February 8, 2020 John Heald Cruise on Carnival Conquest

We follow John Heald - the brand ambassador for Carnival Cruise Lines on social media. Once a year, he hosts a cruise. You sign up to have access to special events with him including Q&As, karaoke, or Cigars under the Stars. 

Glenn asked a question that got a good response. I asked about question about adding more vegetarian dishes that match the crew's nationalities and the room went bananas. It became a long standing joke for mean people - Don't Take My Meat. 

We also went to the Chef's Table and it was so delicious. 

The ports of call were Grand Cayman, Roatan, and Cozumel. We went to Mahogany Beach on Roatan. We like the beach bar there. 

Onboard, we were pretty excited to win trophy at trivia. 

Our go to drink this cruise was the leftover Pumpkin beers from Parched Pig. They had the big bottles on special. 

 

2020 January Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

 I was invited to a travel agent trip to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. 

I met Lisa who was a great travel companion. We also befriended a couple hotel guests and enjoyed our evenings. The best was when we convinced room service to deliver to the Sports Bar. 

I had a terrific time visiting: 

• ·        Hyatt Zilara and Hyatt Ziva Cap Cana
• ·        Hilton La Romana
• ·        Sanctuary Cap Cana
• ·        Secrets Cap Cana
• ·        TRS Cap Cana

I 

2020 January Celebrity Summit Southern Caribbean

 One of my favorite cruises is the Southern Caribbean itinerary on the Celebrity Summit so it's the perfect way to start the year. We flew to San Juan and spent the night at the Caribe Hilton. 

We had a little trouble finding a good spot for dinner. A lot of the restaurants were closed. Earthquakes were happening on the other side of the island. We felt a slight tremor the evening before the cruise. We ended up at a food court that was not excellent. Things improved greatly once we boarded the cruise. 

We decided to change things up and we booked an ocean view cabin instead of a balcony. We ended up loving it because it was one deck up from where we'd exit and enter on port days. It made everything so easy. We love starting a Celebrity cruise with lunch at the sushi restaurant. 

Sailaway from San Juan is always gorgeous. We watched a lot of sail-aways on the cruise from Captain's Club happy hour in the Reflection Lounge. 

One of my favorite onboard activities is the Silent Disco. 

The reason I love this itinerary so much is that you wake up each morning on a different island. Our first port of call was St Thomas. We decided to stay on the ship because we'd just been there in December on the Encore. Our second stop was Antigua. I used the opportunity to tour the Royalton Antigua - a great family all inclusive resort. 

Our next port of call was Martinique. I've never been to Martinique so we took an island tour through the cruise line. We visited a rum distillery, a history prison that was almost wiped out by a volcanic eruption, and then took a boat ride back along the coast. 

In St Lucia, we had a lovely day at BodyHoliday. We filmed a resort tour, had lunch, and they even treated us to a massage. 

In Barbados, we toured Turtle Beach and Sandals Barbados and Royal Barbados. It was a nightmare trying to get a cab there. Next time, I'll line up a private transfer like I did at the other ports. 

In Grenada, we decided to stay on the ship. We've been there a couple times. We just enjoyed the view. 

My first visit to St Vincent. It's a developing port of call with great outdoor hiking excursions. We ended up just walking around the downtown and enjoying a couple beers. 

In St Marten,  we filmed a resort tour of the new Secrets  St Marten. 

This cruise, we ate most of our meals at the buffet so we could sit outside each evening either watching sailaway or enjoying the guitar player that played each evening. We spent a lot of our time onboard at the pool bar - so much fun. 

2019 Christmas in Indy

 This Christmas will be remembered for: 

SECURITY! C & C somehow got the idea they would be security. Several people were arrested and put into bedroom jail. Then, the next day they showed up in matching t-shirts with Security name tags. It was hilarious. (It does strike me that it is a privilege to laugh and joke about being arrested as it is not a death sentence for us.) 

We also had a great time visiting Connor Prairie and introducing the kids to joy of light up accessories. 

