Cruise 2011 Day 4 - Tortola B.V.I.

Kelly was up early… way to early and started preparing for the day. I tried to sleep in but the lights came on a six am for some reason and I just knew my sleep in was officially over! We headed up to the Windjammer Cafe for breakfast. It is a huge buffet with nautical themes through out. A very nice place to eat in a relaxed atmosphere.


Mark and Robyn joined us and we celebrated Mark’s 50th birthday. He will not be allowed to buy any drinks today. Robyn had already arranged for a rental car so we disembarked and ran the gauntlet of tour operators and kiosks that lined the route from the ship. It’s an interesting experience walking through but easy if you already had a plan like us. At 9 am sharp the Hertz gal arrived and sent us on our way in a GeoTracker. We headed off in a south westerly direction with some geocaching in mind. The island roads along the shore are pretty easy to navigate although they drive on the left side of the road on this island. Robyn safely guided us to our turnoff to the first cache which was at the top of the hill looking down over the harbor and cruise ships. This is when things got interesting. The roads are very steep here and the little geotracker was dropped into low gear and struggled hard as we would our way up the hill/mountain/goat trail… don’t laugh we saw goats!!


Try as we might, the route proofed elusive and we decided to pass on this cache and head around the island to do some beach activities i.e. snorkel/drink etc. We headed down the hill on the other side into Sea Cows Bay, through Pockwood Pond and across the west end to Apple Bay and the famous Bomba Shack Party area… one sign said $40 bucks for all you can drink! We only stopped for pictures this time.


We continued on past Carrot Bay and on into Cane Garden Bay. This has a very nice beach area and is also home to the Callwood Rum Distillery. We set up on the beach with loungers and the bucket of beer on ice and enjoyed the day. Although the sun was eventually replaced by some warm rain, we had a nice time and Mark and I did some snorkeling. Lots of small fish with numerous sea birds (pelicans etc.) diving from the skies to grab them. We saw several bigger fish cruise by as well. I thought I saw a slow moving Manatee floating by but it turned out to be Mark. LOL

A shot of the manatee... days since birth.

After lunch we headed back to Road Town and checked out some kiosks and the Little Switzerland store. Back on the ship we found some deck chairs and relaxed until a large rain shower drove us for cover in the solarium.


We meet the Byrne’s at the Champagne bar for a pre dinner drink. As this was the first of two formal nights, everyone looked very nice in their outfits & finery. Dinner was once again great and we then hit the gambling tables for a little roulette action. I spent 25 bucks but Kelly was hitting her numbers regularly and pocketed some chips. Her luck as been very good on this cruise. We watched as one fellow won $3750 on a slot machine! Lots of excitement going on tonight!


We will get connected sometime tomorrow and upload all the photos we have taken….. Sorry it’s not being updated as quick as one would like but hey we are on vacation LOL.

Cruise 2011 Day 3 (part 2)– On to the ship.

We got up and started our day with our usual trip over to the local Starbucks. It’s funny how you just settle into a routine. With everything so close by we were glad we booked this hotel in the area that we did. It was safe, great foods of different varieties and a nice easy walk. Lots of bars as well :-)

Mark & Robyn check out the waters near our hotel.

We came up with a plan to then check out of our rooms, grab a few caches and then head over to the Mall of the Americas. Our bags were stored at the hotel as we ventured off. After hitting a few caches we grabbed a cab (Ford F350 Vans) and headed to the mall. Kelly was in her glory as we split up and shopped. Lunch at “Margaritas” and then some bargain shopping for some cruising shirts and other items. I scored a great deal on some shirts… 80% off! Now I know why Kelly always seems so happy with bargains! LOL


We headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and then it was off to the ship terminal. We arrived early at 16:00 and quickly went through security, check in and processing. Armed with our “Set Sail” pass (a ship credit/identification card) we boarded in less than 15 minutes from the time we joined the line! Turns out we could have boarded the ship much earlier than we were told.

We checked out our cabins and then went about exploring the ship. It is very nice and the drinks just seemed to go down so easy now! Our bags arrived and we unpacked before our Muster for the emergency practice session. They showed us how to don our floatation device after the Captain did his welcome aboard speech. After that it was time for the sail away party as the Serenade of the Seas eased out of its birth and slowly rounded the rocky shores of the harbor entrance. We had a great view, although dark, of the old part of the city and the harbor. Lots of flash bulbs along the shore guided us out.


