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Sunday, March 4 ~ Embarkation Day!

April 26, 2018 deladane Leave a comment

Day 4: Sunday, March 4 ~ Embarkation Day!

Just shy of 2 years after booking this cruise, the day had finally arrived to board the Celebrity Eclipse!!

I’m sure you can guess where we went for breakfast… That’s right! Back to Le Chic French Bakery for those delicious almond croissants! We needed one last chance to taste that sweet yumminess before leaving Miami. Bellies full, we went back to the hotel to gather our bags and request an Uber. It cost us $12 for an UberX to drive us 20 minutes to the Port of Miami. It was so exciting to set eyes on the ship for the first time as we drove passed it on the bridge.

Our driver had no idea where to go upon entering the port even though we saw the electronic sign listing our ship at Terminal G and could clearly see where the ship was docked from miles away. At first, he tried to pull into Terminal D where the Carnival Vista was docked- good thing we were paying attention and stopped him!

Soon enough, we pulled up in front of Terminal G, unloaded our bags, and handed the big suitcase over to a porter before entering the terminal. We arrived at 10:20am and there were only a handful of other passengers checking in. There was no line at all at the security x-rays or at the Concierge Class check in counter, so I was happy we showed up so early. Within just a few minutes after arriving, we checked in, took our security mug shots, were handed our seapass cards, and directed to take a seat in the small waiting room at the end of the terminal. When I say small, I mean SMALL. There were already about 50 passengers in there and there were hardly any empty seats available, but we did find 2 seats in different rows. I don’t know if there was another waiting room somewhere else, but this seemed like a very small space to wait to board the ship considering it was full to capacity this early in the day. Luckily, it didn’t matter because they started boarding the ship not long after we arrived. First they called the suites, and then at 10:50am, they invited Concierge Class passengers to board the ship! Up the escalator and through a short bridge, and we stepped foot on the Celebrity Eclipse before 11am!!! I was seriously shocked at how early we were on board, but no complaints from me!

The lunch options on board didn’t open until 11:30am, so we had a few minutes to run some errands around the ship. First we went down to the MDR to check out the Concierge Class lunch menu. This is often considered one of the best perks of Concierge Class- they invite you to a sit-down lunch in the MDR from 11:30am until 1pm so you can avoid the crowds at the buffet. While it would be nice to let them hold our rolling carry on bags and to enjoy a leisurely meal, I really did not want to spend that much time at a drawn out sit-down lunch when I was anxious to explore the ship. I was curious about the menu though, so we went down to take a look. Nothing really appealed to us after having that big almond croissant for breakfast a few hours ago, so we did not stay.

Next, we went to guest services to ask a few questions before the lines got too long. Then, we went up to deck 5 to ask the Maitre’D at Tuscan Grill about discounts for eating there on the first night. Before we could even ask, he volunteered a 30% discount! That sounded good to us so we tried to book for 7pm, but he said that was not available and gave us a 6:30pm reservation.

Errands complete, it was time to relax. The buffet was still closed at this point, so we went upstairs to deck 15 and walked aft to the Sunset Bar, then down the stairs to the Oceanview Bar outside of the buffet area. One big perk of sailing on a sister ship to a ship you already sailed on is that you know the layout really well and know more than one way to get where you want to go. Our goal was to find a table in the shade where we could relax with a few drinks and eat our lunch with a view overlooking Miami. The Oceanview Café front doors were still closed, but no one stopped us from coming downstairs from the Sunset Bar, and the bar and seating area out back there was open for service. This was such a great way to start the cruise and it was much less noisy and chaotic than sitting inside the buffet area.

We also had a great view of the port and all the palettes of supplies getting loaded onto the ship.

We also spent some time reading through today’s daily schedule and deciding how we wanted to spend the rest of our day.

At some point, we got hungry for a little lunch so we took turns guarding our carry on bags at the table and getting food from the buffet. I opted for some seafood paella, a slice of pizza, and something sweet for dessert.

We stayed out there until around 1pm, then went back inside. We knew they would announce that the cabins were ready at around 1:30pm so we wanted to beat the rush at the elevators. We went down to the library outside the mid-ship elevators on deck 10 so we’d be close to our cabin, and just as we stepped off the elevator, they announced that cabins were now ready. We had perfect timing! Our big suitcase was waiting outside our cabin door when we arrived, so we spent an hour or so getting unpacked and settled in the cabin. It was the same layout as the cabin we had on the Equinox, so that made unpacking go faster since we already knew where to put everything. I packed 2 collapsible storage bins for each of us as they fit perfectly in the space above the bed and make it easier to get stuff in and out of there. For the first time in 8 cruises, I took the advice of many expert packers on Cruise Critic and brought an over-the-door hanging shoe organizer with clear pockets. We both found this to be extremely convenient to store our little odds and ends. I hung it on the outside of the bathroom door and it helped keep the counters clear and free up space in the little dresser drawers. Here are some photos from around the cabin before we had a chance to mess it up…

Fresh fruit in the cabin is another perk of Concierge Class, so I assume that’s what this was for. It probably won’t surprise you that we never touched these apples. Midway through the cruise, our stewardess replaced them with an orange, a red apple, and a pear, which also went uneaten. With all the delicious food available on the ship, somehow this just didn’t seem worthy of our limited stomach space haha

I never took a photo of the bathroom since it’s the same as on the Equinox, but this was the bathroom products for Concierge Class. I don’t know if we got something special or if this was the same as a regular cabin, but the stewardess was great about replacing anything we finished.

With a cruise this long, it sometimes gets hard to remember what day it is and what tour we have planned, so I made this calendar to hang on the wall of the cabin. I brought some tiny magnets to hold it up since the walls are magnetic (another new thing I brought for this cruise that will now come with us on every cruise in the future).

We hoped our stewardess would stop by the cabin while we were unpacking but she never did, so we went upstairs to get a quick drink before the Muster Drill. We also took this opportunity to take this photo which we take on every cruise, holding the orange life saver floating ring.

I love to see all the nautical flags flying on embarkation day. Just another reminder that we are on a ship and not in a hotel!

A sea plane just landed right in front of us!

Our Muster station was located in the photo gallery. It was not exactly a comfortable location as there is no seating and they need to cram 200 people into a relatively small space. We were much happier last time when our station was in the big theater! They called the drill at 3:15pm and by the time we got there, the few chairs they had set up were already occupied. They did check our cabin number off a list to make sure we were present, so make sure you don’t skip the drill! As we entered the already too crowded space, I noticed a black couch off to the side. I think it is used for portraits by the photography staff but no one was sitting there so we made ourselves comfortable for the 30 minute drill. There were a lot of German guests on the ship for this sailing so they did the drill in both English and German.

Once we were dismissed from our station, the real fun began. Since we had been sitting in a back nook of the photo gallery, we were one of the last to get out of the area. We needed to get up to deck 15 for the Cruise Critic Informal Meet and Greet Sail Away party at the Sunset Bar, so we headed aft towards the mid-ship elevators. By the time we got there, it was a mob scene and it would have taken a very long time to get closer to the elevators, let alone actually getting inside one to take us upstairs. Instead of dealing with that mess, I thought we should try to backtrack to the forward elevators in hopes of less crowding so we made our way across deck 5 like salmon swimming upstream, against the flow of people walking aft. Unfortunately, this was a failure as well because all the people with muster stations in the theater were waiting for the forward elevators. In the end, we took the stairs for the 9 deck hike up to deck 15 (I was quite grateful that there was no deck 13!)

Eventually, we made it up to the Sunset Bar where the meet and greet was already in full swing. As always, it was nice to put a face to the names we had been chatting with online. Within minutes of arriving, DH tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Isn’t that Mike from our Equinox cruise??” I looked up and was very surprised to see our old friends Mike and Tami (luvb2bcruising and traveling-2)! We only knew each other in person, but not as our Cruise Critic names on that roll call so I had no idea they were booked on this cruise with us!

Sail away was originally scheduled for 4pm, but I heard a rumor that a
plane coming from Europe was delayed and they were holding the ship to wait for them. I assume that these people booked their flight directly with Celebrity, since I can’t imagine they would hold up the ship for someone who booked privately. Supposedly, there were about 40 people on this late flight so that was nice of the Captain to make arrangements to delay sail away. I do not know for sure if this was true or if those people ever made it to the ship, but at a few minutes before 5pm, we noticed the ship was moving.

I immediately left the area at the Sunset Bar and went over to the port side of the ship to get a good spot at the railing. This was my first time sailing out from Miami and I was really excited to watch the views as we made our way down the channel and out to the ocean. Overall, I much preferred cruising out of Miami over Ft. Lauderdale. I found the city had more to do with more restaurants close to our hotel and great walking options, the cruise port was much smaller and easier to navigate, and the sail away was much prettier and more exciting to watch. We had a longer distance to travel before getting out beyond the beach into open water, so that gave us lots to look at and photograph! Unfortunately, the strong winds we had all weekend in Miami followed us on board, so it was very windy and cold for sail away. I had to keep alternating with DH between standing behind the windshield and standing between the breaks with cold air rushing through to get a good photo without a reflection. It was surprisingly difficult hold my camera still to get a good photo because it kept shaking from all of the wind, but here are some of the good shots I got…

Notice all of the boats piled up on the ground? They were all destroyed in the hurricanes last fall…

It must be so exciting to live in one of these houses along the channel and have a view of the cruise ships sailing away every day. I hope these people appreciate that and don’t take it for granted!!

