Cruisin'

The week we got married, we spent everyday in our new little studio apartment just enjoying each other. At the time we counted that as our honeymoon.  Tim's parents had a better idea.  They bought us tickets to go on a week long cruise to Mexico. 

Mom and Dad Huntsman, Aunt Carla and Uncle Gary, and Tim and I had fun going on vacation together. The airplane flight to L.A. being an exception. I don't know about anyone else, but I was so motion sick that I threw up in the little complimentary paper bag. I feel bad for the guy sitting next to Tim and me.  If I were him I would have joined in the yacking.  He acted like he didn't see, but he could have been pretending out of embarrassment. I thought for sure that the cruise would make me sick, too, but it didn't bother me one bit. Thank Heavens! 

You may be wondering: "How would going on one's honeymoon with one's relatives be fun?" Let me explain. Each couple had their own room and did their own thing a lot of the time, but we did get together to eat, play poker (yup, I learned how to play Texas Hold 'Em on my honeymoon), and/or sight see.  I really enjoyed getting to know my new relatives.

We were on the Carnival Splendor. That was the name of our ship. It was massive.  If memory serves me right, I think it had 9 levels--my favorite being the lido deck. This was where all the food was... all day long. We'd already payed for it with the price of our tickets which made it a buffet 24/7. Sigh. I miss the lido deck. Also, it had a covering that could come over the top of the ship if we hit foul weather (which was 80% of the time). I didn't get a sun burn or a tan because of almost constant cloud cover.

There were shows in an auditorium like room everyday. There was a karaoke room. There was dancing and gambling. We enjoyed swimming in hot tubs and sliding down slides into the pool. Though, I did not enjoy having salt water go up my nose. The pools were filled with ocean water. It was very green of them, but uncomfortable to my sinuses. Yuck.

On the top deck, they had a miniature golf course. Tim and I played through a few times. There was also a sand bag tossing game of which I was horrible at playing.  Tim of course was almost flawless at it, like he is with most games. :)

At night, they'd play a movie on a big screen in front of the patio of the lido deck. Tim and I watched the latest Terminator movie while sitting in a hot tub and then later while laying on beach chairs. Both situations were awesome.

The walls in our apartment complex were paper thin which means we could hear everything our neighbors were doing and they could hear everything we were doing.  On the other hand, the walls surrounding our room on the ship were soooo thick. We could be as loud as we wanted to be while we watched movies or did other things...if you catch my drift. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. this was our honey moon after all, haha.

Moving on, dinner was to die for. We could order anything we wanted and they would bring it to us in a five course meal fashion. By the end of the week we had grown to really like our waiters. They were a couple of funny, charismatic people. belowt is a video of dinner time on the cruise ship, Our waiters and waitresses did a different dance and song each night. It was very entertaining.

As for see the sights, we had several port days which meant that we could go to shore and explore Mexico. We stopped in Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, and Mazatlan. Each place was jam packed with little kids and old ladies trying to sell you something. Even the taxi drivers were in on it.  We had one tell us he would drive us to the playa (beach), but instead he dropped us off in front of Di Jewelers. Eventually we found an honest taxi driver . He took us to a nice pretty much empty plot of beach. There was a little Mexican family playing in the sand, but other than that it was just us.  We road the waves as they flushed onto the shore. Tim was more adventurous than I and he went pretty far out and caught some big waves.  I was content with being slightly pushed around. After splashing in the water, I ended up getting some shell bracelets and 2 sun dresses from a lady who we suspect was in cahoots with the bar above the beach.  Most everyone, it seemed, wanted to sell us something and they know how to work the ethos, too. It is a lot harder to say no to a kid or grandma than a legit businessman for some reason.  Tim was really good at bartering, though, so we got pretty good deals.... I think, haha. 

Mom Huntsman had bought tickets for her and Carla to go horseback riding in Mazatlan, but for some reason, Tim and I ended up with them. We rode a bus and passed through some really poor looking ghettos to get us to the horses. Surrounding us as we rode our horses were little huts made out of branches and people surviving somehow in boxes and the like. It was an eye-opening experience. This was a completely different Mexico than we saw in each tourist-ville. On the ride, we were accompanied by armed policeman to prevent any harm or robbery from happening to us along the way. We were in the thick of it. Albeit we saw loads of litter and poverty, the land was beautiful, luscious and green. Plus, I got to ride a horse! That, in and of  itself, was a party.

In Cabo San Lucas, I had my first experience snorkeling.  It was traumatic, let me tell you!  I'm not a strong swimmer, first of all. To go along with that, I couldn't seem to master breathing through that tube.  I stupidly thought that clasping my teeth around the mouth piece would keep water out. No, no, no, no, no. Clasping my mouth around the mouthpiece would have made more sense. I apparently was a one woman show to everyone on the beach as they laughed at my shrieking and flailing about. Oh, and trying to walking in plastic flippers.... that is difficult.  I'm sure that aided in the hilarity of my performance, haha.  I can laugh, now, as I look back on this memory, but it was not funny at the time. Eventually, I got the hang of breathing and Tim pulled me along in the water so that I could see some crazy colorful fish. I saw a few and that was enough for me. Maybe one day I'll try it again. Hopefully, I don't epically fail like I did that day.

The moral of this story is that cruises are fantastic and I want to go an more of them (them being plural on purpose). MORE, please. :D