Me and ... Pier 3

I have been working at the cruise ship terminal of Puerto Vallarta for almost 7 years now. And recently, if i remember well it was in 2007, they built up a 3rd pier. Well actually, they remodeled pier 2 to make it bigger and built a brand new pier, pier 3 in order to accommodate 3 big ass cruise ships in port. Which for me means: not so much tendering to deal with anymore. Which i think is oh so fine. Tendering is a pain in the butt. People arrive late, in waves, like, bam, 150 people at once and then nothing for 15-20 minutes.
So yeah, when they said: we are inaugurating pier 2 and pier 3, even the president of Mexico came. Not that that makes a big difference, i mean the guy is 1m50 so probably nobody even saw him but that's another story.

Well pier 2 is kinda OK. I say "kinda" because it's in the sun all day, there is no shade on it, no room, no place to seat, no bathroom BUT i can send people directly to their boat or their bus without having them sticking around me and annoying the crap out of me with their stupid questions.

 Pier 3 on the other hand ... is a whole new concept. On the positive sides, it is in the shade all day and bathrooms are luxurious. Like Four Seasons bathrooms. All marble. But that's about it. Everything else is far. But i mean FAAAAAR. To walk people to their boat, it takes 10 minutes (I’m talking for someone reasonably fit like me), to get to the closest stand where you can get a decent coffee, it's 12 minutes (or crossing a 10 lines street), for a snack, even a crappy bag of crisps or any kind of junk food to calm down your insides, it’s also 12 minutes or 10 lines of insane traffic (especially at the time you generally NEED the bag of crisps to calm down your screaming stomach), if you’ve forgotten some boarding passes or liability release forms, it’s also 12 minutes, if you want to exit the pier, it’s 10 minutes, if you have a break between 2 tours, unless you have at least 2 hours, it’s pointless to do anything cuz you’re too far and by the time you’ll get where you have to be, it’ll already be time to come back.

Pier 3 is the pier at the front of the picture. Pier 2 is where the Norwegian Pearl is docked and pier 1 is all the way to the back of the picture, basically where everything is : shops, food, coffee ... etc

But yeah, bathrooms are awesome. I mean they should do a tour to the bathroom of pier 3. That’s what I tell my guests if they have to wait with me on the pier. You can go to the bathroom even if you don’t need to pee. It’s definitely worth a trip.

And just next to pier 3, there’s the naval military :D

Every morning, they run around the base. Guys with uniforms and guns :p

And they sing also. One lead singer, and everybody else repeating after him. Reminds me of summer camp!

All that to say not too much. I have no idea where I was heading to with this post. Just that pier 1 is now in maintenance for a few months so “my” ship is now going to be tendering and my colleague’s ship is gonna be on pier 3. Everybody hates pier 3. But I guess I’ve done my share of it. I should have counted all the kilometers I’ve walked. Those added to the ones I walk with my dogs…

And then they ask me how do I keep on losing weight? Try pier 3 for a few weeks. No food and walking. That should do the trick!!!