Time on My hands

5-6-2008 Radiance of the Seas (Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean)

It is now Tuesday morning (I know because the floor in the elevators has a DAY Plate telling everyone what day it is). We woke up this morning and saw our geographical position on TV. Peg said "It looks like we are about half way there". The screen changed to show that we have travelled 1,154 miles and we have 1,159 miles to go! I would say are half way there!

We didn't realize when leaving that it would be cool the first couple of days. I figured Mexico is warm, Hawaii is warm, our trip should be warm...NOT! The last two days felt like we were heading for Kodiak Isalnd instead of a Hawaian Island. Each day though, is getting warmer outside. Monday's belly flop contest has been rescheduled for Thursday. When you take mental note of such things, you pretty much realize you are on vacation.

Peg and I are like gym rats in the morning, and ship wanderers in the afternoons. RCCL brought on a bunch of Hawaian dudes and dancers in CA so we would be entertained at sea. I went to a historical presentation of Hawaii where I learned that ALOHA means Hello, Good Bye, and I Love You. The presenter said the word Family is really an acronym for "Father and Mother, I Love You". I am not sure how true that is, but the thought is a good one.

When not wondering around taking pictures and writing, I find my way to the casino. I have discovered that the secret to winning at black jack is not to use any systematic approach to betting. The secret is simply have an incredible amount of time on your shoudlers, betting very little most of the time, and after losing about 3 or 4 hands in a row, betting the mother load.....cause it is now YOUR time to win! I won't say here just how much $ my tactics have earned me, but I will say this cruise continues to pay for itself!

The people we have dined with have been great. There are 10 people at our table. Janice and Chris from Pittsburgh, Jim and Donna from Denver, Ray and Denny from Austin, and Joe and Cookie from San Fransisco. Ray and Joe are both retired and have been for years. They never met in their life before sitting at our tabe but they both worked for United Airlines for many years before retirement. Joe was a mechanic, Ray was a pilot and both lived in CA. There had to be countless times when Joe was working on a plane that Ray was flying. What are the odds of these gentleman sitting next to each other at a dinner table on a ship with 2,100 people on it? Whatever they are, it cannot possibly be as good as the odds of me winning a little more money at black jack today!

Anticipation Becomes Reality

5-3-2008 12:45PM Sand Diego, CA Convention Center

After a hectic arrival amidst 6,000 cruise ship passengers at the airport, we boarded a bus for the San Diegoconvention center. There we checked in for the trip and received a bus pass for our transfer trip to Ensenada, Mexico. Thank God our bus number was #5 leaving at 3:45PM because we met people with bus # 51leaving God knows when. We had about 3 hours to ourselves in downtown San Diego so we wandered away from the convention center and walked about 5 blocks down to the sea port harbor. There we found naval ships, cruise ships, air craft carriers and the annual Red Bull Air and sea show taking place over the harbor!It was very festive and clearly attended by thousands of local residents. Peg and I watched sky divers jump out perfectly good airplanes and trailed smoke streams all the way to the waters edge. We took a few pictures of the beautiful sky line and eventually walked back to the convention center.

The bus transport was very interesting as we rode some 90 miles away from San Diego, across the heavily guarded border (in both directions) and very quickly noticed the poor improvished lands of Mexico. We could not see any people in what looked like hundreds of worn down towns and homes. We assumed they all crossedthe boarder in search of a better life. The ride down was often hugging the cliffs edge of high mountains overlooking the Pacific coast. Peg sat in the window seat and often had to close her eyes. We were greetedby an extra friendly crew at dockside as the crew was well aware that all the passengers went through one helluva day to get to the Radiance of the Seas. We walked on, dropped our carryons in the room, grabbed a drink and enjoyed what seemed like our own vessel. There were 46 some busses behind us but really 47. While we were bus #5, we passed bus #4 on the way down as he was struggling making up the mountain. Later in the evening, the captain announced one of the busses broke down, and that he had no idea when we would be leaving Ensenada.

After a great late dinner and seeing a very funny comic in the main theatre, we went back to #7036 to call it a day. We had been up for 21+ hours at this point, and we knew we were just not up for any sort of sail away party. The ship set sail very late as we were awakened with some rocking and rolling. We each took some motion sickness pills (just in case) and crashed once again. The ships log shows it is 2,243 miles to Maui. We woke up, turned on the TV, and discovered we only have 2,043 miles left to go!

