Loving Summer

It’s still summer, and I’m happy.

Summer is by far my most favorite time of year, followed by spring then fall.

It’s been a busy spring and summer, but it’s been good. Work kept me pretty busy for a large portion of it (travel, new projects), but I was able to squeeze in a few travel adventures.

The highlight was a week in Florida in May.

Some folks may think Florida is a tad too warm this time of year, but Tim and I have always been heat-lovers. The first part of the trip was a work trip for Tim, but for me, it was relaxation at Saddlebrook Resort near Tampa.

This 480-acre nature preserve was beautiful. I enjoyed daily walks on the nature trail, hours by the pool and a day at the spa.

After work was over, we were both ready to conquer our drive down to the Florida Keys for the weekend. Again, the drive was half the fun!

Had a glitch not hit Hertz’s computer system delaying our journey, the day would have been perfect. Travel glitches make things ever so interesting, though, right? Because of this, we didn’t get on the road until after 10, which landed us in Miami right at the start of rush hour traffic after 3. But the drive on the overseas highway made up for it. I never get tired of looking at “blue blue” water for hours on end.

We pulled into the Hilton Garden Inn Key West just in time to figure out where we’d go for dinner. We went with Tim’s pick of the Hogfish Bar & Grill. I was a little skeptical of this place when we pulled up, but the fresh seafood was so good. This place is totally out of the way on Stock Island, but worth finding. We had Key West Pink shrimp, conch fritters and the daily fish specials while watching a beautiful sunset. I would probably go back if I ever returned. It sure did beat the more touristy places lining the streets of Key West.

We headed back to our hotel, enjoying our balcony and some wine the rest of the evening.

Day 2 was another great day. We got up early for a morning snorkeling tour. The boat ride around the key was beautiful. Again, I can never get enough “blue blue” water. We snorkeled two spots, both of which were murky due to high surf. It was OK, though, the boat ride was still fun.

Following our excursion, we grabbed lunch at the Half Shell Raw Bar. As you know, Tim and I both love oysters, so a dozen was in order along with some fruity drinks. We also shared some buffalo shrimp, salad, and of course, another Caribbean favorite, conch fritters! We cruised around Old Town, Duval Street and Mallory Square until we decided we were too hot and needed a break in our hotel pool! The Hilton Garden Inn and a few other of the hotels in the area where we stayed share a shuttle that takes you to and from Mallory Square. So, that was a nice benefit as parking is minimal in that area. We stayed a bit outside of the touristy area at the entrance of the island to save some money on hotel costs.

We enjoyed the afternoon at our pool along with its happy hour specials. For dinner, we got ready and headed back into Old Town. We didn’t have a particular place in mind this night, and ended up at A&B Lobster House. We weren’t disappointed. We shared conch fritters and barbecue shrimp, while I also had some conch chowder. We, of course, had to have the key lime ice cream for dessert.

We walked around a bit more along the waterfront after dinner and then decided to call it a night.

On Day 3, we got up and visited the Southern Most Point of the Continental US bouy, and saw Ernest Hemmingway’s home. Next, it was time for some brunch at the Cuban Coffee Queen. This was one of my favorite places. The coffee was amazing (took a couple of pounds home) as was the Cuban Queen Sandwich. Holy cow, the pressed Cuban bread! So yummy. We wandered around the Bahama Village a bit, grabbed a slice of key lime pie, and hit the road to head back up on the Overseas Highway, stopping in Marathon at the Turtle Hospital.

We then made our way up to Ft. Lauderdale, where we stayed that evening and had another highlight of our trip — the Mai Kai!

As you may have read before, Tim and I are huge tiki fans, and the Mai Kai is quite the tiki landmark. Often in Top 10 lists of tiki bars across the US, the Mai Kai is a Polynesian-themed restaurant and tiki bar built in 1956. Just look for the thatched palm A-frame building along Federal Highway and you’ll know you’ve found this kitschy tiki bar like none I’ve ever been in before. We enjoyed tropical drinks, Chinese fare and an atmosphere of gardens, fountains and tiki statues galore. It was a great way to close out our Florida trip.