Lots of traffic headed towards South Beach on a Sunday evening

Those are some HUGE yachts!

This little walkway area lined with palm trees and 4 square fountains is at the base of Washington Avenue, near where we had been sitting on Friday and Saturday afternoon to watch the ships sail away.

We’re almost there…

And just like that, we were officially out to sea. Adios Miami! See ya in 2 weeks!

The Celebrity Today brochure mentioned that any alcohol purchased made prior to the ship reaching 3 miles from the shore would be charged Miami sales tax. I don’t know for sure if that pertains to the cost of upgrading from a classic to a premium beverage package, but we didn’t want to risk it. When it looked like we were far enough out to sea, we started asking a few bartenders if there were any discounts for upgrading off the $10 plus tip (so $11.80) per day, but they all said no. I had read once a week or two before sailing that someone negotiated a discount and others had specials with one night for free if upgrading for the whole cruise, so we were hoping for the same opportunity considering this is a 14 day cruise, but no such luck. For the time being, we held off and stuck to drinks under the $9 limit for our classic package.

With a bit of time to kill before our dinner reservation, we went back to the cabin and found a few surprises. Our stewardess still remained unseen but she must have stopped by at some point because our canapés were waiting for us on the coffee table. As one of the most talked about Concierge Class perks, I was quite curious to see what treat was delivered since I have heard more negatives than positives about these canapés. I can only assume that these changed every day, but I wouldn’t know for sure because when we did eventually meet our stewardess, Albertina, the next morning, we asked her to deliver fruit, cheese, and crackers instead. DH and I both have pretty specific things we can/will or cannot/will not eat, so the idea of a non-labeled mystery assortment of foods being delivered to our cabin each day was not very appetizing. Here was today’s canapés:

Albertina also left lots of papers and letters on our bed.

Nearly every night of the cruise, we returned to the cabin to find not only tomorrow’s daily schedule, but also an envelope addressed to me. That envelope was a very creative way to try to sell me something- a treatment at the spa, overpriced artwork from the art gallery, a wine/alcohol tasting which was not covered by the beverage package, etc. There must be someone on this ship whose sole job description is to place sticker labels on envelopes all day, every day, so when the envelope is delivered to our cabins, we feel special and like someone reached out to me specifically. Of course, I never took the bait, but it was nice to see they put in more effort than other cruise lines who just leave the flyer in your daily schedule packet and hope you look at it.

Anyway, today’s information contained a few things that actually were important. One of the envelopes had an invitation to the Cruise Critic Meet and Greet for tomorrow morning at Cellar Masters. The other envelope had a discount offer for 25% off at the specialty restaurants if we booked for tonight… too bad we already got a 30% off deal! Haha

There was also a flyer from the concierge welcoming us on board and explaining the benefits of Concierge Class:

And this flyer introduced all of the top officers on the ship

At 6:30pm, we went down to Tuscan Grill for our dinner reservation, and the restaurant was only about 25% full. No wonder they need to offer discounts to get people to eat here on the first night! We were escorted to a table for 2 along the windows at the back of the room. The sun sets at around 7pm this time of year so it was nearly dark, but it is still fun to watch the wake and the Miami skyline fade into darkness while we ate.

The Tuscan Grill menu has changed since our last Celebrity cruise. We missed the short rib ravioli but were happy to try some new options. We did not want to order too much food and over-stuff ourselves, so we opted to share the half-size portions of pasta, a flatbread, and we each got our own salad and steak with a side dish to share.

DH started with a Caesar salad which he thought was generic and no different than any other Caesar salad.

I had the goat cheese and arugula salad where the crispy fried goat cheese balls were the highlight (obviously! After all, they are fried!)

We also ordered 2 glasses of wine and loved how the waiter kept refilling our glass, seemingly every single time we took a sip! The next course was the flat bread. We had the pizzetta bianco and loved that the crust was very thin, so while it was cheesey, it was very light and not filling.

Next up was our 2 half portions of pasta. The ricotta gnocci was wonderful, as was the shortrib pappardelle ragu (but that did taste a bit too salty to me). Ironically, that was similar to our dinner last night, and it tasted just as good as the homemade pasta. The half portion was just the right amount to get a taste without filling us up.

Up next, they served the steaks. We both ordered the 9 ounce filet mignon, and of course they were cooked perfectly to our liking- mine, a deep red rare, and DH’s, a pink medium. I had the beef jus sauce and DH had the gorgonzola, but we both thought the meat was great on its own and did not need any extra sauce.

Our side dish was a little crock of eggplant parmesan. I wish there was more space in my stomach so I could have enjoyed more of this, but instead, I had to restrain myself to just one bite. Totally worth it!

Despite our best efforts to not over eat, we were totally stuffed by the end of
dinner. I asked for my slice of cheesecake to be delivered later tonight via room service, and our waiter said that was no problem and just to call room service when I was ready for it. DH somehow found space for his tiramisu, which he said was very good.

As expected, service was very good, with several waiters doting over us and
ensuring we had everything we needed. It was definitely worth the extra up charge to dine here. After dinner, we had about 30 minutes before we had to go to the theater for tonight’s show, so we stopped by the martini bar. One very nice change from 2016 is that the classic beverage package allows you to pay the difference for drinks costing over the $9 limit. Before, the martini bar was basically off limits without upgrading to the premium beverage package because the cost of 1 martini was higher than the cost to upgrade. After such a big dinner, I knew I wouldn’t drink enough tonight to make it worth upgrading with only a few hours before bedtime, so we each ordered a martini and just paid the $3 plus tip difference ($3.54). I had the lycheetini (one of my favorites from our last cruise), and DH had the banana split martini (which was pink because they made it with too much strawberry- oops!).

Tonight’s show was a tribute to the Beatles performed by the ship’s act Hard Days Night. They played lots of classic Beatles hits and it was fun to sing along. If you go to this show, try to make sure you have a view of the 2 big screens on either side of the stage. We were sitting at the back of the seating on deck 4, so the mezzanine from deck 5 blocked the view of the screens and we missed out on the videos they showed while the band did a few wardrobe changes. Had I realized it, I would have moved seats, but I actually thought it was just audio over the sound system and didn’t realize there was a video component until the very end.

Sorry for the blurry photos… We like to sit at the back of the theater to make a quick escape when the shows end, but that means all of my photos from the shows will be zoomed in a lot, and that makes for blurry photos.

After the show, we went back to the cabin because our waiter at Tuscan Grill said we had to call room service before 10pm to get our dessert delivered. It took them over 30 minutes to deliver it, and by then, we were too tired to go back out again so we just called it a night. The cheesecake was quite yummy though!

This tote bag was on our bed when we got back to the cabin. I think it may be another Concierge Class perk, but I’m not totally sure. Either way, it is a nicer, more sturdy bag than the other tote bag they leave in the cabin, and it folds up into that little pouch for easy storage.

Step Tracker Daily Total: 12,021 steps; 4.86 miles; 33 flights of stairs

Cruise

Saturday, March 3 ~ Exploring more of Miami

April 26, 2018 deladane Leave a comment

Day 3: Saturday, March 3 ~ Exploring more of Miami

We woke up around 8:30am after a much-needed night of sleep. There wasn’t anything specific on today’s agenda, but we had asked our friend last night for recommendations on what to do and he suggested walking along the Venetian Causeway for the views, and checking out the shops on Lincoln. That sounded good to us, but first, we needed breakfast. Le Chic French Bakery was on our way, so we decided to return there but order something different from yesterday. We each ordered eggs and cheese on a baguette and it was delicious. This place was a great find!

After breakfast, we continued up Washington Ave. to Lincoln Road. There is a stretch of 5 or 6 blocks that is closed off to vehicular traffic and lined with trendy retail shops and restaurants, with lots of outdoor seating. There are also some sculptures, fountains, and plenty of palm trees for shade. It was a sunny, beautiful morning and this made for a great place to take a stroll.

Along the way, we noticed a German beer hall and restaurant and thought it would be a fun place to get some drinks in a few hours. As we got closer, we saw a sign in their window that this location was closed, and they had moved to the Bayside Marketplace across Biscayne Bay. We had already planned to walk along the Venetian Causeway, so this was not much further and it gave us a destination to walk towards. Back at home, we enjoy taking long urban walks around San Jose or San Francisco, so this was right up our alley. Google Maps said it was 4.1 miles away- not too bad and it was a beautiful day so we may as well give it a go.

The Venetian Causeway is a long road connecting South Beach to the mainland and Downtown Miami. Along the road, there are several tiny islands with a few fancy, high-end houses. Each of the islands are separated by a small bridge that rises just a few feet above the water, and the road itself is only 1 lane in each direction, so it provides a picturesque, relaxing place for a leisurely stroll.

