Lynnlee's 16th Birthday Trip Part 3

Friday, we were in Ensenada. I was a little worried about safety because of the craziness going on in Mexico. Also, because we were just two American females who could be easily taken advantage of. We decided to wait to get off the ship until there were more groups around to blend in with. I thought I remembered where the shops were, so we tried to walk with a purpose. 

Since it was our last morning, there were fun towel animals and other towel objects all around.

The shops were a little hard to find because, as you head northeast from the ship, you can't see them. They are one street in from where we are walking, so you get close but can't find them until you go one more street. We were walking and knew we were getting close, but couldn't find them. I didn't trust asking a local. Thankfully, a Segway tour passed us, and I asked the tour guide. He showed us where to go. We got soccer jerseys for the boys and Lynnlee. I got some earrings. We got souvenirs for Lynnlee's friends, then went back to the ship. I can't remember what we got for Sienna.

We spent the rest of the day playing trivia in the Red Frog Pub. It took three rounds of trivia for Lynnlee to win a trophy (a ship on a stick, they kept calling it). Yeah!

We spent some time in the hot tub to celebrate her win.

That night we enjoyed pizza one more time. The gluten-free deep-dish pizza was so good!

We watched Interstellar on the deck for a while until we got too cold.

We got off the ship Saturday morning, but our flight wasn't until 5:00 that afternoon. We took an Uber to Santa Monica Pier. We enjoyed walking on the beach, putting our feet in the ocean, walking around the pier, riding e-scooters, and eating at a restaurant on the pier. We stored our luggage at an e-bike rental shop. It was only about $10 to store our luggage for the day.

The Asian group was filming a music video.

The e-scooters were so fun, but at one point, we went too far north, and Lynnlee's scooter stopped working. We had to drag it to a parking area and then exchange it for another one. We still aren't exactly sure why her's stopped working because mine kept working. Also, her battery wasn't out. There wasn't good troubleshooting for it.  

It was a fun day but we were so ready to be home. We took an Uber to the airport and made our flight with no problems. 

Lynnlee's 16th Birthday Trip part 2

Tuesday was a day at sea. It was so nice to sleep in because we didn't have to rush to anything. We walked around the ship track for exercise. We had breakfast at the buffet. We competed in the Hold-in-One challenge. Lynnlee got a hole-in-one, so she advanced to round 2 with about 10 guys!

We watched this ice sculpture formation. 

We enjoyed lying out in the sun and sitting in the hot tubs because it wasn't warm enough to go in the pool. 

Our room attendant made a fun towel animal in our room every day. It was a formal night, so we dressed up. We tried to take selfies outside the dining room for about 5 minutes. We have 20 pictures or more, and we ended up laughing really hard since it took so many tries to get a good one. 

The moon was beautiful! 

On Wednesday, we went to Cabo. We were so nervous about missing our meeting time for our excursion. We slept until we woke up. We went to breakfast, and then we still had over an hour and a half until meeting time. We decided to walk around the track. It was fun to see Cabo as our ship pulled into port. We had only been walking for about ten minutes when we looked at our watches and saw that they suddenly showed 10:10, and we were supposed to meet in the theater at 10:00 for our zip line tour. We panicked because we still needed to go to our room, and we thought we had missed the meeting time. We left the track and started sprinting to our room. Then, as we were about halfway there, it occurred to me that the cruise director had announced on day 1 that ship time was the time everything went by. Then I told Lynnlee, and we knew we needed to find out what time it was in ship time. Forget what my watch and phone said. So we found a clock on the stairs, and it said it was only 9:10. We immediately stopped, calmed down, and had a good laugh. When we started walking, our phones showed ship time. Then they changed to Cabo time as we pulled into port. 

So we hadn't missed our meeting time. We went back to our room, gathered our things, and arrived at the meeting place with plenty of time to spare. While we were in the theater, the excursion team said we needed to have our passports. Usually, our ship cards are sufficient for ID to get on and off the ship, so we questioned it a little. Then I asked a worker, and they told me to get passports. So I hurried to the room, and by the time I got back, the groups were boarding the ferry to go to shore. Lynnlee stayed in the theater, and so she was being shuttled in a line toward the ferry. It was the most helpless feeling because I couldn't reach her to tell her I was coming. It was so stressful again. Thankfully, she got out of line, and we found each other and boarded the ferry together. 

When we got off the ship and the ferry and were officially in Cabo, we went right to the meeting place for our Zipline tour. They told us we could go shopping for 30 minutes because our tour wasn't meeting for another 30 minutes. We went to one store but then hurried back because we were so worried about missing it.

They drove us for about an hour in a van. The driving was crazy there! It was a two-lane highway, so the van passed slow cars, and sometimes another vehicle would come the other direction, and we would barely miss hitting them head-on. Yikes! We met a couple from Utah, and we enjoyed talking to the wife most of the drive. At base camp, we put on harnesses, helmets, and gloves. Then we loaded trucks, and they drove us to the top of a canyon. I was so nervous from the time we got in the van. My watch told me "Relax Reminder." 

The tour consisted of about 7 different ziplines. Some we had to brake ourselves with our gloves, and some had brakes on the line. I enjoyed those ones more. 

They made everyone go upside down on the second line. It looked cool, but it hurt so bad. The harness cut right into your upper hips and abdomen. I had to do deep breathing and cross the zipline to get through it.

This one was so fun and provided variety. Ali and Dan went on a cruise to Cabo over Christmas. They did the same tour, so we have the exact same pictures!

We could rock climb or use the ladders. We opted to go up the ladder. 

These pictures are out of order. This is the famous Cabo arch, and we saw it as we pulled into port. 

