What's next?

As you've probably realized, I haven't been posting very much. One big reason is that the wedding is over and I really don't have much else to say about it! I can't believe we're nearing the 10 month mark! Some days I think it was just yesterday and other times it seems like a lifetime ago! Another reason...I'm burned out...of weddings that is! I don't watch wedding shows anymore (that fact still frightens me) and as I stated before, you've heard all about my wedding! As of now, we have 2 weddings this year. I'm in one in June and my brother's in October! Although I'm excited for these, its hard for me to really get into them since I'm still burned out from ours! Does that sound mean? I really don't mean it to be!

I feel like now is a good time to cut ties with the bridal blog and move onto what my life is like now...which is not very exciting, but will give a better insight of who I am and what life is like...post wedding! This will be the last post here on 2 State Bride, but I'm just beginning at Heidi's House. I've decided to start a new blog that encompasses just about anything! I hope I haven't lost all of my followers due to my lack of posting. If you're still around, come join me! I feel that I have a lot more to share and it will be fun...I promise!

Thanks to all of you who have stuck around (for reasons I'm not entirely sure of!) and I hope you'll join me as I move on to being a newlywed and a wife! Read more!

Honeymoon Cruise...Part 5

I'll give an overall review of our cruise at the end, but I had to share our towel animals with you!

Elephant

Dinosaur

Rabbit

Monkey

Walrus

Heart


The next pictures are my favorites from the trip!

First formal dinner night (I'm not fond of how I look in the picture, but its a decent one of the two of us)

Sun rising in Cabo

Sun rising in PV

The view of the afternoon sun on the water from our balcony

Sun rising over Long Beach the day we returned

We lucked out the day we got back and self disembarked (we took our own luggage off instead of waiting for our number to be called and having to pick up our luggage once we were off the ship). We were off the boat at 8, to the Long Beach airport at 8:30 and on an early flight home at 9am (we almost didn't make it...as in announcing our names over the load speaker because the ticketing agent sent us to the wrong gate and we had to go through security twice). We were back in our apartment at 12:30 when our original flight left at 1! So nice!

Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves! Neither of us had been to Mexico before, so it was a good way for us to see so many places. We liked being on a cruise for that aspect...going to more than one place on a vacation. Will we cruise again? Not sure! We had, what I like to call, cruising hangovers. Mine lasted for 3 days, Mr. 2SBs lasted for 5. What does the hangover entail? You still feel like your on the ship. Apparently your equilibrium works so hard to keep you balanced while your on the ship that it takes a while for it to "even" out once you get off. We never felt sick on the ship, but I almost lost my breakfast my first day back at work. Its not fun and there is NOTHING you can take or do about it! The Splendor ship was beautiful and is still fairly new. It is very pink, but didn't bother me. The food was good! We paid a little extra our last night to eat at the steak house they have on board. It was delicious and I highly recommend doing it if you get the chance! Service was great too! There was always someone wanting to get you another drink or bucket of beer (extra charge of course), but it wasn't annoying (for the most part)!

If you want a more detailed review or have questions, just send me an email or leave a comment with your question!

Have you been on a cruise? Did you have a "cruising hang over"?


Tomorrow's post will be the big announcement!

Missed something? Catch up!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4 Read more!

Honeymoon Cruise...Part 4

Our 3rd and last stop before sailing back to CA was in Cabo San Lucas. I'm not an expert on this next part, but this was my interpretation. In PV & Mazatlan, we were docked on a pier. Meaning we could walk on and off the ship and be on land. In Cabo, we anchored and had to take tender (smaller boats) from our ship into the pier to be on land. Our shortest port time was in Cabo, which also made the tendering process seem worse than it actually was. We had planned a snorkeling trip, so by the time we waited to get on a tender boat, got to the pier we had to immediately jump on our catamaran to go snorkeling. As soon as we got back from snorkeling we had to get in line to get on a tender boat to get back to the ship. Overall, its a long process especially when you have 3,000 on a ship and 10 or so tender boats that hold 50 people.

Anyway, here are the pictures!

Sun rise over Cabo

This ended up being our tender boat right under our balcony. This was a supersized tender that took 200 people instead of 50.

A beach only accessible by water taxi...we didn't go there!

Rock formations

Us by the infamous Arch

3rd and final whale siting...on our way to go snorkeling. These were the most active whales we saw and we were very close to them! I think this one was waving Hi!

Big fin...little fin...

make a big splash!

My favorite of all my whale pictures...whale tail!

Sea of Cortez...where we went snorkeling

I'm ready to go!

