The One with Our First Cruise

Preface: Blogger does this thing called Auto Pagination and it has figured out that my blog uses a lot of bandwidth because I post a lot of big pictures and therefore limits the amount of posts to a certain number and so only 6 or 7 posts show up on the front page at a time, or more or less depending on how many pictures I put on each post, even though I'd like 30 days worth of posts to show up. Therefore, I believe many of my posts will get pushed away because I have 65 pictures and a video I'd like to share from our cruise. Which is too bad, because I like having scrappy posts and personal posts mixed together on my front page at the same time. Blogger: this makes me angry. Fix it.

With that being said! We went on our very first cruise Monday-Friday this past week and had a blast! We tagged along with our friends Blake and Erica Bybee and I've got lots to share.

Monday the 19th: Boarding Day
We dropped Joey off at the dog boarding place, packed, picked up some travel items from Target, then headed to Long Beach to board our boat: the Carnival Paradise.

We couldn't check into our "staterooms" until 1:30 so we walked around and figured out some fun things to do. Here is the central atrium.

The back of the boat with pools and what not.

The arcade room.

There was seriously a wedding ceremony going on. On Thursday the couple who got married participated in the Marriage/Love game show that we watched. A bunch of their family was in the audience. I don't know about you, but me-thinks it would be a tad bit awkward to have your entire family in tow on your honeymoon...

Our stateroom. I loved it. Nice and cozy and had everything we needed. Except a window. The blanket was super comfy, there were always movies playing on the TV, and unlike our water here in South Pas, the water on the boat heated up in no time flat.

Room service would make our bed and clean the bathroom in the morning and turn down our bed and clean the bathroom again at night. Talk about amazing service!

The boys had a mini golf tournament going on the entire cruise. I participated in a couple games, but got progressively worse so I opted out. I believe Chris won the tournament. Good job babe.


Oh boy.

At 5:30 we headed to the front of the boat and waited to set sail.

So did lots of other people. This picture reminds me that we never did get a good "I'm the king of the world!" pic. Next time!

Once we started moving, I could feel the boat swaying in the water, something I was petrified of because I'm already feeling nauseous enough as it is with my pregnancy, but it wasn't really too bad. Well. Not until Wednesday night anyways. But we'll get there.

Tuesday the 20th: Catalina Island, California
After I woke up and showered I went to the top of the boat to take pictures of the surroundings. It may look like sunset, but it's actually sunrise, I just had my camera set to "sunset".


The picturesque city of Avalon on Catalina Island.


After breakfast we boarded these boats which took us over to the island.



I finally got a good view of our entire massive ship.

We knew we wanted to go kayaking and take a ride in a golf cart, so we decided to go golf carting first in hopes that the weather would warm up enough to go kayaking by the time we were done. Chris got the shaft at the golf cart place. Apparently you have to be 25 to drive. Chris can legally drink, smoke, vote, be in the military, and go to dental school, but he can't legally drive a golf cart. Blake didn't let him live it down and doubt he ever will.

Weeee!

We drove up and around and down and through Avalon. This view reminds me of LOST.

Some scenic shots of the bay with our boat in the background.




Interesting fact: there is a 14 year waitlist if you want to own/drive a car on Catalina. Instead, everyone drives golf carts. I kid you not. There are no traffic lights in Avalon and the streets aren't very wide. Therefore golf carts are the main means of transportation.

Mini parking spots for golf carts. There's something you don't see every day on the mainland!

After we dropped off the golf cart, we walked over to Lover's Cove. Notice my slammin' outfit. I'm pretty sure I was known as "the girl in the grey sweater" to everyone on the cruise because I wore it every single day. And this day I wore my swimsuit under my clothes but I wore the skirt portion of my suit outside my capris. So stylish I can hardly stand it.

We walked down to "Pebbly Beach" and watched some people snorkeling.

These are some serious pebbles for a beach!

A trio of snails.

A crab. Or as Erica calls every creepy crawly thing - a spider!

It still wasn't really warm outside so we decided to rent tandem bikes instead. Funny story: they had one 6 gear and lots of 21 gear tandem bikes left. The 6 gear bikes were a few bucks cheaper to rent so we both wanted one of those. But they only had one. So the Bybee's got the 21 speeder and we got the 6 speeder (but we pooled our money so we all paid the same price to be fair and figured we'd trade off). We were about 100 yards away from the rental store when the Bybee's chain on their bike completely snapped in two and fell off in the middle of the street. Not only did it fall apart, but once they got a replacement bike and we tried it out at the end of our rental, it was terribly uncomfortable! What a scam. The 6 speed bikes should be more expensive all around. But it was super fun to ride them around and feel the wind in our hair. This is the main street of Avalon.

