Family Cruise 2008

What an awesome cruise!

I could go on and on about every detail of our vacation but instead I will share some pictures and give you highlights of what I enjoyed most.

We all got into Los Angeles on Friday night so Saturday was a day to rest and get ready for a full week of cruising. Mike, Myra and I went to go see Fireproof. It was a wonderful movie and encourage all to go and watch it.

Before sailing away we have to do a drill to make sure everyone knows what to do in case of an emergency. Here we are ready for the drill.
We book our cruise a year in advance so we can get the cheapest cabins on the boat. Each boat normally has about 5 cabins that they price really low and then they encourage you to upgrade. We find that these cabins are nice enough that we don't need to spend extra money to upgrade. There is always enough space and not having a window is actually a GREAT thing at nap time :-)

This was my favorite towel animal... a little elephant with my sunglasses
We had some professional pictures taken. Carnival takes tons of pictures to try and sell to you... when you first get on the boat, at each port when you are getting off the boat and every evening on the boat they have different backgrounds. I will say they do a great job with taking pictures. We ended up buying more than what we planned because there were so many good ones.
This is my favorite picture! Mike is all dressed up and yet he looks like he is just sitting back relaxing.
This one is probably the best picture of the two of us. Doesn't Mike look so handsome in his tux.Krisanas(from Thailand) and Edy(from Peru) served us each night at the Normandie Restaurant. They did a wonderful job.
The food at dinner was the best we ever had on any of the cruises.
This cruise I decided not to order any entree. I enjoy the starters they offer and I wanted to make sure I saved room for dessert. So I got 2 starters and dessert every night. One of the great things about my family is that we all share. So I ended up trying a bite from everyone's entree.
The gorgeous view every day and night from the boat.

Mom and DadRosalyn, Rachel and Philip Rosalyn's Mom ~ Marlyn Leather has been able to join us on the last few cruises.

Paul wasn't able to come on the cruise this year. His work is being bought out and some changes were taking place the same week we had the cruise planned. We missed you Paul! The cruise was already paid for, so Kathy invited her friend Myra to join her. Myra was alot of fun. She kept us laughing the whole time.

MichaelPuerto Vallarta ~ we took a taxi to downtown shopping. There was this really nice square with tons of things to buy. We all bought some things and then because it was so hot most of us headed back to the boat. Mike decided to do some site seeing. He walked to a Walmart, Sam's and a mall with a movie theater.The cruise ship had a local Mexican Folklore show and we sat right in front. Much to our surprise they had a dancers come out into the audience and pick some people to go up and dance with them. Mike was the lucky winner in our group. I was so happy it wasn't me. We all had a good laugh (unfortunately it was at Mike's expense) Mazatlan ~ If you are looking for a good place to shop save your money for Mazatlan and remember to bargain. Don't settle for paying the first or second price quoted to you. Be willing to walk away and see the prices fall! Mike rented an ATV for 2 hours and just road around trying to find some dirt roads but never found any. Since he didn't come back very dirty he decided he would try again at the next port.

Cabo San Lucas ~ This area was full of resorts and the stores weren't very willing to negotiate with their prices.

Kathy paid for us to do a glass bottom boat ride. It was fun and we got to see fish, crabs, pelicans and sea lions. The water was a beautiful blue but being so close to the rocks you could feel every move the boat made.

A big thanks to Mike and Kathy for everything they bought for me while on this trip ~ watch, earrings, necklace, coffees, chocolate covered strawberries, pictures.

You both spoil me too much :-)