Mexican Riviera Cruise/9th Anniversary

This year we decided to go on a cruise for our anniversary! We went on a 7-night Mexican Riviera cruise with Royal Caribbean aboard the "Mariner of the Seas". This was our first cruise we've taken.



We decided to go formal. :)







Zac especially loved the dining experience: Lamb shank, es cargo, shrimp, duck - you name it!

It felt Titanic-ish! :)



Because we happened to be sharing the ocean with Hurricane Jimena, we spent an extra day at sea before we arrived at a port. We traveled and extra 700 miles to get out of his way and didn't get any closer than 200 miles away. :( Yes, Zac and I wanted to get closer to the Hurricane!

We had one pretty rough day at see where there was more water out of the pools than in so they just emptied them. We didn't see too many people that day - everyone was sick in their rooms.

Zac fell asleep out by the pool for 4+ hours and got FRIED! He thought it'd been less than an hour. Needless to say, we didn't spend anymore time in the sun. :(

Anyway, we did our itinerary in reverse order. So, Puerto Vallarta was our first stop. First thing we see when we pull in to dock? Wal-Mart! It was extremely humid and uncomfortable! Puerto Vallarta had cobblestone streets. We had a blast shopping!



Senor Frogs was a highlight of Puerto Vallarta.



Our 2nd port was Mazatlan. Amazing boardwalk & beaches. Too bad Zac was fried and didn't feel like being in the sun. Instead, we found an AMAZING cab driver who ended up being our personal tour guide. He had air conditioning, spoke English well, and took us to some amazing views. He spent time doing what we wanted to see and telling us what we wanted to know about. Amazing. I personally think he's a Mormon.



It wasn't until I saw this view that I realized how gigantic our ship was!



Drinking coconut water. I never knew coconuts were full of water!



Our favorite place by far was Cabo San Lucas!
We got to hold & pet a baby tiger...





We also did an underwater sea helmet dive. We road a boat out to a diving platform and put on wetsuits. Then we put a 70 lb. helmet on our heads as we walked down a ladder about 20 ft. underwater. Underwater the helmet only felt about 15 lbs. The concept of the helmet is the same as an overturned glass of water on a solid surface -if the glass is level, the water stays in. So, we had to stay upright or we were in trouble. We also had an oxygen supply hooked up to the helmet. It was so much fun! I was the biggest one without weights so I had the most buoyancy and I had a lot of fun with it. It was kind pretty much a gravity free experience. There were thousands of fish and they had us feed them. One of the couples with us said they would e-mail us the pics they took with their underwater cameras but we are pretty doubtful after over 2 months.



Cabo San Lucas was also our favorite shopping experience. We had so much fun we had to spend every last dollar we'd brought. Our girls loved all of their fun gifts we bought them.

Despite Zac's awful sunburn that lasted 2 weeks, we had the time of our lives! I wish we could cruise the entire world (land & sea) on a cruise ship!