Our Cruise Vacation

We were very fortunate to have the opportunity of going on a cruise with some of our friends! It was a wonderful get away from all of our school work and jobs, where we could just relax and have a good time!

We drove to Los Angeles:

Los Angeles was Beautiful....at least when we finally found a decent place to stay the night! Brindy's Uncle Kevin let us borrow his GPS System which proved to be extremely helpful. We located a hotel on the system that we thought sounded affordable..."Budget Inn" :)...and it then gave us directions to it. So we proceeded through the streets of Los Angeles, which were seeming to gradually get scarier and scarier as we drove. We finally turned onto a street and upon doing so, we literally LOCKED the doors to our car and was prepared to duck down if any one happened to jump out and open fire on us! It was a creepy part of town and low and behold a few blocks down that street and there was "Budget Inn"! We about died when we saw this place! It was surrounded by barred fences that were topped with barbed wires and the streets behind it looked like allies out of some scary movie. Unanimously we decided we'd try a different hotel, although the sign did say that they had COLORED television! After driving aroudn for a while we finally found a Motel 6 and it actually had gaurds out front that guarded the hotel and the parking lot all night! So that seemed to be the best decision and it was affordable so we stayed the night there...and lookie here! We're still alive to tell that tale.

The next day we tried really hard to go to Price is Right, but was unable to. So we just took our time getting ready and drove around Los Angeles. We stopped a few parks where we took these pictures and then went to the port to board our ship the Monarch of the Seas:

It was a really nice boat! It had a basketball court, a rock climbing wall, ping pong tables, an arcade, a salon and spa, a big swimming pool and hot tubs, three dining rooms, and a large buffet, and lots of little shops (like an airport!). There was lots of food and entertainment every night. Our room was really small! it had a tiny desk/ vanity and a queen sized bed and that filled the room. It was nice and cozy though. We liked it.

Our first stop was San Diego. We tried to see if we could go to the temple there but it would have cost a lot of money to get a taxi to take us there. Chet and Bobi Sue Stevens, our friends that we went with wanted to go to the zoo, but we decided we didn't want to spend a whole lot of money to go to the zoo, because we'd have to pay the taxi and then our tickets too, so we got on board a trolley and went to Old Town San Diego!

We got to go see the Mormon Battalion
Memorial and visited the Visitor's Center.

Our next stop was Catalina Island! It was a very neat place. There is a beautiful little Mediterranean town on the Island called Avalon. We had fun walking around after we went snorkeling at Lover's Cove. While snorkeling we saw lots and lots of fish and pretty seaweed that Brindy was terrified of! Good thing they provided wet suits for us because the water was freezing!

Then we headed for Ensenada Mexico. This little town was cute. We loved shopping down the little markets. It was really fun because Chris could bargain with them and speak with them in Spanish and understand them. It was fun to see him use another language. We went on a tour to see a big blowhole! It was amazing...almost like Old Faithful. The water would flow into a crevice of rocks and then it would shoot out of a hole in the rock! It was intriguing to watch. It was called La Boufadora. We also got to see a Mexican Folk dance which was really fun.


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Our waiter on the boat was from Romania,
and the assistant waiter was from the Phillipines. It was so fun to go sit at a formal setting and be waited hand and foot. We didn't
have to make our bed or wash our dishes. It was weird, but wonderful. Our stateroom attendant made a monkey out of towels for us.

We had a Chocolate Buffet. It was insane the things
they could carve out of not only chocoloate, but watermelon, vegetables, and ice! This bouquet is made out of potatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, radishes and carrots! It was fascinating to see all of the ice sculptures, the dragon is the one shown in the slide show above.