Cruisin'

As I posted earlier, Diana and I really wanted to get away for a little vacation. We slacked a little in terms of making plans, and eventually decided on taking a Mexican Riveria cruise, thinking that it was the right combination of cheap, easy, yet still foreign/exotic.

So, on Sunday morning (right in the middle of the Charger game) we drove up to Long Beach, found the cruise terminal, and got our first view of the ginormous boat that we'd be spending the next week on. We waited in a LONG line to get all our luggage and tickets and stuff all sorted out. (On the drive up, we were listening to Chargers on the radio, but it crapped out right at the end of the game. I was dying to know how it turned out!) Soon enough, though, we fought through the masses of people and made our way on board.

Seasickness was my primary concern. I'd read lots of reviews online, and talked with lots of people to guage how realistic a problem seasickness would be. Note that I've been on various boats dozens of times, and only gotten sick once, but it was still a concern of mine. Being seasick for a week sounded like hell. I took some Bonine the morning of embarkation, and while it didn't knock me out, I was pretty spaced out.

We got on board, found our room, and got all our stuff unpacked. Our room was nice. About half the size of a typical hotel bedroom, but certainly comfortable and not too small at all. We had a nice little deck, which was great for when we wanted to get some fresh air, or prop the door open to hear the sound of the ocean at night.

We spent most of the first afternoon exploring the ship. We didn't leave until that evening, since there was some flight that was delayed and we were waiting on that. I'd never been on a cruise ship before, and it was pretty impressive. There were lots of little bars and lounges and places to sit, both inside and out. This particular ship (the Carnival Pride) was decorated in all sorts of faux rennaisance artwork (I mean ALL over the place), which was kinda cheesy, but whatever. On the whole, I thought the people-density on the ship was about perfect. It wasn't as crowded as I expected, though there were almost always people around. But you could still find spots to be alone if you wanted.

That first night, when we started moving, Diana and I were very aware of the boat rocking and rolling. Not scared, but very aware. And then we left the breakwater of Long Beach harbor and hit the open ocean, and we REALLY started moving. We were really both surprised at how much we noticed it, seeing how big the ship was. We got pretty nervous, and both took medicine just in case, and went to bed soon after. I'm happy to say that we soon were used to the constant rocking and moving, and were completely fine through the rest of the trip, medication-free.

The next two days were spent on the open ocean, sailing down to Puerto Vallerta. We spent the time exploring the ship more, finding sunny spots on the deck for book-reading, eating, playing cards, etc. The onboard library had computers for accessing the Internet (at $.75 a minute, unless you wanted to buy minutes in bulk, which I didn't). I spent a couple bucks checking my Fantasy Football boys, since I didn't know if I'd advanced to the finals or not (I did!)

There was a cruise director who, as you can guess, was full of pep and viv, and he'd provide to us, via a nightly newsletter, all sorts of activities and so forth for the following day. Things like a "Hairy Chest" contest, "Carnival Fear Factor", bingo, trivia contests, etc. They also had some shows in the evening, like a comedian and a "Vegas-style song and dance" show. We attended two of these and left within the first 10 minutes or so. The comedian was especially horrible. His first joke was about going through airport security and having his toenail clippers taken away from him. "That's right, lady... I'm going to take over the world, one toe at a time!" Ugh.

Our fellow shipmates were mostly people around our age. Lots of parents 5-10 years older than us with children. Not very many elderly folks. Almost every evening there were parties and dances and stuff in various lounges and decks, none of which we attended. Diana and I don't particularly like dancing, and while I like hanging out in bars having a drink, that's really more of a social thing. If it's just me and D, I'd rather take a walk or sit somewhere quieter, not really party it up. We also weren't really that interested in meeting new people, which I think is a big part of cruising as well.

We only made it to the main dining room once during lunch. We sat at a group table with some other couples, and while they were nice and we made smalltalk during the lunch, I think we both would have preferred our own table. Some of the dinners required "formal attire", and we skipped those. We also had a big mess with our seating time (they have early dinner and late dinner). We were assigned late dinner, but wanted to switch to early, and it took a day or two to get that all sorted out. By the time it was, we'd found we were happy enough with the other food options that we didn't even try again.

The other food options was mainly a buffet with various stations serving different foods. Some main meat-y course with sides, or pizza or sandwiches or salads. There was a little sushi bar which we tried once (and only once). They had a self-serve soft-serve machine which I hit early and often. Breakfast could be ordered the night before and delivered to your room, and we did that every morning, which was pretty nice. All in all, the food was decent. Nothing horrible, but not the best either.