Dinner in the Reflections dinning lounge was of the usual high standard and we got to meet our main dinner waiter Edwin and his assistant Richard. They will take care of us during our main dinning experiences on board. We do have a couple specialty restaurants book during the cruise as well… more on that later.


We finished dinner and went for a walkabout to work off the added poundage. As dinner was late for us we were pretty beat so we called it a day. Tomorrow is Road Town on the British Virgin Island of Tortola.

Cruise 2011 - Day 3 Start Cruising

Well folks we have discovered the the trip journal has some limitations. Can't put lots of pictures on it so we are reverting back to our travel blog here. We will edit and link pictures shortly as well as get the pictures captioned.... we are very busy drinking, gambling, eating, sightseeing so updates are or will be speratic depending on ship signal and ports we go into....


So right now we are packing for the cruise portion and storing our bags at the Hotel until ship boarding time (17:30) Local. We sail away at 20:30 Local

Cruise 2011 - Day 2 San Juan

Today's adventure started out just like yesterday, a trip to Starbucks to get us going. After a nice cup of coffee sitting in the gorgeous warm sunshine we headed back to the beach to try and find the geocache that was elusive yesterday, we still couldn't find it so we think it's no longer there.

We had planned a driving trip today, the car rental is conveniently located next to the hotel. We set off about 10:00 for "El Yunque" rain forest. This is about a 45 minute drive from the hotel. There's a very informative visitor centre with trails through part of the rain forest. This is not unlike home except it's all tropical plants as apposed to evergreens. We continued to drive up the mountain to a few other look outs and a tower. Great views from up there.


After the rain forest it was beach time and of course by now we were hungry and thirsty. A very nice and informative bartender at our hotel gave us some ideas about beaches. The first one wasn't what we were looking for so we continued to "Luquillo" beach. Had lunch at the "Ceviche Hut" where they served great seafood right at the beach. We then continued over to the next beach which is government run. Being this is "winter" in San Juan there was hardly anyone there.... great for us. There's a kiosk selling cervesa's and Pina Colada's right on the beach, oh ya! That was how we spent a couple of hours this afternoon. Of course Mark was once again a source of entertainment today. He was in the water with Dave and declared he got bitten by something, sure enough he had a bleeding mole on his back. He now thinks it was a mole eating shark, we think he scratched himself with his watch! As he was snorkeling I snuck up behind him and grabbed his leg! We have never seen anyone shoot straight out of the water like that!! Poor Mark! At 5:00 they came and took our chairs away, that was our cue to leave and head back to town.


Once back at the hotel it was time for a quick shower and off to dinner. We had seen an Argentinian restaurant that looked interesting, being as we were there in 2007 we thought this would be a good reminder of that great trip. Well we were not disappointed, this rates up there with the best steaks we have ever had. We could tell right off this was not Argentinian beef, it was actually "Angus" beef, that's why it was so good. After we gorged ourselves on "Chocolate Volcano cake" it was time for a walk down the street. We got as far as the Marriott and decided to give the roulette table a go, Mark and Dave had a successful time at the tables, it was time to cash out and head for our hotel. A quick night cap at the roof top bar and now it's time for bed. Not sure what the plan for tomorrow is as we don't board the ship until 5:00 pm..... Stay tuned

Cruise 2011 - Day 1 San Juan

After a good nights sleep we were up and at it fairly early. We went off down the street in search of Starbucks and Walgreen's, they are conveniently located next to each other. It was a beautiful hot muggy day, we sat outside of Starbucks and had our coffee waiting for Walgreen's to open. It never did so we decided to go back down the other end of the street to the one that was open... sheesh. On our way we decided to detour to the beach, there was a geocache that we wanted to get as well as walk on the beach. Of course we couldn't find the cache but we had a lovely time walking on the sand and paddling our feet in the warm water. We got our supplies then back to the hotel to drop them off.


