through the course at a staggered, steady pace, so we didn’t have to wait too long between glides. The last two activities are different. The next-to-the-last one is a Tarzan rope swing. It was easy and fun. The last activity is rappelling straight to the ground from the final platform. The guide will tell you how to do it and then demonstrate. The key is to follow the instruction to lay back, keep your feet extended forward and together and turn your head to watch the ground—that will cause your body to naturally assume the best position for a smooth descent. Then, relax and enjoy the drop! When everyone’s on the ground again, the guides loosen your gear and offer you a bottle of iced cold water. Then, you take a short uphill hike—maybe 10 minutes—back to the starting point.

A videographer swings along shooting the entire tour—he makes his pitch before you leave. The film is produced to your specification in VHS or DVD format, and it will be sent to your home after editing and splicing in stock footage. We thought the $50 sticker for DVD + mailing was high. Once aboard the van, fresh fruit and granola bars were passed out—what a treat!

We had one non-participant mom in our group who stayed behind and read a book. She said that two people from a later group joined her—a woman who lost her nerve when she got to the starting point and an older, de-conditioned man who was not physically able to handle it. There is no turning back once you lift your feet and take that first glide—there’s no backdoor exit to ground level, and it’s a tangled mess of jungle at the bottom in any event. Our 9-year-old son got spooked early into it, and the guides and my husband and I really had to work to shore up his confidence to make it through the course without panicking, which he did, even managing to crack a grin or two by the end. (Naturally, this turned out to be the highlight of his trip and fodder for big stories back home!) His problem was that he was so light (70 pounds) that at the end of his glide, he was hanging from the cable—he didn’t have enough body weight to pull him down so that his feet touched the platform. So, the guide had to hold him in the air while he hooked him to the safety cabling on the tree and unhooked him from the overhead cable. After a time or two, when I became more confident, I helped the guide hold him, and the transition went more smoothly. Next time, I’d put my husband in the lead with me following, as dad would have been the better one to assist in receiving the little guy as he landed. (My husband just read this and explained to me that, duh, the same thing was happening at the beginning—dad helped the guide lift our son up to be hooked to the overhead cable. Thus, it was important to have one of us at both ends.)

We were back at the pier by 1 p.m. The tour cost $79 for adults, $65 for kids. That’s a steep mark-up over Vallarta Adventure’s direct booking prices, $65 and $32.50 + 10% discount for online booking, but Vallarta Adventures refuses to direct book Princess pax, forcing you to go through Princess. I realize you can lie and tell them you are staying at a hotel. However, because we were traveling with kids, that wasn’t exactly the modeling I wanted to do, plus I have heard that because these tours are so popular, they give preference to cruise pax when ships are in port. So, if you try an independent booking during the time frame of a port stop, you might get bumped in favor of cruise pax on the theory that hey, you’re staying at a hotel, we can take you later in the day or tomorrow when there’s no ship in port.

Finally, Princess offered 4 canopy tours (they weren’t in our shore excursions booklet or available online—a recently added offering available only onboard), all left in the a.m. or maybe the last one at 1 p.m., all sold out fast—book ASAP on embarkation day, and there is no way to do a combo of canopy tour and dolphin swim (also operated by Vallarta Adventures), which was my kids’ dream plan for the day. When I learned both could not be done, they voted for the canopy tour, so some lucky folks on the very long standby list got our dolphin tix (dolphin swim/encounter tix always sell out, usually in advance of the pre-cruise shore excursion booking deadline, so if you—or your kids—have your heart set on doing something with the dolphins, don’t, I repeat, don’t wait ‘til you get on board to book).

This was our first cruise-sponsored shore excursion in 7 cruises—we prefer making our own arrangements—so I didn’t know the drill. It is helpful to understand that pre-booking does not obligate you, but it does reserve you a spot. There is an excursion closing time for each port, e.g., noon the day before Puerto Vallarta, so you have some time to make your final game plan before you are committed and your shipboard account is charged. Once that deadline passes, you are stuck, unless there is a standby list for that tour and the shore excursion desk is able to transfer your booking to a passenger who is still willing to take it.

There is another canopy tour in town, Canopy Tours de los Veranos, which has received positive reviews on Cruise Critics. I wish I had found a comparative review from someone who had done them both. Favoring independent excursions, I tried to reserve a spot with this outfit via e-mail once we were on board and figured our situation out, but they, too, were sold out except for a 10a-2p tour that would have basically killed the whole day.

Now for the rest of our day in PV…3 in our party hopped a taxi from the port terminal and went into town for lunch. We went aboard for lunch (my husband likes to eat what he’s already paid for!), and the kids were ready for some down time. So they stayed behind with their grandmother while my husband and I cabbed to "old" PV across the river. Unfortunately, a number of shops and artisans’ galleries along the interior streets away from the malecon (where you will find more autentico goods and better prices) were closed from 2p-5p for siesta, so if you’re a serious shopper, go in the morning. But, we had fun just walking and looking. I stopped at an Internet café to let Randi know we wanted two more Happy Horses for our ride in Mazatlan the next day, and then we meandered back over the bridge and into "new" PV. We admired some handsome home furnishings at "Hecho a Mano" (made by hand) and gorgeous hand-embroidered white cotton blouses and shirts at the adjacent "Gueros" (located on the corner of Morelos and Zaragoza at the waterfront edge of the main plaza in front of the cathedral). I kicked myself for not buying an outfit at Gueros—we didn’t seriously shop this trip, but none of my quick looks elsewhere turned up anything as nice as what they had. We bought some "drugs" at a farmacia and a walk-around cerveza and took the obligatory photo op at the stone arches in front of the plaza. The exchange rate was an easy-to-convert 10 to 1, e.g., 510 pesos = $51.00 USD, but that’s good to know only for evaluating pricing—you don’t have to change money to do most things in tourist spots in Mexico, the dollar works just fine.

PV looked old and worn to us—it had been years since we last visited, but it seemed more charming in our memories. I think the resorts have pushed the action and money to the north and south of town. We caught a cab back to the port—all the drivers were charging a buck more to get us back…can’t blame them for taking advantage of the captive audience who can’t miss the boat.

We had lots of dolphins with us as we pulled out of port…what a great day!