Cruisin'

After our wonderful and exhausting trip to Disneyland, Brian and I took a seven day cruise to the Mexican Riviera. We left Disneyland on Wednesday and drove back to Fresno. On Friday we took the boys to Santa Cruz to stay with my brother and sister in law. Saturday morning we had to catch the Amtrak to Long Beach. That was an adventure in itself. I thought when I booked the train/bus we would be dropped off at a station in Long Beach where we could catch a cab to our hotel. We were dropped of at a bench bus stop on the side of the road in front of the Queen Mary Hotel. This would have been great if I had booked our room at the Queen Mary but no, of course our hotel was about a half mile away. Luckily a Passport bus came by every 15 minutes and took us right to our hotel. We weren't quite sure what time we were allowed to board the ship Sunday that is why we did not want to try to travel and board all on the same day.

I have always wanted to take a cruise and figured this may be my one and only chance so I booked a fabulous Spa Suite room. The ship had a wonderful spa on board and unless you were in one of the spa rooms you had to pay daily to use it. The spa had saunas, a salt water hot tub, and many other relaxing things to occupy our time. We were out to sea on Sunday evening and all day Monday and Tuesday. On Monday Brian and I had a couples massage. It was Brian's first massage and he enjoyed it.

I loved just being out to sea. Feeling the rocking of the boat and relaxing really made me realize we were actually on vacation. The food on the boat was delicious and very abundant and the shows were amazing.

Our first port was Puerto Vallarto. It was so hot there and I was very under-whelmed to say the least. I was thinking why would anybody want to come to Mexico? We made our way back to the boat very early and hung out at the pools on board.

Our next port of call was Mazatlan. Now this was more like it. The weather was a bit cooler and we were scheduled for a Show, Sightseeing & Shopping tour all day in a nice air conditioned van. Our guide took us around the city and showed us many highlights. Then we went to watch a cliff diver. He dove 47 feet into the ocean where the water was only 6 feet deep. He does this all day long working only for tips. It was very cool to watch and I lucked out and captured an amazing photo. Later that day we saw an authentic Mexican show with singers and dancers. Even in Spanish the singing was awesome. Finally to finish up the day we were dropped off for some quick shopping and then back to the boat.

Our final port of call and my favorite was Cabo San Lucas. You were not able to actually pull into to port there so we docked a ways from shore and took tender boats back and forth to the pier. First thing that morning Brian and I had scheduled a Snuba tour. This is a cross between scuba diving and snorkeling. You have a mask and regulator but the mouth piece is attached to a hose that goes to your tank. The tank is put on a raft that floats above you and you are able to dive down about 20 to 30 feet. They also put a belt of weights around your waist to help you stay under the water better. As soon as I jumped in the water I felt like the weights were pulling me down and I panicked a little. I almost completely chickened out but our guide suggested I take off the weights and I could still use the mask and mouthpiece but stay at the surface. This worked out great. I followed above the group and was never more than 10 feet away from them. Brian absolutely loved the Snuba. He was like a little kid seeing things for the first time.

After we did our hour of Snuba we were allowed to just snorkel and that is when Brian took our little camera and got some great underwated pictures. In the same area we were doing our tour they also did Helmet Diving. There was a sea lion that would also come up to you very close because he was used to getting fed.

When we finished our Snuba we went into Cabo to look around and have lunch. I was shocked by how clean the area around the pier was kept. Shopkeepers could be seen sweeping or hosing down their store fronts. This was our shortest stop so after lunch we had to go back to the boat.

We had another two days at sea before we returned to Long Beach. I have to admit these couple of days were pretty depressing for me because I was not ready to let our vacation end. Brian and I have been married for 16 years and this was our first real vacation together without the boys. I enjoyed it so much and hope and pray we can steal away another chance to do it again sooner rather than later.

So that is our cruise in a nutshell. I can't believe we were able to pack so much fun into such a short time. All of our trips were done in the first two weeks we were home. Now we get to spend some much needed time with family.