We could even see the cruise ships docked at POM out in the distance,

There are also 2 small draw bridges along the Causeway, and both were up when we got there so we could watch the boats sail through.

After over an hour and a half of walking, we reached the end of the Causeway in Downtown Miami. The views of the skyline were so pretty from the end of the bridge.

We weren’t quite hungry for lunch yet thanks to those filling egg and cheese
sandwiches from the bakery, so instead of turning left towards Bayside Marketplace, we turned right to walk along the water and admire the giant condo buildings and hotels and the boats docked in the marina. Just beyond that was a lovely park filled with people enjoying their Saturday morning. The park also has free public restrooms, in case you were curious!

We came across a few art installations which we thought were interesting. They were very tall chairs, or thrones perhaps, and decorated with mosaic tiles depicting different religions and cultures. One of the locals walking by told us they were made by children working with elderly residents of a care home (or something along those lines- they weren’t totally sure).

Eventually, we started getting hungry so we turned back to go south towards the Bayside Marketplace. With all of the research I had done before the trip, I read a lot about Bayside Marketplace and really wanted to check it out, but I assumed we would spend all of our time in South Beach and need to save this for a different trip. As soon as we arrived, we knew it was worth the walk. Despite being a bit touristy, there were lots of bars and restaurants with large outdoor patios overlooking the water, and lots of fun shops with interesting goods to look at. There was a stage set up for live music, and hundreds (or even thousands) of people having a fun time on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. What more could we ask for? Oh yeah, beer! After walking through the entire complex unsuccessfully, we had to consult one of the interactive directories to find that our final destination was upstairs.

Bavaria Haus is a German style beer house selling Hofbrau beers, complete with a wait staff originally from Bavaria! They sell their beers in 0.5 liter mugs, 1 liter steins, or 2 liter boots, and offer a full menu of traditional German dishes.

We requested a table on their outdoor balcony in the shade and ordered a couple of steins a giant pretzel to start.

Still hungry from our long walk to get here, we then shared a chicken schnitzel wiener with a side of their special potato salad. Yummm!

At around 3pm, we were ready for a change of scenery. We wanted to go back to South Pointe Park to watch the cruise ships sail away again, but there was no chance we could walk back all that way (especially after drinking a liter of beer! Haha). Thirty minutes and an $8 Uber ride later, we arrived at our destination. We had 6:30pm dinner reservations and still needed to walk back to the hotel to shower and get changed, so we couldn’t stay too long at the park, but we did get to see 3 or 4 ships sail away. Just 24 hours to go until it is our turn to be up on one of those ships!!

It’s always fun to see an old friend… Celebrity Equinox

RCCL Empress of the Seas looks like a small yacht in comparison to the ships that sailed before and after her haha

Here comes the big boy… Norwegian Escape

At around 4:30pm, we made the 8-block walk back to the hotel to get ready
for dinner. By the time we left the hotel to walk to dinner, the weather had changed and it was much cooler and very windy. Little did we know, this would be a sign of things to come for the next 2 weeks. Luckily, when we made our dinner reservations last night, we requested to sit inside!

Pane & Vino is a charming and intimate Italian restaurant with homemade pasta made right in the front window. It reminded me of the little restaurants I used to go to in the West Village and Little Italy when I lived in NYC. The menu offered a nice selection of appetizers, pasta dishes, and entrees at around $20 to $30. When we walked passed it last night, DH’s friend said he really likes this place and recommended we make reservations for tonight, so we did!

DH and I both ordered the homemade pappardelle with slow cooked lamb ragu, and it was fantastic! You can really taste the difference from store-bought pasta.

After dinner, we were exhausted from a very long day of waking all over Miami, so we just walked back to the hotel, repacked our bags, and went to sleep early to rest up for embarkation day!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 27,214 steps; 11.03 miles; 9 flights of stairs

Cruise

Friday, March 2 ~ Going MIA

April 26, 2018 deladane Leave a comment

Day 2: Friday, March 2 ~ Going MIA

Despite threats of bad weather across the country, our flight was uneventful and relatively turbulence free. As usual, neither of us got much sleep, but we passed the time watching recorded TV shows on our tablets. I love that Netflix added a feature to download movies/shows for offline viewing. It is so convenient for long flights like that, and then I can delete the episodes as I watch them to free up space to upload my photos as the trip goes on! Time flew by (see what I did there? Wink, wink!), and before we knew it the sun was rising and we were making our initial descent into Ft. Lauderdale.

The plane landed at 7:30am, and we eventually made our way through the
terminal and down to baggage claim. The good news was that our one checked bag came off the carousel within minutes of us getting downstairs. The bad news was that the entire suitcase was wet and coated with condensation. We have a hard plastic outside on our suitcase, but I was still worried about our bag sitting outside in the rain to be loaded on the plane back at SFO. When I saw the weather forecast on Wednesday, I unpacked the whole bag and put everything into plastic garbage bags to keep it protected. Yes, the hard plastic case is waterproof, but I was worried rain would seep in through the zipper lining. I am so glad I did this extra step because we opened the bag right there in the airport and everything was dry inside the bags. I am not even sure if it was wet from the rain at SFO because that was so many hours ago, but whatever got it wet did not penetrate the bag so our clothes were still fresh and clean.

The next step was to get an Uber to take us from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami. The ride share pick up location is very easy to find and well labeled at the same spot where the hotel shuttles pick up. We frequently use Uber to get to/from the airport, so we developed a system to find our driver amongst all the other Uber drivers- we memorize the last 3 digits of the license plate number and just look for that. That works wonderfully in California where cars have both front and back plates, but not so well in Florida where the license plates are only on the back of the car haha We resorted to looking for the model and color of the car and eventually found our driver within 10 minutes, and we were on our way. For those who are curious, it took about an hour in moderate rush hour traffic to get from FLL to our hotel in South Beach in Miami, and it cost $47.

About a year ago, we reserved a room in South Beach on VRBO. I thought it was a condo but it turns out that it is inside the Royal Hotel South Beach, so that gave us the added convenience of a 24×7 front desk with the affordable VRBO pricing as compared to the other pricier and fancier Miami hotels. We picked this place for its great location in the heart of South Beach, knowing we rarely spend much time in the hotel room anyway. It was only 9:15am at this point, so our room was not ready yet. The front desk was happy to hold or bags so we could go out and explore the city, and they said they would call us when the room was ready in a few hours.

After not sleeping all night, we were both very hungry and ready for breakfast. A few blocks from our hotel, we found a little shop called Le Chic French Bakery.

The pastries looked delicious, so we shared an apple turnover and a big almond croissant. The apple turnover was good but fairly typical of any other turnover we’ve had before, but OMG, the almond croissant was fantastic!! At only $4, this thing was massive! It was nearly as big as the full-size paper plate it was served on, and I can’t even tell you how good it tasted! I highly recommend trying this if you are ever in the neighborhood.

After breakfast, we wandered over to the Art Deco Museum and gift shop. They offer guided walking tours for $25 per person but we were too jetlagged to commit to a formal tour. For $3, we could buy a map which pointed out over 100 different Art Deco buildings and noted the year it was built, the architect, and the building’s style. The employee at the store told us we could go inside any of these hotels and look at the lobby, free of charge. That sounded like a better plan for us, and we could walk around at our leisure both today and tomorrow.

Heading north on Ocean Drive, the first building we noticed was not actually on the map at all- the Versace Mansion. I had been watching the tv show on FX called The Assassination of Gianni Versace just before leaving on the trip, so I thought it was really cool to see it in person! Unfortunately, you cannot walk around inside there because it is private property, so a photo of the outside will have to suffice.

We spent about 2 hours looking at the buildings and admiring the views of the beach. I will admit, it felt a little weird to walk into the lobby of these hotels and asking to look around, but no one seemed to mind.

By noon, it was very hot and humid and we really wanted to relax in some air conditioning. We called our hotel to get an update, and our room was ready! Yay! He had told us it could be as late as 3pm so we were grateful to check in at noon.

The hotel room was small but suited our needs just fine. There was a fridge, microwave, and coffee pot, and the air conditioning was strong, so we were happy. It would have been nice if it had a balcony and a couch, but we were only here for 2 nights so it didn’t really matter.

Complimentary soaps in the bathroom- notice the brand name? Looks like they got inspiration from the spa cabins on Celebrity hehe

It took us just a few minutes to unpack because everything we needed in Miami was packed in our carry on bags and we did not need to unpack the big suitcase. We relaxed for an hour (ie: DH napped while I wrote in my trip journal), then we got changed and headed out for a late lunch. We had 7pm dinner reservations and we didn’t want to eat too much and spoil our appetites, so when we stumbled upon Pizza Rustica, we knew it was perfect. They have huge square slices of pizza with lots of fun toppings, but the crust is fairly thin so it isn’t too filling. DH got the chicken parmesan slice and I got the mushroom pizza. Both were very tasty and the perfect amount of food to hold us over until dinner.