Other than that, we’ve had a few long weekends in Okoboji with family and friends this summer and a couple of family reunions will round things out. I can’t wait to tell you about our upcoming adventure! Where are you planning to travel next?

Cruising! Part 1

Well, Wow. As usual, who can believe 2012 has almost come to an end?

Haven’t gotten on here in sometime because I was on vacation Dec. 6-17! Yes, the big trip we’ve been talking about all summer and fall finally has come and gone.

Yes, Tim and I had been planning since May for a cruise to the Southern Caribbean. We knew we wanted to go somewhere this fall/winter. One of our personal/travel goals is to go on a tropical vacation once a year. Last year and the year before we went to Hawaii in October. In 2008, we went to Aruba. In 2009 we didn’t go anywhere. We really thought about going to Hawaii again this year (yes, we love it that much, and actually are planning on going there next year), but decided we ought to try somewhere new. Bonaire came to mind. We also wanted to do a day trip to Curacao from Bonaire while there. But then we saw a cruise advertised that not only went to Bonaire and Curacao, but also returned back to Aruba. We always said we’d like to go back there. While we won’t get to stay at the awesome resort we stayed at while we were there – the Buccuti (which hands down was the most awesome resort ever and we would stay there again in an instant) we would get to see the lovely island again, along with its friendly people. They don’t call it one big happy island for nothing. So, we settled on this 10-Day Southern Caribbean cruise, which also had stops at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas – Holland America’s own private island – along with Grand Turk and the Dominican Republic.

The Turks and Caicos were on our list of islands we’d like to visit some day and the DR also spiked our interest. So, we were set. A 10-Day Southern Caribbean cruise it was. Now, a cruise hasn’t always been on our dream list. We often look at cruise ships when we visit other places and wonder just how fun that would be. Would it be full of a bunch of people just wanting all day buffets? Would the ship be crowded? Would it be bad for the environment? So, I did a little research, and it seems Holland America pretty much recycles everything on its ship and is as environmentally friendly to the earth as it can be. Its ships also are smaller than some of the mega 4-5,000 people ships. In fact, our ship only held 1,900. As for people just wanting all day buffets, well, that part is true. I seriously think some people just get up, get dressed up and eat all day. Tim and I obviously went because we’d get to go to 6 countries on one trip. It was really odd for us to hear some people on the ship talk abut not even getting off the ship in port. We also were excited to be very active on the trip. One thing we were a little worried about was the cruise line of the trip we found – Holland American Line. It is known as a classic cruise ship line and has formal nights were everyone actually dresses up with, I’d say, 50 percent of the men wearing tuxes and women in sequins and rhinestones — definitely not Tim and I’s thing. But they do have a casual Italian restaurant, the Lido deck, which is casual every night and in-room dinning that is included in the price of your trip. So, we thought we’d be OK. And, actually, in the end, we decided to do a couple of the formal nights. Tim and I aren’t really into partying down on vacation. So, didn’t think the more classic cruise line would bother us too much, and it didn’t. If I were to do it again, I’d go with a line that catered more to adventurous folks. And in fact, I have the cruise line already picked out that we are going to take next time. Yes, there will be a next time. I don’t know when, but when we do it is going to be on a Windstar cruise to the Virgin Islands. So, that is my review of the cruise. We had a great time. We had never cruised before and were very glad we experienced it. It was very nice to have your “floating hotel” and it was great to easily see 6 different islands. The only thing I didn’t like was having to remember what time you had to get back on the ship!

So, now that I’ve gotten the how, when, where and why out of the way. Let me tell you about the actual cruise!

To start out our trip, we first had to fly to Ft. Lauderdale. Our travel agent recommended we leave the day before. If you have a flight delay you are pretty much screwed as the ship ain’t gonna way for ya! So, we did and got into Ft. Lauderdale on time. The weather was lovely! (Such a welcome escape from December in Nebraska.) We stayed at the Embassy Suites close to the cruise port which also is close to the airport. It really is quite something how they have all this stuff made to be so easy for everyone. If we would have flew in the day of, we could have got on transportation at the airport to the cruise port.

