No Chad, those aren't pirates (Cruise- Part 2)

I figure it's time to sit down and write about the rest of our cruise before I have to rely on the stories of others and my pictures to tell me what happened. I am pushing 30, after all, my memory just isn't what it used to be.

So, where was I? We got to the terminal, showed our passpots, answered several questions about The likelihood of our having swine flu, asked several questions about our captain's credentials and our old friend Hurricane Rick. After everyone was satisfied with the answers, we went to find our rooms. Seeing that everything was in place, we finally started our vacation!!

We sailed through the first night and arrived at our first port of call early the next morning. We had planned a shore excursion in Ensenada where we would visit two Mexican vineyards and taste wine. Not a bad little Tuesday planned, if you ask me. So, after a terrifying bus ride through the Mexican countryside, we arrived at our first winery.

Some of the things we saw at the winery included:

A bull fighting ring,

A lot of wine,

Some equipment that we weren't supposed to touch,

And then finally, the part we were waiting for.


So after some wine, cheese and bread, we headed to the next winery.

We went on another tour where we saw much of the same, minus the bull fighting ring.

A lot of wine,


Some more things we weren't supposed to touch,

And then finally, some wine tasting with some bread and cheese. The bread and cheese that we ate were awesome! So much in fact that we didn't want to appear to be hogging it, so we kept walking by the tray going, "What? There's bread, I better try it. And cheese? I need to taste it" Overall, a very fun little venture. And all the wine made the trip home much more relaxing. :)



After our day in the lovely city of Ensenada, we enjoyed a day at sea where we laid by the pool, soaked up the sun, drank, ate and just generally relaxed. It was just what I needed! It was also the day when I took in the spa services and got a facial and a massage. WORTH EVERY PENNY!
So following a relaxing day at sea, and a night sailing, our ship tendered in Cabo San Lucas. We got up and off the boat right away in the morning and headed into the town. We got breakfast and wandered around the city a little before deciding to hire a water taxi to take us to one of the beaches. We asked our taxi driver to take us out to get a look at Land's End and then drop us off at Lover's Beach. Here's some of what we saw.


The beautiful city of Cabo. DEFINITELY going to visit this place again!



Land's End, the southern most point on the Baja Peninsula


and some beautiful sandy beaches.


The rest of the cruise was spent eating, going to shows and watching interesting people dance with glow sticks in the ship's night club. Overall, a great time! When I write reports at work, the format that we always use is successes, challenges and lessons learned, so I thought I would report back on the cruise in the same manner. So in summary, here is goes:


Successes:

• Weather! We couldn't have had better weather. The day we were at sea mid week it was 90 and sunny, our day in Cabo was much the same and we completely missed Hurricane Rick
• The food. Particularly the bread and cheese.
• The naps.
• The spa day.
• Our travel partners. We couldn't have asked for better friends to travel with!
  

Challenges:

• Botched plane landings and bus rides from LA
• Infrastructure in Mexico is NOT what it is in the US. Driving a bus through the Mexican country side wasn't as relaxing as I had hoped.
• Convincing Chad that every ship in the distance was not pirates
• Dealing with strange people on board the ship, including our super strange Canadian dinner companions and our old friends Mama and Papa (Mama and Papa were a super annoying couple that we kept running in to. They were a younger couple who looked extremely high maintenance. She wore 7 inch heels on our wine tour and he wore a super tight Ed hardy t-shirt. You get the picture. Oh, and here's the kicker, they referred to each other in the third person as Mama and Papa. Erin and I probably spent more time and energy than we should have despising them)

Lessons Learned:

• Get to the pool earlier in the day to reserve a desirable lounge chair
• Visit the ship's disco club at least once, if anything just for the people watching.
• Virgin Pina Coladas actuallly taste better than the ones with rum in them.