Honeymoon!!

 

For our honeymoon, Bryce and I decided that we wanted to go on a cruise. So we choose the 7 night Mexican Riviera Cruise on the Carnival Splendor Ship.

We got our passports and boarding passes and we were on our way!

Our ship left at 4:00PM on May 20th so we left straight from the reception in Monroe and stay at the Circus Circus hotel in Las Vegas. It was a long drive and we didn't get there til about 1:30AM. But then we were happy to remember that we gained an hour and it really was only 12:30AM in Nevada.

Bryce served his mission in San Bernadino California so we drove right through his mission. Since we were traveling on a Sunday we decided to go to church where he had served. We went to one of the wards in Barstow. It was fun to meet those people that he had served. He also showed me around the town of Barstow and some of the areas that he had served in. It was really fun to remember stories that he has told me and see where they had taken place.

We got to Long Beach Port and thanks to my paranoia in making sure I had every possible paper that they may need to see and checking, checking, and rechecking that I had done everything I needed to online before boarding, we boarded quickly onto our ship.

Here we are right before boarding the ship. 

( Don't mind the pictures where we do the reaching arm thing to try and get a good picture of us. There are lots of them)

 We found a place with cumpfy lounge chairs and decided it felt good to just hang out there for a while after our crazy last few days with the wedding and receptions. It felt good to finally just relax.

As we sat on our lounge chairs we realized that we could see the eclipse. The clouds were just thick enough that we could look right at it and see it. It was pretty amazing.

This is my sad attempt at getting a picture of the eclipse. It just doesn't do it justice.

Then we thought we would explore the ship. It is huge! And we had no idea where anything was yet.

There was a water slide on top and as you can see the roof of the deck below could open up to outside.

Here is the swimming pool and hot tubs at the back of the ship.

 And here is the deck with the roof that opens up.

This picture is kinda hard to see but it is a piano bar where they had lots of activities.

This was a huge theater. Lots of shows here.

Hanging out in the theater room. Partly because we were dizzy and had to sit down. We were still trying to get used to the movement of the ship.

The next day we just did lots of activities on the ship.

They had miniature golf on the top deck of the ship. Bryce won by a long shot. We also played ping pong (which I won) and went hot tubing.

That night was our first formal night. Everyone dressed up for dinner and they took professional pictures of you. We just stuck with the ones that we took since of course the professional ones were expensive.

Then we went and watched a little Karaoke. 

Every night they leave a little towel animal on your bed. I think this one is a pig.

The next day we were at Cabo San Lucas. It was gorgeous! Our ship was so big we had port out in the bay. So we took water taxis such as this one to the dock.

Our huge ship out in the bay

We booked an excursion for Cabo San Lucas to go kayaking and snorkeling. It took so long to get off of the ship that we were really cutting it close to be to our excursion on time. It was a little nerve racking but it turns out we were the only ones doing this excursion with this company that day. It was awesome! Our guide was really nice and we were able to take as much or as little time doing everything since we were the only ones.

We started kayaking at this beach

We kayaked all the way out to these rocks and then stopped on Lovers Beach. 

Our guide was awesome and took some great pictures of us while kayaking.

This is Lovers Beach. It was named because the ocean touches both sides of the beach and in storms the waves from both sides come all the way up onto the beach and touch.

And we found a cave.

The waves were awesome

Pelican Rock

Here is my sad attempt at a sand castle with my hands.

And Bryce wrote this in the sand

And I wrote this one. (I know, we are pretty cute)

Here is us in our snorkeling gear. Neither of us had snorkeled before and at first it was hard to get used to breathing through the tube. We figured it our and it was really fun to see all the different kinds of fish around the rocks.

We went to lunch at this little restaurant but no worries we had our bottled waters and didn't get sick from the food.

 

 

That night we went to the comedy shows. They were lots of fun! 

Our animal for the night. I think this one is a rabbit.

The next day we ported at Cabo San Lucas again. We just explored shops and bought some souvenirs. I got a Cabo San Lucas jacket and Bryce got a nice chess board. We also bought a deck of cards, a picture frame, and a shot glass for our collection. Bryce found a place that sold Dr. Pepper so he loaded up on those. 

