Recap of the cruise.....

Good morning.
So, Our cruise left Long Beach CA on Sat around 4:30 pm. Sailed all day Sunday and arrived in Cabo on Monday.
After we got on board, we checked out our room and unpacked our luggage. They had 3 large closets. Plenty of room for all our stuff.  Then we went to a bar to activate our prepaid drink package. They charge for pretty much anything you want to drink and the prices are higher than on shore, so it made sense to us to buy what they called the  Cheers beverage program. It gives you up 15 alcoholic drinks a day and unlimited water and soft drinks. And that even includes any of their specialty cocktails. We never hit the 15 limit, but after the cruise I figured  what we had and we came out way ahead of what we would have if we payed as we went. Regular cocktails were $7.50 and specialty drinks went up to $15. Anyway, we got a drink and began to explore the ship. The Carnival Splendor is a large ship. Holds 3000 passengers and 1000 crew. The typical ship in their fleet holds 2000 passengers. The main decks with things to do were on decks 3, 5, 9, 10, and 11. The other decks were all guest rooms.
Here's a floor plan of deck 9.....

Our room is marked with a black arrow. So we were close to everything on this deck.
This deck had 2 pools, the lido restaurant which is a buffet and 4 satellite fast food outlets that included 24 hour pizza, a deli, a hamburger, hot dog place, and a tandoori place.It also had 3 bars.
And on deck 5....

In front was the balcony entrance to the showroom, then shops. then a casino and bar, a coffee shop, piano bar, wine bar, nightclub, and the Moroccan  lounge where they also had smaller shows.
Down on deck 3...

In front was the main entrance to the showroom, then the main lobby and lobby bar, then in the middle and back the 2 sit down restaurants.
Up on deck 10 was the second level of the Lido restaurant and lot's of deck with lounge chairs and deck 11 was more deck with lounge chairs and a spa.
So on Sunday, our first full day at sea, we got a good feel of where everything was.
Our 7 day cruise included one day at sea down one day in each of the 3 ports, and 2 days back. The day we boarded was considered the first day.
Monday, we arrived late in Cabo for some reason ans because there was another cruise ship there, there weren't enough tender boats, so it took a long time to get people to shore that wanted to go. We decided to stay on the ship and enjoy all the amenities.  Oh, and did I say, all the food is included in the fare. You could literally eat 24-7. I believe we each gained 20 lbs that week.   :-)
We sailed that evening and arrived the next morning in Mazatlan.  Spent the day wandering the town and that evening we sailed again, arriving in Pueto Vallarta the next morning.  This was our favorite stop as it's a big city with a lot more culture and sightseeing.  We sailed again that evening and spent the next 2 days at sea heading back to Long Beach.  They had dozens of activities scheduled throughout the day. A schedule was in our room every day so we could pick and choose what we wanted to partake in.
All in all, a very nice time. Would like to maybe do an Alaskan cruise next.
And here's some cute animals that were in our room each day.....

They even had a towel folding demonstration one day so you could see how they are made.
So that was pretty much our cruise. I could go on and on about the entertainment and food, but I think I've bored you enough.    :-)

Puerto Vallarta

Good afternoon.

Since I have some time, I'll do a post on Puerto Vallarta.

 If you look real close, you'll see Craig standing on the aft deck in port, and look what's across the street from the dock...

 That's right, a Walmart! And  a Sam's Club. I guess they are everywhere!   :-)

 We really enjoyed our stop here. It's a large city with so much to see and do. We're thinking of coming back for a week next winter.

 Sand sculptures on the beach..... They have a miles long promenade along the beach with numerous sculptures....

 Of course I didn't take many pics as usual.
And here's their famous church with a very unique dome....

It was a nice stop, and we enjoyed the culture and ambiance.
Tomorrow, hopefully, a recap on the trip.......with towel animals....

Cruise ports of Cabo San Lucas and Maztalan.

Good morning.
We left Long Beach CA on Sat. afternoon. Sailed all night and all day Sunday and arrived in Cabo on Monday morning. Cabo doesn't have a dock for large ships so we had to 'park' in the bay.

You can see there was also another ship in the bay that had arrived the day before.

They had to tender people from the ship to shore in small boats.

Here's the other ship leaving early in the evening. We left a little later.

We didn't go ashore here for 2 reasons. One, we arrived later than expected, and two, because of the other ship also needing boats to tender, it took a ridiculously long time to get everyone off that wanted to. They started tendering around 11:30, and didn't get the last people off until 2:30. Then they had to be back on ship by 4:30. Wasn't worth the time waiting. We figured they would have the same tourist stuff at the other ports.
We left Cabo that evening and sailed overnight to Mazatlan.  Their port is a commercial one

 So we docked among cargo ships and they brought out shuttled to carry us to the passenger terminal.

 It was a picturesque bay.
We got to the terminal and took the 1 mile walk to the center of town. They had this quaint square with cafes on 2 sides. While we sat and had a couple of beers, we were entertained by a guy singing pretty good opera, and after him, a group of young people did an acrobatic skit. Somehow, I didn't get any pics of the town.
But here's a pic of us leaving port that afternoon.

We sailed overnight to Pueto Vallarta. I'll do that post hopefully tomorrow.
I spent a good part of yesterday, cutting back a couple of bushes and transplanting them into larger pots. They did pretty good last year and hopefully in larger pots, they'll do better this year.

Cruies pics

Good evening.
Here's some more pics of our ship.....

These 2 pics where when we were boarding in Long Beach walking out the gangway.

The main pool is on deck 9 which is open to the sky. But on deck 11 there is a sliding roof that can cover the entire pool and deck area. They closed it a couple of times when we had some early morning rain and one day at sea when it rained all morning.

And you can see the giant screen at the one end. They had movies every night.

A bank of elevators on our floor.

The glass elevators in the lobby area. The lobby atrium went from deck 3 up to deck 10.

Another view of the glass elevators. There were 4 across the one side.

And a sitting area in the lobby near the bar.
I'll post more pics and more details hopefully tomorrow.
Went to a Superbowl party at a neighbors this afternoon. Good game and some fun commercials.

7 day cruise.

Good morning. We've just returned from a 7 day Mexican Rivera Cruise on the Carnival Splendor.
Had stops in Cabo, Mazatlan, and Pueto Vallarta. 

 Craig's finger is pointing to the balcony stateroom we had on deck 9.

It was a very spacious room as far as cruise ships go.

Here's the main pool near the middle of the ship. There were 3 pools total and 3 whirlpools.

The aft pool.

The atrium lobby near the front of our ship with the lobby bar.

This is the walkway along the casino toward the back of the ship where more bars were located.

We had a great time!
I'll post more of the trip when I get some time.