Cory and I decided to cruise to Mexico on the Crown Princess last week. Who doesn't love a cruise? We always book at least a balcony cabin and love the lazy days on the balcony and around the pool. This cruise was a last minute decision and relatively inexpensive. We've been to all three ports of call before (Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, and Cabo San Lucas), so we were ready to relax in the sun and see some whales and sea life. 

We like to meet the people on our cruise and have made many friends on previous cruises . Most of the people on the ship drove to the port and were from the US. One friend, in fact, warned me that we would meet a different type of people on a less expensive cruise. She was so right! We like to get to know our fellow cruisers by reading the Roll Call on CruiseCritic's website. One couple we met for dinner the night before the cruise we nicknamed Honey Boo Boo and her defrocked minister husband. They were from Missouri and other states in the southeast, but currently live in Tucson. They moved often in search of work after he was denied a church (neither said why but we guessed). Upon the first meeting with them, they told us about his brother who was married 7 times, one of which was to his son's girlfriend after he got her pregnant. Honey innocently turned to me and said they counseled him that he didn't need to marry every girl he had sex with!! I certainly agreed with her. Anyway, despite our attempts to avoid them, we did run into them several times in the ship's casino.

Another interesting person on this cruise was a very, very loud man at our dinner table one evening . He monopolized the conversation telling us about how much he hated Christmas, but he was a volunteer Santa and raised $1200 every year for the children's Santa gifts. He was also a Cub Scout leader, according to him.  All of his stories were interlaced with every swear word I've ever heard. Really. Every sentence boomed out of his mouth laced with multiple "G*d d*mn" and other frickin' nasties. Very few at the table had a chance to speak, and I don't think anyone wanted to say anything. After the appetizers, someone mentioned travel and the difficulty of having pets when one traveled. Mr. Bore boomed out that he didn't care for dogs but, in his opinion, the only use for cats was for target practice. At that point, I couldn't even speak, let alone see straight, anymore, so I stood up, mumbled that I wasn't feeling well, and quickly walked out of the dining room. I really wanted to tell him what a crashing and ignorant bore he was, but he wouldn't have understood anyway. He just didn't get it and really was too dumb to understand . Luckily we didn't see him again, and we had dinner later, all by ourselves, and laughed about the whole thing.

Cory and I find each other the best company most of the time. We went on a couple of ship tours and the weather was wonderful. The first day out of LA was cool, but by the second day it was warm and sunny enough to get a bit pink by the pool. In Puerto Vallarta we took an all day boat and snorkeling trip out to the Las Marietas islands. While the snorkeling was poor, the boat trip, the people, and the whales we saw while on the water were amazing. We also took a whale watching trip out of Cabo on a Zodiac raft/boat that was really fun. We saw more whales than we've ever seen before. Many were mom/baby pairs as this is the season for new babies off of Baja. These amazing creatures really remind us that a whole world exists below the water's surface that we seldom recognize.

Enjoy the pictures below. We're now in San Diego for a few days and we'll make our way back to Phoenix this week. We leave for Europe again on March 20 and we're both very excited to explore new places and make new friends.