7. LA LA LA

Oh, what a great cruise!

We had a so much fun visiting with Mum, Dad and Sandra; seeing old friends and of course, making new ones.

Today we leave our wonderful crew and head back to the real world ... AND man does it hit you fast!

We left our cabins around 10 AM and found our bags at the terminal. We breezed through immigration and made our way outside...to discover that three other cruise ships were also unloading in LA! Oh la la.

So the mass mess that faced us coming in from Vancouver met us again in LA. We had made reservations to hire a car but the shuttle would not take us all to Long Beach (we were actually in San Pedro). OK. So Suley and I went with other tourists and managed to get a nice big SUV and made it back to fetch Ann, Tony and Sandra with bags an hour later.

With a little help from our friend...SHAWN...we were on the road.

We then took them back to Long Beach to show them this beautiful little city and we took a break near a wonderful marina near where the Queen Mary is docked. All of us exhausted, we decided food is in order...a little MEXICAN!

We had to ship a not-so-feeling-well Sandra back to NYC by way of Long Beach Airport so the timing and proximity could not have been more perfect for us. We said our sad goodbyes and shipped her out!

Then we piled back into the car and headed up to LAX area. We found our hotel and again, thank god for Internet preregistrations as we discovered a Jazz Convention was in town! We had an amazing and very warm day with this beautiful pool at our beck and call...but we all crashed in the hotel room at 3.30 PM until about 6.30 PM. Tony was the only one to take advantage of the pool.

At 7.30 PM, well-rested now, we drove out to Marina Del Ray and found a great restaurant and had another final and delicious meal....though, I'd have to say, we were pretty spoiled on the ship and "outside" service did not come close in comparison!

Back at the hotel and into bed (which was NOT turned down!) by midnight. Tomorrow we fly back to our respective Toronto and Victoria.

So...for a first cruise, it was pretty darn cool to have my family around me and a bonus to see friends. If you want to see our cruise photos, look to your right and click on CRUISE under the menu item, PHOTOS. The easiest is to click on Slideshow. There is no rhyme or reason to the order of the photos...long story short, I guess the martinis got the better of my posting abilites!

CHEERS!