2016 Holiday Trip: Cruise Excursions

We visited three ports in Mexico during our cruise: Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. It was fun to go back to Mazatlan around the time of our anniversary (since we went there for our honeymoon).

We spent the afternoon at the beach in Cabo San Lucas, at the Playa El Medano.

Cabo San Lucas doesn't have a large port for cruise ships, so we had to take little passenger boats from the ferry to the dock.

Lucy specifically asked to have her picture taken with this mermaid when we arrived at the dock for Cabo San Lucas. She kept saying, "She is beautiful!"

Our second stop was in Mazatlan. We signed up for an excursion tour to visit Las Labradas in Sinaloa, some ancient petroglyphs located a over an hour away from the Mazatlan port. Apparently this tour isn't popular with cruise-goers, however, because we were the only ones who signed up! In truth, though, the petroglyphs and the site weren't as interesting as I had hoped. Our guide was unequipped to explain the history of the area to an English-speaking audience, and the guide book was set up in a way so that it was hard to follow the map and hunt for the petroglyphs on the beach.

After the Labradas site, our driver took us back to Mazatlan for lunch at the El Capitano Restaurant along the beach. Our driver was very kind and said that he had the whole day reserved with us, so he waited at the restaurant while we visited the beach.

Sam is lucky that Mexican food includes quesadillas! He also liked trying Mexican orange soda.

This was probably my favorite beach day. The sand was quite fine and the water wasn't too cold. We stayed at the beach for a few hours.

Our last excursion day was in Puerto Vallarta. We got off of the boat and the kids were greeted by a parrot!

Despite the fun parrot, this day got off to a rough start. We had disembarked from the boat and were en route to the center of town in a taxi van, when J realized that he had left his wallet inside our stateroom. I purposely hadn't brought money with me, because J assured me that he had his wallet (which was incorrect, as we discovered!). Some other people in the van were kind enough to loan us some money to pay the driver, but then we had no money to buy anything in the city. We wandered around, penniless, for a while, before J left us at a beach and went to go back to the ship.

We really loved walking in the shady area of the Isla Cuale, where a small craft market is located. In fact, we came here twice in the same day - once without a wallet, and the second time with a wallet! 

The N. S. de Guadalupe church has a neat crown that tops the bell tower, but that was pretty much the only interesting decorative feature of the church. I did love the little cloth dollies that vendors were selling outside this church, though, and once J got some money I made everyone wander around the city until I found a similar dolly for Lucy.

The plaza outside the church Parroquia de Nuestra Señora del Refugio

After wandering around without money for an hour or so, J went back to the cruise ship and left us at a beach.

The beach excursion wt started off well, but ended up being one of the most stressful parts of the trip for me. This was a beach with a lot of large rocks and stones embedded in the sand, and the photo above was taken shortly before the surf kicked up a rock and pelted Sam in the shin. I tried to help clean the wound, but he was really emotional and hurt, and he got even more upset whenever sand got into the gash. It ended up being very hard trying to keep an eye on Lucy (and prevent her from kicking up sand) and keeping Sam calm. Sam cried and moaned and whined for most of the hour that J was gone. Sam finally perked up just as J came back, and even had enough humor to name the beach "Hyperspace Beach" (because the rocks get pulled into the surf really quickly, just like how the stars zoom past in Star Wars during hyperspace flying).

We recovered from all of the drama of the day with a fantastic meal at the Cerveceria Union along the beach. It was so calm and relaxing, the food was great, and we even got to relax a bit because Lucy fell fast asleep during the meal!

The rest of the afternoon was so lovely. We walked along the waterfront, visited shops and markets (including going back to the Isla Cuale), and happened to enter the waterfront right as the sun was going down. After such a hectic beginning, the day ended perfectly and we had a lovely ending to our  cruise ship excursions.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip

A few weeks after we came home, Sam asked, "Mom, when can we go on a cruise again?" I don't know if we'll be going on another cruise for several years, but I'm glad that he had such a great time! We all did, really.

2016 Holiday Trip: The Cruise Ship

We boarded our cruise ship, the Carnival Miracle, on Christmas Eve Day. The kids and I sat outside and read The Polar Express together at the terminal, right next to our boat, while we waited for J to return our rental car. It seemed strange to have such a sunny day and be reading about a visit to the North Pole, but the excitement in the book matched our excitement to embark on a voyage.

When we got into our stateroom, we made sure to hang up our stockings right away

Christmas Eve excitement in our stateroom!

Christmas morning! Santa left toys for the kids in the little bathroom of our stateroom! Santa brought some Pokemon cards and Harry Potter figurines for Sam, and a Magna Doodle for Lucy.

Christmas morning with a beautiful ocean view from our balcony

We had Christmas breakfast in the fancy Bacchus Dining Room

We also had Christmas dinner in the Bacchus Dining Room

 Christmas dinner!

We spent Christmas Day as a family, and we didn't send the kids to the play area that day. I think that we may have gone to see a family-friendly comedy show together, or perhaps that was one of the nights that we went to see the Hasbro Game Show. We tried to do a video chat with Calvin and the Smiths, but the internet connection was so poor that I could barely get enough of a signal to send out an email to them. The Smiths recorded the audio of the call, though, so I was glad to listen to that after we came home.

Probably one of my greatest triumphs on this trip was winning toys from two separate "claw machine" games. After many, many tries, I got Lucy a stuffed Poppy doll (the character from "Trolls"). I was then determined to also get a prize for Sam, and after many tries I succeeded in getting him a Minecraft "Creeper" toy. We swung by the ship's candy store to celebrate and wait for the Dr. Seuss parade.