Hopped in a taxi then off to Old San Juan. This is a very historic old town, some of the Forts date back to the 1500's. The forts were extremely important to protect the "New World" from the Pirates and other bad guys! It is absolutely gorgeous. There are two large Forts one at the Western end the other at the Eastern portion of Old San Juan. We roamed the narrow streets site seeing and geocaching. At noon we realized we hadn't had any breakfast and should eat. We had "Mango Tango's" for breakfast followed by a Mojito for lunch!(all at the same Tapas Bar) There was a little food in there someplace! Off to roam more of the Forts and to see the "Ferrel Cat's of San Juan" These are wild but friendly cats that hang around the streets and one particular park that we saw.





At the square across from the main large Fort there is a large water fountain that looks somewhat like a water park... well of course the kid in Mark came out and he wanted to play in the fountain. He stood in the middle of the fountain for about 10 minutes waiting for the water to turn on..... I sat inconspicuously on a bench almost pretending not to know him! It was rather entertaining when the water did turn on. Dave has it all on video and I do believe it will end up on "You Tube!" After Mark's shower we headed to the Eastern Fort for a look. The views are spectacular. By this time we were getting tired and of course thirsty. There was a terrible traffic jam with the cars not going very far and a lot of horns honking. We decided to walk a little way out of this part of town before getting a taxi to try and avoid the traffic. There were still a few geocaches we wanted to get as well. As we walked along the street there were vehicles from the local radio stations as well as satellite trucks from the TV stations, there was also lots of Police milling about. We wandered over to see what was going on and there was a demonstration from one of the local University's. The police were in full riot gear with tear gas and all. Time to get out of here guys! We got one more cache and hailed a cab to get back to our end of town.


Back to the hotel hungry and thirsty again, had a few drinks and appy's in the hotel restaurant. Went for a wander down the street to decide where dinner would be, we decided on a little Caribbean restaurant after a brief stop at the Marriott Casino. Back to the hotel for showers and an early night.


A few observations of San Juan so far, in no particular order.


Huge police presence, they do not appear to bother anyone but you feel very safe


Not many motor cycles or scooters, lots of very nice cars.


It reminds us very much of Santa Fe Argentina but on a higher end scale.


The people are extremely nice and helpful.


The weather is wonderful, we were talking to a couple of locals today and this is the cool season... It was 80 degrees today, that's just fine for us!


Tomorrow we are off to the Rain forest and then the beach to swim.

Cruise 2011 - Travel Day

After almost nine months from when we booked it was finally here! As we had such an early flight from Victoria Mark and Robyn spent Tuesday night at our house. After a few rum drinks and Champagne it was bed time. At the most we got about 3 hours sleep, just too excited. Kris was at our house at 0410 to drive us to the airport, he had to work early so it was very convenient for us. We departed YYJ for SEA at 0600. The flight arrived in SEA on time, quickly retrieved our bags to clear Customs and Immigration. Then onto the train to change Terminals, we were asking the information man what to do when Dave said "quick let's go" I hopped on the train with him only to see Mark and Robyn staring forlornly at us from outside the door! We gave a little wave and away we went! Luckily the trains run constantly and they caught up a few minutes later. So when you travel with the Reaville's and we say jump ya better hop to it!





Got to our gate and it was coffee and bagel time. Our flight departed SEA for DFW (Dallas) at 0825, we were a little late due to the flight being completely full and there were too many carry on bags. A few folks had to check them and we were on our way. Good thing we were armed with Ipods, e-readers, and books as there wasn't even music on this plane. We arrived in Dallas at 2:15 PM local, hungry and thirsty. We once again had to change terminals via trains. The Byrne's kept up this time! Went to TGI Fridays for Margarita's and food. We were a little late leaving Dallas but a pleasant flight none the less. Arrived San Juan at about 11:00 pm, all luggage arrived safely and off to the hotel. Of course we were hungry and thirsty again.... Off down the street for pizza and Corona at an outdoor cafe. Headed back to the hotel completely exhausted for much needed sleep.

Cruise 2011 - Prep

In 12 days and 12 hours we will be leaving on our Caribbean adventure! Last May our good friends Mark and Robyn decided they were going on a cruise and asked if we would like to join them. It only took one look at the brochure and we were booked! The final preparation is underway before our early morning departure to Seattle, Dallas, then onto San Juan Puerto Rico. We will have almost 3 days to acquaint ourselves with San Juan then onto the Serenade of the Seas for two one week back to back cruises.