Cruisin' to Mexico!

WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURES! And this isn't even close to how many I took! I guess that's what happens when you're a photo major, haha. AND this is definitely going to set the record for worlds longest post. If you're reading this, I wont be offended if you don't read it all. This is the only "journal" keeping that I do, so I try to write what I feel like I need to for my own sake :) ANYWAYS:

Brig and I decided last winter that we really needed a vacation. Of course, we totally couldn't afford it, but decided that it was a big enough priority that we were going to do it anyway! So we're justifying it by calling it an early graduation/anniversary gift. Which was totally fine with me!

A little bit about our trip:
Day 1: Port
We had decided that we didn't want to find a place to stay in San Diego for one night, and since the cruise didn't leave until Monday at 4 we thought it would be a good idea to just drive through the night! Turns out it was a really good idea! I was really nervous about it, but we left around 6pm Sunday night and as might be expected didn't have to deal with ANY traffic. It was totally awesome. The drive actually went a lot faster than usual for me too! That's probably because Brig does most of the driving :( poor guy. I usually drive a few hours so that he can sleep a little bit. He's a sweetheart to take care of me :) Anyway, we ended up getting to San Diego around 5:30 AM Monday morning and slept in the car for awhile since they weren't letting people get on the boat until 12:30. It was very uncomfortable, but we were tired and it was nice to know that we weren't going to be rushed. Getting on the boat was kind of a hassle. Just the usual, dealing with annoying, totally spacey tourists. But once we were on, we were lovin it!

This is us after having not showered for a day and a half. We were probably the hottest couple there!


The Ship:
The cruise line that we went with was Carnival, and our boat was called the Elation. It wasn't quite as big as I expected it to be (I had never been on a cruse before), but I'm pretty sure that it is one of the larger ships in the fleet (good word choice eh?). Here are a few pics:

The pool was a little ghetto, but it was still nice. I didn't know this, but pools on cruise ships are filled with salt water. Makes sense I guess! We actually never swam in them. We (or rather I) wanted to hot tub a few times, but that would have required competing with a lot of drunk Arizonians who were arguing over whether Arizona or Arizona State was better, which we weren't up for.

San Diago - View from the front of the ship

First ice cream cone of the trip!!! You better believe that was my favorite part of the whole vacation! I ate more ice cream than I thought was possible. Now I'm having withdrawals... head aches, the shakes, night sweats, you name it.


Day 2: First full day at sea
We had a really relaxing first day. The only problem was that it was total chaos on all decks of the ship! We finally found a spot to lay out after searching for probably 20 minutes, except the thing was... it was on the very top deck where the wind was blowing like a mad man. Because of this, I was stupid enough to not put any sunscreen anywhere except my face, and as a result... you guessed it... burned... the first day! It wasn't horrible, I don't really burn that bad, but it was enough that we didn't do much laying out the rest of the trip. Which was very sad to me.

Brig reading his book. We both actually did a lot of reading because we got a little annoyed at being around all the totally wasted spring breakers. Especially at night! But I was totally fine with getting the rest. I don't get to read very often, so when I do it's really nice.


Before the burn. It was so windy that I had goose bumps! We finally bagged that idea and found some spots down by the pool where it wasn't windy at all. I got more sun up top than I did after we moved! I was totally loving being in the warmth. I love laying out and just being all sweaty, haha. Gross, but true. It's the experience!

My favorite part of dinner was when the workers would all come out and sing! Here they are singing "that's amore" and dancing with the guests. Our favorite quote from the trip was when the Matre D' would say every night in his Ukrainian accent, "Every nigh we gonna sing fo you, we gonna dance fo you, an is gonna to be really nice." Have Brig do it for you sometime, it was very funny. Our other favorite was being called "Honeymoona" (honeymooners) by all the Asian photographers on the ship.

Don't know who this lady is, but we liked this guy.