After lunch, we walked south on Ocean Drive to South Point Park Pier to
watch the cruise ships sail away. There were 5 ships at the Port of Miami today, which seemed like a lot for a Friday. We arrived around 4pm and took a seat on one of the park benches to do some people watching while we waited for the ships to arrive.

At 4:20pm, we spotted the first ship… Norwegian Jade. It was so fun to wave at the people on board and know that we will be in their shoes in just 2 days! DH made it his mission to get someone to wave at us. You’d be surprised at how hard that is since most people on the top decks of the ships are way too high up to make eye contact, but I think he did catch the eye of someone on a lower deck balcony, and he accomplished his mission.

Up next was RCCL’s Enchantment of the Seas…

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to watch all 5 ships sail away because we needed to go back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. One of DH’s friends lives in Miami, so we arranged to meet up for dinner at 7pm tonight at a Peruvian restaurant called Chalan on the Beach on 16^th and Washington Ave. As we were walking there, we passed the Miami Beach Police Department. I was impressed at how new and pretty the building looked, and we thought this car parked outside was quite clever.

We weren’t sure exactly how long it would take to walk there from our hotel, so we ended up arriving a few minutes early. Just a block before the restaurant, we found a cute alley called Espanola Way that is closed to vehicular traffic and lined with restaurants and bars. We took a little detour to check it out and stopped in a little Italian restaurant called Hosteria Romana for happy hour. It had such a great atmosphere with bottles of chianti hanging from the ceiling. It had started to rain outside so we couldn’t sit out on the patio for people watching, so we grabbed 2 seats at the bar. The bartender immediately served us a plate of bruchetta, a bowl of mixed nuts, and a bowl of antipasto- a nice treat to snack on with our drinks.

After a quick walk around the corner, we arrived at our dinner restaurant and met up with DH’s friend. Chalan was a quaint little restaurant with authentic Peruvian food. Having never eaten Peruvian food before, DH’s friend recommended we try their specialty- Lomo Saltado, a mixture of onions, tomatoes, French fries, and grilled beef with a side of white rice. We also ordered a round of Peruvian beer. His recommendations were spot on as everything was delicious and very flavorful, and we really enjoyed our first Peruvian experience!

After dinner, we walked back along Washington Avenue and had one more drink at a nice little bar called Employees Only. It was kind of a strange name for a bar, but they claim to be a speakeasy so maybe that’s part of the appeal? They had some creative cocktails that were a bit pricey (like most things in South Beach haha), but the vibe was upscale and swanky so it made for a fun experience.

By 10pm, we were exhausted after being awake since 7am the day before, so we said goodbye to DH’s friend and walked back to the hotel to crash for the night.

Step Tracker Daily Total: 20,129 steps; 8.15 miles; 2 flights of stairs

Cruise

Thursday, March 1 ~ Flying to Florida

April 26, 2018 deladane Leave a comment

Day 1: Thursday, March 1 ~ Flying to Florida

Nearly 2 years after originally booking this cruise, it was finally time to get this vacation started! After a full day of work, we loaded up our suitcases into the car and drove the 40 miles up towards SFO. We much prefer flying out of San Jose where the airport is smaller and much closer to home, but JetBlue only flies direct from San Francisco to Ft. Lauderdale so it made more sense to drive up to SFO for the convenience of a direct flight. Rush hour traffic in the Bay Area is out of control, but what made it even worse was that after a very dry and rain-free winter, it was raining today so the roads were a mess. Just our luck! On the bright side, at least we could take advantage of the HOV lanes to get us up there a little faster.

Before going to the airport, we stopped for dinner at The Counter. For those who don’t know, The Counter is a chain restaurant with many locations in California, plus a few scattered across the country. They give you a piece of paper with tons of options for burgers and toppings and you can create your own burger or salad. It’s a fun concept and we wanted something fairly healthy before indulging on the cruise ship. I opted for a bison burger on a salad.

Bellies full, we made our way up to SFO. Amazingly, there was no line to check our shared big suitcase, and it weighed in at exactly 49.8 pounds! I definitely know how to maximize my packing hehe There was also no line at security, so we breezed through and even got to leave our shoes on! We still had 2 hours to go before boarding our flight, but the time passed quickly. We thought it was ironic that our gate number was A11A and we were going to Miami and would be on A1A.

Warning: Rant Ahead. Did you know that JetBlue changed how they board the plane? I always sit in row 15 or 21 (depending on if my plane has 25 or 30 rows) so I can be one of the first sets of rows called to board the plane. They used to call rows 21-25 to board first, but that’s too close to the bathrooms for me. The next group they called was rows 15-20 so by sitting in row 15, I was further forward and could deplane faster but still board early enough to ensure overhead storage space was available. Anyway, at some point since I last flew on JetBlue 9 months ago, they changed their policy. They now assign everyone a boarding group- A for people who upgrade to even more space seats, and B through E for everyone else. The group is assigned to you randomly at check in and there is no explainable or predictable logic to it. In theory, they don’t want 5 rows of people boarding at the same time because you have to wait for the person sitting next to you or behind you to put their luggage up in the bin before you can do it, which slows down the process. Fair enough. They now group people together from different rows throughout the plane, so in theory, someone in row 7, 15, and 23 can all put their suitcase in the overhead bin at the same time. The problem is, the aisles are too narrow for people to pass to the back of the plane so if the person in row 7 boards first, the people in rows 15 and 23 need to wait to proceed down the aisle. On top of that, not everyone in the same row gets the same boarding zone. DH and I booked our flights separately using rewards points from our credit cards, so our reservations were not linked. At the time we bought our tickets, this was not an issue since we picked our seats next to each other as we always do. Well after we checked in, I was assigned group B but DH was assigned group C. Ummm, ok?? So now I can’t board the plane with my husband? JetBlue’s answer to this dilemma is that we can board together in the latter of the 2 groups. Who would ever agree to that?! Why would I want to board later and risk having to gate check my bag?? I purposely picked a row towards the back of the plane to guarantee overhead space and now there is no reward for those less desirable seats. On top of that, DH and I were literally the FIRST people to book seats on this plane. We booked this cruise 2 years in advance, long before flights opened up, and we have limited options to fly direct from the Bay Area to South Florida, so we booked the flights as soon as they were released. You would think they could at least reward people who booked first with a B boarding group, but nope! I have happily flown with JetBlue for nearly 20 years, but this new boarding structure may change that. Ok, sorry for the rant, but that was a disappointing way to start the trip.

In the end, we boarded separately with our assigned groups and both found overhead space for our bags. Those boarding in groups D and E were not so lucky and did have to gate check their bags. The plane was late arriving to SFO, so it took off 45 minutes late, just a few minutes before midnight, during a heavy downpour. Luckily, we were in no rush to get anywhere on Friday morning anyway so the delay did not affect us. I will end this post here and pick up after midnight with Day 2 of our journey.

Cruise

Celebrity Eclipse ~ Pre-Cruise Planning

April 26, 2018 deladane Leave a comment

Hi Everyone! My name is Dana and my husband and I just returned from a fabulous 14-night cruise on the Celebrity Eclipse (March 4-18, 2018 sailing). As you can see from my cruise history listed below in my signature, I have taken several Carnival and Celebrity cruises in the last few years, and we just returned home from our honeymoon in French Polynesia six months ago. I always write a detailed photo review when I return home from my cruises, with a journal-style day-by-day format. This cruise will be no different! If you are looking for a short and sweet review, you might want to look elsewhere… I tend to write like I talk, and I can be a bit long-winded, so my reviews are very long and take a few weeks to complete. On the other hand, if you like reading about lots of details, and if you want to see TONS of photos (including all of the daily schedules and menus), this is the review for you! I do this as much to help others plan their vacations as to give me a travel log to look back on and remember my wonderful cruise. Please feel free to ask questions and post comments along the way… I welcome your feedback 🙂

It may take me a little while to get all of my photos sorted and loaded onto my computer considering I took over 3000 photos on this vacation, so please be patient with me. Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip as a little something to hold you over until it’s time to post the rest!

We booked this cruise while we were on our 2016 cruise on the Celebrity
Equinox. They were running a sale where if we booked the cruise while on that cruise, we received a $250 OBC for the cabin, plus 2 free perks on the future cruise. We were having such a wonderful time on the cruise so far, and we loved the Celebrity product and the vibe on the Equinox, so we knew we would love cruising on the sister ship. One of the things on my cruising bucket list is to visit the ABC islands, so when I found this itinerary, I knew it was meant to be! Plus, we would get to revisit some of our favorite islands from our 2015 cruise, while visiting 4 other islands where we had never been before. This looked like the perfect cruise for us, and we were even able to book the same cabin we had on this cruise- 7222, a 2A Veranda cabin between the forward and mid-ship elevators on the starboard side.