Hawaii EPIC Begins

5-3-2008 09:37 AM Flying somewhere over North America

When planning an epic trip of distance proportions, you cannot help but think ofall the things which could go wrong. Maybe it's just all the miles I have put on that hasme always thinking pesimisticaly about travel days. What if I oversleep? what if the weatheris terrible? what if the flight is cancelled? what if I get a flat tire on the pot hole expressway that takes me to the airport? what if...? The waht if's are continuous.

As it turns out,there was no traffic, the weather was great, I pulled up to curbside checkin where a sky cap was standing and WAITING for us so he could grab all 4 of our 51 lb. suitcases and get them on theconveryor belt for San Diego. I parked the truck (right next to an elevator center where a spot wasopen to make it easy to find later). We quickly made it through security (after a TSA gal openned up the turnstyle section for Peg and I alone to drop out of a long line and right on through). After a Starbucks and an Egg McMuffin, we boarded our flight with more overhead room than we needed, some empty seats, and took off for sunny San Diego. Come on now.....one of our suitcases probably won't be there, I just know it.

Carnival Inspiration January 2008

This was my first Carnival cruise & I went with an open mind on how it would all go. At the end of the 4 nights it was difficult to find any real negatives. I actually mentioned to my husband after the cruise; we never heard one complaint by any of the passengers on board the ship....that is so unusual!! I generally do not write reviews but I felt that my experience may be helpful.

TAMPA PORT: Flawless; never a line at the airport or the port; we boarded the ship immediately. A taxi ride from TPA to the port is $22 one way; very convenient. The airport employee at the taxi stand actually said to us, “welcome to Tampa International, least busiest airport in the world“.

CARNIVAL INSPIRATION: The ship was recently refurbished; you would never know this ship was built over 10 years ago. The new water slides toward the aft of the ship were a huge hit for all ages!! The cabins were spacious, we had an ocean view roo which was clean and the beds very comfortable. The pool area had all new lounge chairs and a covered stage. The pool never seemed to be too crowded, the pool & deck chairs were always available.

FOOD: The food was the best I have had on a cruise in a few years....not only in the dining rooms but also at the buffet.

SERVICE: From the cabin steward to the shore excursion desk and all in between, the service was impeccable.

ENTERTAINMENT: We saw a few shows...they were very entertaining and enjoyable. The singers/dancers were great! If I had to find any one thing negative it would be the layout. The cruise lines have improved the layout of the newer ships. The Inspiration at times was a little difficult to get around; I would have to change elevators to get to different decks. The life boats were all mounted at the lido deck and were an obstruction to the ocean view by the main pool area.

Carnival Inspiration March 2007

So I got this crazy idea that taking a 4 night cruise out of Tampa before going to work at a local Tampa Credit Union would be fun. I discovered that going to work after a cruise is much more difficult than getting the work done first, and then heading out on a mini (stress releaving) vacation.

The ship is old but has been refurbished and is actually very nice (especially the cabins and hallways). Only the pool area and the buffet area showed real signs of age. My first day was a sea day so much of it was spent searching for what to do in our only Port of Call (Cozumel, Mexico). I decided that after meeting the golf Pro on board (Riley Tough) spending the day playing 18 holes of golf wuld be fun.

There were only two other guys that wanted to play the Jack Nicolous course (and they were brothers) so I rode with Riley. He gave me plenty of tips that actually have improved my game! We decided to have a few beers afterward before heading off to sea and back towards Tampa. After another sea day we arrived back in Tampa (Monday) where I now had to prepare for going back to work.

If you've never played golf in Cozumel, I would absolutely recommend it. Where else can you see Iguanas everywhere while searching for your ball? I am going to make a point of playing golf in each of the islands where possible.....the cruise lines make it so easy to do so!

NCL Pearl January 2007 With Friends and Family

After getting up at the OMG hour of 3:15AM we headed for Miami and onto our cruise ship with no problems at all. At first sight, one cannot help but to be amazed at the enormity of the new NCL Pearl. I spent Friday afternnon taking an organized tour of the ship. The show theater in the Forward of the ship is very impressive. The cocktail lounge BLISS in the AFT is furnished with plush chairs, sofas, and beds (yes beds) and draped on both sides by the bowling alleys. The art and wall murals throughout are very colorful and fun. Dinner at the Japanese restaurant on the first evening was excellent. It was here I met Steve and Jill Cooper from Seatle. My guess is they were barely in their 40's but this trip on the Pearl was their 50th cruise! Steve was writing an article for CruiseMate.Com with which he is affiliated.

