Our Cruise!

We've been trying to go on a cruise for years, and last week we finally did it! Jason and I took a 7-night cruise aboard the Carnival Spirit to the Mexican Riviera. My wonderful fabulous mom stayed with the kids while we were gone.

The cruise went out of San Diego, so we drove the night before to Jason's parents' house and stayed the night there. Here we are in the morning, ready to go!

And here's our ship! (this one was actually taken in Mexico)

A view from the top deck

Our room-- it was little, but it was very nice. Next time we're definitely splurging on a balcony room!Here's the dining room
Eating on the ship was really fun! Amazing food and awesome service, I loved it! (plus a differently folded napkin every evening, what more could you want?)
This is the theater. A lot of the shows were singing and dancing-- not all that interesting. But there was a good comedian, and our favorite was the hypnotist. Hilarious!

Playing miniature golf -- kinda funny to try on a moving boat!

We got to our first port on the third day-- Cabo San Lucas

We went on a sail & snorkel excursion to Santa Maria bay in Cabo. Here we are on the boat that took us to the bay.

And here's some other people on the boat. They had snacks and drinks and music, it was really fun!

Snorkeling was pretty cool, but a little cold. I took pics of the fish with a waterproof camera, but they aren't developed yet.

These are the guys who took us on the boat, doing a killer dance to YMCA.

The Cabo Arch

Next stop: La Paz! Since it's not a usual cruise stop, La Paz is pretty un-touristy. It has a pretty beach (all of the beaches we visited were on the Sea of Cortez) and it's a nice little town.

Funny story: La Paz was the first place we went to a store with actual price tags. We'd done some shopping in Cabo but it was at a market where they just told us the prices. So we go into a gift shop in La Paz and we were outraged at the prices! $25.00 for a little toy, $16.00 for one of those tiny jars of sand?! So we left that shop and walked a little further and pondered getting ice cream cones. Price of ice cream? $27. Oh wait . . . . I guess since we're in Mexico . . . the prices might be in . . . . Pesos? Ha! We were so dumb! I think I was confused because they still used a dollar sign. I would have thought it'd be something else. Luckily someone on the ship had mentioned the exchange rate or I still would have been clueless. So yeah, the toy was $2.50. We went back to that store and bought some stuff.

The last port of call was Mazatlan. We had booked an excursion there that took up most of the day. We got off the giant boat(cruise ship), onto a medium-sized boat (catamaran) with our group, and went out to this island:

It's called Deer Island. When we got there we got onto little speed boat to get from the catamaran to the land, then we had some snacks and boarded the littlest boats of the day: kayaks.

Kayaking was pretty cool! We went for about an hour's paddle around the side of the island.

After that we played on the beach, then sat relaxing in the shade watching parasailors over on the mainland while one of the 2 dogs that lives there (it's not inhabited by people) slept at our feet, proving that we were the most lovable people there.

On one of the last nights they did the grand buffet, with lots of fun food art.
I missed the kids like CRAZY! It was so wonderful to come home to their sweet faces.