Here's us on formal night. The guy taking the picture kinda sucked, haha. And we're all out of focus, but oh well! We obviously didn't dress up too fancy anyways. When we were taking the bus from the parking lot to the ship, these old people could not believe that we had packed so light! We took one big bag and a backpack, and didn't have any hanger bags, like everyone else. I've become a light(er) packer since being married to the bag nazi ;)

Us at one of the dance shows. Needless to say, we only went to one. They wouldn't let you take pictures, but I want to point out that there were some female dancers that were AT LEAST 6 feet tall. It was amazing! 4 out of the 6 of them here tall like that. Very unusual for dancers.
We did go to a marriage show that was kind of like the newlywed game another day though and that was very entertaining. They had a couple who had been married 50 years and they both agreed "making whoopee" once in a month was enough. Pretty funny :)

Here is part of our room. I laughed that they make it look like you have a window when you really don't. At least we weren't in the rooms with the bunk beds! It was nice though, they came in and cleaned twice a day. And our Steward was another fav of ours. He was Asian, with a very typical Asian accent and liveliness, and he called Brig "Brig-ham." Loved that guy!

Thought it was pretty standard when you go on a cruise to take pictures of these towel creatures. This was the second fav. I don't know how they do it!



Day 3: Cabo!!!!
We had a really awesome time in Cabo. We kinda decided to just do our own thing, which I think was a pretty good choice. Mostly we just walked around, took a little boat tour, hung out on the beach, and at AMAZING food at the "Taco Cantina".

The ship couldn't dock in Cabo, so we had a take a ferry from it to the land. Here we are on the ferry.

It was beautiful outside!

They had these Luchador masks everywhere!

My camera bag has netting on the inside of the straps and it was KILLING my sunburn. Brig was nice enough to switch me bags after this picture. I know I look pleasant, but it was painful!

The marina was huge! This isn't even close to all of it.

There were also pelicans EVERYWHERE!

This little flea market was pretty cool! I just felt really bad having to tell EVERYONE that we were just looking and I didn't care if they were trying to give me a 50% bargain. Jk, I wasn't mean, Brig was actually getting annoyed with me being so nice, haha. But we did buy a few souvenirs!

Lots of little shops that literally sold the exact same things.

You can see the sunburn lines here! My scar got especially fried.

This was an entrance to a private resort. I thought it was kind of a cool place. Maybe we'll stay there someday!

Haha!

Brig doesn't love taking pictures, as I've mentioned before.

We were walking down the street and this guy had this iguana just sitting there! He was charging $3 to let you take a picture with it. I thought it was very cool, except I was a little nervous when I took it from him because it kinda didn't look very happy about it for a minute!




And then he just plopped it on my head! He didn't even really ask, haha. Good thing I like reptiles!

On the boat tour. The boats name was "jessica" The guy who took us was hilarious! I couldn't really understand him very well. He was really afraid of the Mexican Navy giving him a ticket.

There were people every 10 feet or so that were yelling at tourists to take a boat tour! They were all for these "glass bottom boats." We were a little disappointed when we saw what they actually looked like, haha. You can see in this picture, it wasn't much of a glass bottom. But, we took one anyway! When we were driving over a school of fish once, the guy kept telling us to look in the glass instead of over the edge of the boat. I guess he was trying to make the glass bottom seem legit.

A very cool little beach called "lovers beach." And of course, we didn't go there. Why the heck would we do anything romantic? Instead we went to the freaking crowded beach because there was food there. This side of the beach is on the sea of cortez, and the other side (through the rocks) is on the pacific ocean, so that was kind of cool.

By lovers beach there was a little sea lion colony. I love them :)

And then this little guy was just soaking up the rays all by his lonesome. Kinda got a kick out of that.

He really looks like he's enjoying himself! Makes you wonder how he got up there. Hmm...?

Me with the boat guy! Love his gold teeth!

This is Medano Beach (I think that's what it was called) - the beach we went to. It was a really nice beach! But, this is where most of the partiers were. They were doing some kind of MTV Spring Break wannabe thing. I'm sure it was fun for all who attended. We're just very past that stage in our lives. Really the only downer about the cruise was that it was spring break, so (like i've hinted at before) there were quite a few annoying, very irresponsible people. It made me really glad to have the morals that we do!