However, since we flew in early, we did have to do an overnight in Florida, which I was OK with. I actually had never been to Florida, so it was nice to spend 24 hours there. After we got settled into our motel, we were starving because we hadn’t eaten lunch yet. So, we had a late lunch/early dinner and the loveliest place ever – the Southport Raw Bar. YUM. If you are ever in Ft. Lauderdale for a cruise – go there! We got there at 4 p.m. and found a nice table outside overlooking the water. We started with a dozen oysters on the half shell. We then had to get one our true loves – conch fritters! Well, I think these are more one of Tim’s true loves, but I like them too. And boy, were they freaking awesome. Seriously, they were the best damn conch fritters we’d ever had. We fell in love with these tasty little morsels, which are just kind of like hushpuppies with tiny bits of cracked conch in them along with onions and other herbs and spices, on our honeymoon in the Bahamas. The fritters are served with remoulade sauce for dipping, which is one of my favorite parts. I also had an ahi tuna salad and Tim some fried shrimp. After dinner we went back to the motel and enjoyed the pool that evening.

The next day we had a very leisurely morning. We had breakfast, we worked out and then we checked out at noon and headed to the cruise port. We were on our ship and in our room by about 1:20. It was very fast and easy to check in. After we got on the ship, we checked out our room. It was so much fun to finally be on the ship! We reserved a deluxe verandah room, which was very nice and extremely clean, but small. If you can spring it go for a suite. But the room served us just fine. We aren’t the claustrophobic type and we are fairly neat and tidy, so we didn’t have too much of a problem. I think a balcony is a must. Tim and I loved sitting on it enjoying drinks in the evening, coffee in the a.m. and watching the ship come and go from port. So, after we got to our room, we unpacked and put everything away in the closets and drawers provided. Did I mention we also had mail already? Ha! Our travel agent had bought us lunch in HAL’s Pinnacle grill – a nice touch. (The Pinnacle grill is HAL’s premiere restaurant which for lunch has a $10 per person surcharge and at dinner a $25 per person surcharge.) HAL has nice little touches on the ship, which I really liked. For example, they had plastic covers on our bed in which they set our luggage on. We also had stateroom attendants which introduced themselves right away and got us what we needed when we needed it. They put fresh fruit in our room each day and also cleaned our room each morning while at breakfast and each evening while we were away at dinner. They even left chocolates and towel animals each night! After we were unpacked, lunch was being served on the Lido. However, on our way there, we had a few sales pitches first. We were a little surprised; actually, just how many sales pitches there would be on this cruise. It seemed every time we left our room, someone was trying to sell us a bar package – like a wine tasting or a bar hop or a spa treatment. So, before lunch, we toured the spa where we signed up for a Detox seminar and 3 cycling classes, and also fell for a couple of the bar packages – a wine tasting and a mixology class. Finally, when we made it to the Lido deck, I chose a red curry seafood dish over rice with green papaya salad, which Tim had Pad Thai and rice. He also had to try a grilled Ruben. Yeah, that is how diverse the food options were. We thought we would get tired of the food after 10 days, but never did. I’ll tell you more about it each day, don’t worry.

After that it was off to explore every deck of the ship and then back to the stateroom to do a bit more rearranging before the 4 p.m. muster drill. After that it was sail away at 5 p.m. with a couple of yummy mojitos! How beautiful it was to sail away at sunset!

That night we played it casual again and enjoyed the Lido for dinner. Tim had Caesar salad, prime rib and a baked potato, while I had seafood Louise and a salad to start followed by ahi tuna along with carrots, zucchini and a butternut squash soup. Again, the food was hot and yummy and choices were abundant from the Lido deck and a nice casual start to our trip. After dinner we had a drink in the Crows Nest bar – Baileys and coffee for me and an Old Fashioned for Tim. Then it was bed time! What a day!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the start of my cruise! More to come!