Our stateroom balcony

Sometimes Lucy couldn't handle all of the excitement on the boat, and she fell asleep at dinner one evening

Some of my favorite moments on the ship were ones that I didn't capture in a photo. I loved running in the gym that is at the front of the ship, and and watching Cabo San Lucas get closer out of the gym windows as I "ran" on the water toward it. I also liked doing Zumba on the deck of the ship and getting to run on the outward track. I liked going to the comedy shows and musical performances, and I liked that J and I spent a date night at the art gallery (where we quietly guffawed at the terrible, ugly art on display). And, of course, I love that I didn't have to cook or do any dishes!

Jeremy loved sitting on our stateroom balcony and looking at the ocean. Sam loved playing games in the arcade, especially the Star Wars game where you can blow up the Death Star. Lucy loved going to the shows and "playing" in the arcade too (although she didn't seem aware that we never actually paid for the games she thought she was playing). Lucy also decided to potty train herself while we were on our trip, which added a few elements of surprise (including when she had an accident on the deck of the boat right after we boarded the ship for the very first time - and we didn't have our luggage!).

Dr. Seuss character breakfast!

Lucy loved the little towel animals that the guest services staff left for us

Lucy got a "Camp Ocean" shirt and bag on our last night on board. They both enjoyed playing in the kids area, and they often went there for an hour or two each day.

2016 Holiday Trip: California and LEGOLAND

Over the holidays, we had a chance to go on a cruise to Mexico. The port for our boat was in Long Beach, so we made plans to spend some time in California both before and after the trip. I thought I'd put all of the California pictures in one post and the cruise pictures in another post.

Our trip got off to a really rocky start. Our flight was delayed by five or six hours because of air traffic at LAX, and then when the plane arrived at LAX there still wasn't a runway available for us. Our plane didn't have enough fuel to keep circling in the air, so we had an emergency landing at the Ontario airport. The airport was closed (!) and airport workers had to come to open up the building and let us off of the plane. There wasn't a car rental company that was open at 3:00 am, and, because the airport was closed, we couldn't find a taxi to take us to a nearby hotel. It was miserable! We finally flagged down a motel van and convinced the driver to take us back to the motel.

As a result, our time with our California cousins got cut short, since we weren't able to meet up with them until the following day (after we got a few hours of sleep and finally found a rental car). We did get to see their home in Moorpark, visit the campus for N's work, and go out to dinner. They also gave Sam and Lucy some Christmas gifts (Lucy was asleep in the car, so she isn't pictured below).

After seeing our cousins in Moorpark, we drove south to see our friends the Manchaks in Irvine. We swung by 3338 Sawtelle Blvd on our was down the 405, and it was fun for me to see the area where I lived as a kid (even though our apartment building has been torn down).

JB and Meka took us to Crystal Cove State Park, which is near their home

Lucy and June were a cute pair of toddler buddies

Mexican food with the Manchaks! We love these guys so much. Sam took this pic for us

After the cruise (which I'll write about in another post), we came back to California for a few more days. We drove down to LEGOLAND and spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day there. Sam and Lucy had a great time. I think it was a good fit for our family because the rides were small, the lines were comparatively short, and Lucy could do a lot of the activities. 

It rained really heavily on our first afternoon at LEGOLAND (and that's saying a lot if we are Seattleites!). The sidewalks weren't equipped with drains to carry so much water, so the puddles in the walkways were a few inches deep. We bought ponchos and opted for as many indoor activities as possible, and then decided to head back to the hotel and watch the New Year's Eve fireworks from there. 

We went into the Adventurer's Club to try and stay dry

The next day, New Year's Day, was perfectly sunny! It was like the rain never happened. I thought it was appropriate that we got to pose with Buddy by this rainbow when we entered the park.

Lucy's favorite ride was Mia's Riding Camp

Before we got on this rollercoaster, I offered to hold Sam's Lego mini figure (that he got by trading with one of the employees). As we were riding the rollercoaster, Sam was so concerned about losing his figurine that he shouted at full voice (while we were being jostled about), "Did you remember to zip up your pocket?!?" We both thought that this ride was a lot of fun.

Sam wanted his photo taken with every single Lego Star Wars figurine...

...and life-size Star Wars figure. Sam had the biggest grin when he saw this large Darth Vader!

Sam and J went to the Lego Mindstorms activity and built a little robot

Lucy loved the swinging ship ride!

We stayed at the LEGOLAND Hotel, which was perfect. Sam chose the "Adventure Theme" room, which had Egyptian-like Lego designs and characters that seemed reminiscent of Indiana Jones. It was great. This is the only "themed hotel" that J and I have ever visited, and we joked about how romantic it was for our anniversary celebration.

Probably my favorite thing about the LEGOLAND Hotel was the elevator, which had a disco ball and played music while the elevator was in motion. It was fun to dance to music with complete strangers for just a few seconds, before the doors open and people go their separate ways.

After spending our second day at LEGOLAND, we drove to San Diego and spent a few hours visiting my friend Josh (from graduate school) and his family. Then, the next day, on the morning of the 2nd (New Year's Day Observed), we went up to LA to meet up with our cousins (including the H cousins too). We moseyed around the top of the Walt Disney Concert Hall (a Frank Ghery building) and looked at the garden and sculpture up there.

From this outing with our cousins, we said goodbye to California and headed back to LAX. Luckily, we didn't deal with any delayed flights (or emergency landings) like on our previous flight, but we were underwhelmed with the Spirit airline (they charge extra money for everything!) and don't want to fly with them again.