Sea Day

Sea day, nowhere to go nothing to dinner and I am wide awake at 6:00. I stayed in bed until 6:30 then headed to the spa to work out on an elliptical because it was raining out. Good thing about being out early is very few people on the fitness room. We decided to go to the dining room for breakfast it was really not that great think the buffet and brining it back to our room to eat on our balcony is the way to go. We spent the day reading, walking out in deck and played a few games of ping pong and corn hole with a Kitty and Jim. We went to the martini bar for of course a martini, very cool bar with ice counter tops. This ship really does have some beautiful spaces, areas of grass even. Forgot to mention the hot glass studio where they do glass blowing demonstrations, they do not sell the items but auction them off for charity.  Tonight was another formal night, had a lovely dinner with our friends then I went to the show Toppers while Dave played some Craps. I enjoyed it more than the other production show reminded me of some of the Vegas shows that are done in a dream type state with ariels and acrobatics thrown in.

Aruba

We We Day 2 in Aruba my plan is to walk the 1.9 miles to Reflexions beach bar which I think is in Nikki beach. We have breakfast in our balcony again, pack for a beach day and take the lovely walk along the waterfront. We arrive around 9:30 so have pick of lounge chairs, 18.00 for two chairs and umbrella. There is a small pool but we just swam in the very calm water. A highlight of our beach day was observing the swim lessons going on with the local children as well as a group of handy capped adults swimming and being taught to row a boat, love it when we get to observe local activities going on rather than the usual tourist stuff. Also down the beach was a water park playground right on the water, kids playing in it all with life jackets while the moms watched from a bench on shore listening to some very fun loud music. I thought this is what I would be doing if I was a young mom living here on this island! Dave said he liked the beach today much more than the one yesterday, Palm Beach. I had to agree, this is where I will come back to next time in Aruba. Think we enjoyed the bit of a more local experience, Palm Beach was definitely more touristy. We walked back to the ship to drop off our beach stuff and have lunch.Then walked back off the ship to Starbucks for wifi, we did have wifi at the beach but Dave needs to check in with work again. We texted the kids, then went to browse through the shopping mall, they have very high end stores here, and casinos, kind of a Vegas on the ocean feel. We meet up with our friends for dinner in the dining room then went to the show, a female singer, once again not to our liking so left and went back to our room to read and work on the blog.

Aruba

Today is day 1 of 2 in Aruba, we overnight here. Today is day 3 of our quest to find the best beach on this Caribbean cruise. So far we have loved our other 2 beach days! We were off the ship before 9:00 and headed to catch the bus to Palm Beach. We ran into Mark and Vonnie who were headed to Eagle Beach. We all boarded the same bus, 5.00 round trip, Palm beach is the furthest that this bus goes to. We got off at the Holiday Inn and went to Moomba Beach, lounge chairs were free. We spent a few hours there using their free wifi, swimming and walking the beach, the beach here goes on forever! We caught a bus back to the ship for a late lunch then headed back out to explore. We found a Starbucks and of course had to buy a Aruba mug for our ever growing collection :) we walked along the marina and through the Renaissance resort which is very lovely. I wanted to check out a beach for tomorrow, we walked about 2 miles to Reflexions and decided that yes, it looks like a great beach to spend our second day in Aruba at  :) we headed back to the ship stopping at a casino and some high end stores to just browse. Aruba really feels a bit like Vegas on the beach! We re boarded the ship in time for a glass of wine on our balcony while watching the sun set. I actually saw both sunrise and set both today! Dinner tonight was just the two of us, we were given a window table for two, perfect end to a perfect day :)

Curaçao

Curaçao is an island we have never been to before and we were very excited to see it, from pictures it looked so charming. It was going to be hard to top yesterday, but think it might be equal! We headed off the ship at 8:00 and caught a bus to Mambo beach. We had to walk through the town center to the bus stop, looks very European here. Went by the floating maket which is literally just fisherman selling their catch from their boats. Then along all the produce vendors, very colorful. We found the bus station and a van headed to Mombo beach for 2.00 per person it took about 10 minutes to get there. We had the pick of lounge chairs for 3.00 per person, all though no one ever came by to collect, so free today! Beautiful beach, calm warm water protected by a breakwater. We spent 4 hours walking the beach, swimming and visiting with other vacationers. Best drink of the day was the Mai Tai from Hemingway Bar, and to top it off they gave Dave a free shirt! Score! Caught the bus, really a 12 passenger van, back to the bus stop in town and walked back to ship to have lunch. Then headed back off ship to explore this very European and charming port. After walking and exploring for a few hours, along our walk we ran into a bunch of locals playing Mexican Train, they were really playing with enthusiasm , found a Starbucks for some WIFI and a Curaçao mug to add to our collection. Met up with Kitty and Jim for dinner and watched some of the evening show, slipped out about 1/2 way through it, just wasn't our thing. And we are tired after a long day of sun, sand, walking and swimming. It was a fabulous day :)

