December 14 – Calgary to Fort Lauderdale/Miami, USA

here we are

home for the next 6 days

Weather – 23º, heavy showers as we drove from Fort Lauderdale to Miami

Steps – 8,688

Humidity – 85%

Today Chris and I escaped winter. We are in Miami for a week before 3 weeks on 2 cruises.

Our flight from Calgary to Fort Lauderdale was extremely uneventful – perfect. The flight crew kept us full of drinks and food. I read a bit and watched Love Actually. Any idea how old that movie is? 23 years OLD!

Now that we have spent over 400 days with Regent, they provide transportation before and after the cruise – this doesn’t have to be actually TO the cruise, so we took it for the hour ride from Fort Lauderdale to Miami rather than the 20 min ride from Miami to the cruise terminal.

Our driver was polite but didn’t say much until about halfway into the ride which is when he proceeded to tell us all about Florida real estate - interesting.

not ours, but one of many ships

The Kimpton Surfcomber Hotel, is a small Art Deco hotel in Miami Beach. We’ve checked into plenty of hotels, and first impressions really do set the tone for the stay. Juan at the front desk could not have been nicer. He was more than just

in flight entertainment

business. He is from Ohio, so we bonded over our familiarity with winter’s cold. It also didn’t hurt that he gave us 2 glasses of Prosecco. The hotel has a nightly ‘wine’ hour and a happy hour, both of which we just missed. No problem for Juan…2 glasses, coming right up!

Juan also claimed that he upgraded our room. I say ‘claimed’ because I am super skeptical that anyone in the business of making money does anything for nothing. As it turns out, our room is slightly bigger with a better view – would have cost $30. Juan recommended the first floor rather than the 2^nd or 3rd, which is exactly what we prefer. We try to avoid elevators whenever we can. 3 floors would be no problem for us, even with luggage, but sometimes even 1 floor requires an elevator. Our first-floor room is still up a few stairs, but we are happy.

Although originally thinking we would stay in, calamari and a glass of sangria were too tempting to not venture out for. We didn’t actually know that’s what we would have, but once the host at Tapelia told us it was happy hour and that sangria was $5 we were sold. Tapelia is on Lincoln Road, a pedestrian street about 10 min from our hotel. We sat outside it was probably about 20 degrees at about 9:00.

New York City, October 2025

5 years ago I turned 50, Chris and I were planning to spend it in New York City. I celebrated my 40^th in NYC, so we thought why not make it a tradition…well, does anyone remember October 2020, or any month in 2020? Needless to say, we didn’t make it 5 years ago…this year we made it!

see Central Park?

5 days of sights and sounds of the Big Apple. I think this is our 5^th visit. Nothing is all that different, except for the traffic. It seems to me that the city, that was always congested, is even more clogged with cars, vans, and busses.

Day 1

The journey by taxi to the Edison Hotel, in Midtown/Hells Kitchen, took well over an hour on a Sunday evening. We knew it would be a fixed rate, but there were a few add-ons one of which Chris ‘disputed’. In the end all was fine, but WOW!

melted cheese!

watching game 6

The Edison Hotel is in a great spot for Broadway shows, we had tickets for 3, ended up seeing 4. I don’t love this location as it so close to the craziness of Times Square, but that can kinda be avoided.

Tonight was game 6 of the World Series, so we figured we’d find a pub, watch the game and have a bite. We found a pub that was LOUD.

Day 2

The hotel has a unique approach to included breakfast. Each day, we have 2 coupons for a grab and go bagged breakfast in the hotel or pizza later in the day at a place down the street. We went with the grab and go – a fruit or croissant, egg/bacon/cheese sandwich, and a drink. All of this was bagged to go. We ate back in the room. I like this approach.

Chess

NYSE

We like to get a taste of a place we’re visiting through walking tours, especially food tours. We had a food tour of Hell’s Kitchen this afternoon. The guide gave our group of 5 info on Hell’s Kitchen as we wandered from eatery to eatery. We started with
Japanese BBQ, a cookie shop, a meatball joint, a Balkan place, and finished at a Georgian (the country) place where we tried Saparavi wine, and melted cheese in a bread boat – delish!

so good!

Leo, a friend of ours from Calgary was coincidentally in town also, so all 3 of us went on the tour. It wasn’t the best tour in the world, but it was fun. Drinks were an extra charge…along the way we bought ourselves a couple of glasses of wine.

911 Memorial

The 3 of us finished the afternoon at a bar that just happened to have Happy Hour on the go. We learned that NYC Happy Hours are looooong. One we visited twice was 11AM-8PM.

