April 10th my husband and I went away on a Cruise. It departed out of San Francisco, and docked in: Monetary, LA, Catalina Island, Ensenada, San Diego, and then back to San Fran. Sunday to Sunday cruise.
It was a great time… I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I had planned to, but here are some that I’ll share.
Below is a picture of our cruise ship (actually taken from Monetary Bay) – it didn’t dock per-say - it stayed where it is in the picture and we took little boats to shore.
Below is a picture of the sunset as we left San Francisco. And the Golden Gate Bridge.
Basically we sailed at night and woke up each day docked in a different place. We had to be back on the boat at 5:00 each day to set sail again. From there it goes 3 miles off shore to international waters so they can open their casino and duty free shops.
The damn casino didn’t have Hold’em – that pissed me off… but I did enter a Black Jack tournament and do much better than I thought I would. I was the chip leader by far for three rounds, then I got blown out of the water…. Oh well – I was pleased with how I did.
We got off the boat everywhere (you have the option) – went shopping and just walking around everywhere but LA, in LA we went to Universal Studios. That was great because it was a Wednesday or Thursday and it was completely (and I mean COMPLETELY) empty. We did the whole theme park in less than 3 hours!
Mexico wasn’t as cheap as I remembered it being. Most of the stores would barter their prices down a little bit but it seemed like all the little street vendors had the whole price fixing thing going on. I didn’t get a whole lot there – I was told and it proved to be true that the best place to buy alcohol and such is the town’s grocery store and not the liquor stores on the streets. I bought 2 big bottles of tequila, 1 big Kahlua, and 4 liter sized bottles of vanilla (cooking vanilla extract stuff – really expensive in the US) for $31.00 total. Woo!
We got back last Sunday tired as can be. Called each of our families to share our cruise experiences and such and Joe got some bad news, his grandmother died. So, bags still unpacked – we found some last minute flights home to Minneapolis. We lucked out because we both had enough frequent flyer miles to get them for free (otherwise, even with their bereavement fares it’s still like $700 each).
We flew home Tuesday at 6:45 AM and got back to Sacramento around noon today. We are exhausted!
So, that is what I’ve been up to if you’ve noticed my absence.