At the end of February I went on a little mini vacation. We flew out to California and spent a night on The Queen Mary and then took a 3 day cruise to Mexico.
The day we were supposed to fly out from Chicago, Indiana was hit with a blizzard. We decided to push forward, leave early, and attempt to make it to the airport. The normal 2 hour drive took 5 hours and we went a max of 30 miles per hour but we made it to the airport safe and sound. Over 700 flights were canceled from O'Hare so we were skeptical that our flight would still happen, but it did! It was delayed by 8 hours but it still got us there! :)
We didn't get into LA until midnight so a few of our plans got cancelled. I booked us a room at The Queen Mary for that night since we would be boarding the cruise ship the next day and it is right next door. The Queen Mary is a old cruise ship from the Titanic area, it is perminately docked and now serves as a hotel. It is so NEAT! They kept most of the original design and feel of the ship. The Queen Mary has an important place in history. It was the biggest cruise ship of it's time, it carried the military troops during the war, helped free Jews during Auschwitz, and it is one of the top 10 most haunted places in the United States. The Queen Mary also has several tours that you can take, we weren't able to take any of the guided tours since we arrived so late and had to leave early, but we did our own self guided tour and it was amazing. The engine room was our favorite part of the ship. We stayed in one of the original rooms, it didn't have air conditioning so it was pretty hot, but it still had all of the orginal art deco decor. If you are in Long Beach, CA, I highly recommend taking one of the tours, they even have a paramornal tour! :)
The next day we boarded the Carnival Imagination. I used to work for Norwegian Cruise Lines. I worked for them for 3 years as the Wardrobe Supervisior for the shows on board. Since we are Norwegian fans, we had never cruised Carnival so we didn't know what to expect but we had a great time. The Imagination is one of the smaller ships so it wasn't as big as the ships we were used to but it was so great to relax and do nothing for 3 days. I used to also moonlight with Park West when I worked for Norwegian as well. Park West is an art gallery and they are on most cruise ships as well as on land. Working with them solidified my love of art and I ended up buying many pieces while I was on Norwegian, including a Picasso etching! So we spent most of our time on board the Imagination at the art auctions and ended up buying way too much art! I finally got my hands on a Peter Max and a Erte. We also picked up a few smaller pieces and I can't wait for them to be shipped to us!
On our port day in Mexico, we spent the day exploring the town on our own and getting some drinks, food, and sun at a local eatery. After all of our cruising we both never went to Ensenada Mexico so it was great seeing a part of Mexico that we weren't familiar with.
Enjoy a few of our cell phone snaps below! Since we spent most of our time in Mexico and on board the Imagination relaxing and exploring, we don't have a lot of images from those.
Waiting in the airport for our flight to take off.
The Queen Mary- Our room which was one of the original rooms. (These night shots were taken at 2am when we arrived so just ignore our looks! haha)
The Queen Mary- Tons of phone booths!
The Queen Mary- Phone booth's continued.
The Queen Mary- Shops and main staircase.
The Queen Mary- Nursery and original art deco clock made out of Jade.
The Queen Mary- we continued exploring the next morning before we boarded our cruise ship. This is one of the guns onboard, I'm assuming in case of a pirate attack or for maybe when the troops were onboard. Fun Fact- pirate attacks can still happen and cruise ship employees have to go through training on this!
The Queen Mary- oh you know, just steering the ship... :)
The Queen Mary- those faucet handles were in our bathtub and were from the original cruising days, they read "Hot Salt, Hot Fresh, Cold Salt, Cold Fresh". How neat is that!
The Queen Mary- Part of the museum in the engine room has artifacts from when the ship was used to carry troops.
Carnival Imagination- with the "Towel Elephant"
Carnival Imagination- Mexico
Mexico
And of course a photo of me and a parrot! haha