Back at the hotel for a break before tonight’s Broadway musical – Chess.Chess is a revival of a musical from the 80’s. Written by Tim Rice and Benny and Björn from ABBA. The story is of chess players during the Cold War and is where One Night in Bangkok is from. Michelle Lee from Glee was one of the 3 stars. True to the Cold War theme, the dancing while obviously very good as it’s Broadway after all, but was very rigid and stiff – good but wasn’t exactly my taste.

Chris getting a hot dog

Chris, Leo and me & the bridge

Day 3

Today was my actual birthday.

We took the subway to the bottom of Manhattan, saw the Statue of Liberty, the NY Stock Exchange, the 911 Memorial, and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. We found a cool outdoor place with a view of the bridge for a glass of wine – it was about 20 degrees.

Brooklyn Bridge

We took the subway back, Chris got a street vendor hotdog, chilled at the room and were out again for tonight’s show of the Buena Vista Social Club musical.

we were close!

Chris picked all of the other musicals we saw, but this was my pick. It was BY FAR the best of the 4 we ended up seeing. We had front row tickets, and it was everything I’d hoped for and more. The musicians are a big part of the show, and they were right on stage.

Front row was very interesting. We could see the facial expressions so clearly, and I’m pretty sure
caught a whiff of BO when the performers fist bumped us at the end of the show. Front row meant we were CLOSE. The one downside for me being that close was that we couldn’t quite see the dancers’ feet for the angle of the stage. I like looking at dancers’ feet.

outside the theatre

Day 4

We started with a walk by of Madison Square Garden. We have hockey tickets for tomorrow night, so want to know where we are going. Once we found MSG, we wandered a bit and saw a sign pointing to Happy Hour – it was noon, why not? We found Jayne’s Bar. A small narrow place with the bar in the front and a sunken restaurant in the back. It was decorated with faux red autumn leaves…very charming.

MSG

We had tickets to & Juliet. & Juliet is a jukebox musical – Britney Spears, Katy Perry, NSYNC, etc. We were front row again – good choice.

When we were done, we thought we’d check out the discounted tickets booth and see what there was for tonight. We found front row for Six, the musical of the story of the 6 wives of Henry the 8^th’. Again…good, but no Buena Vista Social Club.

Jayne's Bar

Day 5

Grand Central

Our hotel offered free walking tours each day of a different part of Manhattan, today we did the Midtown tour. We wandered behind our guide as he pointed out interesting bits of architecture. The tour started at the Iroquois New York, next to the New York Yacht Club and other old private clubs which are still operating. Then we visited Grand Central Station, the NY Public Library, Bryant Park and the Chrysler Building.

library

We were so close to Jayne’s Bar that we just couldn’t no stop in. A $7 glass of wine in NYC is a BARGAIN.

library

We couldn’t visit NYC without checking out at least one museum. We decided on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, probably our favourite in NYC.

& Juliet

Because Chris isn’t into breakfast, after the first day I’ve only gotten the grab and go so we have extra breakfast tickets. We used 2 this afternoon for 2 slices of pizza. I’m not sure we ever had NY pizza on previous trips, but I love it. The crust is thin, but not too thin, with any toppings you can think of. I think I had 3 slices on 3 different occasions on this trip.

Six

Tonight, we had tickets to The NY Rangers with Leo. The 3 of us met at a pub close to MSG. We didn’t get the most expensive tickets in the arena, but they were great for a bird’s eye view of the action. What was the most expensive was the beer. I think I paid 20USD for a beer. It was a big beer but still!

After we hit a bar on restaurant row in Hell’s Kitchen close to our hotel. It wasn’t easy finding a place

hockey game

open after the game.

Brooklyn Bridge

Day 6

We are going home today. We figured it would be just as fast and infinitely cheaper to take the subway back to JFK. As we figured, it was. Having only small rolling cases and backpacks make it easy.

 

 

June 29 – Windsor, UK to CALGARY

Weather – 29º forecast high in Windsor, 23º

Steps – 6,699

Humidity – 75% in Windsor

I’m thrilled to say it was an uneventful travel day home. No delays, no enormous lines, no stress.

It has been a wonderful 52-day long adventure. I’ll have to take a bit of time to let the memories settle and then look back at the blog to remind myself of the all of the things we saw and did. I love writing the blog, but love looking back more.

When we return from a trip we are often asked what the best part was, and our usual answer is that nothing stands out…everything was great. Not this time, far and away, the absolute best was the safari – this will definitely not be our last safari.

We are also always asked when we are away if we are ready to come home or when we get home if we were ready to come home. My philosophy is that I’m ready to come home when the trip is ending regardless of how long I’ve been away. I get my mind around coming home when the end is approaching.

No matter how great time away is, I am always thrilled to be home to my bed, my shower, my laundry machine, my family. I was reminded how few things I need, how much clothes, toiletries, shoes, space. I am inspired to get rid of things I don’t need when I get home from living with all that fits in my suitcases. I wore about half of what I packed, so I didn’t even need all that I brought.

