It all started with 18 people in 4 cars. 18 suitcases, 3 garment bags (containing 9 suits), 10 sets of snorkeling gear, and more sunglasses and flip flops than we could count. We left Saturday afternoon (Oct. 9th) and drove to Las Vegas. After spending the night in Vegas, we headed out Sunday morning for Los Angeles and to the Marniner of the Seas. We were cutting it pretty close, we were able to check in and board the ship with about 1/2 hour to spare. Good thing we didn't run into any problems or we might not have made it.
The Mariner of the Seas is a beautiful ship. We spent all day at sea on Monday. The kids loved exploring everything on the ship.
Tuesday we were in beautiful Cabo San Lucas. We had to take a tender to the shore. Once on shore we negotiated for a ride to Chileno Bay to snorkel. This is quite a feat when you are traveling with such a large group. We paid 2 vans to drive us. One of the drivers asked us where we were from, when we told him 'Utah', he asked us if we were Mormons, then he showed us his temple recommend and said how excited everyone was to know that a temple was going to be built in Tijuanna. The beach was beautiful, about 90 degrees that day, everyone loved snorkeling.
In the afternoon we hit some of the shops near the port. Everyone did a little shopping. We bought lots of cold drinks!
Good bye Cabo! Hope to see you again soon!
On to Mazatlan... The dock in Mazatlan is an interesting place. On one side of the boat you have a beautiful view of the water and coastline and the other side...as Zac put it is like a bad view from a very bad, cheap motel room.
Outside the port we found a van to carry all of us to the Golden Zone. It was a tight squeeze. Apparently in Mexico you don't have to worry about seat belts or vehicle capacity. Once we got downtown we found someone to show us to the beach where we could para sail and jet ski. It was another hot day! The beach area was nice and we must have been approached by every vender on the beach. (And there were lots of them!) Hats, shirts, sunglasses, jewelry, hair braiding, temporary tattoos, horses...We really helped out the economy on the beach that day. 11 of the 18 of us tried para sailing. Zac and Josh rented jet skis. It was amazing.
Of course we had to do some more shopping on the way back to the boat. We also experienced some more of the local transportation. They are very creative. I wonder if they laugh at all the tourists.
Thursday was our final port, Puerto Vallarta. We were able to do some shopping, of course, at the dock. It was super hot again so it was a good thing we were close to the ship. After a browsing through all the little shops at port, we took our loot back to the boat, ate some lunch and changed so that we could go to the beach. We traveled by van to Mismaloya Beach. We wanted to do some snorkeling but it was high tide, (didn't even think about that) there was virtually no beach and the waves were getting pretty big. Some got in the water, and some rode jet skis again. This area is beautiful, you can see the rain forest from the beach. The hotels on the beach are lovely and the mountains and greenery behind is really awesome.
The next few days we were all tired and it was nice just to relax on the ship. The kids took full advantage of the ice cream machine, averaging about 7 per day, per kid. We went to some of the shows and activities, got a little more sun, and some even ice skated.
This was an amazing adventure. We had a wonderful time. It was so nice to be able to spend so much time together as a family. I am so grateful that we had this opportunity and that everyone was able to go! I have the best family ever. It was hard to get off the ship knowing that I would once again be cooking and cleaning - not to mention the loads and loads of laundry that I knew I would have to face. In the end... 18 people returned (yes, we brought everyone home) in 4 cars. We brought back 18 suitcases, 3 garment bags (containing 9 suits), 10 sets of snorkeling gear, more flip flops than we could count, 7 t- shirts, 5 mexican hoodies, 10 bracelets, 5 rings, 6 hats, 1 backpack, and 3 nacho libre masks, and 37 pairs of sunglasses.