With nearly 2 years to go until this cruise, and with our honeymoon cruise coming first in 2017, it took a while before we started specific planning for this cruise. I had a few ideas of things I wanted to do on each of the islands from reading other reviews, but we didn’t plan anything specific until last March when we had 1 year to go. At that point, I dove head first into reading private vendor reviews from Trip Advisor and scouring the Ports of Call forum here on Cruise Critic, all in hopes of planning the best possible days for us on this cruise. Much like on my prior Celebrity and Carnival cruises, I did not want to book any excursions through the cruise line. I usually find that I can get a better tour which does more things/visits more sites, has fewer people on the tour with us, and costs less money if I book through a private vendor. I usually try to plan for a good balance of boat tours, beach days, and island tours, so this was our itinerary and the excursions we booked for each day. Spoiler alert: Life doesn’t always go according to plan…

Date Port Excursion

3 / 4/18 Miami Embarkation Day

3/5/18 Sea Day

3/6/18 Sea Day

3/7/18 St. Maarten Great Bay Beach and Boardwalk

3/8/18 Antigua Eli’s Eco Tour

3/9/18 St. Lucia Spencer Ambrose Land and Sea Combo

3/10/18 Barbados Boatyard Beach

3/11/18 Sea Day

3/12/18 Bonaire Woodwind Snorkel Sail

3/13/18 Curacao Irie Beach Hopping Tour

3/14/18 Aruba ABC Tours- Natural Pool Safari; Mi Dushi Sunset Sail

3/15/18 Aruba Octopus Tours Champagne Brunch Snorkel Sail

3/16/18 Sea Day

3/17/18 Sea Day

3/18/18 Miami Ft. Lauderdale Water Taxi, then flying home

A week or two before final payment was due, we noticed there were a few Concierge Class cabins available for a nominal upgrade fee. There is a lot of debate on Cruise Critic about whether or not Concierge Class is worth the upgrade fee. We decided that the extra Captain’s Club points for a 14-night cruise, the guarantee of foot stools on our balcony (something I definitely enjoy having), and the few other minor perks were worth the small per-night upgrade charge, so we went for it. We did consider upgrading to Aqua Class, but the only cabins available were directly below the pool, solarium, or spa. I definitely didn’t want to risk hearing noise overhead for 2 weeks straight, so being sandwiched between 2 cabin decks was a high priority which ruled out the remaining Aqua Class cabins. In the end, we picked cabin 1068, located on the starboard side of deck 10, mid-way between the two elevator banks, and with the bed in our preferred location near the balcony.

Cruise

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 14

May 17, 2016 deladane Leave a comment

Saturday, March 26 ~ Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

Finally, there was no need to set an alarm! Sadly, we still woke up by 9am. We walked down the block in search of a place to eat breakfast. We looked at the menus at a few restaurants and settled on the H2O Cafe. They had a really nice outdoor seating area for great people watching and views of the beach as we ate. The food was very overpriced considering how tiny the portions were, but it tasted fine and we knew we were paying for the beachfront location.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel to make use of the beach supplies shed. They let us borrow beach chairs, umbrellas, water noodles, and sand toys to carry across the street, so we each took a chair and an umbrella and walked over to the beach.

It wasn’t crowded at all in the section near our hotel, but we could see big crowds a little further south, closer to the bars and restaurants. We spent the next few hours relaxing, reading our books, and people watching. It really was a beautiful beach!

At around 3pm, we went back to the hotel to get showered and ready for the evening. Our original plan was to check out Las Olas Blvd. as I had heard it has a good restaurant and nightlife scene, but once we saw all the fun at the restaurants right on the beach, we decided to make the most of our beach-front hotel and go to the places on A1A. Our first stop was for happy hour at Cafe Del Mar. They had a live musician singing and playing guitar, and they had 2 for 1 giant frozen drinks for $19. Unfortunately, you can only get the happy hour specials if you sit at the bar, so we couldn’t sit on the sidewalk patio outside, but we still had a great view even from inside the restaurant. I ordered a Miami Vice and J had a margarita, and both drinks were very strong!

After we finished our drinks, we walked along A1A and looked at the menus of all the restaurants to find a place to eat dinner. The Rock Bar had a varied menu with something we would both enjoy, and they had a great outdoor patio with tons of tables and banquets. As it turns out, they offered the same giant frozen drinks on 2 for 1 special as Cafe Del Mar, but they honored that deal at the tables instead of just at the bar, so I guess our happy hour deal wasn’t all that special haha We got super lucky and someone was leaving from one of the outside tables right when we got there so we had no wait for prime seating.

We ordered another round of drinks and dinner. My ¾ pound cheeseburger really hit the spot, and J enjoyed his tacos. We hung out here for a few hours enjoying our drinks and the fun atmosphere.

Blue Sky Margarita and an Ultimate Margarita

Cheeseburger (…in paradise!)

Tacos

After dinner, we stopped by a Subway in one of the strip malls to pick up sandwiches for lunch on the plane, then we went back to the hotel to finish packing and go to bed early as our flight home was early the next morning.

Cruise

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 13

May 17, 2016 deladane Leave a comment

Friday, March 25 ~ Debarkation Day

And just like that, we woke up to see the Equinox was docked back in Ft. Lauderdale. No matter how many cruises I go on, the sadness of debarkation day never gets any easier!

We finished packing all of our belongings, and left the cabin for one last time. Everyone had to be out of their cabins by 8am, so we left at 7:45 to hopefully beat the rush to the elevators haha We decided to forgo the disaster in the buffet and instead have a nice relaxing breakfast in the MDR. This was the one morning when I was okay having a slow breakfast with delayed service considering we weren’t due to leave the ship until 9:30am. When we got to the dining room, they told us to leave our suitcases along the wall in the entrance way, but we could bring our backpacks with us to our table. We spent an hour enjoying one last meal on board, and when I looked around the room at 9am and realized we were the only people still eating in there, we finished up our meal ASAP haha

Everyone is assigned an indoor public space to sit and wait for their debarkation zone to be called. We were assigned to deck 4 of the dining room (we ate breakfast on deck 3), so we brought our suitcases upstairs and found a seat at one of the empty tables. We were in zone #72 and we were scheduled to leave at 9:30am, but they only called #32 at 9:25am so we thought there was a long delay. I took out my cell phone and started catching up on missed emails. Five minutes later, we heard them call zones 71 and 72! Apparently they jumped ahead 40 zones and it was our turn, right on time! I’m not sure how that happened, but whatever! We made our way up to deck 5 to exit the ship.

All the big suitcases were lined up and clearly labeled by zone number, so we easily found our bag and walked over to the line for customs. The whole process was very simple and half an hour after hearing our zone called, we were standing outside on the curb and waiting for our Uber driver to pick us up! It was so sad to see the taxis dropping people off for the first day of their cruise while we were waiting to be picked up at the end of ours.

Since the cruise ended on a Friday, we decided to stay in Ft. Lauderdale for the rest of the weekend and wait until Sunday to fly home. I wanted to stay at a hotel on the beach since this cruise had such limited beach-time, and a little research on the Florida departures forum sent me to investigate the Snooze Hotel. This boutique hotel is fairly low budget, but it is located on A1A a few blocks north of Las Olas Blvd, directly across the street from the beach. They don’t have all the bells and whistles like the larger hotels, but they offer competitive rates, a coffee maker, minifridge, and microwave in every room, free wifi, a rooftop deck, and free use of beach chairs and umbrellas to bring across the street to the beach! It sounded like the perfect hotel for us, and I reserved our room for 2 nights on their website back in June.

It took the Uber driver about 15 minutes to drive us to the Snooze Hotel, and as soon as we pulled up, I knew I made the right choice! It was just about 10:30am when we arrived, and the manager told us our room wouldn’t be ready for about 2 more hours. He agreed to hold our suitcases in his office, and we took the elevator up to the 5th floor so we could relax on the rooftop deck while we waited for our room to be ready.

There were incredible views from the roof!

Right on time, the hotel manager called me at 12:30pm to say our room was ready. The room was clean and modern, but I couldn’t help but notice that it was fully decorated in IKEA furniture! haha I liked the choice of white furniture with bright blue accents as it felt nice and beachy, but I did think it was funny that everything came from IKEA.

My parents have a vacation house in Florida, so they drove down to Ft. Lauderdale to spend the day with us. We went to lunch next door to the hotel at a restaurant called Casablanca Cafe. The service was very slow (the meal took an hour and a half!), but the food was good, with lots of salads and sandwiches. They had lots of outdoor seating, but we opted to sit inside to enjoy the air conditioning.

After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the beach, and checking out all the shops and restaurants along A1A. We had such a late lunch that we weren’t very hungry for dinner, but we decided to try out an Italian restaurant that my dad found on Yelp called Antonios. One side of the restaurant was a take out pizza place, but the other side had a nice sit-down table service section. All of the tables were full with locals at 7:30 on a Friday night, so we thought we found a good restaurant! The food was delicious and the portions were HUGE! I must have been sick of taking food photos because I didn’t take any this whole day, but I had the baked ziti (they used big rigatoni pasta but I didn’t call them out on it! haha). All the meals came with gigantic garlic knots that were MAZING!! There are lots of pictures of the food on Yelp from other people’s reviews in case you wanted to check it out. It was a great restaurant for a low key, fairly inexpensive meal, but you should share the dishes if you aren’t that hungry!

