Cruise Ports

 Our Cruise made two stops. The first stop was at Catalina Island. The kids enjoyed playing in this park while the Dads rented golf carts for us to tour the island.

The golf carts were a lot of fun. We got a kick out of the Rental Place chasing us down across the island to tell us that we couldn't hold Tyler on our laps and that he needed to be in a toddler seat. 

Here is the view of our boat during our scenic drive.

 After we were done with the golf cart, the kids wanted to play in the water a little. It was too cold to go all the way in, but they all went in far enough to get the bottoms of their shorts/capris wet. You can see our cruise ship in the background.

 The other stop was in Ensenada, Mexico. Danny and I did not have fond memories of Ensenada from our previous visit, so we were hesitant to even get off of the boat. However, we had gotten the kids passports and as a result, we wanted to actually use them. We also wanted them to see what it is like to be in another country, so we got off.

There were really bombarded with picture opportunities as we got off.

 We managed to find a driver who ended up being a tour guide for us too. He took us exactly where we wanted to go. Brian and Maryn had done the research for Ensenada and we went along for the ride. We first stopped at this Civic Center/Museum. It used to be a hotel and casino. Now it is a convention center. There were some vendors right outside of it, so we were able to buy the girls a souvenir- a bracelet with their name on it. We then toured the place with our hired "tour guide."

After the Civic Center, we had our driver drop us off at Costco. We were interested to see how it differed from our Costco. We found that it was the same apart from the labels in Spanish and things appearing to cost a lot more. We pointed out to the kids how we could buy a shirt for daddy for $300. We did stop in their food court and pick up a delicious mango smoothie(something different from our Costco) and a Churro(not different-Although Alyssa declared that it wasn't as good as Disneyland's churros). After Costco, we made the scary walk across the street to the Walmart to see how it was different. Not much difference there, either.  We were glad that we didn't get hit as we crossed the street as it is kind of a fight for the right of way between cars and pedestrians, no matter what the traffic light says. We then waited at the McDonalds for our driver and let the kids play. We enjoyed making our own excursions and taking things at our own pace at both places.