This year and next most of Yosh’s group of friends are turning 40…most, not all (like myself…I still got 5 years before I’m THAT old! wink wink).
Some of the crew have done big parties, some went on trips….and one of our besties decided that a short booze cruise would be perfect…and a few of us were MORE than excited to get it done!
We booked the cruise probably 6 months ago…and I remember thinking “gosh that is a LONG time away” And like a blink of an eye it was go-time. Yes I had a little momcation in Hawaii the weekend prior…so I was feeling a little bad leaving my kids…a little NOT enough to keep me home or anything heehee
Of course…first things first…we wanted to try and smuggle as much booze as we could. A friend of mine recommended getting these plastic flasks off amazon. YEP they were amazing and worked like a charm.
The big ones on the left hold a full 750ml bottle! So we were pretty set for these cruise.
Three couples went..and our rooms were suppose to be pretty close BUT leave it to Yosh…get it on the same deck but on the other side of the boat…haha thats ok. Heather had welcome baskets for us that included super cute tumblers, captains hats, snacks, meds, sunscreen, mints, etc. It was the cutest thing…leave it to thoughtful Heather!
Before our mandatory safety meeting we headed up for a drink and sunset pic on the top deck. It was chilly…really chilly but we were so excited to get away for an adult weekend we didn’t care….much.
Safety meeting was a little INTENSE. The man that was the “mc” during it was kind of a total DICK. He was walking around if someone had their phone out he made them put it away, like stood there in front of you until it was gone. If it was on the table in front of you, he made you flip it over. If he saw you whispering with friends he’d walk over and tell you to be quiet or he was going to kick you out and make you come back for another mandatory info session. Without the info session you will be asked to get off the boat…it was nuts. He was crazy. When Yosh and I took this cruise for our 1 year wedding anniversary I remember having to bring our lifevest and wear it…thats not the norm anymore I guess…
Thankfully we all survived the safety meeting…and our night of drinks, dinner, more drinks, picture taking, drinks, karaoke, drinks and dancing commenced. It was a fun one!
Joel liked making the photo people take really awkward pictures…
Karaoke began and Lando (Joel’s stage name) hasn’t been active for quite some time…people were video taking him in action…yeah…you know that saying Joel has…its 80/20…80% performance 20% singing ability…yeaaaahhh…don’t think many people were thinking that. hahaha It gave us a good laugh. Then Deanna went up and killed it as usual.
Deanna’s biggest fans!
And you know me…my night isn’t complete unless I can shake it a bit on a dance floor…it was awesome.
SO night 1 was great. I was scared we might have went too strong BUT we all woke up ok! We were at port in Ensenada and weren’t sure what our plan of action was. We declined all the excursions offered from the ship and took a $3 round trip shuttle into the city. On that shuttle they sold us “excursions” to the same places for 1/3 of the price…SOLD!
Matt was told about some bar by La Bufadora that had baby tigers in it…Los Tigeritos. I was scared. I was envisioning some ghetto little bar, down some shady alley that had a bunch of Mexican carte dudes in there with baby tigers on chains in cages or something. Matt was all for it…and I was freaking out BUT trying to go along with whatever the birthday boy wanted to do! I just didn’t want to die, body be stuff of drugs and be found years later! haha
So we got the package of horse back riding, la bufadora, shopping and back again. It was ALL a money making deal (each place knew where to bring us to get us to spend money,etc.) BUT it was actually a pretty cool day.
I ain’t gonna lie…I was nervous leaving the ship. But they brought us to this weird swap meet/courtyard/restraints/bar place before our driver was ready for our excursion. There were 2 old mexican men playing domino’s behind me and I wanted to take their pic BUT missed my chance…so I took one of heather in front of me instead. lol
Horse back ride on the beach they said…it will be beautiful they said. Well…I was scared…almost got bit by a horse on the leg, Deanna almost got bucked off (like seriously) and Yosh’s 11 year old escort was sneaking his tip so the head lady wouldn’t see he got tipped and take it…yikes. It was rough BUT glad we did experience it.
I was a little happy when it was over. I felt bad because all the escorts wanted tips, but didn’t want the tip given to them in front of the head woman…and no one spoke Spanish to understand what they were asking/telling us. So yeah.
Then off on a 45 minute drive to La Bufadora. Pretty once outside of the city…saw some fishing farm things which were cool.
Do you know what La Bufadora is?? Its a natural blow-hole! Only 3 in the world! One in Hawaii, Mexico and Australia ((I did NOT fact check that information so yeah)). They brought us into this marketplace that leads into La Bufadora AND that is where Los Tigeritos were too! And it was real. AND not scary at all!! It was actually freaking amazing! They didn’t allow pictures and I was so going to sneak one but chickened out They had a baby white tiger, baby regular tiger, baby lion, baby panther, baby jaguar. The workers (rescue workers…yeah right)…were playing with them inside a glass room and feeding them baby bottles…awww it was magical. They were absolutely beautiful and omg so cool.
La Bufadora wasn’t that great BUT I loved the shopping and eating!! haha Finding little knick knacks for the kids was fun. Tried finding cute matching little Mexican dresses for the girls and a pancho for Owen. AND I ate the best churro I have ever had in my LIFE.
I was trying to channel my inner garage sale lady…you know those older mexican women who come to your garage sale and TOTALLY haggle your ass into selling your $100 dress to them for $$2….yeah…now I know where they get those skills. But it was fun. We ended our time there at a taco shop…we almost missed our bus so I had to eat mine on the way. It was DELICIOUS! My quesadilla had fried cheese on the outside…(mind blown!)
I was happy to get back to the ship…and it was formal night. So we got fancy, started drinking again and our night began.
ANd it just so happened that this was also Joel and Deanna’s 11 year wedding anniversary. So this dinner was for them.
Its the hardest thing to find a place to take a good group pic on a ship…especially because all the places that would be good are already taken by the darn backdrop photographers. But we found one and someone nice enough to take a pic for us…had to document us all fancy!
After dinner we went to a comedian show…and this guy was hilarious. He was an older white guy and it was for mature audiences. He asked for the lights to go on and he walked into the crowd and went after people. It was so funny. Matt and Joel were comfortably sitting next to each other with their captains hats on…he straight said “so you guys queer captains or what?” haha. I cried from laughing…and almost pee’d my pants. I had to go to the toilet but was too scared to get up or he’d make fun of me too! haha So I sat…and laughed in agony! haha
Then off to more dancing before Heather started not feeling to well…I think the rockin’ boat was getting to her. Poor girl.
It was another fun night!
Our last day was a “Day At Sea”…I was looking forward to laying by the pool, reading a good book and relaxing. BUT it rained and was cold. So we were inside. And the boat was a swaying. Yosh got sick and missed our bingo game…and it was weird trying to walk a straight line. BUT I won $355 playing bingo…so it was freaking awesome!! haha
One of the groups on the ship all were wearing NOPE. hats one night. I thought maybe it meant something special so I asked one of the ladies what it meant. And she answered me…”it means nope!” kinda rudely. haha Matt thought maybe it had political meaning because of obama’s “hope” campaign…anyway. So the WHOLE cruise whenever in doubt of something to say we’d say “NOPE!” And as Yosh and I were cleaning up our room before disembarking, I noticed my White Zin cork said “HOPE”…kinda like our NOPE motto! haha It seemed very fitting for this weekend!
Matty loved his birthday wine glass…and we were so happy to get to celebrate his big 4-0 with him!!
And until our next “date”…thanks guys for a great adult weekend filled with lots of celebrating! I’m still recuperating!