Then we went down to the main beach. They called it the party beach because there was loud music and everyone was drinking. It was fun to just relax and hand out at the beach. Between the two days at Cabo Bryce got fried.

Leaving Cabo San Lucas

At dinner on the ship

Right before dessert they turned the lights down low and turned on some music. Our waiter came over and said "Miss Kristy, Come dance" and pulled me up. Of course Bryce was all over the camera for this one.

Hangin out at the back of the ship. It was fun to watch the ocean off of the back of the ship.

Our animal for the night was an elephant.

The next day we were in Puerto Vallarta. The city was huge and really pretty. We booked an excursion here to go zip lining through the jungle. We had to get a taxi to take us to the Canopy River office. On our taxi ride I wondered if we would make it there alive. The traffic there is crazy. It felt as though there were no traffic rules and everyone drove really fast on crappy roads. There were two roads side by side one higher than the other. To get from road to road they just had a slab of cement to drive on to switch roads. We did make it to the office and they sent us on another taxi/bus (which had no seat belts, little scary) to get up to the resort.

On our way up we got to see lots of the city.

We saw lots of houses like this. It looked like a poor community. It was sad to see what some of the people live in.

The Canopy River Resort was beautiful! We couldn't bring our cameras on the zip line so I don't have any pictures of it. They did have a professional photographer taking pictures of the whole thing but if you wanted the pictures you had to buy the whole disk and of course the price was outrageous.

We started the zip line at the top of the mountain. We zip lined back and forth across a huge canyon. We did about ten zip lines. Each one would getting closer and closer to the bottom of the canyon. The last zip line was across a river. They asked us if we wanted to do this one upside down and touch our hands and our heads in the water. I was all over this and it was way fun to go upside down. Bryce decided not to cause he thought his whole head would probably go under. Which was probably a smart choice because his butt even hit the water. When we got to the bottom we wondered if we had to hike all the way back up to the resort. Just then a long line of donkeys came down and we each rode a donkey back up the mountain.

These little black barrels were our lockers for all of our stuff.

We found some hammocks...

 And lounged until our bus was ready to leave

And Bryce fell off his...and I had to get a picture. haha

Bus ride back to Puerto Vallarta. You can tell from this picture that we were melting.

We got back and ate lunch at this restaurant.

Then we went to the beach and played in the ocean. The water was so warm, it was lots of fun.

Our ship ported right up against land. I was amazed that they could park a boat that big that close.

And here I have to show you just how close it was to land.

Then we went souvenir shopping. Bryce got a hat and I got a bracelet. We also bought a shot glass for our collection. And then we happened upon this bad boy. A patriots blanket from Mexico. Of course Bryce was in heaven and we had to get it. They also had a Mexican poncho that looked just like this. He wanted that as well but we didn't have enough money with us for both. So thank goodness we only came away with the blanket. I could just see him wearing this Mexican poncho and me walking twenty feet behind him pretending I don't know him.

And we had to take pictures with this awesome find.

Leaving Puerto Vallarta

They had self serve ice cream and pretty much every time we passed the machine we would get one. Bryce told me to make him one as big as I could....

 So here is the result.

And he did eat the whole thing.

Our animal for the night. I think its a bear... not quite sure though.

The next day we just did activities on the ship. Hot tubing, playing cards, and chess at the Rubusto Bar.

That night was the last formal night. We dressed up for dinner and of course the waiter had me and all the ladies get up and dance again.

Us at dinner. The food was always really amazing. We ate and ate and ate the entire cruise.

Then we spent another night at the comedians.

And that night we found a monkey hanging from the ceiling. This was our favorite animal for the night.

Here is our last day on the ship. I didn't take very many pictures apparently since we were just hanging out on the ship. Our cruise was so amazing though. It was so great to just be able to relax and have everyone cater to you. It was hard to have to come home.

And our animal for the last night was a stingray.

We were traveling again on a Sunday. So we stopped at Rancho and went to another ward that Bryce had served in. There I met more people that I have heard all about in stories. It was a lot of fun to meet the people that he served.