We wanted to ride to that other little city we saw when we were looking at the island, but we couldn't get to it by bike. I wonder if you can only paddle or boat to it?

Weeeee!

I noticed a lot of the houses had character.

Pretty soon after we turned in our bikes it started raining so we headed to the dock to board a boat to go back to the ship.

While we waited I took some pictures.

Self portrait.

Bye bye Catalina! We got on the boat in the nick of time - it started downpouring seconds later.


Wednesday the 21st: Ensenada, Mexico
This was my very first time in Mexico! Once again I went up early to the top to take some pictures and once again my camera was on "sunset" settings. The clouds made for some pretty pics.


This flag is freakin' ginormous!


The first of many many many many many bombardments of the day. As soon as we got off the boat we were forced to take pictures with three different people in costume. Click click click!

We decided to take a tour bus to La Bufadora: La Bufadora is a marine geyser, or blowhole located on the Punta Banda Peninsula in Baja California, Mexico. The spout of marine water (occurring every minute or so to varying degrees of height) is created when ocean waves and air are drawn into an underwater cave located in the cliffside, and the trapped air and water then explode upwards. This interaction not only creates the upward-shooting spout, but a thunderous noise as well. La Bufadora is the second largest of three blowholes in the world, and can shoot upwards as high as 80 feet above sea level.

Our tour guide had one thing on his mind: liquor. Liqour this and liquor that. However, our bus was full of little kids and Mormon families... know your audience mister :)

The 20 mile ride to La Bufadora was scenic and pleasurable.

We made it!

We walked down to the blowhole, got bombarded by guys trying to make a buck the entire way, and stopped to take a gander at this half-naked dancing and music playing man.

These are moss-covered rocks by the Blowhole.

It sure was somethin' to behold!


Chris and Paige at the Blowhole.

A short video of the Blowhole.

I love when I find gems like this on my camera. Thanks Blake.

A cactus that people have carved into.

Then we did some shopping. I had my heart set on finding a Chanel purse, but nothing struck my fancy.

Instead I saw this ring and the bartering games began.
I asked how much and threw a fit when the guy said $75. You're kidding right? $75? Maybe if it was white gold and real diamonds. He showed me all these "real silver" tests and I'm like, dude, I believe you that it's real silver, but sterling silver ain't worth that much, forget it. I told him $20 and that's that. He said no. I walked out and around for awhile then came back to see what the Bybees were up to. The guy came back to me and said the manager said he could sell it for $45. Pssssh. What a joke. I said $22 is my final offer, take it or leave it. He took it, but was super mad about it. $22 is still too much in my opinion for this ring, but I love it and now there's a story to go along with it.

Chris got a Nacho Libre mask and somehow I don't have a picture of him wearing it, but I'm sure come October 31st I'll have plenty to share.

There were "pharmacies" everywhere with more pills than I've ever heard of and no prescriptions needed. Sketchy sketchy I tell ya... Don't let your kids run loose!

Ensenada has a Costco and a Walmart and an Applebees. Not too shabby!


My last picture taken on Wednesday and it was also my last picture taken on the trip - even though we were on the boat 'til Friday morning. It pretty much summarizes the rest of the cruise...

Let's just say the weather got super crappy, the boat started rocking and I threw up lots on Thursday morning, and it was too cold to be outside so we stayed in our room a lot.

HOWEVER! I don't want to end on a sour note. Things I loved about the cruise:
- Vacations are fun in general. It's so nice not to have to work or worry about everyday cares and responsibilities. Not cats, dogs, birds, or rodents to take care of.
- The food situation was insane. In a good way. Any time, any hour, you could get anything you wanted in any quantity. There were some people who took mighty advantage of this (and really shouldn't have if you know what I mean). I ate lots of fruit, chocolate milk, and steak and felt like a queen.
- It was great to go with another couple. Had it just been Chris and I we probably would have stayed inside and watched movies the entire time, but we didn't want to be losers so we got out and experienced a lot of new things and had a blast doing so with the Bybees.
- There is non-stop entertainment. I watched more Bingo games than I care to admit but it was so fun to see.
- The shows were super cool and fun to watch.

Best of all - Joey didn't even miss us. In fact, he's been acting super bored ever since we brought him home :)