This was our 5th cruise including 3 on carnival 1 on the norweigen dawn and one on the royal carribians flagship the empress of the seas haha. We flew in to lax and meet the rest of our 7 person party for this halloween cruise. 4 people took a cab and it woulda been cheaper to take the 16 dollar shuttle for our 3 person cab because it was 55 for the taxi. Embarkation was a breeze, they made me take my mp3 player off for some esoteric reason, more on the unfortunate case of the mp3 player later.
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We spent the first hour getting adjusted to the ship and laughing at a member of our party who had taken the this ship last year but couldnt remember where anything was related to the copiuous amounts of alchohol he imbibed. The aforementioned intoxicated member did remeber enough from te last cruise to tell us we should do the 3 day weekend cruise as opposed to the 4 day weekay crise beacuse the weekend cruise was a way bigger party. We have cruised on this class of ship before on the elation so we were familiar with the layout of the ship and like it, all the lounges are together and close to the casiono so its just a huge party towards the back of the ship and u can do your own drunken pub crawl from place to place. When we returned to our room our bags were there and we proceeed to unpack. A coworker of mine was sharing our stateroom so she had a fold down bed, our stateroom had plenty of room as carnival ussually does and this is why like to cruise carnival with our 3 year old daughter.
THat evening we enjoyed our sdiner however now that we have been on other crusies the food didnt seem as good as good as our first cruise to the mexican riviera on the elation. Norweigen dawns extra priced restaurants are of course better but their regular restaurants fare is not as good. Carnivals deserts are definately the best. After dinner we got ready to party and headed over to the nightclub, the rex. The dj was good but unfortunately had to play music from all time periods so would clear the dance floor with some old lame song everyonce in awhile. The price of beer seems to have increased and so I paid like 20 bucks for 4 beers the first night. This ship this date was definately down to party we had mostly 20-30 year old people on the ship with some groups of single ladies in their mid thirty to forties and a few honeymooning couples, i only counted about 20 teens and less smaller children than that. Our hallway had a party most evenings with people drinking alchohol and fratrinizing. All but one of our party went to bed about midnight that night but we stayed up till 2 am and enjoyed the comedy show.
The next morning we arrived in ensenada and got off the ship about 1230, having read earlier that the trip to the blowhole " la bufadora" was about an hour long and not that exciting we didnt book it through carnival for 58 dollars. On our 3 dollar taxicab ride to town one of the local tourguides talked us in to going to la bufadora for 15 bucks, after being questioned repetedly he assured us it was only a 20 minute ride! however 4 members of our party just wanted to sit @ papas and beers and drink anyway and seeings as how the open container laws seem to be much more lax in mexico we bought 4 buckets of coronas and partied on the way to the blowhole.
Holy shamolies ensenada is the most expensive town we have ever shopped in with most sale items being twice as expensive as you can find in your local swapmeet. other mexican towns and the carribeen offer a much better value. but we didnt take this cruise to shop, the blowhole was kinda interesting. and it was time to get back to the ship for our formal ight. on the wa back we stoped at ensenada proper for some more expensive shopping and some tacos down the streets from papas and beers.
I like the fact that the ports have good security and check all passengers coming back with a metal detector twice and id's. This reminds me of our last cruise in cabo where a mexican soldier trianed his m 16 on me for stepping of the dock totry to get a picture of a crab on a rock!. We dressed up for formal night and had our picture taken. then prepared for another fun night, this time the rest of our party napped after ensenada and were able to go to the club with us the music was good again and we stayed out till about 2 am. We also enjoyed some time in the hottub before lunch, personally id light to soak in a hot tube after midnight but they always close them too early.
The last day at sea was the best, we always enjoy days at sea, i was up early @ 6 in the morning and went for some pilates yoga a 2 mile run and then ab work before 8am, we had breakfast in the formal dining room again and the omlettes were good the eggs benadict was a little dry the 2nd morning. My wife and coworker spent the morning getting mini spa treatments and their teeth whitened, i relaxed in the poolside hottub. So we were exited to do the survivor and amazing race events that afternoon but there were sceduled for the same time? why? So we asked and were told amazing race would be better because the pool was out of commision related to a kids previous accident. We took first place in the amazing race which was a combination scavenger hunt and boat trivia competition. The best thing about wining was the 12 day trip to australia we one for our victory" in that leg of the race" ha no actually it was being able to carry the trophy around for the rest of the nght and anounce ''attention passengers amazing race champions are now entering the pool area". So we then had lunch and prepared to put on our costumes for the halloween bash. A crazy couple were already running around @ 1700 with a sexy cop and fat "scurity guard" so we figured wed change as well. My wife had a sexy gheisha girl costume and i was a kung fu warrior our friend was a bier garten girl, the dance party in the open bar between the casino and lounge and dance club was crazy so we danced there and took pictures for about an hour. The sit down diner was next and t kinda put a downer on the night next time we might skip it and just dance and party all night.
Debarktion was also easy as we had an early flight bpoarding @ 1150 we went to the normandie lounge and got off in about 45 minutes, after an uneventful taxi to the airport and flight home here i am preparing to go the the store to get another mp3 player cause one of the stewards or stewards assistants must have taken it we will try calling carnival and see if it has been turned into lost and found now that they realize they cant change the songs without the software. We will definately do this same cruise next year for halloweeen!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ps watch for a future post as to wether my pilfered mp3 player is returned to me