I am also looking forward to getting back into old eating and drinking routines. No matter how great the Regent bread and desserts were…I need to NOT eat bread and dessert at every meal and grab a random cookie. I also need to dry out, no more wine with lunch and dinner every day. I guess that’s why it’s vacation, not every day living.

I didn’t quite get to 100 pages of blog writing I’ll have to end on page 97 - I guess the trip wasn’t quite long enough.Thanks to everyone who came along on this journey with us by reading!

# of flights – 5

# of countries visited – 18

# of new countries visited – 12

# of countries missed – 1

Until next time…

June 28 – Windsor, UK

Windsor Castle

Weather – 30º

Steps – 14,333

Humidity – 53%

We started our day with an included hotel breakfast. The hotel has about 100 rooms. I can’t tell how many are occupied at the moment, but breakfast was not at all busy, which was nice – that’s where the not so busy part of the day ended! It was your typical breakfast buffet fare; a good way to start the day. The breakfast room was right along the river which was also lovely.

Windsor (pop: 31,000) is about 35km from the centre of London on the River Thames. It is popular with tourists because of Windsor Castle. From what we’ve observed, it is a place for day trippers rather than overnight hotel stays. There

are hotels here, but last night, although it was Friday was very quiet…today was very, very busy, and again, tonight wasn’t thronging like during the day.

guard

A visit to Windsor Castle was our main activity for the day. We had to queue for about 20 minutes even though we showed up at our ticket time, it

was just busy. Apparently, there 6-7000 people visit the castle each day during the summer months. This queue was very civilized, it probably helped that there were many, many workers, directing traffic and answering questions.

Once inside the grounds, our first order of business was to get audio guides. We never visit anywhere that offer audio guides without getting them. These were free with admission (£30, which seems pricey to me, but what doesn’t), and were quite good.

mostly St George's Chapel

The 11^th century Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest continually occupied castle in the world.

A visit to Windsor Castle is a visit to 2 main sites - St. George’s Chapel and the State apartments. There is no photography allowed in either of these places and they mean it. The VAST majority of people respected this, but I saw more than

one person sneaking photos (jerks) get caught and made to delete their photos. It would have been nice to have some photos, but it would have made the place that much more congested with people posing. The traffic flow was good.

the Long Walk to the Castle

We heard that the chapel would be busier than the apartments, so we started there. It turned out to be less busy. The remains of many British monarchs are buried here in including Queen Elizabeth II.

Then on to the state apartments – rooms where Royal business happens, hosting dignitaries, awards ceremonies, etc. Here also are former bedrooms,

Christopher Wren Hotel

drawing rooms etc. This is where the crowds were. We had to queue (yet again). This time only about 5 minutes. Inside the state apartments, it was BUSY. Everything kept moving, but there were lots of people.

The visit lasted about 2 hours. I suppose we could have stayed longer if we wanted, but I’m not sure what else we would have done. There were a few

cafés, but they were pricey and not super charming.

just finished our visit

Once done with the castle, we wandered a bit further and saw the Long Walk – it is pretty much as advertised…more of a long road really that stretches 2.5 miles from (or to) the castle.

Eventually the heat got to me, so it was time for a pint and lunch. We looked for someplace different than where we had a pint yesterday but ended up back at The King and Castle. We knew there was outdoor shade here. We could easily have sat inside out of the heat, but no where has great AC here and under the trees, the shade was lovely.

dinner with a bit of a Castle view

One thing that wasn’t lovely was the smoke. I think we’re spoiled at home with having no smoking on patios. Here almost everywhere allows smoking outdoors – apparently there are no laws against it, but places can decide to be non-smoking, no where did that we could see. As I said, we could have gone inside but coped with the smoke.

We did a bit of shopping and back into Tesco for more water and snacks.

Dinner was at a ‘French’ place on the river. Great location, but kinda oversold themselves. After was a short walk before heading back to the hotel for one last sleep away from home.

June 27 – Lisbon, Portugal to Windsor, UK

Weather – 29º in Lisbon, 27º in Windsor

Steps – 14,196

Humidity – 79% in Windsor

The 42 days on the ship were over today. We left the ship at 730 and were at The Christopher Wren hotel in Windsor by 3PM.

so many swans

Typically, we would have taken a taxi or Uber to the airport, but as we are now big deals, having travelled more than 400 nights with Regent, we receive a private transfer to the airport – no looking for an Uber, no piling onto a coach with a million other people. This was delightful.

lawn bowling

  We left the ship, found our luggage in the terminal, someone pointed to where our car was waiting with the driver holding a sign with our names.

The ride to the Lisbon airport is only 20 minutes, so it would only have been about $20-$25 – not a huge savings having the ride, but the convenience was a huge saving.

where to next?

