The Cruise

Finally, I have time to post about our cruise! It's been quite the week getting caught up from being gone that I just didn't have much time. It was a very productive week, though.
So, the cruise was fun! It was about what we expected it to be. The ship is ridiculously large: 970' long, 120' wide, 14 stories tall, 2240 passengers and 1100 crew and staff. http://www.ncl.com/nclweb/fleet/deckplan.html?shipCode=STAR

Wow!

Day 1:
There we no delays flying from O'Hare to Long Beach Airport. Once we arrived, the 4 of us grabbed a taxi van and took the 20 min. drive to the Port of L.A. And what a port it was! Just enormous; there must have been hundreds of full-size cargo vessels, many from China. Huge docking cranes everywhere.

Anyway, we got to our Berth, our luggage was taken and we proceeded to go through customs and get our ID for the boat. On board the boat, you don't use cash or credit card, just swipe your ID if you want to buy something. It's a easy way to lose track of what your spending! It's a pretty quick and streamlined process. We entered on the 6th floor of the boat. But before we entered we got our hands sanitized with this alcohol cleanser to kill as many germs and bacteria before getting on board.

Once we were on the boat we immediately went up to the 12th deck for a buffet lunch that was set out for us. Then we all waled around for a bit to checkout the boat and the various nooks and crannies of such a huge vessel. At about 3:30 we had or emergency drill where everyone had to go to their reporting stations, put on their life vest and hear the emergency siren go off. After that, we shipped out.

Initially, we couldn't feel the boat move at all since the water was so calm. But that evening, we went to a show in the front of the boat and started to see the curtains sway and the feeling you get when you're going up and down in an elevator. I thought I was going to get sick. But I didn't! After the show we walked around the deck some more and went to bed fairly early since it was quite a long day.

Day 2:
Our first day at sea. Amber and I slept in. After eating our breakfast we put on our suits and headed to the top deck to get some rays. We meet our friends up there as well. I splashed on the sunscreen so I wouldn't get burned. That afternoon I decided to go for a run in this sweet workout center! I expected it to be difficult to run on the treadmills due to the sway of the ship, but I got used to it pretty quickly. After that we went and got ice-cream. It's all you can eat, all the time! Feel like a burger and chocolate covered bananas at 3am? Not a problem.

For dinner we ate at one of the 16 restaurants on board. This one was called The Versailles. Extremely fancy and right at the back of the boat. Our table was right at the window so the view was breathtaking. After dinner we got our picture taken by a photographer which is put on display the following day and then we caught a comedy/magician by Murray:http://www.bluemoontalent.com/murray.html

Day 3:
Cabo San Lucas, our first port of call. We woke up on Tuesday morning sitting in the bay at the very tip of the Baja Peninsula. The water is too shallow in this area to dock the cruise ship so we used the ships' life boats to deliver us to shore. Very cool experience. We went sea kayaking and snorkeling at Lover's Beach. After that we had some chips and fresh guac at the little restaurant on the beach and walked around the marina and downtown for a bit. It's a pretty cool city, very small and not as touristy as I had expected it to be. We were in Cabo for a total of 7 hours then back on the boat!

Day 4:
Mazatlan, our second port of call. This was a much bigger city. Our ship could dock right at the main terminal. Amber and I decided to take the "Best of Mazatlan" tour while Mark and Bethany did their own thing. We saw some cliff divers, a huge cathedral, an acrobatic show, did some shopping, hung out at a resort at the beach for a few hours. Pretty relaxing except for the people constantly trying to sell you things! Oh well. We were pretty exhausted after such a long day in the sun.

Day 5:
Puerto Vallarta, our third and final port of call. The biggest city of all. Puerto Vallarta is home to about 250,000 people and is a very touristy town. Amber and I were here in 2004 and boy, the city changed a lot. Skyscrapers, Walmart and Sam's Club were immediately staring you in the face as you got off the boat. We did a jungle hiking tour. It was an incredibly intense hike let me tell you. Very steep and slippery and we were told there were Pumas in the hills! After that we had lunch at this little hideaway in the jungle and then walked along the city boardwalk. Then back on the boat!

Day 6:
Our 2nd sea day. Slept in again. Jammed our faces full of incredible food at the breakfast buffet. I particularly like the fresh fruit and the free coffee. Juice, milk, water, coffee, tea, lattes and cappachinos were all free. Soda and alcohol you had to purchase yourself. And believe me, it isn't cheap! The highlight was seeing huge whales jump in the distance as well as dolphins swimming and doing flips right along side the boat. Truly amazing. That evening was saw a comedy show by the famous Second City comedy troupe http://www.secondcity.com/?id=touring/ncl/star/cast We were up pretty late this night doing our usual people watching, food eating and checking out the boat. Luckily the friends that we were with are experienced cruisers so they taught us the ropes!

Day 7:
Final Day at sea. Man, the sea was angry that day, my friend. It was pretty windy, huge waves and cold on the way back to LA. No one was on the main deck. We caught a matinee of "August Rush" and played a lot of games, did a lot of reading and eating, of course. We saw another Second City show as well as the big farewell show done by the crew.

Day 8:
Back to reality. We woke up and the ship was already docked in LA. Our debarkation time was 10am so we didn't have to rush ourselves. After a short trip to the airport, short flight to Phoenix, our connecting flight was delayed by about 2 hours so we didn't get to Chicago until 10pm and then had to take a shuttle back to our hotel where our car was. So, 11pm, then the 2.5 hour drive to Madison: 1:30am and then the time change. 2:30am. We slept until almost 1am on Sunday afternoon!

And then back to the grind :-) Amber won the bet of how many emails she had while away. I was way. Only had 1 voice message at work though, woo hoo!!

Below are some pictures!

Captain Lars! (Or Peter Gabriel??)



Beach and Boardwalk in PV



Resort Beach in PV

The Ship!

Tile Store in PV

Jungle in PV

Cathedral in Mazatlan

Mazatlan Coast

City square in Mazatlan

Amber and I getting our photo taken by Ian!

Lovers Beach in Cabo

The life boats (Tenders) that took us to shore in Cabo.

Los Arcos in Cabo

Main deck and pool area on ship

Us and Mark and Bethany!

Oh, and the weather was between 85-87 everyday! It was easy to get used to that!