Blogs from Long Beach, Los Angeles, California, United States, North America - page 2

Yay the day I had waited for had finally come!! I booked yet, another great cruise slated for January 2014. What a great way to start off the year, much like last year. Island drinks by the pool, fun stage shows, karioke on board, and endless endless buffets and ice cream. Who wouldnt love going on a cruise? Plus whatever port you go to is usually a beautiful sunny island with great culture, food and cheaper prices on purses, jewlry and clothes! Not bad for a short 5 day vacation. Anyway, we traveled into Long Beach the day prior, on Sunday. Being a 13 hour drive from EL Paso...you sort of have to start out a day earlier. And just like last year, we stayed at a seedy, cheap hotel just miles from the port. Only, ... read more

We are up at around 05:30 after we have folded away the beds, and shower and dress. It is 06:30 and the train is just stopping at Barstow, it should have stopped there at 03:30, so we are approximately 3 hours behind schedule. Although the tour guide reckons there is an hour of slack in the schedule and we should be only 2 hours late in getting into Los Angeles We eat breakfast in the dining car at around 06:30. The train eventually arrives at Los Angeles Union Station at around 10:00, approximately 2-hours late as predicted by the tour guide.The guide that will take us on a tour of LA meets us. We board the coach and hit the log jam that is the Los Angeles traffic, it was even worst today as there was ... read more

I close my eyes as the plane gains speed, its wheels regretfully lifting off the ground and I can feel the pull of gravity as we move further and furher into the sky. The land falls far below, white clouds move in. I always hate this part: the end of a trip. It's bittersweet, though too often I taste the bitter more than the sweet and I can't help but wish for a delay or that I might have boarded the wrong plane. But I haven't and as China falls far below and I travel back in time over the blue Pacific I think back on the past four months and what they mean to me. I circled the world in hopes of finding an adventure and now I face the important question: did I succeed? ... read more

I guess they are happy Nana is already here...... read more

The next morning we were awakened by what sounded like an announcement being piped into the ship. I initially thought how cool it was that the Queen Mary carried its authenticity through to making cabin announcements like on a working cruise ship. Come to find out (as I came out of my sleeping fog) it was the Carnival Paradise, docked and trying to kick this weekend’s passengers off the boat ... also known as debarkation. And boy, was she loud about it. Woo Hoo, our ship has arrived. So, up and Aft we went. Hello, Paradise! We spent some time up on deck taking photos of both the Queen Mary and Paradise. Behind us was a set of curious doorways. Hmmm, I wonder what’s through those doors? We have time to find out ... let’s explore. ... read more