Re: Give Me Liberty or Give Me the Big Cats 9/15/07 (or Give Me Both!)
Sheree, nice talking to you earlier, Anne hasn't stopped talking about the cruise since.
Cris/Dee...cruise for peanuts, were do we sign up
Alright, her is todays part of the mini-review, sorry no photos yet...hopefully tomorrow.
Alright, back to it…
The ship was a little getting out of port, we experienced the world’s longest muster drill on this sailing. We were called to one of the disco’s and thought we had it made not having to go outside. Why I was thinking that I had no idea, temps were in the 60’s, not exactly unbearable. It didn’t matter though, after sitting in the disco for 40 minutes, we then proceeded to relocate to the muster station on deck and wait another half hour to listen to the same pitch we got in the disco…way to long! During the sail away, Arrielle and I braved through the winds and cold temps at the front of the ship while Anne and our niece bailed after just a few minutes…wimps!
Catalina….
Unfortunately, it took a whopping 1 ½ hours to get from Long Beach to Catalina, kind of felt cheated out of sea time if you know what I mean. At dinner we were all discussing how we had dropped anchor right off the coast and would have to stare at the island until the next day…the lack of ocean movement really bummed Anne out. It definitely impacted her overall cruise experience. The next morning we went to the theatre and waited for our number to be called to tender to the island…another first for us. What ever happened to first come first serve. Upon arriving on the island we met a very nice family of six (four daughters 10-16, poor dad) from Idaho. Arrielle went on to hang out for much of the cruise with the 10 year old daughter Paisley. We pretty much spent the day roaming around exploring, taking pictures and yes…shopping! Store owners must of done quite well this particular day, it was to cold and windy to do anything but shop. Many cruisers, Anne included were scrambling to find a heavy hoodie to keep them warm. After shopping we went back to the ship and had a late lunch and then hung out by the pool for the send off party. As I mentioned previously, the send off party was uneventful and the band played for an hour and then left and wasn’t heard from until the sail away party the next evening at 10:00 pm.
Ensenada…
I still laugh when thinking about the conversation Anne and I had when she noticed we were sailing away from Catalina. She was so happy to be finally moving on the water…unfortunately that was short lived because 15 minutes later, just off the coast of Catalina, we stopped and dropped the anchor for the evening again. Anne was quite frustrated by now. The next morning we sat in port at Ensenada for quite some time prior embarking. For three bucks we took a real nice shuttle into town and spent the day once again repeating the carnage of mentioned above. The downside to Ensenada is you can’t get a moments peace from folks pan handling every step you take. And the exploitation of toddlers to beg for money made mew furious. We ate at a little outside cantina and it was non-stop hounding for money and folks wanting to braid the girls hair. It’s truly sad the state of poverty these folks live in and to be left with no alternative other than pan handling to put food on the table and a roof over the kids heads. On a side note, never book an excursion through Carnival for Ensenada. The company operating the shuttles also offered the same tours for about ¼ the price. After many XX and margaritas, we finally made our way back to the ship and called it a day…in Ensenada at least
