Wanderlust Wednesday: Ensenada

A couple of weeks ago we went on a little vacation to Ensenada on the Carnival Imagination. It was a 3 night cruise leaving out of Long Beach, CA. I've been itching to go somewhere but I didn't have much time off so this was just perfect. The cruise started on Thursday and we came back Sunday morning. This would be my 4th cruise and 3rd with Carnival. I've been a big fan of cruises since my very first one because of the convenience. You don't have to worry about lodging, food, or basically anything! Despite getting sea sick on every single one of the cruises I've been on (I took meclizine too!), I was still able to enjoy all of them.

no waiting in a separate line to get our sign and sail cards since our rooms were already ready!

This was the view from our room on the Riviera Deck (Deck 4).

We opted for the beverage program on the ship which was 15 alcoholic beverages (valued at $10 or less) for $50 per day. Each person in that cabin must also enter the beverage program. We weren't able to drink all 15 drinks each day but it was a stress-free way to not have to lug a bunch of alcohol in our luggage.

muster station selfie!

menu on the first night

The towel animals are usually my favorite surprise of any Carnival cruise! You never know what you'll get! On the first night we got this fellow. We think he might be a lobster. What do you think?

We arrived in Ensenada around 9am and would be leaving again at 6pm. We weren't sure what we would be doing that day yet so we decided to check out the shore excursions desk. We ended up deciding to go horseback riding in the mountains. I've only been horseback riding once before (in Santa Barbara for a bestie's bachelorette party) but it should be like riding a bike? lol.

we were wondering why mr. potato head doing there and his significance to mexico lol

Getting off the ship is sometimes a long process so we had breakfast and explored the ship a little since we had some time before our excursion started.

On the ranch

After horseback riding, we wanted to eat some seafood and decided to pick the brain of our tour guide. He recommended Haliotis which turned out to be this really high end restaurant but super delicious food. We felt bad because we were dressed in workout attire and everyone else there was dressed in business attire! Luckily the staff made us feel right at home and didn't look at us like some dirty Americans lol.

fish ceviche

Formal night ended up being on the same night that we were ported! That was really weird but we still managed to do it and snap a few shots around at all the booths. Our photos were much to hideous to post lol.

Formal night means unlimited lobster!

Then we find this cool guy waiting for us in the room.

Mornings started at the omelette station. It reminded me of the good 'ole days at Covel at UCLA.

Overall we had a nice little getaway to Ensenada. We were able to try some really great food. We were a bit disappointed with the quality of the ship as well as the quality of the food on the 3 day cruise (Baja Mexico) versus the 7 day cruises (Mexican Riveria). But if you're not impressed with the food on the 3 day cruises, don't let that deter you from going on the 7 day cruises. The food is SIGNIFICANTLY better on the 7 day cruises. I was also disappointed that there was no sushi bar! That was one of the highlights on the 7 day cruises for me. It was a nice appetizer before dinner especially if you had the later dinner. I would probably do the same cruise again if I had a 4 day weekend to spare and do a different excursion (probably visit the blowhole).

The quality of the ship was also a disappointment. This ship must have been decades old and as much as they tried to maintain it, it still looked really dated. Again, the cruise ships that they use for the longer cruises are also much newer so don't let this kind of cruise deter you from future cruising. You pretty much get what you pay for.

Because the cruise wasn't really up to par with what I had expected, the travel bug is latched on and not letting go. Not sure where we're off to next but we're off to brainstorming!

Happy Hump Day friends! Hope the rest of your week will fly by!

Wanderlust Wednesday: NYC

So I might have mentioned that I would be starting this series this year a few moons ago lol and I've just been so caught up in dealing with life that I haven't had the chance. We're in the midst of preparing for a lot of life events which require a lot of funds so our vacation planning has been put on hold for the time being. In the meantime I thought I'd post our New York Vlog from back in August. I got a Surface in October (as a birthday present to myself) and I've had the vlog collecting dust on my old laptop. I finally got a chance to export it this weekend so wah-lah! Hope you enjoy this video!





P.S, I've been looking at my 2014 Hawaii trip videos and I think I may have enough footage to make a video. I'm having some trouble with Windows Movie Maker because it's somehow converting my HD footage to a really crappy quality. I may have to finally use iMovie (which I have no idea how to use). Picking the music is the hardest part though :/ so we'll see!

P.P.S. If you'd like to do some additional reminiscing, here are the original blog posts of our time in NYC in August. [ nyc part 1 | nyc part 2 ]

Adventures: NYC Part I

Good morning Upper East Siders, Gossip Girl here. Your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite. :) Not! But while I'm preparing this post, I'm rewatching the first season of Gossip Girl and just missing NYC.

DAY 1:

We took a red eye flight to Newark and ended up getting to New York around 12:30pm. We stayed at the Lexington Hotel off of 48th and Lexington and were able to check in early even though we weren't due to check in until 3pm. We decided to rest for a little bit and then began exploring the surrounding area on our way to Ippudo for ramen. We ended up passing by the Rockefeller Center.

 We stopped at Ippudo Westside for dinner. Luckily we were one of the first people there and didn't have to wait at all! When we left however, it was a whole different story. This place was PACKED.

sazuraku and sapporo

hirata buns - pork
the meat inside was delicious. the sauce a little strange. bun consistency was too hard.
(wow... just read what i wrote and man... lollll)

karaka-men

akamaru modern
for a ramen that isn't spicy, it's extremely delicious! it has what I dub the "ratatouille effect" which is the feeling you get when you eat something and it makes you feel like a child being comforted by the tastiest homecooked meal (as in the end of the Disney movie Ratatuoille).

After dinner we went around Times Square.

We decided to stop for some ice cream in Bryant Park.

We ended up trying to find the Empire State Building to see how long the wait was to go up. It was about an hour so we decided to pass and walked back to our hotel to rest up for our jam-packed full day in New York.

DAY 2:

Started off the day by going to the Top of the Rock. Bought our tickets at the self-serve area but we couldn't get in until 12:30-12:45p so we decided to go grab some bagels at Ess-A-Bagel.

this bagel costs 11.75 (it was called some kind of like super nova or something like that lol)

everything bagel with scallion cream cheese

We headed back to the Top of the Rock to go up to the top. There are 3 separate levels. The first 2 are surrounded by glass and the 3rd has a railing that is about boob height to me. The views are spectacular! I would highly recommend going here. You get such a great view of Central Park and the Empire State Building.

After the Top of the Rock, we went to Central Park. I've been to New York before but it was just a quick stop in Times Square, we went on a boat tour and to the Empire State Building. On our way to Central Park, we stopped to take a photo at this sign. I didn't even know it was in New York!

We went row boating in Central Park. Let me just say be prepared to exercise! Thank goodness Tony was ok to row the entire time. I rowed for 2 seconds and ended up pulling the entire oar out of it's "socket"! Thank goodness I didn't let go of it into the water! On our way around, we saw all these turtles sunbathing!

After an hour of rowing around, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for Matilda! I wanted to chance to see at least one Broadway show when we were in New York and Miss Estee (essiebutton) loved Matilda (even more than Wicked) so I decided that's what we would see. We did stop for some gelato on the Upper East Side on our walk back to the hotel.

After Matilda, we headed to NoHo to a dive bar by the name of Von. Didn't get any pictures from that part of the night. It was quite the fun night! I will end it here for now!

to be continued...