Booze Cruise (just kidding)

Day One: And We're Off
This day started at 4:00 am, Jake and I being the only responsible ones, had to wake all the cruisers up so we wouldn't miss our flight. Adam was especially difficult to rouse, he even punched me when i tired to shake him awake. We made it to the airport, and even made it through security. While at the airport Adam's friend Jama wanted to show his support for Cinco de Mayo so he borrowed some mascara and had Liz draw on a mustache.

Airport security - what a pain!

Cinco de mustache

After sleeping through the whole flight we finally made it to L.A. We took a bus to the cruise ship and got there about 4 hours before they wanted to let us on the boat. Luckily there happened to be a nice man who let us check our bags in early and pointed us in the right directions to find some breakfast. He told us that the restaurant was a 5 minute walk, 5 minutes turned out to be a 35 minute walk around Long Beach, but the food was worth it. After we had stuffed ourselves of pancakes and eggs, we found a neat maritime memorial.

Martime Museum Madness!

Now comes to the point in our vacation when I thought I was going to have a heart attack. While the security agent was checking our papers to let us on the boat, she handed back my driver's license and told me that she would need to see a license that hadn't expired. Um. What? I had no idea my license had expired. In fact it expired back in July of 2007. There was about 15 minutes while she went to her superiors to see if they were going to let me on the boat. I was freaking out. Well after the longest 15 minutes of my life we were allowed on the boat. What a relief!

Our first day was spent on the boat, they let us on about noon, and let us into our rooms by 1:00. Adam took us on his annual "Adam's Monarch Tour" which was very informative. After a lovely dinner we took a nice nap. Then in true Jake and Richelle fashion we took our books and read them up on the top deck.

Richelle and Jake at Dinner

Day Two: San Diego! Sea World!
Can you guess what we did today? Yes. We went to Sea World. Adam, Whitney, Jake and myself, had a great day. It was awesome! We even bought season passes for the same price as a day pass. Some day this year we will be taking a trip down to go to Sea World again. Yes it was that fun. We saw the Shamu show, the dolphin show, rode the Journey to Atlantis ride, picked up star fish, got to pet some dolphins, and Jake fell in the manatee tank . . . okay, that wasn't true, but it would have been awesome if he did!

Adam, Whitney and Richelle in front of a dolphin tank

Starfish with a starfish

Shamu's soak-zone - 20 rows up!

Holy Crap! This dolphin wants to eat me!

That night was the formal night, so we all dressed up and headed down to dinner. The food was soooooo good! I can't decide if the food is the best or the worst thing about cruises! It's oh-so-good, but you can't help but throw on like 15 lbs!

Richelle and Jake at the formal dinner

Day Three: Catalina
Hi, it's Jake - Richelle got sick of typing, so I'm taking over. Day three found us anchored just off the coast of the island of Catalina . . . I wasn't sure what to expect, since the island literally burned to the ground one day after Adam and his friends were there during last year's Baja cruise (yes . . . it does seem suspicious!), but you couldn't tell, and the island was quite beautiful.

After catching one of the boats in to shore, we rented bicycles and rode around the island for a bit, before we turned them back in and walked through all the little tourist-trap stores that dot the island. Eventually we walked over to the ocean and caught a couple of crabs from among the rocks - Whitney and I had a lot of fun doing that, but apparently Adam is terrified of quarter-sized crabs.

Richelle + Bike = Cute!

Look! Lloyd's Confectionery

Whitney and a little friend

Our cruise ship

Adam and Whitney at dinner

Adam and Whitney at the Chocolate Buffet Extravaganza (i.e. the best day of Whitney's life)

Day Four: Ensenada
Day four found us in Ensenda, Mexico. It was the first time either Richelle or I had been in Mexico, though to be honest, it felt a lot like Houston for me. Our group ignored the signs that said it was a 2 mile bus ride into town (for $2 of course), and walked the 500-yards into the city, where we rented 4-wheelers. Richelle did a little haggling on the price, and was able to get them for $10 less then everyone else - have I told you all how awesome she is!

Ashley and Richelle . . . and a giant Monkey/Banana thing?

Ensenada was a lot of fun - especially on 4-wheelers. After accidentally getting on the highway, we headed to the sand-dunes on the beach south of town, where we all had a lot of fun before heading back into the heart of the city for a little shopping. Once again Richelle wowed us with her haggling skills, buying a nicely carved wooden eagle for her dad for $20 - he originally wanted $60. The only downside to Ensenada was that we all got sunburned . . . okay, not everyone, but I did.

Jama looking awesome as he checks out the wrestling masks

Viva la Mexico!

That night we kind of freaked out when we realized that we needed to be all packed, with our bags outside our door before midnight . . . unfortunately, it was about 11:15pm when we realized this, but when managed to let everyone know, and it all worked out.

Day Five: A day in LA
After being herded off the boat like animals (it's funny how they aren't very nice to you when they want you off the boat), we took a cab back into LA where we checked into the LAX Marriott before walking about a mile to the nearest In-N-Out Burger. Richelle and I had heard all this hoopla like, "oh, In-N-Out Burger is sooooo awesome! In-N-Out Burger is the best! Blah, blah, blah!" Can you say over-rated! Crown Burger blows that place out of the water! Oh well, it was still yummy - just not amazing.

Richelle at In-N-Out Burger

After walking back, everyone headed down to the pool/hot-tube for a relaxing soak . . . it really was a nice way to end out the day.

Day Six: Back to Utah
We were headed back to Utah, but our flight wasn't till 5pm . . . we wasted away most of the morning watching National Treasure as we packed up. After checking-out, we all piled into a taxi, and headed to the Galleria Mall in South Beach, where we all decided to spend our remaining time in LA trying to find Mother's Day gifts for all our moms . . . it was a lot of walking, but we had plenty of extra weight from the cruise to walk off.

Jama sleeping-in . . . in his clothes from the day before

Eventually we made it to the airport, where we found our flight was delayed . . . yippy. I think we were all pretty exhausted, and glad to be home when we did make it back.

Overall, it was a ton of fun for my first cruise. It was nice and laid-back, and didn't involve me going to work for a week, so I really can't complain. That, and I had Richelle with me - which is always very nice!