Stop 2- Mazatlán

Part 4

We went to Mazatlán the next day. It had been several years since ships docked there. They had high crime for a while. We were their fifth boat in 10 months. Now, in March alone, they'll have 17! It was a beautiful city, so that's good.

You can tell it isn't as touristy as most. Those aren't hotels.

We did an excursion that showed us the whole town since we would have no clue what to do on our own. It was fun!

The Cathedral

The Cathedral in Mazatlan was built in the late 1800s with donor money. At one point right before it was finished, they ran out of money. A Jewish group in the area donated the rest needed. That's why in the top of the picture above, you can see a Star of David in between the towers. In each stained glass window inside, a Star of David is in the top.

Mazatlán is famous for cliff divers, so we went and watched them too. When a crowd gathers, someone goes and jumps.

We went to a resort for lunch, a show, and some beach time after that. We also got to shop around a bit.

...

They only use corn tortillas. I CAN EAT HERE.

The beach was kind of pathetic, so we just went back to the boat after the show and I didn't even take a picture. Believe it or not, I didn't touch any sand on the entire trip.

Stop 1- Cabo San Lucas

Part 3

I've never been to Cabo before. My parents love it though. It was our first stop on the boat. We didn't have to make a time change here. We went crazy on time changes! We had to go back two hours once we got to LA. Forward one at both Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta, and then back one each day for the next two. Once we got home, it was forward two more.

But I digress...

We got to Cabo a bit after noon on that day. All morning we sailed along the coast.

Selfie from the balcony

We had to tender to the port, which means that the boat anchored in the middle of the water, not on a dock. We took boats to the dock from the ship. Our tenders were the lifeboats. It was really neat to see them being lowered.

80 people can fit in each one abouts

Once we got to shore, we were going to rent a boat tour so we had to hunt down a guy. It wasn't hard. Every person left and right was selling boat tours.

There were some cliff divers who are a lot braver than me

That's Scooby Doo!

The Pacific Keyhole

The Arch

Boy did these guys stink!

Cabo is at the very bottom of the weird part of Mexico that's still kind of California but isn't. Baja! This is the last part of it.

Land's End

After the boat ride, we walked to the Cabo Wabo Cantina, Sammy Hagar's bar. It was sadly too crowded to get food.

After the Cabo Wabo, we went back to the boat. We had until evening in town, but there wasn't much to do. I wanted to go to CrossFit Cabo, but dad said no. I'd probably go again, but stay at a hotel.

Cruise like a Norweigan

This is the days we spent at sea and the journey home. The individual ports will come later. I had too many pictures to do one massive post.

The water never ended

After waiting in massive lines on the Sunday, we finally got on the boat. Of course though, we can't actually go to our rooms until hours later.

The boat was still decorated for Christmas!

We had never been on this boat before, so we didn't know where anything was or how it worked. We found the buffet though, and all of the people, of course.

We were eating and Daryl began to look around. 

"I'm not liking this ship thing."

"Why?"

"The ice cream isn't self serve."

She was right, mostly. The ice cream we'd found was scooped by a guy (plus the vanilla was sugarless, but that's another story.) The scooper was only open in the AFTERNOON. What?! Any cruisers KNOW that ice cream is a staple with every single meal. Upset, we kept walking and guess what she found?

She found the self serve machine.

This machine wasn't much better than the scooper. It was only open in the afternoons too and kids were always dropping their cones on the floor.

Eating like this is why I actually lost weight on the cruise. I still ate as much as I wanted, but good foods! 

One night at dinner, we were talking about when we were kids. Kacie's thumb incident came up. It was my birthday party and she was four. She dropped the ball on her finger and broke it. Now it looks like a toe.

Her thumbs

This scary guy was waiting for us one night

I don't have pictures from the shows, but they were all really good. The Second City improv group was there and hilarious and Dave Naster, another comedian. There was also a phenomenal magician. WOW.

