A few months ago, we booked a quickie 3-day Memorial Day weekend cruise out of SoCal with the kids - I love cruises, but I wasn't sure how the girls would like it. We gave them an option of a road trip again (like we did last year to Big Sur and San Francisco), camping, or cruising, and they picked cruising.
For me, this is ideal, because there's a finite amount of planning that you can do with a cruise - you pretty much have a limited number of options. I have a tendency to plan plan plan overplan plan obsessively, so this gives my OCD issues some relief.
Carnival isn't super fancy or anything, but it's a decent produt at a decent price point, and we had fun.
Marissa (#2) and Gabby spent a lot of time wanting to go back to Camp Carnival, and #1 - brace yourselves - wanted to hang out with The H and me a lot. She went to shows with us, hung out on deck with us, and was generally adorable and un-14-year-old-ish. I know my days of this are numbered, so we took advantage of it while it lasts.
....and then there's this.... Oh, fickle.
Our options out of SoCal are pretty limited - for the weekend we needed to book, there was only the 3-day sailing on Inspiration to Ensenada. I've done this cruise before with a friend a few years ago, and I've been on this class of ship twice before, so it was comfortable. It's not the newest, fanciest ship around, but it's easy to navigate, and not so giant that it feels overwhelming.
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| she was STARVING. The H thought this was hilarious. |
Ensenada isn't my favorite port... We wandered around for a few hours, but spent most of the day back on the ship.
Apparently, it was EXHAUSTING for the girls.
I made them all get dressed up for Elegant Night. Gabby didn't want to leave our window.
The weather on our only sea day, Sunday, was less than ideal - overcast, windy, and cold. COLD.
In a shocking turn of events, I had two REALLY GREAT runs while on board. I am thinking my treadmill hatred is directed only towards the new treadmills in my gym, and not all treadmills universally?? Madness.
Or maybe it was the view? The view didn't hurt.
4 faaaast tempo miles on Saturday, and 3.5 easy miles Sunday - I really felt good, and intended to run further, but our weather was ROUGH, and it's shockingly hard to balance on a treadmill when the boat is rocking. Instead of just heading back to bed, I followed that with WEIGHTS. I know, I barely even know who I am.
I'm not sure what got into me, but I was up both days and at the gym by 6:30. Fascinating.
I also booked a room on the lowest deck, with the intentions of walking up the stairs all weekend. Did you know, it's a LOT of stairs from the 4th deck to the 12th, where the gym is? Or from the 4th deck, to the 10th where all the FOOD is??? My legs have never been so exhausted.
Unfortunately, it was not enough to undo the damage done by Weekend of Gluttony.
This is probably not ideal refueling for a 9am breakfast post-workout.
I really, really love cruising.
FYI, if you're in the market, I booked this cruise and my last through Destiny Cruise Travel - Debbi is remarkably patient and did not shun me when I changed my mind a million times before booking. Highly recommend!
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PFTW!
Last week:
Tuesday: 3.5 crappy miles
Saturday: 4 miles, tempo fast!
Sunday: 3.5 okay miles, weights
This week....
Monday: Yoga/stretching {as in, I already did this!}
Tuesday: 4 miles "easy" {hold on to your hats, I RAN THIS MORNING. It was not good}
Wednesday: Yoga/Cross training
Thursday: 4-5 hills
Friday: rest
Saturday: long {I for REAL need a long run, since I'm running a half marathon in 18 days...}
Sunday: Cross training
