pasyalan, chibogan, kodakan, atbp.: December 2012

December 21, 2012 - The day that the world should have ended as predicted by the Mayan calendar. It was the same day we left Sacramento early for Long Beach for it was the start of our 3-day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. It was our first time to go on a cruise and everybody was excited. I booked the cruise last September on Carnival's website. Since I booked 3 months in advance, I was able to avail of their early saver deal and used the savings to upgrade for a stateroom with "Ocean View" on the "Empress Deck" (Deck 7) which was the same deck where the main atrium was located as well as the art gallery - the best deck on the Carnival Inspiration.

We arrived at Long Beach port around 3:30 pm which was enough time before the ship's 5:30 pm departure. We parked at the daily parking with a $17/day parking fee. It was a good thing that I did the online check-in on Carnival's website before our trip. That saved us a lot of time filling in forms during check-in. On our way to our room, we met Ecko, our deck steward which I initially mistook for a fellow Filipino then later found out that he was actually Indonesian. He was very kind and took good care of us the entire duration of the cruise.

We were greeted with an elephant towel animal when we entered our stateroom. The room wasn't that big. There were 2 twin beds joined together to form a queen sized bed, a dresser with a vanity mirror, a bathroom with shower area, sink and toilet, a wall pull out single bed, closets and the window with a view of the ocean.

View of the left side of the room with the wall pullout single bed (closed position), wall mounted LCD TV, ocean view window and queen sized bed

View of the right side of the room with the wall art and 2 reading lamps

Ceiling mounted air cooling/heating unit

Wall pullout single bed (open position) which Danii got dibs on

Stateroom main door and bathroom

Bathroom sink

Shower Area

Toilet

View of the left side of the room with the wall pullout single bed (open position)

            After checking out the room, we headed off to the "Lido Deck" (Deck 10) where the adult swimming pool area was and lunch was being served. The Lido Deck Grill had hotdogs, burgers, fried chicken strips, salads, etc.

After the late lunch, we attended the mandatory passenger evacuation procedure orientation in the event that we had to abandon ship. Later that night, we had our dinner at the Mardis Gras Dining area. I opted for the "Your Time Dining" during the online check-in which meant that we can go have our dinner between 5:45 pm and 9:30 pm. It was just casual evening wear on the first night. We were seated at a table for 4 and met Glenn, a fellow Filipino who was the head waiter for that area. He was very accommodating and even asked us if we wanted seconds. After dinner, we just went back to our room to rest since we were all very tired from the drive that day from Sacramento.

We woke up around 8:00 am the next morning. We looked out the window and found out that the ship was already docked. We were already in Mexico. From the distance we could see a big Mexican flag waving from a huge flagpole.

We then proceeded to have breakfast at the Mardis Gras Dining. This time we were seated with 2 other groups in a big round table. Here are some samples of the breakfast items on their menu.

Lox and bagels

Bacon and eggs

French toast and corned beef hash

Brewed coffee

We decided to get off the ship to walk to the outskirts of town to look for some authentic Mexican tacos and maybe even churros. So after a light lunch at the Lido deck we headed towards the city. They had Mongolian BBQ for lunch that day at the Lido Deck.

Not too far from the port, we found this small shack that sells fish tacos for just $1 and pork bbq tacos for just $1.50. Those were the best fish tacos I've tried, even better that the ones I've tried at La Fiesta. These fish tacos don't have those tiny pieces of deep fried fish fillets like the ones they have in Mexican places in the US, these ones have a large piece of deep fried fish fillet as big as a chicken strip and you decide how to dress up your taco with all the toppings you want, the way you like it.

For dessert, we had some churros. The fish taco lady was kind enough to direct us to where we could find some churros. This guy's churros were either chocolate or cream filled. That was the first time I saw chocolate filled or cream filled churros.

It was formal evening wear dinner that night. Same as the night before, we were seated at a table for 4 and Glenn was our waiter again that night. Glenn told us that the main course for that evening was Prime Rib and Lobster.

Assorted Breads

Shrimp Cocktail

Mac & Cheese

Stuffed Mushrooms

Lobster Tail and Jumbo Shrimps

Prime Rib

Chocolate Melting Cake w/ Vanilla Ice Cream

After dinner, Danii and Dinah went shopping in the few shops inside the ship for "pasalubong" and some trinkets. We failed to watch the comedy shows that night for some reason I don't remember anymore.

The following day was "Fun Day At Sea". I quickly understood what that meant when we went to have breakfast at the Brasserie Grill. We were in the middle of the ocean, not a sight of dry land on the horizon. I also noticed one more thing. The cruisers were mostly Asian. Lots of Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian. Also, there were lots of kids and teens. From the reviews, I read that mostly old (retired) people go on cruises but that was definitely not the case on our ship.

After breakfast, the kids played mini-golf on the ships top most level. There was also an oval track around the mini-golf which can be used for jogging. All 4 of us tried to see who ran the fastest and the order from fastest to slowest was Danii->Dylan->Dinah->Dennis. I still can't believe that Dylan runs faster then me.