DeSoren Family

After a night of huge swells and a constant rocking of the ship, we woke to the lights of Mazatlan in the distance. By 7am we were at breakfast and the ship was slowing entering the port.

We dashed back to the room and packed our travel bag.  We booked the old Mazatlan walking tour the day before. So we put on our hiking shoes and headed down to deck 4.

We were met by our tour guide, Shelia. She was is an American who moved to Mazatlan back in 1981. We boarded a little shuttle that took us to the main port building. Mazatlan does not have a cruise port, the dock area is a commercial dock so we had to be escorted by shuttle to a safe area.  Once in the port building Shelia got two cab vans that took the group down to the sea wall.

The weather was warm, but overcast. It sprinkled on us for most of the day. But it was nothing for two Oregonians.  We walked along the sea wall. We got to see a cliff diver, who swam to shore and asked for money. Then he started swearing at the crowds who did not tip him. There was another gentleman who was collecting tips for the diver, and we are not sure that they were together. From the diver’s reaction and the hasty retreat of the other guy…. We are guessing not.

We then walked down to the old town area and stopped in a little shop. We got a free drink (soda pop) and had our first restroom break. We didn’t buy anything.

The tour continued thru the old town area. Shelia explained the history of the mansions that make up the old town area. Most are greatly in disrepair. But a few looked kinda cool, either of us are ready to move there.

We stopped by the oldest working bakery in Mazatlan. Joshua bought some gingerbread cookies.

We then stopped by a museum, overlooking a nice little square. We then headed over to the opera house and then walked over to the cathedral. From there we visted the city market and the senior frog store where we picked up some cool board shorts and a t-shirt for Anthony’s nephew.

After shopping the tour ended and we headed back to the boat with Mike and Mike, a couple from Canada that we met on the tour. We did a little more shopping at the port shops and then reboarded the board.

We had dinner at the buffet market and then it was NAP time!

After our nap Anthony headed down to the spa, on our first day aboard the ship Anthony won a free foot and ankle massage. IT WAS HEAVENLY!

We headed down to dinner at about 7:00pm, which was ok.  We headed back to the room and watched DVD’s that we brought and then headed to bed early.

Oh we got a letter on our door, since they canceled our day in Cabo San Lucas they credited our account $9.01 per guest…  not quite $20.00 bucks wooopie!

Our photos from the day can be found HERE, should be good as we had dueling cameras.

Day three started at 3 am with HUGE swells. Both of us jumped out of bed to look for the tsunami that surly had just hit the ship. After not finding it we both went back to be bed.

We woke up and headed down to Versailles for breakfast. Again, window seating and a wonderful breakfast. Joshua had waffles & corn beef hash and Anthony had the French toast.

We walked the deck again and headed back to the room for a nap, yes we are being very lazy, but it’s our vacation.

Right before we had to get ready to meet up for our tethering group for our walking tour, the captain announced that due to safety concerns he was canceling Cabo San Lucas. The waves were ok now, but with Hurricane Rick heading in the waves were only going to get worse. So it would be too dangerous to tether the boats back to the boat in the afternoon. The captain was worried about re-boarding us safely.

So we had a second sea day. This translated to a bed day for us. We watched TV and slept most of the morning. Then had lunch, then headed back to the cabin and slept until dinner.

The Captain had the ship moving painfully slow all day. And the waves pounded the ship over and over. The hurricane was 350 miles away, but boy could we feel its presence.

We had dinner at the Endless summer Mexican restaurant. It was mostly horrible. It was the first time we had a white server; he was even from the United States. He was mostly horrible too. He was way too into a large party next to us to pay us any attention. Anthony ordered the chicken fajitas and they delivered without any of its condiments. He just had a hissing hot plate of chicken for about 5 minutes. Anthony refers to it as his on-board Chicken Steam Facial.

After dinner we walked around the ship a bit and then headed to bed.

Anthony didn’t get seasick, but was feeling poorly all day due to the waves, Joshua was a rock.  The waves were quite bad and did not calm down until almost dawn the next day. Luckily we purchased some sea sick pills before we left Portland.

Our first full day at sea. We woke early, before dawn. The sea was all dark and mysterious, a very cool view from the balcony. Light from the ship lighting the waves so the faded from a light blue to dark black.