This part of the beach was much quieter! Pig was really sweet to lay out with me (he's not a fan of being hot). And he forgot his book, so that made him EXTRA sweet. And this time I wore sunscreen :) Some sunscreen anyways.

Now, if you'll notice, in every picture up until now Pig has been wearing a shirt. He literally had it off for probably 5 minutes the entire trip. Well, at least outside of our room ;) haha, TMI! But yes, I think our children will be very fair skinned. Suckers... ;)

Swimming in the ocean by myself. We weren't at the beach long enough to do much swimming, but I REALLY wanted to, so I did. I loved it!!! The water wasn't very salty because it was so warm outside (apparently that happens... interesting).

And here it is.... THE TACO CANTINA! This place really was my fav. It was covered, but open to the outside and had a bar and just a few small tables. I know Brig looks really excited in this picture, but trust me, he was! The best part about it was the salsa bar that they brought out (see above). There was kind of a chili type salsa, a green salsa with avocados, a regular pico type salsa, and the mother of all salsas, the guacamole salsa! I swear to you I have never tasted anything so hot in my life! But it was so unbelievably delicious! I'm going to have to find out how to make it.

Our waiter was very funny. It seems like everyone in Cabo was kind of pushy (like the Iguana guy), but it was all in good fun! He wanted to take a picture of us, so we let him (and no, we weren't worried about him stealing our camera, trust me, we were very cautious about that). I love how people don't know how to use a zoom :) but at least we look like were dining on a balcony at sunset... almost.

A big bite of some DELISH tacos.

Another big bite. I know it doesn't look that good, but trust me, it was! I swear sometimes the more ghetto the food looks, the better it is... sometimes.

Close up of the salsa of death... mmmmmm

This is another instance of the pushiness :) Our waiter really wanted me to take a picture of him with the cooks. I was laughing. Those ladies are my new best friends!

All in all, Cabo was awesome. We were so pooped by the time we got back on the ship that we took a nap and missed dinner. Good thing they do slackers dinners into the late hours of the night, and thank heavens for the ice cream... again ;) This is us during the "Club Cabo Deck Party" on the ship. We had our own little, "lets relax party" in our room. One might think that sounds really boring, but trust me, it was just the ticket!!! We have a mutual understanding that vacations are for relaxing, and that's just what we did!

Day 4: Second Day at sea
This day at sea we really just kicked it. We laid our for a little while, but it was actually really windy, even on the lower deck, so that didn't last too long. There really isn't a whole lot to say about this day except that we ate a lot, which was, of course, totally awesome.

We did try our hand at Bingo. We were 2 numbers away from winning $1000! I realize that there were probably a lot of people who got that close, but it was still very thrilling!

This is a horrible picture because it was SO dark in there, but this is our cute table! It was the funniest thing though, because we totally talked and got to know each other and it wasn't ever awkward or anything, but we never found out each others names! I thought that was kind of funny when I thought about it. But anyway, the couple on the left were from Minnesota, and they were way nice. The couple next to them were from our very own UTAH! AND the girl was Gary Wilkinson's niece! How exciting. Then there is Brig, sitting by himself :) And then the couple on the right were from a lot of different places, I can't remember. The guy was actually was home on leave from Afghanistan, which made me very sad for his wife because he was going back pretty much right after they got home. They were also very nice.

THIS guy was the ultimate fav!!! He was so horrible, it was seriously hysterical! The best part was that he would pull this face like he was so cool! It's all just a show though, I'm sure he didn't really think that. We loved him.

Ok, here is a weird tid-bit about me. Every since we went to lake powell two summers ago, I've been getting this stupid SUN POISONING! Which is really just heat rash. It happened the last day of lake powell, I just totally broke out in hives on the sides of my abdomen and my chest and neck. Weird! It goes away once you get cooled down, and it's not horrible to deal with, it's just ugly. Anyway, it happened a little bit after Cabo (not as bad as it was at Lake Powell), and then on my shins I got this rash that was just like a real rash (not hives). Just a weird fact. It's really starting to annoy me because I love the sun so much! I'm just going to have to start taking benedryl with my wherever I go.


