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Hello and salutations friends and family. So this post is skipping ahead a port. We did stop in the port of Roaton but it was more or less of a cold wash out day so basically became a sea day. Skip ahead one day and welcome Costa Maya Mexico. We had just been here a week before so we knew exactly what we were gonna do. Let's go see Martin down the coast at Maya bar and grill. We rented a golf cart from Red Shirt golf carts. Knowing what we wanted to do today made it eas

Hello and salutations friends and family. Welcome aboard the MSC World America. As you can see from our welcome picture, this ship is absolutely crazy. So we just got off the Allure in Fort Lauderdale and drove down to Port of Miami to jump on our next adventure. Our jaws hit the floor as we approached the ship though a magnificent port terminal. We had never been on a ship of this magintude. This ship holds approximately 7000 passengers and almost 3000 staff. It was l

Hello and salutations friends and family. As we wrap up another trip, it was a great adventure with the family. Many laughs were had as we sailed around the Caribbean. It was precious time spent with close family. We had a great time seeing the sites and enjoying the sun. The meals were good and the service was good as expected for Royal Caribbean. The ship was a large ship but that doesn't always mean it is good. I would rate it a 6 out of 10. A lot of things to see

Hello and salutations friends and family. Well our second time to Cozumel in a week. We were just here last Thursday, and what's funny is we will be back here next week on Wednesday on MSC World America. Today's adventures will take us to Paradise beach club. This club is a non ship excursion. Fairly inexpensive for a day of inclusive food, drinks, beach access, snorkeling, pool, and personal wait staff. We were able to reserve a day bed which was amazing. We able to han

Hello and salutations friends and family. Today we arrived in the port of Costa Maya Mexico. The new friends I mentioned in the previous post told us about a golf cart company here at this port that allows you to rent the cart for all day. So when got off the ship, we got in a waiting line and by chance were able to rent a six person golf cart. The secret to this self guided tour was to drive to the end of the permitted area which had a little beach bar and shopping spot.

Hello and salutations friends and family. We started adventure number 2 with family. Bob, mom, and Aunt Pam joined us for our next leg. Our journey has taken us to the Bahamas main island. Our adventure has us doing a beach excursion to Royal's new beach club. It was all inclusive cabana right on the beach. We all had a great time just relaxing in the sun and jumping into the ocean for a refreshing dip. Other than that it was a fairly quiet day. We did meet some fun pe

Hello and salutation family and friends. Where do I start.. I may cry writing this post. The 3 weeks flew by but wow oh wow. The new friendships and relationships formed were incredible. To begin with, our dinner mates were absolutely awesome. I send out huge wave to Dennis, Sherry, Kim and Bob. They truly made the trip special for us and excepting these two “young” people. The time and conversations we had at dinner were so much fun. The running joke for our table was,

Hello and salutation family and friends. Welcome to Cozumel. Today we did an snorkel and buggy excursion. It was a good day. I snorkeled for the second time on this trip. It was amazing. We were in much deeper water but with that being said we did see some fish, two underwater rivers leading to the island and a nurse shark. Once we were done, we got back into the buggy and as a group we traveled to the south end of the island. It was about a 45 minute drive where we d

Hello and Salutation friends and family. Hello from Grand Cayman Islands. Today was a tender port. They do not have a port where ships can dock. This day had 5 cruise ships in the port but all had to tender. So to say the least, it was a very chaotic dock area. We did a excursion here. Our first stop was a turtle sanctuary. We toured the grounds and got to see a lot of turtles. They breed green turtles here. The pond that holds 238 breeding turtles. They do raise them

Hello and Salutation from Willemstad Curaçao. What a wonderful day to explore this island. The last time we visited we did a guided tour through the cruise ship. This time we decided to take a self guided tour because we were not able to have the time to cross the bridge and explore the city. The bridge was quite the experience in itself. It was not stable to stay the least. Once we crossed it the first site was a place were people over the years have added locks to show t

Hello and Salutation friends and family. Well we actually had an excursion that did not get cancelled. We are now batting .500. Today took us out to sea for a snorkeling adventure. First time for me which for me to do this was a massive thing. When I was younger I had an incident relating to water that has partially scarred me for doing anything with water where I can not touch the bottom but I love cruising so go figure? Today I conquered that fear with the help of an awe

Hello and Salutation friends and family. I had a whoopsie. This post should have gone before Tobago. Our day on Barbados was really good. We did a self-guided of this port. The weather was perfect for our time. We have learned to always carry water and wear sweat wicking clothes. These two items help tremendously when you are at these tropical locations. You can’t always be sure that you will have access to clean water. We started the tour which was about one mile fr

Hello and Salutation family and friends. Well you know how things go sideways sometimes… well today was that day. We had a river tubing excursion booked. Well Mother Nature decided her idea of a fun time was to literally rain on our parade. We were loaded into our bus headed to the location and literally five minutes into the ride, our driver pulled over and turned around. The trip was cancelled because the river was to risky for traveling due to heavy rain. So we now wer

Hello and Salutation dear friends and family. Welcome to Scarborough Tobago. Interesting fact: Trinidad and Tobago are the same country but two separate islands. Tobago is the smaller of the two. This island is very poor sadly. The port was very small and the people of the island seemed very desperate for tourists to visit but leading up to our arrival, a warning letter was sent our stateroom by the ship’s captain in regards to the safety of the passengers for traveling t

Welcome and salutations from sunny San Juan. The last few days have been good. On Monday we were in Amber Cove Dominican Republic and today Wednesday we are in San Juan Puerto Rico. We had an excursion book in Amber Cove but was cancelled due to heavy rains just prior to us docking. We were a bit sad but we are also seasoned cruisers so we know that these things happen. We walked around the port area which actually had some interesting facts. The 2nd Jurassic film was d

Good day and salutation friends and family. Today’s adventure took us to the island of Martinique. This island is a French speaking island and the only island the will not take the American dollar. They use the Euro. We had visited here on our last cruise but we wanted to explore a bit more. We headed to the fort but as we soon found out is a currently used naval facility for Martinique, so no exploring it. We walked on from there and just walked. We did pass some of th

Good day and salutation friends and family. Welcome back to Team Awesome. This day was our first official excursion. The excursion was called “Sugar, Sea & Stone: Antigua’s Historic Treasures”. We left the ship a little after 8:30 and boarded a bus. I was the lucky one, I was able to sit literally in the front sit next to the driver. The driver was easily in his 70s which made the drive a bit funny because he would ask the tour guide which way to go. Our first destinatio

Hello and salutation dear friends and family. I am blogging 2 stops together to catch up on our stops. These were two wonderful stops. On the island of St Kitt, we did a self walking tour. The day we were in port the local market was closed so we were a little bummed. From there our tour took us to the first of two churches. When we first got there the doors were all closed up. We wandered the cemetery and found some very old grave stones. Also on the grounds were some v

Hello family and friends. We are currently in The Bahamas. Yesterday, January 3rd, we left Port of Miami on the Holland American Line, the Zuiderdam. This is our first time on a HAL ship. Our first impressions of the ship is, we love it. It is on the smaller size but with that said, we are impressed with the amount of seating and places to sit and relax. We sat up on deck 10 crow's nest as we left Miami. The first day and evening sailing was very smooth. After dinner

Good day and salutations. Today we explored Old San Juan. We walked along the base of the old wall of San Juan. The walls were built in the early 1500s but not fully completed until late 1600's. The history is very rich. On this trip we did not go into the fort. We will save that for another trip. There was an interesting cemetery at the base of the fort on the north end. It didn't seem as though you could tour it. It reminded me of the cemetery in New Orleans. We e