We used a disposable underwater camera, but the pictures are not that great. We did see a lot of cool fish and an eel! I also drank lots of salt water...yum!

One the way back to the pier...lunch and cocktails were provided! Yay for more rum punch!

Passing our ship on the way to the pier. We tried to get our captain to drop us off at our ship, but he said no!

We got back to the pier at 2pm, which was also when the "last" tender boat was supposedly leaving. The line for the "last" tender boat had at least 500 people in it. So we took some time and walked around, bought a couple souvenirs and 2 Coronoa's each before standing in line. The line was 2 Corona's long by the time we stood in it! There was probably around 200 people in line after us, so we weren't worried about not getting on the ship. From what I remember (rum punch, Corona's and Mojito's will do that to ya), we set sail around 3. I have a feeling our departure time has a little wiggle room due to the tendering aspect.

We LOVED Cabo! From what we saw of it anyway. We definitely want to go back, but at this point it would probably be at an all-inclusive type place. Which seemed to be all over! The weather was the best in Cabo too, so maybe that was part of our decision of why we liked it the best. It also seemed more modern, less street vendors and a lot cleaner than the other 2! Who knows though, since we really just saw the pier.

Have you stayed in Cabo before? Did you love it or hate it?

Next up - final Honeymoon post!

Missed something? Catch up!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Read more!

Honeymoon Cruise...Part 3

Our next stop was in Mazatlan. We had booked a site-seeing, Mexican show and shopping tour. Although we were the youngest people on the tour, it was a really good experience and we felt that we saw a lot of city and some great sites we probably wouldn't have happened up on our own.

1st site - the 2nd highest natural lighthouse in the world

White Rocks (from all the bird do do!)

Cathedral Basílica de la Inmaculada Concepción
I "stitched" two photos together, so that's why it looks kind of funny.

The Cliff Divers are the next 3 pictures:

Our next stop was a Mexican show that included various dances and clothing.

1st set of dancers

There was a group of these guys. They did a dance and joked around.

These guys were dare devils! They danced around this pole, climbed up, wrapped rope around their waists and eventually "fell" down. The head guy stood up and danced around the top of this pole.

And they're falling!

Almost to the bottom!

The Pacifico Brewing Company. We didn't tour here...maybe next time!

View of our ship! We had to take shuttle rides from where we got dropped off near the pier to the ship.

Overall, we enjoyed our time in Mazatlan. Probably another place we won't go back to, but it was nice to see it. The street vendors were all over the place and relentless. It got very annoying, but I know its their livelihood. I just wish they would sell better stuff!

Have you been to Mazatlan? What did you think?

Next up - stop #3 - Cabo San Lucas

Missed something? Catch up!
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Part 2

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Honeymoon Cruise...Part 2

After being on the ship since early Sunday afternoon, we were anxious to get off and check out Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday. We got into port fairly early. I went for a run that morning (2nd of the trip...I've never exercised on vacation before, but that's for another post!) and then we took our time getting ready and getting off the ship. This was our longest day we had in port (12 or so hours), so we weren't in a rush. We had planned a sunset cruise that left around 4, so we set off on our own. We walked around the downtown area and did some shopping, site-seeing and eating!

The sun rising over Puerto Vallarta

The most obnoxious pirate ship! They were docked right outside our balcony and were very loud! When I was running that morning, they had set sail with their first group. As I was running along, they fired off a cannon...scared me pretty bad, but I ran a little faster!

The private boat we bought...haha...not really!

Happy to be on land!

Walking along the coastline!

Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe - it was beautiful inside, but my pictures...not so much!

Self explanatory!

We got balloon hats also where we ate lunch! If you go, the guacamole they make table-side is DELICIOUS!

This shows my maturity level...sorry!

2nd whale siting on our sunset cruise!
There was a momma and her calf and a small pod of dolphins!

They were very close, this isn't zoomed in all that much!

This was the calf!

The dolphins are on the left and the calf is in the middle!

There's just something about whales!

I took so many pictures of the whales that our camera battery died (advice: charge your camera battery every night on vacation even if it doesn't need it!), but Mr. 2SB was able to catch this picture. Since it was cloudy the sunset lasted about 3 minutes...I know because I missed it since I was in the bathroom!

Overall, we had a nice time in Puerto Vallarta. We really enjoyed the sunset cruise, mostly because of the whales and dolphins, but the crew was nice. The appetizers were good and the rum punch was delicious! We don't feel the need at this time to ever go back to PV, but I'm sure the all-inclusive resorts offer a different perspective of the area.

Have you ever been to PV? What did you think?

Next up - stop #2 - Mazatlan

Missed something? Catch up!
Part 1

Read more!