The Honeymoon: Part Three

Ensenada, Mexico

We docked here for almost 10 hrs on Wednesday, Sept 27th. Our excursion, the Fox Studios/Rosarito, was a whopping 6.5 hrs. Right when you dock, you're pulled to the side three times--once to take a picture with a stuffed lizard (fake, not real) perched atop a Carnival Paradise buoy, then pulled in to get your pic with a ship employee dressed up as an Indian, and then finally with another ship employee dressed up as a Mexican flamenco dancer. Quite cheesy, but they display those later on that night on the ship. There's also a little convenient marketplace there where I picked up a pair of sunglasses. I feel very movie star-ish every time I wear them.

Our excursion took us 50 minutes outside of Ensenada to a city called Rosarito. The Fox Studios Baja, Mexico was where parts of the movie "Titanic" were filmed. "Tomorrow Never Dies," "Master and Commander", "Deep Blue Sea," "Planet of the Apes", and other movies were filmed here as well. The big draw, though, is "Titanic". Here, they have replicas of some of the rooms on board. Including the little stateroom where Jack was chained as the ship was going down and the boiler room. Remember that scene in the movie where they locked all the 3rd class passengers behind that gate and the water started to rise? Yeah, they re-enacted that scene--minus the people--but including the mice. Trained mice, that is. That had all the females squealing, let me tell you.

The best part was the JVC Presentation building. When we stepped in, to the immediate right, was TWO ROOMS worth of X-Men replica stuff: the special blue hallway in the mansion, Professor X's plastic wheelchair from 1 & 2, the cargo area of the X-Jet (if that's what it's called) with the strap-in seats, the replica of a broken Golden Gate bridge from #3, the transport truck cells that contained Juggernaut and Mystique, original movie costumes, the apparatus that Magneto built in #1 and he strapped Rogue into and she got that streak of white in hair (remember that scene?)....we went buck wild taking pictures in there.

There was an area behind the cockpit (the 4-chaired area where everyone was sitting in #2 before the back of the jet got blown off and Rogue got sucked out) that was roped off. Steven wanted to go behind it and take pictures but I was too chickenshit to do it. What's the worst that could've happened? We would've gotten kicked out and had to go sit on the bus. I would've been pissed if that happened because there were some glass displays full of cool stuff that I wanted to see. We probably could've gotten away with it, if we'd been quick. We'd broken away from our group (who were watching some stupid "History of Hollywood" movie in the little mini theater) and no one ever would've known. Maybe. I didn't wanna chance it. Cuz I'm timid like that.

We went to the Fox Studios store where I picked up a "Transporter 2" T-shirt. It wasn't my first choice. I was hoping to find some X-Men stuff but they didn't have anything. And the first DVD doesn't count. I already have that. Bu how stupid was that? A two-room display of movie stuff...aaaaannnd nada. I was bummed. After that, we went to the Rosarito Beach Hotel for a complimentary Mexican lunch where you had a choice of drinks: margarita or soda. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I asked if it was okay to drink the soda. Hey, I was on my honeymoon. I didn't want to chance getting Montezuma's Revenge for the next few days. The food was good, even though I wasn't really in the mood for it. We were then given two hours to shop or walk along the beach. We chose to shop and I picked up:

~ 2 knock-off purses (Louis Vuitton and Prada)
~ T-shirts for my younger niece, brother in law and my Dad
~ A wooden top (the kind where you pull the string and it gets released) for my younger nephew
~ A pretty sleeveless embroidered blouse for my Mom
~ A wooden slingshot for my older nephew
~ Intricate chopstick clips for my best friend and older niece

What we learned about this place:

~ Their #1 source of income is fishing, #2 is tourism, and #3 is agriculture
~ The best university to get your oceanography degree is here because it only costs $70 per semester. (Too bad ALL universities aren't this cheap)
~ They have wineries and produce good wine (or so I hear. I'm not much of a wine drinker unless it's sangria)
~ Margaritas were really named after a woman named Margarita. I just don't remember the whole story.

I'm sure I would've retained more but our tour guide, Irma, wouldn't shut the hell up. Did I mention our bus ride was 50 minutes long? Yeah, well she talked for the whole 50 minutes. The. Whole. Damned. Fifty. Minutes. I can understand somewhat. A full day of walking, eating, drinking and shopping tourists, well, you get the picture. But lordluvaduck, woman, take a breather! It was like she was trying to tell us the history of her home in one hour! It was crazy. She let us take a "siesta" on the way back to the ship, though. THANK GOD. If only the seats had reclined... *sigh*. Oh well.

Before we got back on the ship, we walked thru the little marketplace one last time and I bought my sister a necklace.

We had a great time. And I didn't get the runnies.

Too see pics from this tour, click HERE. *this isn't all of them. I still need to upload more.*

*Be sure to read the two-part wedding post and the first two honeymoon posts before they get archived!*