We Be Cruisin'

Rewind to January!  (It's a good thing my new years resolution wasn't about keeping up on my blog!)  Once upon a time in 2012 John and I went on a cruise and had an amazing time.  We loved all the food, relaxing, and spending time together, but John's biggest request for the next time we went on a cruise is that we go with other people to make it a little more entertaining :)  So fast-forward to 2014 when Melanie and Greg just so happened to have credit through Carnival that they needed to use or lose within the next couple months.  So all the stars aligned for a weekend in January and we packed our bags and flew out to Cali to go on a quick, cheap, cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada Mexico!  Commence picture dump!

Boarding Day!

I didn't take any other pictures on this day, but we pretty much just got settled in, played Mini-golf, ate dinner, played some phase 10 and other games, and started binge eating Ice Cream Cones :)  Greg was struggling with some motion sickness so I think we went to bed a little bit early that night.

DAY 2
John and I slept in a little bit and then got ready to go to the island.  The only excursion John and I did was Parasailing :)  It was something we have both always wanted to do, so we figured why not?  We were the first couple to go from the group, so we weren't able to get pictures of ourselves, but we can pretend these random people are us, haha.  Everything was super peaceful once you were up in the air.  It was so quiet and awesome to look across the ocean and sky.  More serene than I thought it would be!

View of Catalina Island

Chillin' on the speed boat while our other group members went parasailing.

The weather was beautiful on Catalina.  After the excursion we explored the island a little bit, bought some playing cards for us and Mt. Dew for Greg, and played a couple card games whilst people watching.  (Mel and Greg went power snorkeling so when we caught back up we were able to talk about our different experiences!)

We had our fancy dinner that night with Lobster and other fun foods! I'm pretty addicted to their Chocolate Lava Cake with ice cream.

Mel and Greg!

Serious/Sad faces?

I asked Mel to take our picture...

Us:  "What in the world are you focusing on?!?"
(She was just trying to be funny)

The "Real" Picture haha.

After dinner we went and changed and got settled in for a good ol' game night next to the ice cream machine!!!  Adult Mormons on a cruise alert?  We taught Mel and Greg how to play Settlers of Catan so they could be as addicted as we are ;)

DAY 3
Tragedy struck early when John woke up with a killer stomach ache and vomiting.  Turns out he ate something bad on Day 2 so he had Food Poisoning--which is pretty sad on a cruise because half the reason you're there is for the non stop food :( :(  The rocking of the ship didn't help out either, so he took some nausea meds and then hung out in the room for a while.  The other bad part was it was our "day at sea" so he couldn't even get off the ship to catch a break from rocking back and forth.  I felt so bad, but it was kind of nice that while he recuperated I was able to hang out with Mel and Greg.  We went to a couple Trivia games and totally rocked the Harry Potter Trivia.  Greg won a small trophy for getting all the questions correct and doing the best Hagrid Impression!  John was feeling a little better by dinner but still didn't eat much.  After Dinner we went to this show called "Rock of Ages."  It was pretty much a Live version of "Regionals for Glee," but at least they picked good songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, Total Eclipse of the Heart, a pretty cool mash-up of I Love Rock and Roll and We Will Rock You.  My favorite part was actually their pre-show which was just a guitarist showing his mad skills up on stage.  He played Sweet Child of Mine and we did our best Guitar Hero impressions.  That song is our fav.

DAY 4
Well Day 4 was the day in Ensenada.  John and I didn't have an excursion planned so we slept in again, ate breakfast at the cruise "restaurant" and then went and explored the city a little.  I bought a little toy turtle as a souvenir for Deja and we took the obligatory picture in front of the giant flag and called it good!  Mel and Greg were off Kayaking to the blow hole and eating authentic Mexican Taco's so their adventures were a lot cooler than ours haha.
When we got back on the ship John and I sat by the ice cream machine and played some games in hopes that we would see Mel and Greg when they came back (because obviously that's the first thing you do when you get back on the ship), but we were amazed at how many times the workers had to fill up the ice cream cone trays.  It was insane!!!  I wish I would have kept count because we were only there for about an hour, but there were people getting ice cream non-stop!  There was one little kid, probably 7 or 8 years old who came back every 15 minutes for one and all I could think was "Where are the parents of this child?"  It was crazy.

That night was our last night of gaming, so we stayed up pretty late and even went hot tubbing on the ship.  John betrayed me in the game of Alliance so that was disappointing, but it's all good now.  We also had this magician come entertain us for a while and he did a cool trick where he had Mel and I close our eyes and he flicked me on the nose with a card and Mel felt it on her nose at the same time without him touching her.  It was crazy and had us talking about how he did it for a while.  We checked out the comedians for a little while, but since it was the last night I think they had used up their best material already.

DAY 5
The last day we pretty much just got up, had breakfast, packed, and headed back out to the airport!  The only cool thing that happened that day was we're pretty sure Josh Hutcherson was flying first class on our plane to Salt Lake City.  I regret not taking a sneaky picture of him, but lets be honest, who else has that jaw line?  AND it was the weekend before the Sundance Film Festival, so it kind of makes sense :)

Anyway it was an awesome trip, our biggest complaint was definitely that John got sick and the rocking of the boat was much more prevalent on this cruise (probably because we were on a smaller ship).  It was so fun going with friends, not having to worry about what to make for dinner, not having to clean, and taking a break from kids and diapers.  For the record, I did miss Deja like crazy!  Every time I saw little kids I just thought "Oh we totally could have brought her!"  next time ;)  Well now that I've finished writing, I'm ready to go on another cruise haha, but seriously who's in?!?