Bonaire

Today was the perfect day for us! Arrived in Bonaire at 9:00 and we wasted no time and headed right off the ship. Our plan for the day was to spend the day st a beach and snorkel. We took the 1 1/2 mile walk along the water front to Eden Beach.  We grabbed two front row lounge chairs and umbrella for 5.00 per person at Spice Island. It was a very hot but lovely walk, I wasted no time getting into the water, it was like swimming in an aquarium! We spent 5 hours swimming snorkeling eating and enjoying local beers and rum punches! From our lounge chairs we had a front row show when a huge pod of dolphins swam by, what a thrill!We walked the 11/2 miles back to the ship, saw some huge iguanas along the way, dropped out stuff off at the ship and headed back out to walk around the markets. Bonaire is known for their salt, so I had to purchase some Bonaire Sea salt :) we enjoyed another lovely dinner with our friends, tonight the waiters brought the birthday cake for Dave that was to have happened last night, guess he gets to keep celebrating :)

Sea Days

We had two very relaxing sea days, slept in, ran the jogging track, then breakfast in our balcony followed by sunning and reading out on deck. Had a lovely lunch in the dining room the first day, second day st the Aqua Spa Cafe. Beautiful ship, great service, good food. Here are pics as phone and blog are make postings too hard 

Day One

Day One

 We were fortunate to have an uneventful travel day on SWA, checked into the Hyatt Place, walked to dinner, Las Vegas, for yummy Cuban food. Weird name for a Cuban restaurant! For some reason my phone which I'm using to write these posts keeps crashing, so I have to save after about every sentence so will be very short and sweet. Sunday morning we meet the private van service to Miami that Kitty had set up. We arrived at the cruise port around 10:15 and whizzed through the boarding process much faster than any cruise we have taken, think we were on board by 10:45 :) we were greeted with champagne as we walked on the ship. We explored the Celebrity Eclipse, beautiful ship. Had our first lunch in the main buffet, that was of course after a glass of wine at one of the beautiful outdoor bars. Phone keeps crashing will not let me backspace so uploading a few pictures and calling it done will try and update when I have wifi at a port stop.

Not PV But 2 Week Celebrity Eclipse Cruise/Finding The Best Beach

This winter season vacation plans changed following Dave's illness in PV las December.  We decided to cancel our month in PV and do a short PV trip and join friends on a 2 week cruise.  We start off with the cruise, which is going to be very welcome reprieve from this ugly cold winter we are having.  We will be home for just 1 week after the cruise before we head off to PV, think we can tolerate another week of winter knowing that sun, sand and margaritas are just a few days away. While we claim that we are not really cruise people we still seem to have done quite of few of them, never 2 weeks though! I know we will come back a little larger than we do when we go to PV!  The two are very different in activity level and food consumption, at least for us! Guess I could use some self control with the all inclusive drink package that we get on this ship and skip the 3 a day desserts ....but darn I don't intend to :)

Packing is much different than it is for PV!  Cruises require a lot more clothes, but no need to bring rolls of paper towels, ground coffee and peanut butter.  Hopefully that exchange of items equals out for us so that we can take the same amount of suitcases.  Speaking of suitcases just realized our best large size one went in the trash after our last cruise out of New Orleans, now we are left with a really large one with a rip in it, will need a duck tape fix....might have to go make a last minute purchase before we go.

Our plan for this 2 weeks is to keep it simple and relaxing. We will avoid the temptation on a cruise of planing every minute and making plans that require you to be somewhere at a certain time, other than dinner with out friends. Dave gets enough of that with his work!  Our goal this cruise is to explore each port on foot and take in the unique culture and people of each island and find the best beaches to relax! Maybe we will even get a morning run in at a couple of ports, but we will see about that because this trip is going to be about what we feel like doing on the spur of the moment :)
I will need to keep reminding myself that as I do tend to plan.

Finishing this post the next day, night before we leave.  We did purchase a new suitcase and are successfully packed (stuffed) into 1 large (weighing in at 47 lbs) and 2 carry on sizes, exactly what we take for 3-4 weeks in Puerto Vallarta, success!  



I will try and keep up my blog using my phone so posts will be short and sweet, will only be able to post when in ports if I can get wifi so they will show up sporadically.