Well, we had much fun on our cruise. The cruise was "free" but I estimate that we spent around $450. I did write everything down as I tend to on vacation just add things up in my head and forget a lot. So instead I wrote everything down and rounded up. We had $200 excess to spend, plus $140 from fam, which means we probably spent $110 from our budget which wasn't bad at all. & we certainly splurged and enjoyed!!!!

Our room tab was about $160 which was sadly $80 tips and $80 drinks. Both of which we probably could have cut way down. (To future cruisers). The had an option to prepay the tips (& save a few dollars on the total) so we just did that right away. It didn't even occur to us until the last night as we distributed them that we WAY overpaid. They had a recommended amount per day but for one we had skipped one formal dinner. On the drive home I asked dh, um, weren't those tips s'posed to be for breakfast, lunch and dinner??? We only ever are dinner in the dining room so we realized we probably way overpaid...

I actually also for some dumb reason thought the unlimited soda was $6, but it was $6/day. I didn't realize until after I purchased it. So not worth it. I bought 3 bar drinks though insanely expensive were YUMMY and we also ordered champagne in one night - so mostly the champagne and soda was 1/2 our bill. What we didn't realize was room service was free (the food). Well duh. Man that whole cruise thing is NICE! I was not a big fan of the dining room but dh liked it for whatever reason. Plenty of buffet and other options, which we did for lunch and breakfast. Plus we ate lunch off the boat twice.

Anyway, so that is my advice to future cruisers. Really analyze those tips and only pay what you need to. We felt obligated to $40/each, plus all the tips they charge on every thing you purchase. I don't know why we didn't really think about it until later, but now I see why they push the big tip pre-payment thing which was most of our problem.

Anyway, we lucked out and had 4 straight days of sun (apparently some record) and just had a great time. I didn't get seasick at all so phew. I had dramamine out my ears but barely used it. The boat was so big I guess.

Catalina Island was nice. We went on a little semi-submarine ride which was pretty fun. Through the cruise ship was $37/person or something but we were thinking of doing the $15 glass-bottom boat tour just on our own time, if we felt like it. So we got off the cruise ship and headed over and decided the submarine thing looked more fun. We had all this money from grandma to spend anyway. I thought that the prices were actually more expensive than the cruise ship (& what I saw on the internet - by a couple of dollars) like they had just increased prices or something, but they only charged us $15 for the whole thing. We were like, huh? Oh - it was on special for the day. So the suckers on the cruise ship were paying almost $80 for a little boat ride that cost us $15! Too funny. I assume overall this is a common practice (though this one wasn't advertised well) as to draw in people who wouldn't pay the big bucks otherwise. We found the same thing in Ensenada. We hadn't really wanted to do any of the tours. Well I didn't, and though dh was interested he didn't want to spend 5 hours. So we took the shuttle into town just to check it out and they were offering 2-hour tours that were like $15/each as opposed to $50+/each through the cruise. We said sure, what the heck. So that was actually pretty nice.

Both times we got off the boat we splurged on some big lunches. Lord knows why, not like we didn't have enough food on the boat. I guess we had some hope of finding some authentic Mexican food too, but it just wasn't going to happen in Mexico - we probably couldn't have eaten anywhere more American than we ended up but it wasn't too pricey.

But yes, on the boat we would generally wake up, eat a BIG breakfast, nap until noon, do some sight-seeing, get in back to sunbathe/nap a couple of hours before dinner, go to dining room, go see some shows (some good comedians and stuff) and then go eat again - LOL. That is pretty much the schedule I got accustomed to for a week. It was pretty sweet...

So yeah,

$160 charged to our room - drinks/tips
$ 50 parking
$ 10 souvenirs for kids (shirts)**
$ 45 Tours
$ 70 Lunches
$ 6 Buses

I don't know - I am missing $100 for now. I'll add it up later. Oh we also stopped to eat a big meal on the drive in and lots of gas and stuff but I am not sure I added that in the $450. That could make the trip a good $500+ easy. Took the compact car for the 6 hour drive each way but gas was like $3.70 in LA - eeks. I'll have to itemize later - this is just off the top of my head.

**Dh is really big into souvenirs and I pretty much hate them. He was big into it for the kids so we decided on something useful like shirts - one each. BUT the funny thing is when we got home grandma had like bought them whole new wardrobes or something. We could have done without I guess...

Grandma also bought a lot of toys, like there wasn't enough to entertain them here as is. Oy vey.

Anyway, that pretty much sums up our trip. It was really nice, fun, relaxing, but I am REALLY glad to be home too!

Oh yeah, and customs was just hell. I don't know what the hell they are doing over there but we got off the boat and it took almost an hour to get through customs. They weren't checking bags or anything, just taking their damn sweet time as it was analyzing everyone and then when we get through of course we get carted off to some area to get checked out because they are looking for some guy with the same name as my husband's. They annoyed me too because they said I was clear but they took my ID and birth certificate back with his passport and all I could figure is they cleared him because he was traveling with me and they could clearly see he was the P.N. he claimed to be, not this P.N. they are looking for. But I Was just really annoyed, okay, I'm clear, so give me back MY I.D.!!!! It was really annoying though. I am all for increased security but I mean come on, what are do they doing????? We were just eager to get home so were not happy at the hour or so delay. IT took an hour to wait 7th in line and to be harassed. Especially since it didn't really appear they were doing much but harassing random people like us. They didn't do anything. They made us sit in a room for a while, asked dh the same stupid questions they had already asked him (where he lived?), and let him go. Dumb. All I could hope is in the meantime they were doing some background check or verifying something with their computers because from the outside it didn't look like they did anything but harass him. Which is absolutely ridiculous - not a common name and he has lived in the same place his whole dang life. That is my rant for the week though... Everything else was great - just a horrid end to the vacation. But we still made it home around 5pm Friday and so we were pleased!

It is SO good to be back!