Honeymoon, Part Five

Our final days on the cruise were interesting, to say the least. Unfortunately, I had read all of my books by this time, so I did not have anything to read. I spent a lot of time roaming around the ship while Paul sat on the balcony with his book. I also took a lot of random pictures, which I will not torture you with! Royal Caribbean does provide captioning on the TVs in the rooms, but only on TWO channels. So, needless to say, not much good TV to watch. I think I watched Wizard of the Oz three times in two days.


The weather was very unpredictable! As we made our way to Los Angeles, we ran into many storms. We experienced beautiful, calm glassy waters; thick fog; choppy waters that made the ship a bit unstable; very cold winds; and ominous storm clouds all in a period of 48 hours. It definitely made me uneasy and a bit nauseous, but neither one of us got seasick, thankfully!

In the afternoon, we were sitting out on the balcony when we suddenly hit a HUGE pod of dolphins! There were approximately 200 dolphins playing, jumping and chasing the ship. It was a beautiful, breathtaking sight to take in! Sadly, my camera did not capture this incident very well... there were SO many dolphins around and they were moving so quickly that my camera could not focus very well. When leaning over the rail of the balcony, we could see baby dolphins in the water near the hull of the ship. They were just adorable! This lasted about 10 minutes before the ship passed through the pod completely and the water was suddenly quiet again.

As we got closer to Los Angeles, the storms became much more violent and the waters were very choppy. The captain warned us that the weather in LA was unexpected: severe rainstorms that would last over a week and cause catastrophic flooding and mudslides in California.

The airport was chaos when we arrived. Half of the runways were closed due to flooding. There were many flights delayed and/or cancelled. Thankfully, our flight to Milwaukee was on time and we were able to get out of California relatively easily.

We were very sad to leave Mexico. We had a FABULOUS time and consider ourselves so blessed that we were able to take such a vacation in this time of uncertainty regarding the economy. We truly loved Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta. We hope to return again someday and explore these two places even more. We only got to scratch the surface in what they have to offer.

We were very surprised that this specific cruise under Royal Caribbean will end in February. RC has decided to pull this cruise for several reasons (according to several crew members): long traveling distances between the three ports, increasing diesel fuel costs, and high demand for cruises in the Mediterranean. The Mariner of the Seas will start its first voyage in the Mediterranean in March and will be housed there permanently. What's funny is that Paul has big dreams of going on a cruise in the Holy Lands someday and it so happens that the Mariner of the Seas will be doing just that. Perhaps someday we will be able to return to this lovely ship again.

Mexico Riveria: you were absolutely lovely and provided us a week in paradise. Thank you for all you offered us and we look forward to meeting you again someday.