As we drove back to the hotel, we noted that the bars and restaurants along the beach were hopping, but we were glad that we couldn’t hear the noise in our hotel room.

Cruise

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 12

May 17, 2016 deladane Leave a comment

Thursday, March 24 ~ Sea Day

Today was our last sea day and we had to move our clocks ahead one hour again last night. I woke up at 8am and spent an hour packing while J slept a little longer. Once he was awake, we went upstairs to the Oceanview Cafe for breakfast at the buffet. I really liked that they had waiters walking around to take drink orders. It is hard enough to juggle a plate of food and silverware without a tray, so the drink waiters made it so we had one less thing to carry around the buffet. With no real plans for today other than relaxing and soaking up every last minute of our time on the Equinox, we opted for some real drinks at breakfast!

Paris Screwdriver and Celebrity Bloody Mary

Outside of the buffet, they had a map showing the course we traveled during the cruise. On other cruises, I have seen live maps which showed where the ship was in addition to where we had been, but this map stayed static all week.

This morning, there were a few activities in the big theater that we were interested in checking out. The first was a presentation about ship navigation given by Staff Captain Matthew. He explained the process of making a cruise itinerary and knowing how long it takes to get from port to port and how to look at the sea maps. He spoke for about 20 minutes and we thought it was very informative about things that we never really knew much about.

After that, there was a Q&A session with Hotel Director Jamie and Captain Costas for about 45 minutes. The Captain was very funny and approachable, and we learned a lot of interesting facts about life on the ship and how things work behind the scenes.

After the talk, we went back up to the buffet for lunch. While we were in the elevator, I looked up and saw the Captain was in the elevator with us. I realized there was a question I didn’t get to ask him at the Q&A so I figured I had his company for a few seconds in the elevator, so why not ask now? He was so friendly and didn’t mind chatting with me at all. He was even nice enough to pose for a picture with us when we got off the elevator!

Apparently I was slacking on this last day of the cruise as I didn’t take any photos of my breakfast or my lunch! I think J had another burger from the mast grill and I had some things from the buffet. After we finished lunch, we went down to the Slush bar to try the last 2 drinks we hadn’t tried yet. So for those of you keeping track, this was the first bar where we accomplished tasting all of the drinks over the course of the cruise!

Walking through the pool area, we noticed that the chair hogs were out in full force today! We actually noticed this a lot over the whole cruise. Whenever we walked through the pool area or the solarium, we often saw more lounge chairs being occupied with books, hats, and water bottles than with people! We found 2 empty chairs surrounded by loungers and chairs being hogged by people who were no where to be seen. We sat and listened to an acoustic guitar player near the pool, and none of these people returned to their chairs while we were there. I have no idea how long they were gone or if/when they came back to their chairs, but I wished Celebrity did a better job at patrolling this.

We spent some time relaxing on our balcony this afternoon, and a little more time packing. At around 3pm, I wanted to get my free scoop of gelato so we went downstairs. I loved how there was a tree hanging in the middle of the space between the glass elevators. It was such a unique feature on a cruise ship and looked so elegant floating there in the middle of the lobby.

When I went to get my free scoop of gelato, there was a different lady working from last night, and she let me get sprinkles on my scoop of mint chip ice cream! Score! While we were there, we noticed they were doing the auction from the hot glass show. As part of their contract with the Corning Museum of Glass, the gaffers get to auction off 7 pieces that were made at their shows during our cruise. I had no intentions of bidding, but it was fun to watch the process. Some of those pieces sold for over $2000, and all of the money goes to charity, so it was all very exciting.

Before we knew it, it was time to get ready for the evening. Before dinner, we stopped by the martini bar so we could try the last 2 martinis on our list (another bar that we fully completed!)

A Cosmo and a Peartini

When we got to the hostess stand for our 7pm dinner reservations, Gorica said there was a wait tonight and she had to give us a beeper if we wanted to sit with our normal waiters. I guess more people show up to dinner on the last night of the cruise? I was sad to have a beeper and a wait time, but there was no chance we would skip sitting with our favorite waiters and miss the chance to say goodbye to them!!

The wait wasn’t very long, and once we were seated, the service was excellent as always.

My last chance for some escargots (…until my next cruise!)

For some reason, the French Onion Soup had more black pepper in it tonight so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did earlier in the week…

Aged Prime Rib of Beef

Dessert menu

Biscuit Croustillant

Thank you to Fredys and Arsapha for wonderful dining room service!

After dinner, we went back to the cabin to throw a few extra things in our big checked suitcase so we could put it out in the hallway on time for the stewards to collect it. I think the bags had to be out in the hall by 10pm.

The final show of the cruise was a medley of Broadway songs by 6 of the singers from the production shows. This had the potential to be a great show, but they picked songs from obscure shows that I have never seen (and I have seen over 70 shows on Broadway!)… Miss Saigon, Bridges of Madison County, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Company to name a few. They sang a song from Dream Girls, but I only knew that song because I’ve seen the movie, not the Broadway show. They ended the show with songs from Wicked and Les Mis so at least we knew both of those songs too. The singers had fabulous voices, likely because they picked songs that suited their range (as opposed to the songs assigned to them in the production shows which weren’t always so great), but the show would have been more fun if they sang songs from more popular shows.

After the show, we tried the last two drinks from the World Class Bar menu, so that was the third bar list we completed!

There was an 80’s dance party at Quasar so we spent the rest of the night dancing until midnight! After that, we went up to the buffet for some pizza, and noticed that the pool looked so beautiful all lit up at night.

We did not have any drinks on Friday before debarking, so our quest to try every drink on the ship ended tonight. Although we did not accomplish our mission, I think we did a pretty good job over the last 11 days. We drank about ¾ of the drinks on the menus on the ship, and a lot of the ones we didn’t try was because either we couldn’t find a bar to make that drink or because the ship didn’t have the drink on board (most of the wines!) It was fun to be on this quest, and our dining room waiters and sommelier as well as the bartenders we went to most often all knew about our mission and were eager to help us achieve our goals. Throughout the week, they asked us about our progress and helped to find new drinks for us to check off the list. You will also notice the little D or J next to each drink and a + or – sign… we marked off who had each drink (or used no initial if we both tried it) and a + if we loved it or a – if we didn’t like it (no + or – meant it was neutral haha). At least now we’ll know the best drinks to go for on our Eclipse cruise!! Here is a photo of the list at the end of the cruise…

Up Next: Debarkation Day 😦

Cruise

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 11

May 14, 2016 deladane Leave a comment

Wednesday, March 23 ~ Grand Cayman

I know many frequent cruisers have been to Grand Cayman so many times that they don’t even bother to get off the ship at this port, but I was super excited to come here as it was a brand new port to me! After years of reading other peoples reviews, I knew there was one place I HAD to go when I finally got to Grand Cayman… Sting Ray City!! The idea of standing out there on a sand bar in waist-deep crystal clear blue water while sting rays swim around my legs, and getting to touch and hold the sting rays sounded so incredible that I knew I wanted to experience it first hand. There are many private companies offering boat tours to Sting Ray City plus one or two snorkel stops, so I sent out a few emails to see if anyone had space for us. Unfortunately, I got many replies saying they were already booked that day! As popular of a port as Grand Cayman is, the day we would be there was one for the record books as there would be over 21,000 cruise ship passengers on 7 ships in port that day! After contacting a few more companies, I was finally able to book us on a tour with Captain Marvin’s, going to 2 snorkel stops plus Sting Ray City, for $45 per person. This is the description of the tour from their website:

Captain Marvin Three-Stop Stingray/Snorkel Tours: Our three-stop stingray/snorkel tour lasts three hours, dock to dock. The three-stop stingray/snorkel trip goes to the Stingray City sandbar plus TWO snorkel stops, both the Barrier Reef AND the Coral Gardens. The cost of this tour is US$45/person for ages 12 and over, US$30/person for ages 4-11, and free for children under age 4. We strongly recommend that you bring flotation devices for children under age 4, as our snorkel gear is for ages 4 and over. We provide snorkel vests, life vests, mask, snorkel and fins for everyone ages 4 and over. You are welcome to bring your own gear if you like. We offer complimentary shuttle service from your hotel or condo on Seven Mile Beach. It is also strongly recommended that you know how to swim in order to be safe for the snorkeling stop. Our three-stop stingray/snorkel tour is available every day of the week. The schedule from Monday through Friday is 10 AM until 1 PM, and 2:30 until 5:30 PM. On weekends, the schedule is from 9 AM until 12 noon, and from 1:00 until 4:00 PM.

Our original plan was to go to Seven Mile Beach after the tour as it is said to be a beautiful beach, and they said they could drop us off there free of
charge. In addition to this being my first time in Grand Cayman, it would also be my first time at a tender port. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of not being able to come and go from the ship whenever we wanted to, and I was unsure of how the ticket process worked. Since we weren’t booked in a suite and don’t have elite status, I was afraid we might have a long wait before we could get off the ship. Our tour started at 10am, but we needed to check in at Captain Marvin’s office by 9:15am. With the first tender starting around 8am, we knew we had to be on one of the first tenders to be on time for our tour. We spoke to someone at guest services the day before to find out the logistics of how the tendering process works. She said that they will have tickets available for pick up from the Gastrobar starting at 8am on a first come, first served basis. Our plan was to be there promptly at 8am in hopes of getting one of the lower tender numbers so we could get off the ship ASAP.

