Cruise!

Ok, FINALLY I am posting our pictures from the cruise! Oh my goodness, I am so late, but, better than never at all! First of all, I am a horrible picture taker, literally, I don't take very good pictures, plus, I usually forget to actually take the pictures, so there are quite a few holes in the vacation, but we'll take what we can get!

This is Ryan in our room. We were soooooo lucky and Mary got us suites! Sweet! It was absolutely amazing!
Ryan by our bed, seriously, one of the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in. Loved it. I got my own closet! Our bathroom was really nice, the whole room was amazing!

Us, out on our balcony the day we left Long Beach

This is at dinner the first night, that is Lee and Mary and the side of my head. Lee was in a car accident a few weeks before the cruise, so he had to wear that thing the whole time. There are a few good stories to go along with that. Hmm, first, the security people thought it was a camera case and asked him to take it off so they could inspect it. Oops. Second, I will keep it short. Hallway. Stranger. High-Five.

Ryan and I with the Astoria bridge in the background. You may notice the umbrella in my hand and Ryan wearing the sweatshirt. It was very cold and wet when we got off the boat, thankfully, it warmed up later on!

Yup, it warmed up so we could climb to the Astoria Column at the top of the town. Ryan was so excited we got to do this. Note sarcasm. Instead of walking up the road to the column, we took this shortcut, which was a super steep hill. That is me in the white jacket. I am on the phone making reservations for our zipline the next day.

After the long (seriously, from the boat, it was a really long, steep way) the column was closed, so we couldn't even climb to the top and look out. I was really bummed!

That is the Astoria Bridge in the back of this picture, mentioned earlier in this post, gives you an idea of how far away it was.

The tower may have been closed, but the view was breathtaking and so worth the walk!

At the bottom of the city, closer to the marina, that is the column in the distance.

YEA!!!!! ZIPLINING!! I was looking forward to this so much. This is a map of the zips we got to go on. There were 7 in all. Amazing.

Me, sporting one of the awesome yellow helmets that we got to wear!

This is Ryan's Uncle Jim, he went first!

Me, on our first zip. Do I look scared?

Ryan, myself, and the tree that we were all crowded around at one of the treetop landings.

Yes, this is all that was protecting us from dying. A net. We were high in a tree with a net keeping us from falling over the edge. That was what was scary for me. The zips were absolutely amazing. Waiting in the tree, scared the daylights out of me!

Ryan preparing to zip.

Ryan zipping.

Me preparing to zip with one of our guides Allison. Oh, I forgot to mention that we were in Victoria for the ziplines.

Hmm, think that is Ryan on one of the tree landings, but I am not sure!

Scenery. Stunning. It was one of the most amazing views perched up there in the rare Canadian Black Walnut Tree. Or a steel pipe for those a little more sophisticated.

Nice butt. The harness does a nice job of forming to your tush.

Me zipping on the longest one, it's just shy of 1000 feet and takes about 45 seconds, which is amazing, because you have enough time to really look around and take in your surroundings.

Me on the last zip =( It was super fast, the fastest one they have. And there was a strange person sitting on the side taking our pictures. Weird.

Because we did the ziplines, we didn't have a lot of time to look around Victoria, but I really wanted to check out the Empress Hotel, so we went with Jim and Sandy, who had joined us ziplining. This is the huge tree(s) that were outside the hotel. Very cool looking.

This is one view of the amazing Empress Hotel. That is Sandy, Ryan's aunt in the picture.

The interior of the hotel.

In Vancouver, my main priority was to go shopping. The city has amazing shopping centers, and I only scratched the surface! I could shop for a week there and probably still have more to see. We went to this one mall that had over 500 stores and it was so amazing, we went to a bunch of stores and still missed a bunch more! But, we did go into this Chinese grocery store that was at the mall. Strange. The entire place was Chinese, everything was written in Chinese and there were special foods and everything. It was quite interesting. I also found a couple of awesome clothing stores that I am going to investigate on-line! Anway, we spent a few hours shopping and then decided to try and see what else we could check out before the boat left at 5. The whole group had bought day passes for the public transportation there, which included the sky train, city busses and sea bus. So, Ryan and I hopped the sea bus and then took the city bus to the Capilano Suspension Bridge. It was beautiful. They have a kind of reserve there in North Vancouver, and it was fun to wander around. A little bit expensive, but still a lot of fun!

This is a chair make out of a log.

This is part of their tree tops walk.

This is also part of the tree tops adventure. Notice my shopping bags!

This is the river the bridge crosses over, it was quite beautiful.

That is the bridge in the distance.

Ryan said we had to take this picture, since we like huckleberries so much in the Northwest.

This is the actual suspension bridge. Again, me and my shopping bags! It was pretty long and you really got to bouncing and swinging, especially in the middle and ESPECIALLY if someone small was running through there at the same time.

Me on the awesome sea bus.

Ryan on the awesome sea bus.

A picture of our ship in port.

A couple of random pictures of Vancouver.

That is our awesome sea bus! It just goes back and forth between Vancouver and North Vancouver all day.

Our rooms were all on the seventh floor. I was waiting in the hall and if I peeked down, this is what I saw. THe people are Jon, Patrick and Katie (I am pretty sure) they were making sure they got their money's worth from fountain cards!

Another picture of the lounge area. The boat was quite beautiful, a newer boat which was amazing. There was a lot of pink and very bright, because that is how Carnival does it, but a beautiful boat! The Carnival Splendor, at carnival.com if you want to see more pictures due to my lack of photography skills!

This is part of the crew. Katie, Patrick, Mary, Courtney and Katelyn. We were all there on the last night ready to watch the show. The Carnival Legend show, oh my, what amazing dancing! Well, not superb, but they tried and I guess that is what counts. The main showroom was pretty nice and the seats were pretty comfortable also.

Royal Carribbean also changed their Mexican Riviera itinerary and so we saw them a couple of times. This is on the way back, I can't remember if this is Friday night or Saturday, but that is them in the distance all lit up! They did pass us, also.

This is a picture of our ship at the Long Beach port. It is humongous!

Ok, these were supposed to be at the beginning, oops. This is us all hanging out waiting to board the ship. On Sunday, there was a lot of waiting, but because we were VIP due to the suites, we were able to get on the ship quickly!

More waiting. Gregg, Mary and Jim are visiting.

Ryan, taking a picture of himself, and my hair.

Me and Courtney.