We showered and walked the decks before breakfast, alone. No one was up, it was a ghost ship. We headed to the Versailles dining room again, but this time for breakfast. This time the view was wonderful, and we were the third couple in the dining room. So 6 diners, 20 staff members, we have never had a more attentive servers. All we had to do was look up from our food and 2 servers were

After breakfast we headed to the shore excursions talk in the theater. Which like all the programming on board turned out to be infomercial. We decided to book the walking tour, since we have never been to Cabo San Lucas. We will find out tomorrow if we wasted our money or not.

We spend most of the day being very very lazy. We slept a lot.  Anthony stripped down to his underwear and sunbathed on the balcony. Joshua wandered down to the Havana Cigar bar and had a scotch and cigar.

We had lunch at the buffet restaurant. It was ok, nothing to great. But dinner was very nice. We ate at the Italian restaurant, which is the buffet restaurant converted at night. They hang curtains and move in new table decorations. Anthony had veal shank with polenta; Joshua had the salmon with navy beans. Joshua bought a bottle of wine. The cool thing is the bottle will follow us from restaurant to restaurant during our cruise.

After dinner we watched the “Music of the Night” a salute to the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.  It was mostly horrible. A few of the singers nailed it, but most of them should have just been nailed up for the horrific butchery they performed on the “Music of the Night”.

We turned in after that.

Take a look at our photos from on Board the ship HERE

Our vacation started at 5:00 am with the alarm clock blaring. We had packed everything the night before, so we both took turns showering, before driving to the airport.

We parked the car in the economy parking lot as Sam’s plane from Phoenix was scheduled to arrive later in the afternoon. So we left the car, with some money and some peanut butter cups, for him to drive home.

We got through security easily and headed straight for coffee and chai tea, then down to our gate A-11.

Our plane was a tiny little Horizon Air jet, which only holds 40 people and we were all packed in like sardines. Thankfully we were seated in the third row, so we were last on and first off.

We arrived at Longbeach airport two hours later. The sun was out and shining and it was a big temperature jump and we both quickly started to take off layers and got into our sandals. It was a beautiful day, our vacation had truly started.

We collected our luggage and walked over to the shuttle van area. Unlike our last trip to Longbeach, this time the van was there on time and we had no issues, other than waiting for the other passengers to show up. But for $38.00 bucks, which included the tip, it was a great cheap way to get to the port.

The shuttle took about 15 minutes to get us to the port. Upon arrival we were promptly met by porters who took our checked bags off to security for us. We then walked over to main entrance to the port.

The Norwegian Star was docked and it’s HUGE! We were met at the door by NCL representatives who checked to make sure we had our passports and check in paperwork. We then walked through a security checkpoint and then right up to the check in desk. We had no real wait. We got our room keys, had our photos taken, got our boarding card number and then headed over to the waiting area.

15 minutes later we were up again and heading to the ship, and 10 minutes later we were onboard the ship. With free champagne in hand we explored the ship for a bit. The unwashed masses all headed up to the buffet. In fact, all the crew kept directing everyone to the buffet. We ignored them and waited and hit Versailles, the fancy free restaurant. We where the third customers in the doors and got a wonderful window seat with an amazing view of the dock area. Ok it was not that great of a view, but the lunch was wonderful.

Just as we were leaving the restaurant they announced the rooms where ready. So we headed up to our room, 9086, ninth deck, with a huge balcony. There were two twin beds, which we quickly merged into a queen bed. We had everything we could need, but our luggage, which had yet to arrive.

At 3:30 they announced the muster drill. We headed down to our assigned spot with our life vests. Sorry no photos. Right after the drill they announced the cast off BBQ party on deck 12. We walked up to the front of the ship and got a great spot right at the center of bow of the ship. We watched a huge cargo ship come into the port and several smaller ships sailed by. Then just when we thought the ship would never set sail, it did.

It was at this point we had our only negative moment of the day. And it came from a fellow passenger not NCL. Just as we were having our romantic setting sail moment, Anthony was shoved out of the way by a short rude man and his ugly girl friend.  Fearing criminal prosecution for double homicide, we chose to LOUDLY express our displeasure and left.

We walked to the aft of the ship and were all alone and it was 100% more romantic and special. We watched the coast guard escort us out, and watched the port of LA slip away. We then headed back to our room and napped until dinner.

Dinner was an interesting event as well. The ship is really moving now so this was our first meal with motion. We ate a light dinner and had a yummy coconut soufflé for dessert. After dinner we headed right to bed.

We too lots of photos and you can see day one HERE.