Knowing it would be another early morning, we put our room service breakfast door tag out last night and requested the 7-7:30am time slot. We were still fast asleep when the phone rang at 6:42am to tell us our food was on the way. I guess I can’t really complain because I would rather it be delivered early than late, but geez! We weren’t ready to eat THAT early! On the bright side, we were able to eat breakfast outside on the balcony as we watched the ships sailing into port.

The local tenders were much bigger than I expected, with 2 levels that held hundreds of people.

The weather was so beautiful for the entire cruise, but those dark grey clouds didn’t look promising for today’s forecast!

I was on my way down to the Gastrobar at 8am to get our tender tickets when John came on the overhead to announce that the first tender was ready and we could get on now with no wait. I did an about-face in the hallway and went back to the cabin to get J, and we went down to deck 2 to board the tender. Having never done this before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the whole process was fairly painless. We walked down a few stairs to a platform where crew members were waiting to help us climb onto the tender.

The tender was only about half full when we got there so we waited for 5 minutes while the rest of the boat filled up. We found seats on the upstairs deck hoping for a pretty view of the Equinox as we sailed to shore.

Once enough people were onboard, they took in the ropes and we were on our way.

Remember those scary dark clouds hovering above our ship all morning? Well they decided to open up and rain down on us while we were on the 10 minute tender ride! So much for the pretty views from the top deck!! I went downstairs to seek cover as the rain was cold and uncomfortable while on a moving boat. We reached the pier on shore by 8:15am and filed out of the boat, down the short pier, and into the port.

Since we were still very early for our tour, we spent a few minutes walking around the port area and checking out the stores. It was already getting crowded because some of the other ships started running their tenders earlier than us.

Captain Marvin’s store was located 1 block to the left of the port area, and it was very easy to find with this huge sign out front.

There were already tons of people waiting around, so we got in line and tried to figure out what to do next. They passed around a clipboard with a waiver we had to sign… you know, the usual stuff- if we die, we can’t sue them! haha Once we got to the front of the line, the lady asked us to pay our $45 per person in US dollars, gave us a receipt, and told us to come back at 9:30am for our bus to the boat. It was only 8:45 so we spent some time at the nearby stores and walking around the port area.

We went back to check in again at Captain Marvin’s store at 9:15am (15 minutes before we were told to return), and the lady organizing everyone to get on the buses, Anna, was very upset with us. She said she was looking for us and yelling our name, but that our bus left without us at 9am. I said the lady in the store told us to return at 9:30, but Anna said we should have been back by 9am. We wouldn’t have left the area had we known we only had 15 minutes to wait!! What’s more, the tour details that came with our original confirmation email stated we needed to check in by 9:15am so why would we need to be back to their office by 9am?? Had the tender not worked out so easily, it is possible that we would still be trying to get ashore at 9am!!

Anyway, Anna found space for us on a different boat, and a bus came within 2 minutes so we hopped on and headed off to the boat dock. Our bus driver’s name was Dennis, and he spent the entire 30 minute ride giving us a very entertaining speech about Grand Cayman. Did you know that the rental cars in Grand Cayman have white license plates whereas the locals have yellow license plates? They drive on the left side of the road, so the white plates help the locals identify the tourists so they can stay a safe distance away because most tourists aren’t used to driving on the left side of the road! haha!

Our boat for the tour was 2 stories tall, and we had 3 guides and 40 people on the tour. When we booked the tour, I was told we would have a maximum of 20 people on our tour, and the guides said they hadn’t had 40 people on a tour in many months, but with over 21,000 people in port, I guess they allowed more people to book the tour. There was enough seating for everyone on one of the two decks, but I doubt we could have comfortably fit anyone else! J and I sat upstairs and enjoyed a 30 minute ride to Sting Ray City.

Today was extremely windy and the water was very choppy. At 10:30, we arrived at Sting Ray City and it was already very crowded.

The guides tried to park our boat between the other boats, but the winds were tossing us around a lot. There was so little space that he gave up and said we would go snorkeling first and come back here later when it was less crowded. I doubted his logic, knowing that popular tour destinations tend to get more crowded as the day goes on, not less crowded! I had also read that many of the sting rays leave the sand bar after they get fed by the first few tourists in the morning so I was really bummed to have to come back later.

We motored away from Sting Ray City to a reef about 5 minutes away (we could still see Sting Ray City from the reef). The guides said we could borrow snorkels, masks, and fins if we wanted to, and we could spend 30 minutes snorkeling at the reef. The waves were pretty rough, but it wasn’t that hard to snorkel because you could just float and let the current take you around. There was excellent snorkeling at this site with so many interesting fish to see. This is just a handful of the many photos I took while snorkeling…

I got tired pretty quickly so I swam back to the boat after about 20 minutes. Once everyone else was on board, we motored back to Sting Ray City, and of course, it was even more crowded than it was an hour ago!

The winds were still very high so I wished we had stayed here before. It was scary to watch them attempt to park the boat as we came close to hitting our neighbors many times. Eventually they were able to squeeze into a small spot and drop the anchor so we could climb out into the water.

Sting Ray City is a sand bar in the middle of the sea where it is shallow enough to stand and it is usually fairly calm waters, but today with the high winds and rough current, we were getting knocked around a lot. It was very hard to keep our balance as the waves kept crashing over us. Once all 40 people from our boat were in the water, we all crowded around one guide with one sting ray. In my research prior to the cruise, all the photos I had seen of Sting Ray City showed tons of Sting Rays swimming around, but we did not experience that at all today. All 40 of us had to ‘share’ this one sting ray so we had very limited time to really play with it.

The guide told us we could touch the sting ray

Then the guide held up the sting ray so we could see the bottom… I took this photo at exactly the right second as he was spitting out water!

Then the guide told us it was time for us to hold the sting rays. We all took turns taking our photos and holding the sting rays, and we were able to find one of the other tourists on our boat to take photos for us.

They say you get 7 years of good luck if you kiss a sting ray…

The guide pushed the sting ray up onto our back for a back massage!

Some people had a chance to feed the sting rays but I didn’t know where to get the food and I was tired of being tossed around and bumping into people so I just got back on the boat. Sting Ray City has the potential to be lots of fun, but we hit a double whammy with rougher than normal seas and winds, and a more crowded than normal port day. Hopefully I get a chance to take this tour again some day with better conditions!

I was glad our boat wasn’t as crowded as their boat!!

Once we were all back on the boat, we motored about 10 minutes to another reef for some more snorkeling. There were 2 stingrays who frequently swim around this reef- one without a tail, so they called him Frisbee! haha

There was a lot of coral at this reef, but I thought the fish were better at the first stop. The real highlight was swimming with the sting rays! Unlike at Sting Ray City, we had plenty of space to spread out and explore and have one-on-one time with the sting rays. They are so elegant as they glide across through the water, and it was amazing that they were totally unthreatened by us swimming in their waters.

This was Frisbee haha

It was very hard to swim back to the boat when I was ready to stop snorkeling as I was swimming against the current. Once everyone was back on board, we spent 30 minutes motoring back to the dock. On the way, the guides served us water and fruit juice.

Apparently in Grand Cayman, they steer motorized vehicles with their feet! haha

We had exactly 3 hours on the boat, plus 30-40 minutes on the bus each way. Overall, I thought Captain Marvin offered good value at $45 per person, but they could use better organization with the buses. Only one bus came to pick us up after we got off the boat, but that bus only holds 25 people and we had 40 people on our tour. I’m sure the 25 person bus is normally big enough, but they knew we had 40 people on this tour and they should have sent 2 buses to get us. We were lucky enough to fit on the bus, but there were 15 people left waiting at the dock when we pulled away. I am sure another bus came to pick them up, but I don’t know how long they had to wait.

We got back to the Captain Marvin store near the cruise port at 1:45pm. J and I originally considered going to Seven Mile Beach after our tour, and the bus driver was willing to drop us off there if we so desired, but dark rain clouds were rolling back in and we were tired from all that time in the water, so we just wanted to go back to the ship. Also, I had a feeling that the beach would be a mob scene by this time of the day with all these ships in port and I didn’t feel like fighting the crowds.

There is a little stand-alone cigar shop directly across the street from Captain Marvin’s store (unfortunately, I don’t remember the store name). J was curious so we went in for a few minutes and ended up having a really great shopping experience. Giuliano was the guy working behind the counter and he gave helpful advice and was very knowledgeable about the different types of cigars sold in his store.

After that, we went back through the port area to find a long line at the tender dock. Luckily, a tender pulled up just after we got there and everyone on line was able to fit on this boat. Once we were back on the Equinox, we went straight up to the Oceanview Cafe for a late lunch. J had a burger and I had the stir fry. Again, it seemed like no one knew about the stir fry station and there was no line to place my order.

