Our Cruise of Sunshine and Laziness

KerMatt enjoying a night out.

Matt and I had a fabulous time on our cruise and LOVED the break from Utah soaking up the sunshine and perfecting the art of relaxation. We ate more food than you can imagine. We slept in almost everyday. And we basically just did whatever we felt like.

Our highlights were:

• mountain biking through the Sierra Madre jungle in Puerto Vallarta (complete with a swimming pool/waterfall at the top)
• ice cream and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies every day
• kayaking and snorkeling in Cabo San Lucas
• live karaoke 
• the warm sun
• the beautiful beaches of Cabo
• meeting awesome locals 
• having someone clean our room twice a day

Our disappointments were:

• both of us getting sunburnt on the tops of our feet 
• forgetting to grab our garment bag out of car before we left Matt's parents house (with all of our formal clothes). If you even know the anguish that Keri went through in packing these clothes, only to forget them in the excitement of leaving for port.
• seeing the poverty in Mexico
• the cruise activities, timing and entertainment all catered to a VERY older crowd
• our Mazatlan stop being canceled last minute due to violence in their town

We left out of San Diego and this was our wonderful view of downtown from the ship.

Our ship, the MS Oosterdam.

We stayed at Matt's parent's house the night before we boarded the ship. And Lane did not waste anytime putting Matt to work in the backyard in the rain before his relaxing began. I had to take a picture to document this cuteness.

KerMatt in the Sports Bar after realizing we could not watch the BYU Basketball game in our room.

Keri modeling our life jackets while Matt wastes no time getting his relaxation on.

Matt in our little tiny room with the curtain wall.

This is just an example of our breakfasts we ordered each morning  to our rooms, because we never could quite make it to the dining room early enough.

This was our dessert almost every night along with a glass of milk. We often kept a stash of these in our room. And this photo was taken to show the difference between Matt's normal bite (left) and Keri's normal bite (right). Matt was teasing me for taking such small bites!





Puerto Vallarta was our first stop where we spent 2 days to make up for the day we lost in Mazatlan. Though there were some beautiful places, it had a very Mexico feel and we liked Cabo more.

The first day in PV we took a cab downtown and walked on the beach. There was many people out on the beach trying to get some of the tourists money with their unique talents. This particular guy stacked random rocks without any adhesive. 

A mama whale and her baby some people made on the beach.

Our second day we rented mountain bikes and a guide biked with us through the Sierra Madres jungle. This is Matt and I before we began our journey up. And let us tell that there is a reason why we were the only ones crazy enough to do this, instead of renting the ATV's and buses that most others did. The ride was NUTS and the bikes were not the best quality. But it was worth it for the experience!

Keri had a hard time transitioning to the mountain bike since she has never ridden one before and is used to the smooth ride of aroad bike. It didn't help that we started out our trek going uphill on cobblestone roads.

This is why it was so worth it. That and our awesome guide, Enrique.

More foliage of the jungle.

Our guide, Enrique and his dad, Enrique Sr. at the restaurant we ate at near the top of the jungle. Enrique Sr. just happened to work at this restaurant and we got to meet him. Such great people!

Matt and I enjoying the break before we hit the last 20 minutes to the top to the waterfall.

A photo of "the restaurant" but it really doesn't do it justice. It was such a cute restaurant and it had only opened 10 days before we got there.  Luckily for a gringo who came by for lunch, we were able to communicate a little better with the Enriques. And thank goodness because we soon realized that in trying to ask young Enrique if he has a girlfriend, we actually had asked him if he had a sister. No wonder he looked at us weird because we had already established that he had no brothers and sisters.


After the gringo taught us how to say girlfriend and boyfriend, we kept teasing Enrique about having a girlfriend.

 

On the way back down and we could not have been happier!  The ride down was so much easier than the trek up.

Along the way, we passed many cows just like this chillin' on the trail.

Keri and Enrique at the end of our ride. He was such a champ putting up with KerMatt and I swear he did not even break a sweat. 

Picture of downtown PV at night

Back on the ship, Keri enjoyed singing karaoke, with a live band, of course.

Our next and last stop was beautiful Cabo San Lucas. We loved the small town feel of it. What we did not love was all of the haggling and harassment we got from everyone wanting our money.

We rented kayaks and Matt terrorized Keri with his crazy paddling. As soon as we got out on the water, he started racing against all of the other couples in the group. It made for quite a laugh but Keri was hoping to have a nice ride across the water, not be tossed into the ocean.

The famous Cabo arch that our guide led us out to.

And next to the arch is the popular Scooby Doo rock.





We also went snorkeling right off of this little beach.

Matt chillin on the boat.

Keri chillin with the dead.

Only in Cabo will you find a Michael Jackson who cannot dance - in fact he refused to dance!

Back on the boat after we fried the tops of our little feet in Cabo. We had such a hard time walking around the boat that night.

One of the best part of the night was coming back to our room and finding these little treasures - the towel animals. She had to take a photo as soon as we saw it before Matt would take it apart. This is what we decided was a sting ray.

A turkey?

A puppy

A butterfly? Not quite sure on this one.