Rest & Relaxation at Sea!

Now that I finally have all my pictures in one place I can give our trip report! First off, the reason for this cruise was to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary, which is actually in July,  but March cruises are much cheaper then summer cruises. We left our kids last Wednesday night with my parents and headed down to San Diego where our Carnival Cruise Ship was departing. We actually spent the night in Vegas to be able to get to San Diego in time, since it's about a 10 hour+ trip and our cruise was suppose to leave at 5:00 pm on Thursday. We got to San Diego at about 1:00 pm on Thursday and boarded the ship with hours to spare before we departed. We spent Thursday night at sea, all day Wednesday in Ensenada, Mexico, all day Saturday at sea, and arrived back in San Diego Sunday morning. Overall it was a fabulous vacation with lots and lots of much needed rest and relaxation with just the two of us! We hardly left each other's sides and enjoyed every minuted of it together being lazy, sight-seeing, watching drunk people make fools of themselves, and eating excellent food! The best part of the cruise was being together without kids and being able to be lazy and rest, but the worst part was that it was colder then we anticipated! I, especially, was disappointed because the one thing I was looking forward to the most was laying out and soaking up the sun. It was suppose to be in the low 70's and sunny or partly cloudy, but we got lots of clouds, cold winds, and cold temperatures almost the entire time. I did get to lay out for 1 hr one day, but Richard was still dressed laying out beside me, so that shows that it wasn't such pleasant weather to be almost naked in.

Our ship; the Carnival Elation Ship.  Our room was towards the front. 

Our room was bigger then we pictured, which was a pleasant surprise. It had outdated orange walls, but hey the beds were comfortable and the room was relatively quiet most of the time, so that's all that mattered! Oh, it would occassionally pick up cigarette smoke from other rooms, which was the worst part of the room itself. Unfortunately they let people smoke in their rooms and the air circulation picked that up and shared it with other people. Retarded idea, there.

It was a looong way down from even the lowest deck, but Richard lost a bet, and what can I say? A bet is a bet and he had to be thrown overboard. (just kidding)

They had lots of bars and lounges to choose from, but this one was our favorite. It was a piano bar decorated with architecture from around the U.S., and the bar was made to actually look like a piano! Not to mention that the music was beautiful!

There was lots of active entertainment to choose from, including basketball, volleyball, ping pong, and swimming. Sadly we only got to play miniature golf since it was to cold to swim and the other activities were taken most of the time we checked on them. It was fun, but Richard beat me as usual!!! >:( And here is our "fun ship" party-central. There were about 8 hot tubs on board, but the drunks would gather to this one hot tub and crowd on in! They were very entertaining to watch, and at any hour of the day, too! Occassionally some psychos would go down the slide, but mostly people crowded into hot tubs or sprawled out hoping to get warm by the sun.

Our day in Ensenada was pretty fun.  We took a bus through the country-side and went to see La Boufadora, the biggest blowhole in the world, and then came back and walked through town a little bit.  The flag pictured here was 500 lbs!  It was HUGE!

On the road/sidewalk down to the blowhole there was a ton of shops where they were very aggressive about having you buy their stuff.  We ended up buying some vanilla, maraccas for Garrett, and little guitar for Keira.  They were a hit!  Funny story; we were walking down this road and saw a picture of Joseph Smith in one of the shops, so naturally we had to stop.  Richard asked the man if he knew who that was and the guy replied that it was Joseph Smith.  We asked if he was mormon and he said he wasn't, but his brother was and lived in Provo, Ut.  Once he found out we were mormon too he just had to sell us that painting.  It was a nice rendition, but I don't care for the original picture itself of Joseph Smith,  so I didn't want to buy it.  He was asking $130, which was a good price for the quality, but we kindly told him we couldn't afford it.  He asked how much we would pay and we said $30, and of course he said that was to low.  We walked away cuz we were truly not interested and when we were a few shops down we heard him yell, "Ok!  Show me $30!  It's yours!".  Even for $5 I didn't want it hanging in my house, so we still walked away.  It was an odd souvenir to find in Mexico, though.

And last, here's a picture of me in front of the ocean near the blow hole.  Where we were standing we could see about 6 dolphins jumping out of the water in the distance.  It was cool!  The blowhole was fascinating and the sound was peaceful.  We came at high tide so the blowhole wasn't at it's full spray, but it was still impressive.

That was our trip in a nutshell.  It was fun, relaxing, and worth the money.  The last day or so I got really homesick for our kids, though.  We left them for 4 days, which is 3 days longer then I've ever left them.  What can I say?  I'm a mom.  :)  I'm glad to be home with them now.