We grabbed a table outside and ordered a round of frozen cocktails to cool off as we enjoyed our lunch with a view.

After lunch, we went back to the cabin to spend some time relaxing on the balcony and watching the tenders return to our ship and other ships leave port.

Celebrity Silhouette

Carnival Magic

Our first stop on tonight’s pre-dinner drinks tour brought us to the Ensemble Lounge. We didn’t spend much time here during the cruise, but I did like that they usually had some live music playing whenever we walked by. I ordered the Kir Royale (Domaine Chandon Brut sparkling wine and Chambord Black Raspberry liquor) and J had a beer.

Our next stop was the World Class Bar. Aside from the time we spent here during the mixology class, we had yet to spend any time at this bar. For some reason, I thought all of the drinks here were above the $13 limit of the Premium Beverage Package… maybe that was something I had read here on Cruise Critic prior to the cruise? We were pleasantly surprised to learn that EVERY drink on the menu at the World Class Bar cost $12, just like at the martini bar, so we could have any drink we wanted! We spent the next 2 days trying every drink on the menu (to be fair, there’s only 10 drinks and we each only ordered 5 and then tasted each others drinks). We started with 2 of the most exotic drinks on the menu…

Bulleit Infusion (I thought they would give us the entire pitcher, but they only pour out a little into a glass and put the rest of the pitcher back behind the counter)…

Double fisting the shakers

Mystic Ketel One

Infusing the rum in the Zacapa Above the Clouds with applewood smoke

The Ciroc Tropically Yours tasted like a gourmet pina colada!

Dinner was delicious as usual, although I didn’t have a huge appetite tonight (likely due to all those yummy drinks at the World Class Bar, plus the fact that we ate lunch fairly late).

Whole Wheat Orecchiette

Crispy Salt Cod Bacalao Croquettes

Fusilli Pasta

We decided to skip dessert tonight, so I apologize for not having photos of that menu.

Tonight’s show was the Tenors of Rock and we thought it was one of the best shows over the whole cruise! They were a group of 4 singers who did a variety of rock songs from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, and some of them were in unique arrangements to put their own spin on the song. Their voices were far better than the voices of the singers in the production shows, so that really added to our enjoyment of this show.

After the show, we walked around the ship for a bit. At around 10:50pm, J decided he wanted to use his Captain’s Club coupon for the free scoop of gelato (this was the only perk we cared about so we wanted to make sure to use it before the end of the cruise!), so we figured we would be fine to get it before the gelato bar closed at 11pm. I was told earlier in the week by someone at guest services that we did not need the paper coupon when we redeemed our free scoop because the info was on our seapass card and the person at the counter would know we hadn’t redeemed it yet when they swiped our card. When we got there, the lady said that she did need to have the paper coupon to give us the free scoop. Of course we didn’t have it on us because we didn’t think we would need it! So with 10 minutes to go until they closed, we ran back to the cabin, grabbed the paper coupon, and ran back downstairs to the gelato bar, arriving at 10:57pm. By now, there was a second woman behind the counter who was helping to clean up, and she was very strict. She would not let him make an ice cream sandwich (which I had read on Cruise Critic that people were able to do that on their cruises), and she said he could only pick 1 flavor and no toppings. J opted for rum raisin, and I opted to hold off on my scoop until tomorrow since I really wasn’t very hungry. That was one of many times during the cruise that we got false or inaccurate information from the people at guest services (J got at least 4 different answers when he asked 4 different people how many laps around the track equal one mile HAHA And he also got false information about the pricing for the mixology class).

On our way leaving the gelato bar, we ran into some people from our tour in Panama at Cafe al Bacio, so we sat and chatted with them until midnight, then went back to the cabin to go to bed.

Up Next: our last sea day 😦

Cruise

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 10

May 14, 2016 deladane Leave a comment

Tuesday, March 22 ~ Sea Day

We woke up bright an early at 7:30am without an alarm after a deep 9+ hours of sleep. Since we had a few minutes before the MDR opened for breakfast, I spent some time playing with the interactive options on the TV in our cabin. This was my first time having an interactive TV like this on a cruise, and prior to sailing, I was very curious about what each of the screens did. Here is a photo of each of the screens, as well as the photo viewing page and the view from the bridge.

I was a bit disappointed that the MDR dinner menu was not listed on the TV… when you click on that option, it says to look for the menu outside the dining room! Gee, thanks for that! lol

At 8am, we headed downstairs for breakfast at the MDR. We opted to sit at a large table for 10 people, and a few of them were talking about how much they disliked the comedian last night. Glad to hear it wasn’t just me!

I liked how they served everything I ordered on the same plate as it made for less clutter on the table!

This is the wine rack at the back of the dining room. When we took the Galley Tour last week, they told us what it cost and how many bottles it holds, but I totally can’t remember those numbers anymore!

After breakfast, we wanted to sit on our balcony for a bit, but it was in the sun so we decided to go up to the Solarium instead. I figured, why spend time burning in the sun on a sea day when there are lots of shaded options? Let’s save the sunburns for days at the beach! There were lots of chaises available when we arrived at 9:30am so we set up camp for over 2 hours as J napped and read his Kindle and I took notes in my trip journal for this review. At some point, we ordered some frozen drinks from the waiter- I love that they walk around to take drink orders so we could be very lazy and not get up! haha

As a side note, I was very impressed at how clean the bathroom was at the pool. I avoid the pool bathroom on Carnival as it is always a mess with wet slippery floors, but this pool bathroom was immaculate, even on a hot and busy sea day!

We got up to get lunch at noon. J had a burger from the grill and I wanted the stir fry noodles at the buffet. Sadly, they didn’t have that today (after a bit of investigating, I learned that they only serve it for lunch on port days… when most people are off the ship and can’t enjoy it), and nothing else appealed to me. J took one for the team and offered to eat again with me at the MDR. This was my first time having lunch in the MDR on any cruise as I am used to having a late brunch on all my other cruises.

I really enjoyed the fried mushrooms, and they had stir fry udon noodles so I could have that after all! J ordered a salad and a hot dog, and he enjoyed that as well.

Crisp Fried Mushrooms

Nagasaki Sara Udon

We were pleased to see our balcony was in the shade by the time we returned from lunch, so we spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the lovely breeze and warm but comfortable temperatures.

At around 3pm, we ventured out to pick up drinks from the Slush Bar and brought them back to drink on the balcony. The Mint Cookie drink is seriously amazing!!

Tonight was the second and final Elegant Chic night for dinner. We got dressed up and made our way up to the Oceanview Cafe for a quick pre-dinner snack. I noticed they had these cute little dishes with various salads and a seafood ceviche that was calling my name!

Each of the elevator banks has this list of the public spaces on each of the decks, and a mini model of the ship showing where the venues are located (forward, mid-ship, or aft). It was especially helpful in the beginning of the cruise when we were still learning our way around the ship.

As always, we had a few drinks at the Martini Bar before going to dinner. This is the Sapphire London Club and the Pomegranate Martini.

Tonight’s dinner menu featured the one and only time we saw lobster in the MDR.

Escargots

The Creamy Salmon Rillette was amazing! It tasted like lox cream cheese- we were tempted to bring some back to the cabin to spread on a bagel for breakfast tomorrow haha

Arsapha hooked me up with 2 lobster tails on the same plate as I didn’t need double the side dishes.

We skipped dessert tonight, likely because we weren’t that hungry, and went back to the martini bar to try the black forest chocolate martini. I don’t have a photo of it, but it was very sweet and acted like a dessert! We listened to the band play in the lobby for a few minutes, then went to the theater for the final production show: Elysium.

This show had a similar format to the other production shows and again featured modern top 40 songs, but they only featured the aerialists and acrobats in 2 of the songs and instead had a lot of dancing performances. I liked it, but thought the other shows earlier in the week were better.

After the show, we went to Quasar for karaoke, but it was a poor turn out yet again. The karaoke host, Crystal, asked J to sing a duet to Love Shack in hopes of getting people to come participate and sing other songs, but we didn’t stick around long after their song to find out if it worked.

We went up to the Sky Lounge for 70’s music trivia and it was PACKED! After a bit of searching, we found a seat up by the front windows and did our best to participate. Cruise director John came out dressed up in a 70’s outfit and asked the questions for the trivia. He played a little bit of a song, then asked 3 or 4 questions about it- title, song writer, what album it was on, and also some more obscure questions to which we seldom knew the answers. In the end, we only got about 25% correct… oh well! It was definitely a fun way to spend an hour of our evening, and then we went back to our cabin to get some sleep.

Up Next: Grand Cayman

Dana's Destination Diary

Tag Archives: vacation

Sunday, March 4 ~ Embarkation Day!

Saturday, March 3 ~ Exploring more of Miami

Friday, March 2 ~ Going MIA

Thursday, March 1 ~ Flying to Florida

Celebrity Eclipse ~ Pre-Cruise Planning

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 14

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 13

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 12

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 11

Celebrity Equinox ~ Day 10

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