The Rest of Wednesday

After we returned from our excursion, we still had some time before we had to be on the ship. There was a little plaza area with shops and places to eat. We walked through it and bought a few souvenirs. Then to get back to the ship we had to take these little shuttles.

Here is a picture of one. Another one. There were also lots of military personnel with very big guys all around too. I don’t have a picture of them.

A close up of the side of the ship. At sail away I decided to go up on deck and take some pictures.

Mazatlan as we leave. The tug boat guiding us A peninsula Close up The city Another one
Lots of sailboats out Me trying to be artistic
We then got ready for dinner. I didn’t feel like getting really dressed up, so I went a bit more casual. Here I am in the atrium waiting for dinner. Some pictures of the Atruim After dinner we went to the show “I got the music” I enjoyed the show. After that we caught the end of Steve Moris’ show on our way to the 3rd heat of Pop Star.
We were kind of tired so we called it a night early. Cabo was the next day.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 – Mazatlan

Where to start with Mazatlan. We booked a private excursion for whale watching on a sailboat with Ally, Rich, Nancy and Rick. The tour was with MiCasa Viajes, some company Ally found. This is their website http://sailmicasa.com/index.html

We had made arrangements to meet Kym, the tour organizer at 9:00 am in the bar of the cruise ship entry point. The 6 of us gathered together on the ship and disembarked together. While we were waiting in the building I decided to take some pictures with Senor Frog.

Here I am with the frog.

Karen and I Another one. Well we should known how the day was going to go when Kym showed up late, in the wrong location, not wearing what she said she would be, called Ally by the wrong name and said we booked a tour with a naturalist, which we did not. We all just kind of looked at each other thinking what did we get into.

We piled into a mini van and started on our way. One of the things that Kym had insisted on while Ally was booking the tour was this was a private tour, just us, so there had to be 6 people going. Well while we were driving Kym pulled over to pick up another 3 people who were joining us – this was the first we had heard about others joining our “private” tour. We continued on our way to the marina. Once we parked Kym starting handing stuff to people to carry as we walked to the boat. When we got to the boat Kym told us they were not ready yet, that they needed another 15 minutes or so. At this point all I could think was how unprofessional, what kind of business where these people running and I would never run anything like this. Yeah, I could never live in this type of culture.

Here we are waiting to get on the sail boat. Once we finally got going, it was a nice relaxing ride.

Here are some pictures of the city from the boat. Karen and I on the boat.Here are Nancy and Rick on the boat.Nancy

Nancy and Ally

AllyKaren Rick

This is Captain Eduardo

Eduardo and Kym

This is me sitting in the shade. I was pretty concerned about getting sunburned so I made sure I had plenty of SPF 85 on, and sat in the shade. This is Bird Island…. While I know this is one of these you had to be here stories, but I have to tell you about it. Rick and Eduardo, the captain were talking and Rick asked what the name of the island was. Eduardo responded “birth island” Rick said do you mean bird island? Eduardo said no, birth island. So Rick said birth island? While simulating giving birth (we were all dying of laughter at this time) Eduardo said no, no birth island and Rick then acted like a bird and Eduardo said yes. It was so funny!! We laughed about it for the rest of the week. More pictures from the boat. At one point we dropped anchor and had the opportunity to go over to this island

Rich, Ally and Karen took the kayak and Nancy, Rick and I swam. Here I am coming out of the water. I normally would not put a picture of me in my suit online, but it shows the boat in the background.

While I was swimming over I kicked into some coral and cut my toe. At first I did not think it was that big of a deal, but it bled pretty badly.

Here are some pictures on the island. Ally and Rich on the beach.After we spent some time on the island we swam back to the boat. Once I hit the sea water my toe killed. Every time I swim in the ocean I am reminded how great Lake Michigan is, it has everything an ocean has minus the salt water.

After we got back to the boat we started headed back. On our way back there were some whale way out. Kym made some comment about that being where they often see whales and if we had more time we would had headed out that way. Hmm… I thought we had paid for a whale watching trip, shouldn’t we have gone out there earlier in the day.

This is the sailboat.

Kym then asked if we wanted to drive through town, we said no, we just wanted to go back to the ship. But Kym decided to drive us through town any way. The glances in the back of the van were hilarious, none of us were happy at all. Once we got out of the van we all just starting going off on the crazy day and how none of us would recommend this excursion.

Tuesday Night

After returning from Puerto Vallarta we wondered around the ship and took some pictures.

Here is the city at night. I am not sure what I am looking at or thinking about, but obviously not paying attention to getting my picture taken. The green space from earlier in the day at night. The Holland American ship all lit up. The outdoor pool of the ship at night.

After taken pictures we got ready for the evening. My friend Sarah had given me this cute skirt, and it was perfect for the Island themed night. After we ate dinner we went to the Mexican Fiesta deck party.

It was dark, so the pictures are not the best, but here is Odysea playing on the stage.
Another one of the band. Again we were recruited by the Cruise Staff to take part in the activity – they needed people to dance. Since Karen had participated in the drink making challenge it was my turn to participate.

Here I am dancing with Jesse. Jesse and I waiting for the next song to start. Here is Jesse posing with Rachael in the background. Here is Karen, Jorge and I. After the dance party on the party on the deck, we moved up to Skywalkers for a while and then to bed to get ready for our day in Mazatlan.