Views of Cabo

There was a Senior Frogs on every corner, practically. 

The last zipline was called Superman. It was the longest zipline. We had to hike up to it, which was a little difficult for Lynnlee on a hot, dry day. She did it, though. At the top, we put on a tall blue harness-type device like you wear for the Sky Coaster at Lagoon. When it was our turn, they connected us to the line, and we were lying flat in our blue harness thingy. They placed weights on our backs to make us heavy enough to reach the end of the zipline. They told us to hold perfectly still as we went down. It was fun and felt safer because we were wrapped up. There was a brake at the end, so it was nice not to have to worry about it. 

At base camp, they had quesadillas, salad, watermelon, and a hibiscus drink. I just had the salad, watermelon, and drink. Lynnlee said the quesadillas were yummy!

The van- we got in first, so we got the front row, thank goodness!

Downtown Cabo

Carnival Radiance

We dined in the dining room most nights. They had a gluten-free menu that I enjoyed. 

Doesn't Lynnlee look beautiful?!

Our towel friends

Lynnlee and I got these before our excursion when we had a few minutes to shop. Then, after our excursion, we found shirts for everyone else. These zipper jackets were perfect at night because it was cold walking around the ship. 

Thursday was a day at sea. It was so windy and cold. The track and mini golf were closed. We walked on treadmills in the fitness center. We went to crafts at sea. We found other activities to stay busy. The sunset that night was beautiful!

The first night we went to the comedy club for the clean show, but we didn't get there early enough for a good seat. This time we got there early and got a good seat. It was a different comedian than the first night. He was pretty funny, but overall, both shows were really short, like 15 minutes or less. It's like they couldn't come up with enough clean material to fill a show.

Our cruise director was subbing for the original cruise director, who we later found out had gotten sick that week. The sub-cruise director reminded me of a boy from my growing up named Jeremy Heftel. That won't mean much if you don't know him, but basically, our cruise director didn't seem like a stereotypical one. It was fine, though. You could tell the whole Entertainment Crew must have been battling sickness because they all seemed pretty worn down. 

This lady performed some covers, and she had a very unique sound. We were pretty tired, so we didn't stay for the whole show. 

Lynnlee's16th Birthday Trip

When I was growing up, each of my siblings got to go on a special trip with my dad. I liked it so much that I wanted to do something like that with my own kids. We changed it a little in that either parent can go depending on the child's preference. Lynnlee asked me to take her and we began planning around black Friday. She wanted to go on a cruise so we booked in when there was a Black Friday deal. She was really great to book it over my spring break. I didn't really want to be gone over her spring break. First reason is that it would be hard for me to make up school and second is what would the rest of the family do while we were gone when they were out of school. Lynnlee had to work hard to get ahead. It was the end of term for her which was a little tricky. 

We left early on Monday morning. We flew to LAX and took a shuttle to the Carnival Cruise Port. I was nervous going into the trip because I haven't traveled without another adult in a long time. Lynnlee is old enough that it makes it better but in the end everything falls on me. I was worried we wouldn't find the shuttle or that I would forget an important document. Thankfully we found someone holding up a Carnival sign at baggage claim.

We arrived at the port about an hour before our assigned time to get on the ship. We had 2 options. We could wait outside the building for our assigned time and then get in a short line to get on the ship. The other option was to get in a very long line for those wanting to get on the ship but arriving not during their assigned time. We decided to try that line. It ended up getting us on the ship a little bit sooner so it worked out. While we were standing in that very long line we noticed a lot of college age guys, like more than normal. Since it was my college spring break, I assumed all of these guys were on their college spring break. The only strange detail is that a lot of them knew each other. So then I wondered how so many college guys would know each other. As the first few days went on we continued to see college guys everywhere. More on this later in the post. 

Once we got on the ship, we went straight to the buffet for lunch. I was happy that there were signs on anything gluten free.

Then we walked around the ship and played mini golf. 

Our room opened by 1:00 which was very fast! We didn't have our luggage yet but at least we could put our backpacks down. We went to an art scavenger hunt, took pictures for the Pixel scavenger hunt, and went on the deck for the Set Sail party. It was a fun dance party. It was sunny but chilly. We had our swimsuits but it was too cold to swim or hot tub. That night we ate in the dining room. They had My Time Dining instead of having to go at 5:00 or 8:00. With My Time Dining you go on the app and tell the dining room when you are ready to eat. Then about 10 minutes later they send you a notice that a table is ready. It was nice eating when we wanted to eat. They had a gluten free menu and the food was very good!

The Pixels challenge was fun and hilarious! You had to go around the ship and take pictures with the photographers. There were 6 locations. Each photographer had you pose together 3 times together and 3 times individually. Some of the poses were fun and normal and some were totally awkward and unnatural. I still get a good laugh when I look at these pictures! I am only posting the most awkward ones.

After dinner we went on the deck for the movie. It was Now You See Me 3. So good! It was chilly but we bundled up and were good. 

Aunt Donna

Aunt Donna was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the end of 2025. She wasn't feeling well at the end of October but it took awhile for the doctors to know what was causing it. She was in so much pain and discomfort through the last few months of her life. Her cancer had metastasized beyond treatment so she went on Hospice and passed away at the end of February. We were sad but also grateful that she didn't have to suffer and be in pain for any longer. Her memorial service was the first week of March when Lynnlee and I were gone. It didn't work out for any of us to go. I'm glad my parents, Betsy and Katie were able to go to her service. Here are some of our favorite pictures of Aunt Donna. She was a wonderful aunt and a great hostess when we visited Florida. She will be missed.