We ended the week with a trip to the Fuel game. 

Frozen Monopoly was played A LOT. 

12.8.19 Norwegian Encore Caribbean Cruise

After spending the day with Marisa's family at Disney World, we drove halfway to the Fairfield Inn and Suites in West Palm Beach. In the morning, we headed down to pick up my parents and board the Norwegian Encore - the newest ship in Norwegian's fleet. We stayed in a Haven Spa Suite. We were surprised to see the improvements that Norwegian made in the design since the Getaway. The suite was much bigger and had a walk - in closet. 

We had a lot of fun all week with the concierge Adrian. I left him little notes on napkins each evening. He liked sneaking up on me and scaring me. One time, he even found us when we were filming the ship tour all the way down in the lower decks of the ship. This is also the cruise where my Dad ended up locked in the bathroom. Poor guy. 

Some favorite moments onboard were Choir of Man. This musical is terrific. It is set in a pub so they let you come up on stage and have a beer before the show. We loved it so much that we went twice. 

For activities onboard, we loved Onda the Italian restaurant and went twice to Ocean Blue. We tried to do the Escape Box activity, but failed miserably. Mostly we enjoyed the beautiful Observation Lounge with our favorite bartender Lovely. 

For the ports of call, we stopped in St Thomas We took the cable car up to the top and enjoyed the views. 

In Tortola, we took a boat ride over to Soggy Dollar and enjoyed a great day on the beach. We found a nice shaded table and enjoyed the views and some cocktails. You have get a painkiller - right?

12.6.19 - 12.8.19 Wine Riffs and Disney World

 

I love it when we can stack trips together.  Marisa's family was headed to Disney World the weekend of Disney 6th. The Hard Rock was hosting one of their Wine Riffs dinners on December 6th. We were departing on the Norwegian Encore from Miami on December 8th so we pulled it all together. 

The Wine Riffs dinner was great. They always do such a nice job. Sadly, we didn't win a bottle of wine this year. 

Meeting Marisa's family at Disney World was a real treat. L is the perfect age for the wonder and fun of meeting all the characters and trying the rides. 

Reflections on the Australia 2019 Trip

This trip went really well. It was a good length because we concentrated our time in Melbourne and Tasmania.
 
Some things that worked well:

• Starting the road trip in Launceston. This really helped get used to driving on the other side of the road. The easy pace of life and no traffic was great for both driving and navigating.
• The mix of accommodations. We did two nights in a cheap hotel, five nights in an apartment, 2 nights in a fancy lodge, 3 nights in an apartment hotel, and 3 nights in a well-located Marriott. Having access to a washer or a washer and dryer for half the trip really helped keep our suitcases small and light.
• We did one big  excursion per location. This helped us see a lot, but also have relaxed days the other days. Most days we didn't leave our accommodations until 11 am or noon.
• Melbourne: Great Ocean Road
• Launceston: Bay of Fires tour
• Frecyinet: Oyster Farm experience
• Hobert: Tasman Island cruise and Port Arthur.
• Exchange money in advance - We estimated we'd need about US$100 per day in cash. We were right and it worked out really well.
• I recently applied for a new Chase credit card with no foreign transaction fees and the "tap" feature where you just tap it to the machine to pay. That worked really well.

Things we'd do differently:

• Pick the best flight not the best deal. We decided to fly to Australia because we got a deal alert. That started the wheels turning. It ended up that this meant two stops each way. Next time, we'll look at all the flight options and then decide what's the best value.
• Fly Economy - We upgraded our seats to Economy Plus. I'm not sure the extra leg room was worth the price. Planes with a Premium Economy cabin are a much better value.
• No apartment rental. We much preferred staying in an apartment hotel to renting an individual apartment.

Next Trip Down Under
 On our next trip, we'd like to explore the Brisbane area and potentially add on a trip to Christmas Island, Fiji and  cruise around New Zealand to see fjords. We could also easily go back to Launceston, Tasmania and spend more time exploring Cradle Mountain and the Tamar Valley wine region.