On the last sea day, we got bored. By this time, I had read three books: An Abundance of Katherines- John Green and the first two Lord of the Rings books. I'm working on the third still. LOVE. Still, it was cold outside and I didn't want to sit in my room reading.

Dad decided it was BINGO time.

We bought a huge package for the game.

Cruise BINGO works like so:

Buy your package for between $50 and $80. Open your Instant Wins and see you won $2. Tear your raffle tickets and put them in the gold drum. Decide who can play six cards and who only has the attention span for three. Play BINGO.

I got the six card paper and Dad played the three. Daryl, being under 18, got to play one card for free. There are three games per BINGO game. 

-One line

-Four corner

-Blackout

Blackout gives the biggest payoff.

None of us did well at all the first two games and Daryl did horrible during blackout, but guess what?

After several great calls, she had won 

Daryl won blackout BINGO. She had to split the winnings with another lady, but still made out with $100.

We then dominated at Broadway Tune trivia, but didn't win. There were three I didn't know. 

I remember not knowing the following:

-Don't Cry for Me Argentina

-Surrey with the Fringe on Top

-Oliver

We all got lemon sorbet during our last dinner. It was the best dessert. I will sure miss steak every night. We had to wake up early the next morning to get off of the boat. It ended up being unnecessary, because our plane was delayed 45 minutes.

Daryl took a nap in LAX

Family trip to LA

This is the first of many posts about my recent trip. 

Each year, my family takes a cruise somewhere. Previously, we've done short cruises from Galveston to Cozumel. This year, we picked a week-long out of LA. We spent two days before boarding in Santa Monica because we'd never been before.

We flew out on the Friday after Christmas and arrived around 2 pm LA time. The flight was mostly uneventful, but I did sit by a stranger. Ew. It was weird when we landed because we didn't have to go through customs. I haven't skipped customs in years!

We took a cab to our hotel and found it shortly after. You can't miss it. It's turquoise!

It was built in 1933

This is the peephole in the door

After finding our hotel and charging our phones an additional 2%, we headed to dinner. First we walked to 3rd Street, but there was no food there. We walked back to the Ocean Avenue and found a yummy place with fish. Mine still looked like fish.

I wanted to stop here, but my parents said no :(

Our hotel has a sign!

After dinner, we headed to the Santa Monica pier. I desperately wanted to ride the rides and get midway food.

The Pier!

The pier marks the end of Route 66. I want to drive it someday.

We got some credits to ride a few rides and then we embarked on a journey to the ferris wheel. 

From the ferris wheel

selfie 

selfie

The ferris wheel was so cute

Roller coaster time!

We had to wake up a bit early on our second day in California because we were taking a bus tour of LA. It was fun! Instead of writing a lot, I'll just post the pictures and describe what was going on/what we saw.

All of us were sitting near each other in the van

Our first stop was Venice Beach.

So it's true...White men can't jump! This is where they filmed that. 

CrossFitting at Muscle Beach

We spent about a half hour looking at houses. Most weren't too extravagant, but some were massive.

Bill Cosby

Dan Akyroyd

We got to walk up and down Rodeo Drive, but I don't think anyone did any shopping. It was such an expensive street. There was supposed to be a Bugatti, but we couldn't find it.

The Wilshire Hotel, right off of Rodeo Drive. 

Lunch was at the Farmers Market

Gluten free cookie!

We got to spent some time wandering around The Grove after lunch.  I saw no celebrities.

Griffith bought the mountain this place is on and wanted to make it awesome, but tried to kill his wife because he thought she was having an affair. The sheriffs told him to either donate the mountain or they'd take it by force. He donated it to the city and got this place named after him.

Hollywood!

We walked up and down the Walk of Fame as well. I didn't see many good stars, but I saw a lot of people I'd never heard of!

The beginning of the walk is home to Elvis and the Beatles

If there is one thing I learned during my two days in Los Angeles, it's that people have no sidewalk manners. Does "Keep Right" have no meaning anywhere? I can't imagine London with people just walking wherever they wanted. It would be madness.