Last week we took a cruise to Catalina and Mexico. We left on Monday and returned on Friday. Because we love our kids.... or because it is hard to find a sitter for more than a few hours, we took our kids with us.
If you read my post about my car ride to Julian, then you know that I get motion sickness. To prevent any mishaps, I applied the motion sickness patch a few hours before our departure and made sure to replace the patch at day 3 when they said the patch stopped working. The patch worked wonders for the trip... it was the withdrawals my body went through after I was home and removed the patch. I can only say because of the reaction with the patch, that I am double thinking another cruise.
Anyway... back to the trip.
Monday we drove up to Long Beach, boarded the boat and the kids explored the 200 some square feet of our living quarters for the next 5 days. There was a pull down bunk bed that they deemed as theirs, along with the window above our bed, which was all entertaining for the kids. For some reason my kids love to look out windows when we are in hotels... and boats are no exception.
Monday was a day of formalities... from checking into the boat, to attending a required safety drill on the boat, to verifying the kids registration and attending an introduction meeting for Carnival Camp. By the time dinner time rolled around the only thing other than sleep that sounded good was room service.
Tuesday the boat had arrived at Catalina. Because of the size of the boat, it was not allowed to dock, so we had to take the tender boat to the island. The weather was soo soo. It would drizzle some and then clear up a little off and on all day. We walked around the island, stopped off at a couple playgrounds for the kids to play. We had lunch at a cute little restaurant on the water. We even took a tour on a glass bottom boat. The kids had so much fun looking down into the large openings of the boat at all the fish in the sea. Later that night after boarding the boat again, we dropped the kids off at Camp Carnival and enjoyed a nice formal dinner.
Wednesday we were docked at Ensenada. I had made up my mind before we even booked this cruise, that I was not going to be getting off the boat. With all the bad publicity in the last few years, I did not feel safe getting up with or without the kids. I have done my fair share of mexico exploration with at least a 1/2 dozen trips to Rosarito, Ensenada, TJ and San Felipe. But that was back in the day when safety was not an issue. Soo... we stayed on board, the kids enjoyed some kids camp again, Dave and I lounged and enjoyed some alone time without the kids.
As a side note, kids camp was so much fun for the kids, that they begged to go back. They offered so much fun activities like build a bear, t shirts, pirate day with a treasure hunt, silly bands. It was so much fun for them that they wanted to go every day.
Thursday we were out to sea. The day was similar to Wednesday, except the boat was rocking. The sea was a little choppy. In fact an elderly lady almost lost her balance at breakfast and braced herself from landing on the kids. That would have been exciting. lol
Friday we arrived home. We made our way off the boat. Luckily for us, Dave (and us since we are family), were able to use the non-U.S. citizen line which was 1/4 the length of the normal line for departing the boat. I guess there is 1x I am thankful he is still a british citizen. lol.
We enjoyed the rest of the weekend just relaxing, unpacking and preparing for our busy work week ahead.
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