-- note: this post was written while aboard the cruise ship on the 15th of July and posted on the 19th of July after arriving back -- To continue where I left off, Diane and I headed off to the captain's reception to go enjoy some pre-dinner cocktails and appetizers. They introduced the senior officers to us, and we got to hear more about what was coming up in the next day or two. Shortly after the reception, we wandered over to the dining hall to have our "Cruise Elegant" dinner. We had lobster and shrimp, which was quite tasty ... both Diane and I particularly enjoyed the shrimp -- they were quite large and juicy! For dessert, I had a chocolate melting cake which was wonderfully chocolatey. The loud woman was there again, but she wasn't as bad as she had been the night before at dinner which was a welcome relief.

After Dinner there was a show in the main show room called Rythm, so we wandered over that way and found ourselves a seat to watch the musical. It was okay, but I was a little weirded out by some of the costumes the dancers were wearing. There was some questionable choices I believe ... some of them were just very strange!

Anyways, after that, there was a midnight "R-rated" standup comedy show by the same guy who did the standup show in the welcome show on the first night. It was quite a good show actually. He did a pretty decent job, and we laughed at a fair number of his jokes. He did get a heckler though from the audience which was rather interesting. The heckler really didn't have much content, but she certainly had a lot to say. The guy handled her about as well as you might expect, and eventually she shut up. The last joke of the night was pretty funny again, so he once again did a good job of ending his show on a high note.

We headed off to bed right away after the show since we had to get up early the next morning to get off the ship in Cabo San Lucas. Before going to bed though, we filled out the continental breakfast room service form so that we could get something to eat before heading off the ship. The room service on the ship is complimentary, which is pretty sweet. So we figured this would give us a backup plan just in case we slept in.

The next morning we got our wakeup call and stumbled out of bed and had breakfast. Bagels and creamcheese, some fruit, coffee, and some smoked salmon. A nice filling breakfast before our busy day in Cabo San Lucas. We finished off breakfast and went down to get off the ship. There is no concrete dock in Cabo, so we anchored in the bay and were brought to shore by tender boats. The first thing we had to find was somebody under the "Canyon Canopy" sign for our excursion.

Our excursion was a canyon zip-line, rock climbing and rappelling trip. The first stage of which was to get in a van and drive for about an hour out to the site. Our driver, Alex, was a bit of a wild driver. He sped down the highway a bit faster than I would've liked and tail gated a lot more than I would've liked, but we made it there safely in the hot desert.

After a quick safety and introductory session, we started the trek. It was quite a lot of fun! There were several rope ziplines, a rock climbing wall, a "commando bridge" which turned out to be a rope across a canyon that you had to walk on holding onto a second rope, and a rappel. It was a lot of fun, and pretty wild.

It took probably 2 and half hours or so to go through the canyon, and we were pretty tired after the whole thing. They fed us PB&J sanwhiches, fresh fruit, and chips and salsa -- and most importantly ice cold water. The only bad thing about the trip was they wouldn't let me take my camera on it. They claimed safety concerns, which were probably fair to some extent, but I would've loved to have it with me. As a "replacement", one of the people with them brought his camera along and took pictures of people as they navigated the course. The problem was, he wasn't very good at getting good photos, and didn't take any photos of the scenery (which was really what I was interested in). Plus, to makes matter worse, they charged $12 a photo, or $79 for a CD full of ... 8 photos. Sound ridiculous to you? Yeah, to me too. I'm convinced that if the photographer took more pictures of the surrounding area, and sold a CD full of all the photos you liked for $30, just about everyone would buy one. I would, and I'm a cheap Canadian.

But that's my rant. We were driven back to Cabo San Lucas where we went straight to the ship via a tender. After cleaning up, and taking a quick nap, we went off to see the hypnosis show. Diane and I arrived a bit late, so we found a seat a little on the side, but we caught most of the show. It was mildly amusing, but I guess hypnotism doesn't appeal to me quite as much as it does to some.

Afterwards it was dinner time so we went and enjoyed quite a few helpings of appetizers before the main course. Only one of the other couples at our table showed up. I figure the other ones got a little hammered in Cabo :).

Rather than attempt to attend any other shows that night after dinner, Diane and I retired to bed much earlier and went to bed early after our big excursion. We slept right in to ten and from then relaxed for a little while longer before going up for another sit down lunch in the dining room. There wasn't a lot on the schedule today that we felt we wanted to do, so after waffling a bit, we went up to the deck to read and relax in the sun. After a couple hours, I had got a bit pink from the sun, and decided to come in for a bit. I hit up the pokerpro automated poker table for a little while. I didn't make out very well, but I got a chance to give it a try anyways, so that was cool. I went back to join Diane and we wandered up for the end of high tea.

Again, today's schedule hasn't really appealed to us that much so we just kind of hung out for a bit and eventually ended up back at our cabin, so that's where we are right now. There's another musical show at 7:00 before dinner so we'll probably do that. At the moment we're watching finding forrester on the cabin television. I love that movie.

Morgan