I’m writing about the cruise first, because I don’t have access to my foursquare history right now, which is how I was planning to write about Disneyland – I’ll just go through it and it will help me recall what we did! But I don’t have a foursquare history for the cruise (much too hard to check in on my Kindle) so I’ll just write about that now while it’s somewhat fresh in my mind.

This will probably be long. :)


Embarkation in San Diego was a mess. “Clusterfuck” is probably a better word for it. Traffic around the port was a mess; it’s right in the middle of the city, unlike the other ports I’ve been to – nowhere to park and unload your stuff, and the terminal is right on the sidewalk. :A: stayed in the rental car while I went to drop off the luggage, but everybody had wrong information and nobody told me where to go. I’ll skip over the details and just say that the organization was so very bad, I had a panic attack. I finally got back to the car and we drove off to return it. When we got back, there was more mess, and lots of lines to wait in. They moved quickly, but they weren’t boarding yet – rather unusual for 1pm, usually they’ve started well before then. We got checked in and waited until our boarding group was called quite a bit later. About halfway through the cruise, I found out why everything was so messed up. It turned out that when the ship arrived in San Diego, it was boarded by the FBI who needed to arrest an A/V technician on child pornography charges. Once that was done, then Customs could proceed, luggage could be unloaded, people could disembark, etc. The trickle-down from that initial delay affected the whole port, and that’s why it was so horrible.

Let me talk briefly about sea days: they are boring to talk about. They are relaxing, and you get a lot of reading done, but there is not much to say. I read some books from the library (after verifying they weren’t available for Kindle), I did a little splashing around in the pool (got a sunburn), I checked out the onboard duty free shops…but nothing happens on a sea day that’s worth hearing about. We had a lot of them on this trip, but I’m not going to bother recounting every little thing.

I did have Internet access on the trip, though – my Kindle has free global wireless through AT&T, so I was able to access mobile Gmail and mobile Twitter and stay in touch. Unfortunately the Kindle only gets 2kbps, has a terrible keyboard, a weenie screen…hey, it’s a book reader, not a net device. But it worked, and it was better than spending 65 cents/minute for the shipboard Internet service (which is only about 56k due to the satellite connection).

Our first stop was Cabo San Lucas. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on shore excursions, but :A: felt the need to go on one, so we did a whale watching trip. I got my money’s worth by drinking five or six rum punches…usually those tours give you one drink free, but this one was unlimited, so I kept drinking ‘em! They also had chips with really good salsa. Unfortunately we didn’t really see any whales – I got a glimpse of a tail, and we saw whale back a couple of times, but nothing really amazing and they were very hard to photograph. It was a nice coastal cruise though, and we saw the famous natural arch and a sea lion colony, so that was cool. After the cruise we walked around the local area, pushing away countless vendors offering various crap – a whole lot had fake sterling silver jewelry, we saw that throughout the trip. There was also a couple of stalls offering your picture with a lion cub – one cub for $25 and two for $40. They claimed to be a charity, and I was sorely tempted because they were so cute…but :A: pointed out that they were exploiting the cubs. I also realized that the cubs looked way too droopy, so I think they were drugged to make them less frisky – very sad. We walked around a shopping center, bought some apple soda (I’ve never seen it in the U.S., but they have it in Mexico), ate lunch at a sidewalk cafe that actually had vegetarian food, and eventually made our way back to the ship.

Our next stop was Acapulco. As soon as we stepped outside the cruise terminal, we were swarmed by men offering tours, taxi rides, etc. We said no and went out walking for ourselves. (I saw a couple of cats in a park, but they wouldn’t come over!) We would have just followed the signs to the flea market, but a local took it upon himself to guide us there. We tried to say no-thank-you, and he insisted. We tried to duck down a side street, but he came back and found us. We gave him a dollar and told him we’d find our own way, and he still tried to walk with us. He even tried to follow us around in the market itself, but right as I was about to spin around and say loudly “please leave us alone,” he went off another way. The flea market was utterly unimpressive, so we walked around the streets a little bit, but we were mostly unimpressed. I did enjoy ducking into a supermarket (really it was more like one of those Wal-Marts that have food) to see what the local tastes were. I was amused by all the flavors of Tang and Nissin Cup Noodles. Eventually we made it back to the cruise terminal, and we looked around the shops there. :A: was still looking around when I had finished, so I sat at a bar and had two tequila shots plus a Cuba Libre for $7. At one point, while sitting there, I was accosted by Jack Sparrow and his friend took my picture. It was a digital camera, not a Polaroid, but I knew they were going to try to sell it to me somehow. Sure enough, as I walked around the terminal I spotted Jack’s buddy quickly printing out a bunch of pictures – I didn’t let them see me, but I’m sure they manage to sell a couple of photos every day, or they wouldn’t keep doing it.

The next stop was Huatulco, a fairly tiny place whose main attraction is that it’s a port city to access the Oaxacan region. We looked at the port shops and then took a taxi into town for sightseeing and shopping. When we stopped into a convenience store to get a drink, I was surprised to see that Fresca – which is specifically labeled as a grapefruit soda, unlike its mysterious “citrus” label back home – actually had calories! The US version is a diet soda, and you can’t even get Fresca with calories in the US, but that’s how it was in Mexico. I ended up with a diet flavored water to drink, and flavored peanuts too. “Japanese” flavor…it’s apparently very popular. We took a taxi back, and I really wanted to buy a ring with synthetic pink opal, but like most pink opal, it turns to orange in certain light, and I didn’t want that. Hopefully I won’t regret leaving it behind too much. When we were in Puerto Rico in 2004, :A: saw a fabulous snake ring she wanted, but she didn’t buy it and ultimately regretted that. We went back in 2008, and found the same shop, but of course they didn’t have that ring anymore!

This is where I stopped while on the cruise – I needed a break. I’m home now, and I’ll write up the rest later, and I’ll post pictures too.