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.