After having only about 10 hours of sleep in almost three days, the first night on board was a great time to get to bed early and get lots of sleep. Our next two days were sea days as we travelled to the southern portion of the caribbean and by the time we reached the island of Dominica, everyone was anxious to go off the ship and explore. We had a whale watching excursion planned for Monday afternoon. I was preparing myself for dis-appointment thinking we really were not going to be seeing any whales. The captain of our tour boat confirmed the possibility of dis-appointment too. After travelling about three miles out of the harbor we stopped and used an echo locator only to find no whales making sounds. We soon came upon 100's of dolphins in the water splashing at the surface. They started chasing our boat, swimming in front of.... and along side of it too. All of a sudden I didn't care if I saw any whales because the dolphins were awesome. We stopped again and watched. Before long, a whale was spotted blowing out its' spout, it was easily identified as a sperm whale, largest of the whale species in the area (the same whale in the movie Moby Dick). The sperm whale is identified easily because the blow whole goes forward and to the left side (other whales blow straight up). This excursion turned out to be perhaps the best shore excursion I have ever done. Before the afternnon was over, we came across 9 sperm whales and I was able to film 6 of the tails raising above the water as they dove deep to the bottom where they feed on squid. They eat squid that is almost as long as they are and sometimes surface with squid tentacles still hanging out of their mouths!

After very little rest Monday, we took a Catemaran excursion on the island of Barbados.... on the Tiami II. We have found two catemaran companies to be awesome every time, one is Tiami and the other is Fury. If you ever get to Barbados, take the Tiami sail, snorkel, and swim with the sea turtles tour. Swimming with the sea turtles was a first for me. What an awesome creature. They didn't care a bit about the people in the water. The Tiami crew made a great barbecue chicken lunch before we headed back to the Pearl. Wednesday we docked in St. Lucia where we took a taxi ride into the inner island area and visited banana orchards and Marigot Bay. We stopped near a local community college where the students whear different uniforms depending on the course of study they are enrolled in. Thursday was another unbelievable shore excursion on the island of Antigua. We boarded the Excellence Catemaran for a high speed trip around the entire island. We stopped about half way for snorkeling and lunch on the beach at Green Island. I never knew how beautiful the island of Antigua is. Our tour showed us lavish wilderness and sea molded cliffs. We also saw many of the 100's of beaches on Antigua. The tour even showed us homes of famous people like Eric Clapton (Eric had the stones for his home shipped from Scotland). The color of the home matches the cliff it is built over and blends right into the mountain. At first glance, one cannot even see that the cliff, is really a house!

I cannot remember a cruise where we took 3 shore excursions and every one of them was such a great experience. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would have to give all 3 of these excursions a 10 (except the whale watching in Dominica was more like an 11). We have been so busy having a great time that it was not until our short day here in Tortolla, that I have had time to write about this trip. We are now getting ready to sail away from Tortolla and make our way to Miami which will take about 22 hours. Nothing but sea days left, and while there is still vacation time remaining, you can now sense the vacation mode winding down.

Back To Reality

Our last day of the cruise was a sea day and I spent most of it out at the pool. I entered the pool pole contest where two people shimmy out over the pool on a long pole and proceed to try and smack each other off the pole using a pillow case full of balloons. I almost won....but lost and was wacked into the water. Then I entered a volleyball competition and had lots of fun beating the ships crew VB team. After sailing all day Friday from Grand Cayman Island, we arrived back in Miami on Saturday morning. We were parked at the pier before 6:00 AM. Even when you get up in the morning on the last day, even before you get out of bed, you can feel the reality of what lies outside the ship. No more room steward, no more room service, and no more cruise. At this point..... it is all about how can we get you outta here ASAP. Even some of the friendliness seems to go away.... it is as if the crew is saving and storing up their cheerfulness for the next arriving customers. This view outisde the rear of the ship is the Port of Miami. The Miami arena (where the Heat plays) is very close by. The picture is of the RCCL Majesty of the Seas. Our disembarkation was very quick and very not crowded. We jumped into a cab and headed for our Ft. Lauderdale hotel. Before we knew it, the cruise port was no longer in sight and the only cruising Peg and I were talking about..... was cruise vacations for other people....In other words....back to work. I did learn that when you jump into a cab at the Port of Miami, you can ask the driver about a flat rate to anywhere you want to go. I should have done that because just getting to the FLL airport is $65 on the meter. Anyway, we are drifting out of vacation mode and back into work mode......and I mean drifting. Past cruisers will know what I mean. We have heard of the terrible snow storm up north but at this point it is hard to imagine with all the heat here in Florida. Well, I am going to spend my last 2 hours of warmth in the south...... out by the pool....where I will ponder my next cruising adventure.