After two full days of travel, we woke up the next morning at P.V. By this time we were pretty excited to get off the boat and get back on dry land. We'd signed up for an excursion that took us to some remote beach where they served us lunch and let us run free for a few hours. So, we found our guy, waited for everyone else, and got on board a little party-boat that would take us to the cove.

On board was a very excited tour-guide kinda guy, who sang and danced for us along the way. He was pretty enthusiastic and funny to watch. Up ahead, he pointed out a group of boats, and commented that that probably meant whales were up there. And indeed they were. As we got closer, we came up on a group of three whales (I think...) Two adult and a baby/juvenile. Or maybe three adults and a kid? In any case, they were jumping out of the water, and slapping their big pectoral fins on the surface and generally being really active. I'd only seen whales a few times before, and that was always just a little hump arching on the surface, and a fluke if we were lucky. This was one of the most incredible things I'd seen in my life. I got as many pictures as I could get, as well as some video. We stayed and watched for a bit, and then continued on. Along the way, we also came right by a giant manta ray, which was awesome to see. I tried to get a picture of it, but you can only barely make it out.

The rest of the day was nice. We pulled up to a beautiful beach, had a buffet lunch, tried snorkling (cold water, not very nice snorkling), and hung out on the beach. They had parrots and a monkey there, which Diana let climb on her. It didn't groom or play with her hair the way that we hoped, but it was still neat to see. On the way back to the ship, there were dolphins jumping and riding in our wake. Very, very cool day in terms of the wildlife we saw. Went to dinner that night at some reccomended restaurant, which was decent but pretty expensive. I had shrimp wrapped in bacon. Yum!

That night we departed, and woke up the next morning in Mazatlan. We did a very similar excursion, where we boarded a boat that took us on a little tour of the bay, and then to another beach for some free-time. The beach was next to a little village, and there were vendors everywhere. We walked a bit and found a nice spot in the shade and napped and read our books. Diana practiced her spanish with various folks which was fun to watch. We found some weird tracks on the beach (I was hoping they were scorpian tracks), and I asked Diana to ask someone what they were. She asked the next vendor who came up to us, and he said "shell" in english, as well as "camina" (walking) and "piqueno" (small). So we figured hermit crab from that. Cute! Soon enough, it was back to the boat (earlier in the afternoon, this time), and off to Cabo.

We didn't have any excursions planned in Cabo, so we spent the morning wandering around the town, eventually making it to the beach and finding some chairs under an umbrella. The chairs belonged to a beachfront restaurant who wanted us to buy something, so we got some juice and an omlette and enjoyed the sun and people watching. There were TONS of vendors selling silver jewelry, wraps and blankets, woven bracelets, hats, pottery, etc. Diana and I tried to decide which would be the worse thing to be selling, and figured it was blankets. The guy was carrying around like 30 of 'em, walking on sand on a blazing hot day.

We eventually departed, walked around for a bit more (we found an internet cafe that was $3 for 30 minutes!) and I got my boys all ready for the following days games. We got some lunch at a shrimp restaurant that we'd been to before with Norm and Teri a few years back. Then, back to the boat for the voyage home.

I think, all in all, our outings were kind of dissapointing. I think both Diana and I prefer closer contact with the natives, staying at a local hotel and going to markets on our own, etc, and not being shuttled around like cattle. I really don't feel that I actually *saw* any real Mexico, which is too bad. But completely expected.

The ride back was REALLY bumpy. We'd heard from someone who'd been on this cruise that the wind and current are all coming from the north, and we were hitting waves head on. I'm not sure if we hit the bit waves that are hitting SoCal these days, but standing out on our porch looking forward, I could definitely watch the front of the boat rise and fall over really big swells. We didn't get sick or take any more medicine, but it was pretty weird.

That motion has stuck with me, even after a full day of being off the boat. When I turn my head or move around, I still feel my body compensating for motion that doesn't exist, kind of throwing me off balance. It's pretty weird, but not too bad.

We spent a full day at sea, and woke up the following morning back at Long Beach, eager to get off the boat and head home. Debarkation was a slow process as we waited for our number to be called, and the drive home was made longer by getting a little lost on our way back. But we finally made it, stopped by home and called my parents, got cleaned up, and spent the evening at Diana's parents house for a nice Christmas dinner and celebration.

That that is the story of our cruise. It was decent. We had fun (mostly spending time and reconnecting with each other, without the distractions of work and life), but I'm not sure we'll take another cruise.

Questions? Comments?

I'll put up the pictures shortly.