Disneyland

Well every year, in the month of November, we celebrate my, Mary’s, birthday.  I’ve been really wanting to go to an amusement park and since it had been probably at least 10 years since I’d been to Disneyland we decided to take an adventure to the happiest place on earth.

 

We took off Friday morning and was at Disneyland by early afternoon.  Of course we had to get some lunch before we hit the park:

Our hotel was right next to Tony Roma’s so we got salads “To Go” and ate by the pool at the hotel.  We love the ribs and onion loaf at Tony Roma’s and we meant to go back but we never made it while we were there.  

We spent all afternoon and evening at Disneyland and hit most of the rides.  Here is Dan as we entered the park.

 

We started off in Adventure Land and Dan took me to the Tiki Room first.  I don’t know if I’ve been there before but it was kind of boring. . . .

But don’t worry Dan took me to lots of the other rides too!!  I still must say that Space Mountain is my favorite at Disneyland.   That night we watched the show in the New Orleans area followed by the fireworks.  The fireworks show is pretty impressive I must say!!

Saturday we got up and spent the morning at California Adventures. My favorite rides were definitely California Screamin’ and Hollywood’s Tower of Terror.  We also saw the Alladin show while in California Adventure.  That was pretty neat to see a live show and it followed the movie pretty close too.  We even met up with Chris and his friends to say “hello!” before they went to go see the show.  After going back to Disneyland that afternoon we walked around Downtown Disney.  Here’s Dan at the Lego Store. . .

 

  We saw the new Twilight movie . . . New Moon.  It was pretty good.  We shared a pizza at this nice little restaurant and watched the fireworks from our outside table.  Sunday we took the day to relax and then on Monday we had our last day at Disneyland.  We wanted to hit a few of the rides that we really enjoyed.  Also we had to get to the Inidana Jones ride.   We tried really hard but we never seemed to be able to get there.  The first time it was closed down and then there was always a long wait.  Monday morning it was closed down but we had gotten fast passes and then went to ride Space Mountain.  When we got back it was closed but so we just sat there and waited until it opened.  We ended up being the first car to go back on the ride.  Since we finally got that ride in we thought it was okay to leave.  

Oh yeah, we can’t forget about the giant turkey leg!! Dan sure enjoyed it!

Don’t worry, I’m just posing for the picture.  I didn’t actually eat any of the leg (it kind of grosses me out!!!)

On our drive home we of course had to stop at the outlets and do some Christmas shopping!  FUN FUN! 

Overall we had a really great time, now we have to plan our next trip for Six Flags Magic Mountain!!!

All Finished

There, I finally got all the cruise posted on the blog.  I realize it took me forever but it is finally done.  Plus Dan downloaded this program that makes blogging a whole lot easier.  Thanks Dan!!!  Now I won’t get frustrated like I was before about doing longer posts and lots of pictures.  I can post pictures as I go along.  Much easier!!

Anyway I hope you all enjoy the pictures even though most of you have seen them all already.  Dan and I really had a great time with Sara and Lowell (I think they had a great time as well!).  Next time we’ll have to get more family to come with us.  Dan and I think it would be really fun to get as much of the family to do a short cruise out of California down to Mexico sometime.  They’re pretty inexpensive and you can do a 4 day cruise and just drive over to California which would help with cost.  So let us know when someone wants to go and we’ll join you!!!

Day 8 – Nassau, Bahamas

There were quite a few cruise ships in Nassau at the same time as us.  It didn’t seem too crowded though.  As you can probably assume, tourism is a huge revenue producer for this country.

The agenda for Nassau only consisted of spending the day at the Atlantis resort water park. 

It was a pretty fun water park with lots of slides.  We rode quite a few of them however Sara was a chicken for most of them.  Lowell, Dan and I did this one a couple of times.  I even think we got Sara to do this one too!!

  

We really enjoyed doing the “lazy” river.  It wasn’t actually that lazy.  On one of our time around the loop, there was this older lady on a tube by herself.  We were approaching the part where there are fairly large waves, she got hit by one and totally got thrown off of her tube.  Sara couldn’t stop laughing! It was pretty funny.  Once she got thrown off the tube, she couldn’t get back in . . . . Sara just kept laughing.  Eventually one of the lifeguards jumped in to help her get back on.

You can see the hotel towers behind us in this one:

 

There were lots of pools at the resort with plenty of chairs to relax on.

  

Back on the ship we of course had to have some frozen yogurt.  Yum Yum!

Day 7 – Sea Day

With another day to relax on the ship, we took full advantage of no commitments.  We slept in of course because there was no excursion to go to at 7 in the morning.  We then relaxed in the sun, you know to work on the tan:

Since we had all day to get all pretty, we had a formal night that evening.  So course we all dressed up.

 

And we can’t forget about the dancing waiters:

Of course Sara couldn’t take it anymore . . . . she had do get some dancing in too!!!

If I remember correctly this may be the night that we brought money to give to the dinner entertainment.  Everyone got a kick out of us slipping some money in their pockets while they were dancing for us.

That night when Dan and I went back to our room, we found a lovely towel sculpture:

 

Sara and Lowell’s looked more like a baby, but that didn’t stop Sara from wanting a kiss too!

Day 6 – Tortola, BVI

We had from 7am to 330pm in Tortola.  We actually spent little time on this island because the excursion we chose was sailing.  We took a shuttle over to where the catamaran was docked and boarded for a morning of fun. 

Elvis was one of the crew members that ran the catamaran.  He was really friendly and told us lots about Tortola.  He was actually from a different island group but he came to Tortola to work and left his family at home.

They took us snorkeling first.  The site they took us to was really neat; we saw squid, jellyfish, a sea turtle, and lots of other fish.

Then they took us to a private beach where we were the only ones there.  They say during the busy season that beach can be really busy but when we were there, it was just us.  We did some more snorkeling and saw a sting ray!!!

On the way back to the port, there was enough wind that we were able to actually put the sails up.  Of course the strong men had to help with that.

Here we are, trying to catch some wind:

Saying good-bye to the crew.

Of course back at the ship we still had most of the afternoon to kill.  So life size chess was an option:

And you can’t forget the frozen yogurt!!  Yum Yum!

Well that night Lowell and Sara’s towel animal was a pig.  I’m not sure if that was a hint that the four of us were all eating too much?!?!?!?

Day 5 - Antigua

We had most of the day in Antigua as well however we only planned one excursion for this port.  Sara really wanted to do a canopy tour so that’s what we signed up for on this island.

Sara and Lowell waiting for our shuttle ride to the jungle:

Looks like we arrived in the jungle and ready to go. . . .

Unfortunately the people at the site really wanted to make pictures off of us and they wouldn’t let us take our cameras on the tour (they wanted us to buy the pictures they took).  They blamed it on safety but really I think it was dollar signs they were thinking about when making that rule.  We had a blast, we just don’t have any pictures of us to prove it.  So we’ll have to pretend that the strangers in the following photo are of us. . .

After the canopy tour, we set out to find a green coconut for drinking.  We asked around and they pointed us toward the market.  They were no coconuts. BUMMER!  Guess we’ll have to go back to Vanuatu!

We came across the bust of the late Prime Minister. . . a little odd I think.

The rest of the afternoon we walked around Antigua and did some souvenir shopping.  The sad thing is that we really didn’t like this island that much.  The people were very unfriendly here!  Oh well, good thing we visited lots of islands!

As we were getting back on the ship, they had a band playing.  We bought their CD, it’s pretty cool!

No pictures of dinner this night.  But after dinner we found a monster in our bed!!