Cruisemas Eve in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico - Day 3

Since our boat (the ms Amsterdam) left so late from LA (after 10:00 pm instead of the scheduled 5:00 PM) it made us very late for our first port, Cabo San Lucas. Instead of arriving at 11:00 AM, we arrived at 3:00 PM so we had some time to kill on the boat that morning.

Although the ship seemed mammoth at first, we quickly explored every crevice in search of entertainment for Lucy.

We made ourselves at home in the empty Queen's Lounge which was just a huge assembly hall for performances and comedy routines at night. Not much going on there during the day except huge windows to look out of...

We then made our way to the Explorer's Lounge where we found Natalie working on a puzzle.


I had to take a picture of the puzzle she was working on because if you look close, you can see Lucy's tiny little feet prints in the dust of the box.

I have no idea what we were all doing here - goofing around or on our way to lunch.


This is a sample of how we ate - often, dessert first (or only). The Lido deck was where the giant buffet was which was open almost all day long. I preferred the fancy restaurant because I have no self control and at least you got to order and have some level of portion control (and the food was better) but at the buffet, it was a lot of really good looking, but somewhat mediocre tasting food that I ate way too much of. However, the buffet was so much more convenient and family friendly. Do they have cruises where you can practice some portion control and not eat so much?

We finally made it off the boat but it was just me, Brandon, Lucy, Adrian, Natalie, and Taylor. Damian, Cameron, Ethan, and their parents stayed on the boat. Since we were so late arriving at port, we didn't have much time to explore - only about 3 hours. We decided to do what anyone would do when they are on vacation - hit up Walmart! This ended up being kind of ridiculous because we had to get a taxi and spend all that time getting there and it was horribly busy with the locals and tourists. But Brandon and I did forget our sunglasses and we also wanted some walkie talkies and some watches because there were NO clocks on the ship and we never had any idea what time it was (I'm so used to checking the time on my cell phone). We also stocked up on a few beach toys for the kids and some bubbles and snacks.

We finally made it to the beach but by that time, the sun was already setting and it was pretty chilly. Certainly no weather for swimming but I think that the kids had fun.




The sand was pretty rough but Lucy couldn't get enough of it and the bubbles.





But the bubbles managed to get in her eye and that was no fun trying to clean her up. She had also started a nasty cold which started on the ship (or the plane) and took forever to get over.







We got a recommendation from our taxi driver for a restaurant a quick walk from the beach and ate some yummy tacos. But then before we knew it, it was back on to the ship to leave again.

It wasn't until we got back on the boat and it had left that we found out that Brandon's parents and two of his brothers, Cameron and Damian had left the cruise to check into a Mexican hospital. Brandon's mom, whose cancer relapsed in April of 2010, had been undergoing cancer treatment through much of the year and was not taking fluids or eating since arriving on the cruise. When the ship's doctor was called to give her an IV to keep her fluids up, they also tested her blood and saw that her white blood cell count was extremely low, leaving her with practically no immune function which made the cruise with all of its germs, very dangerous for her. So we were stuck on the cruise for the next couple of days - it became a waiting game to figure out where we had to fly to meet them.

Cruisemas - Day 1 & 2

It seems that Christmas was forever ago but I thought I would post some pictures from our Christmas cruise. My camera is always a little wonky but I took more pictures than I realized.

We start off on the plane on our way from Salt Lake City to LA on Wednesday, December 22nd.
I have very few pictures of Lucy with Brandon so I am glad I could get a few on this trip.

And Lucy adores her Uncle Damian so we of course, had to get one of them. Ethan was with us as well if you can seen him in the bottom left corner of the above photo. Fortunately, our flight was direct but unfortunately, we had to spend quite a chunk of change to change flights since I had no idea how much time we needed to give ourselves to get to the cruise and we were getting worried that we might be late. As it ended up, we had plenty of time and the cruise left very late so we would have been fine but I guess the peace of mind was worth it. We also got to have a family breakfast at the hotel where the other half of the family stayed the night after coming in from Buffalo.

A cruise is the perfect vacation for our family since we can all go off and do our own thing. So here Brandon, Lucy and I are on Day 2, eating lunch in the fancier restaurant on the ship since we couldn't find anyone. Next cruise, we will remember to take walkie talkies since our cell phones don't work.
Brandon was obviously very excited to eat...

Lucy was loving the bread. She was quite well behaved for the meal and got lots of smiles and "Awws" from other passengers and the crew since the majority of the passengers were older and there weren't many toddlers around (or kids of any age for that matter).

Lucy spent a lot of time with her cousin, Taylor on the trip since they were the only grandkids on the trip and Lucy absolutely adores her cousin. Kid-friendly distractions were scarce on the boat. The weather was too chilly the first couple of days to go swimming and Lucy wasn't old enough to go the daycare (although Taylor was - lucky Adrian & Natalie). They amused themselves a bit with the nativity set:

Then went on to a kids' cooking class...
...which consisted of a lot of waiting in a cold, cold room...

...and finally, a little sugar cookie making (and don't worry, Mom - we all washed our hands before).

I have to admit, I was really disappointed in all the kids activities (or lack of). They were very poorly planned and executed. I guess we should have expected that from Holland America since they cater more to older people. I think out of the 12,000 passengers, only about 20 were children. And we didn't stay on the for the whole cruise so we didn't get to experience all of them. I guess that they assumed that the excursions at port would make up for the boring-ness of the cruise days for a parent with their kid. But since I had never been on a cruise before, I had no idea what to expect.

But you soon get into the swing of cruise life. Here we are, eating fancy dinner sans Brandon's parents who ate in their room since his mom wasn't feeling well:Damian, as always, provided much of the comic relief.

Despite the small size of our rooms, much entertainment was had in there:
Lucy got a kick out of the fake window we had. At the head of the bed, there were curtains all across the wall but if you looked behind them, it was just a wall. They might as well have painted a picture of the sea there.

Lucy loved the phone too since she didn't have our cell phones to play with. Despite the tight sleeping quarters, Lucy slept pretty well. She made it into our bed a couple of nights but it wasn't so bad because the bed was a lot bigger than our bed at home. We were pretty lax with her bedtime and schedule overall, so she was probably exhausted from all the days activities and the excitement of being in a new place. We ended up having a lot of quiet, dark time with her since we couldn't really leave her alone so one of us had to stay with her while she napped or went to bed early (although she did have a couple really late nights - staying up and singing karaoke).

All in all, it was pretty amazing to be on a mini-city floating on the water.

Angel Strikes Again!

The Perpetrator:

The Victim:
Motives:
Lucy was whipping her lovey in Angel's face while she was lounging on the couch. To Angel's credit, she got up and moved but Lucy followed continued her whipping and before I could intervene, Angel had done the damage. It looks worse than it is - I don't think it will scar or anything. And Lucy seems okay (well after a delayed reaction then some serious crying, she was okay).

So I did this post a year ago - how history tends to repeat itself. Hope Lucy will remember her lesson this time.

Oh yeah, and the black stuff on her face is mascara. We are still trying to teach her that lesson of not getting into Auntie's make-up bag.