Really? 99% of Mexico is safer than say, Myrtle Beach, SC (the 14th. most dangerous city in the USA), or Saskatoon, AB (the most dangerous place in Canada); both cities just about the same size as Puerto Vallarta, which is safer than 99% of the US or Canada.

Mexico's violence (which affects less than 1% of the country's approximately 780,000 sq. miles territory, and that is constrained to a few places far, far away from Puerto Vallarta) is fueled by both the seemingly unquenchable American thirst for illegal drugs and weapons furnished by the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to Mexican drug cartels (memories of Iran/Contra?).

The media has gone wild about the recent murder of a full-time resident of Puerto Vallarta, who happened to be Canadian. Murder which was perpetrated by someone intimately known by the victim according to all available evidence (he probably wouldn't have opened his locked door to a stranger, wearing only his boxer shorts, when his wife was not home otherwise). This was not a random act of violence, the target was a local resident not a tourist. Somebody whom he knew killed him.

Yes, there is crime everywhere. I wouldn't venture into Chicago's South Side or Norfolk, VA's downtown at night, much less to Myrtle Beach at any time! Puerto Vallarta, the place I and tens of thousands of American and Canadian expatriates call home --and that over 600,000 cruise ship passengers visit yearly, many of whom return over and over--, has a negligible crime rate.

Princess Cruise Lines' stand has nothing to do with the safety of their passengers or crews, but everything to do with: an unrelenting recession in the US, massive unemployment, and serious lack of consumer confidence that, combined, are forcing more and more potential cruise passengers to postpone or cancel their plans, add the escalating fuel costs and you have the true reason to stop sailing to one of the safest and most friendly cities in the world: Puerto Vallarta.

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