Our Cruise

January 17, 2008

I have been meaning to post this for some time now, but life keeps getting in the way. Last Christmas my mother-in-law gave the kids presents saying that she would take us on a cruise. As the year progressed we never heard anything about it so I assumed it wasn't going to happen. About mid-November Mikel-Ann (my sister-in-law) won a four day cruise for two. Shirley started looking around and found one down to Cabo that we could all go on. Trying to avoid Forrest missing any school she scheduled the trip for January 1st. That meant that we got home from snowmobiling on the 31st and flew out the next morning. It was pretty crazy.

This is the third time we have flown with the kids and they are really getting the hang of it. The flight seemed really short and the kids did awesome. When we got of the plane we got our bags found our bus and headed over to the ship. I have heard horror stories of people waiting hours to get on the boat and then still not being able to go to their rooms. We were lucky it only took about an hour before we were in our rooms relaxing.

As soon as everyone was settled in we took a tour of the ship. At 5:00 we had a orientation for Kid Carnival. It was crazy. The music was really loud and everyone was talking. Eliza of course fell sound asleep. She must have been really tired because it was so noisy I could barely hear myself think.

After the orientation we headed off to dinner. On a cruise you can order up to three appetizers and two entrees. It is kinda of fun. The portions are small so you don't feel like you are eating your weight in food. Everyone was tired so we headed to bed early.

The next day was a day at sea. We dropped both kids off at Camp Carnival. Eliza seemed to be okay, but when Shirley walked by a couple minutes later she was crying. She just couldn't take it so she got her out. Of course she wouldn't even go near the place for the rest of the cruise. Forrest on the other hand loved Camp Carnival and would get mad if he was missing anything.

Since Eliza wouldn't stay in Camp Carnival she hung out with us.

We spent some time up on deck reading and then headed in for lunch. After lunch Forrest took a short break from Camp to come swimming with us.

Greg was nice enough to take the kids swimming so I could just lounge on deck and read my book.

Soon Forrest got cold and came to hang out with me. The kids got done with swimming and Forrest headed back to Camp while Eliza headed to the room to do her favorite thing.

She thought it was so fun to have the little DVD player all to herself. She would move it all over the bed changing positions as she would go.

Before dinner we had a quick round of miniature golf. The kids never got tired of playing this. Forrest always wiggles his bum before he hits and Eliza just likes to try and get the ball in the hole. It is a lot of fun. Forrest was getting pretty good by the end of the cruise. The bum wiggling must really help.

After a good rest we finally made it to Cabo.

Our first stop was a glass bottom boat ride.

We were able to see lovers beach,

the blow hole,

the arch and

divorce beach so named because it is on the Pacific side of the ocean. It is so rough that no one can swim in it.

The kids loved riding on the boat and we were even able to see some seals playing close by.

After our boat ride we headed to the beach.

The kids of course loved it.

Forrest had fun trying to build a sandcastle and playing in the waves.

Eliza loved lazying around in the beach chairs eating snacks. I really liked how clear the water was. Greg liked that we finally went to a beach that was warm. He had fun swimming around.

Pretty soon we were all getting tired so we caught a boat ride back to the pier and had a late lunch. After lunch we did a little shopping.

I didn't really want anything so I walked around and admired the scenery. I was surprised at how dry it seemed.

It was finally time to head back to the boat. Everyone had a good time. As we were sailing away the sun was just starting to set. It was really pretty.

We stayed out on deck as the land slowly faded into the distance.

The sunset was amazing. Hopefully we will be able to come back here really soon.

We put the kids to bed early and headed out to enjoy some of the ships entertainment. The hypnotist was pretty good. Or I should say the people he chose were really funny.

On our last day a storm moved in. The morning started off nice enough but soon it got really windy and even started to rain. Forrest spent most of the day at Camp, but when he was out he would play ping pong or miniature golf. I was just about blown away playing miniature golf, but he sure did have fun.

Eliza had a fun morning exploring the ship some more, but after lunch she crashed. She was so tired she slept for almost three hours. Greg and I took turns sitting with her while the other one went with Forrest. That night I packed everyone up and made sure we had an early departure time. We had three groups and each of us was getting off at different times. I talked to the front desk and they moved us to zone 10. That was much better than our zone 21.

In the morning we hung out in a lounge for about an hour. We were then able to disembark. Everything went pretty smoothly. The flight home was uneventful, it was when we landed that things got interesting. Our flight landed at 4:10. After getting our luggage, catching the shuttle, cleaning off the inch of ice on our car and then driving home we didn't get in until about 7:15. The kids had done great up until then. The whole drive home they spent the time trying to annoy each other and us. Luckily we all arrived in one piece. We are home for now and probably in about a month I will be caught up again.