Day 5: Ensenada!
Ensenada doesn't get as many exclamation points as Cabo, but it was still very cool! I was totally surprised at how beautiful, and green it was! The weather was still a little windy, but it was nothing a sweatshirt couldn't handle. And no, we didn't go with all the rest of the college kids to Papas and Beer. We spend another pretty lazy day, and just took a bus tour. It was really cool because we got to see a lot of the city - the main destination (aka the main purpose for the tour) was about a 45 minute ride.

A lot of these landscape pictures were taken out of the moving bus, so keep that in mind ;)

This is our final destination, "La Boufadora" (I can't totally remember how to spell it). Brig had been on a cruise that stopped in Ensenada before with some of his friends, and he remembered that there were really good churros by this place, so we went! We love churros! Anyway, basically what la boufadora is, is a blow hole. The rocks are formed in such a way that when the water from the ocean crashes up on them it sprays out like it were coming out of a whales blow hole. It was actually very neat, and of course, the ocean was beautiful!

This is the little market by la boufadora. It was just a long street that led down to the main attraction. We bought some fruit, and were hounded by one guy who really wanted us to buy a manchester united jersey. He dropped the price from $30 all the way to $15! Sorry buddy, not goin for it.


Beautiful


We didn't buy one of these, but now I wish we would have!! We thought it would have been funny to buy a luchador mask and one of these, but we didn't think about it until it was too late! Maybe next time (don't anybody steal our idea, ok?!).



There was some kind of school field trip or something going on, and this kid asked if he could have a picture with me, haha. He didn't speak English and I wasn't sure what he was asking me for at first. I felt like a dumb tourist! But I thought the whole situation was funy, and had Brig take one too.


THE BEST PART OF ENSENADA! Oh man, those churros were good! And it was cool because we got to watch the guy make them in that little shack that i'm standing in front of. It was $2 for a bag with like 7 churros in it! That's cheaper than you can buy one for here! Viva la Mexico!!!!


Here is the place we ate tacos in ensenada. They claimed to have the best fish tacos. They were ok, but not even close to the Taco Cantina!


Could have been the mayo that made them not so good. But the salsa was great of course.



"I'll kill you if you try to take my churros!"


There were lots of little candy places like this. The peaches were excellent!

Leaving la boufadora.

Random deserted water park in the middle of nowhere. Thought it was kind of funny.

Getting back on the ship.

We always ate an early dinner, so we never got to watch the sunset! We decided to boycott dinner the last night so that we could catch it. It was just as you'd expect it to be, beautiful!

The last ice cream cone :'( SO sad. But I sure did enjoy it!

A few randoms:

This was the fav towell guy. It was the most simple, but I thought it was so cute!

When we were in Cabo, we had bracelets made for us. Brig kept insisting that if anyone asked him his name that he was going to tell them it was James (his middle name). Not because he doesn't like his name, but because when 99% of the ships employees are foreign, it could create some problems (kinda like the "brig-ham" incident).

We got back to San Diego early on Saturday morning. Getting off the boat was surprisingly easy! Here we are, back on the bus, headed to the car. It was a very sad time. But, the good news is we really did have a blast, and I think that cruises are definitely my type of vacation! It was nice to just totally chill, and not have to stress about finding a place to eat, or driving around some unknown place with bad traffic to go site seeing. Brig says our next cruise will be to Alaska (in 75 years when we can afford it). We'll see about that!!! But for serious now, I love my husband so much!!! Everything that we did on the cruise was for me, and he never complained once. He is always doing everything he can to make me happy, and I love him for it. I know I said that I had a lot of favs, But the real best part of the trip was just getting to be with him 24 hours a day. So thanks babe, for being so great and for making my life better than I ever could have imagined it. I love you!