Once we got to the airport, the ride didn’t stop there. We were handed over to a guy who took our bags and us to the check in area. At first we thought this was overkill, but it turned out we were dropped off a distance from check in and it wasn’t all that well marked. We could absolutely have done it ourselves, but this was nice.

no exciting chips, but BILTONG!

The woman who checked us in, said the line for immigration would be long, expect about an hour – what??? She couldn’t be serious. Just as we were told, it did indeed take an hour – just in time to board the flight, well, not a flight, but a bus to our flight.

Security was a breeze – maybe 5 minutes, totally normal - it was immigration that took so long.This whole immigration ordeal was incredible! There seemed to be no reason for the line to be as long as it was. Thankfully, it was very civilized – no pushing or shoving, it wasn’t hot, and we weren’t stressed. We were so thankful that we were told. Other people were not so lucky. We were shocked there was no kind of notification or sign that it would be so long. Some people came to the line and had no idea it would be this long. We’ve been in plenty of immigration lines, and I’d have to say this one was BY FAR the longest.

Castle and Queen Victoria

Some people tried to appeal to the workers saying their flights were soon, but they were basically told that, everyone is in the same boat. There were a few times when a worker would try to find people who were going to a flight leaving right now, but otherwise, it was just wait your turn.

The 3-hr flight was nice, uneventful. Actually, I had one of the best airplane meals I’ve every had. It didn’t sound like anything special…stewed lamb and potatoes, but yum!

We took a cab for the 20 min ride to Windsor - £45 – not cheep, but OK. The hotel is on a pedestrian street, so we had a small walk with our luggage, but it was fine. The cab driver helped us until we saw where we were going, and we said we were fine.

back of Windsor church

The hotel is in an ideal location. We are here to see Windsor Castle.

front of Windsor church

It would have been nice to be home today, but it’s tricky getting a flight home from Lisbon to Calgary on the same day as the cruise ended. There are no direct flights, and 2 flights wasn’t going to work on the same day.

This is why we are in Windsor - it is close to Heathrow airport and seems good for tourists. We’ve been to London before, so didn’t see the need to go all the way there for only one day.

We checked in, unpacked a little and headed out to wander. Windsor is very touristy –
kind of like Banff. The Thames River is super close to our hotel, so we walked along it for a bit, watched the enormous swans, wandered some more, watched lawn bowling, and found a pub. We had wished the lawn bowling had a pub - it was interesting to watch.

Then we picked up some snacks and water and went back for some hotel down time.

In the evening, we wandered again and found some Italian for dinner.

June 26 – Lisbon, Portugal

Weather – 19º when sailing, 29º in Lisbon

Steps – 14,304 (that’s what happens when we are on a walking tour)

Humidity – 87% when sailing, “I-was-drenched%” in Lisbon

Today is the last full day of the cruise. It’s always a bit sad to say good-bye to people you’ve become friendly over the last 40 days…40 days is a long time. More annoying is the packing. I don’t know why I hate it like I do, but I can’t stand packing. I was determined to get it done as fast as possible – 30 minutes, I was done.

Other than packing we spent time on the deck.

perfect place to blog

Often the last day of a cruise is a sea day, or at least a partial sea day. Today was partial, we arrived in Lisbon at 3.

sailing in under the bridge

It is interesting to be in Portugal considering the countries we’ve visited on this cruise that were former Portugal colonies. We’ve been to Lisbon a few times – the first in 2006, I just check the blog. We’ve only stayed on land once, the other times were on cruises.

 

Our tour this afternoon was completely on foot. We met our guide, Andre, in the terminal and followed him throughout Lisbon’s narrow streets for the next 4 hours. This was a perfect tour for us – walking, food, drink, listening, learning – loved it!

statue with flags in the distance

Other than the heat I loved it. Lisbon is going through a heat wave. It was 29º today, apparently that is about 6/7 degrees hotter for this time of the year. This weekend it’ll be 36º - I’m glad I’m leaving.

massive old church

Lisbon rises right up from the river – the river seems like the ocean, but it’s not. We sailed from the ocean into the river – same water. Because of this, it is a hike from the port to the top of the old town. then we meandered through the streets and ultimately down to the river by the end of the tour.

We saw churches, ancient Roman ruins, the tram running back and forth, and many tuk-tuk tours. Although people live in the old city it is also very touristy.

ginjinha 

We made 3 stops for food and drink. The first was for meat, cheese, marmalade, a port wine, and a lot of water – lovely. Second, we stopped outside à Ginjinha Espinheria. à Ginjinha Espinheria is a tiny bar that serves ginjinha – a traditional Portuguese sour cherry liquor. We didn’t even see inside the bar – people were standing outside drinking and there was a line. Lucky for us, Andre skipped the line and brought out a tray for us. It was kind of as expected…a bit sour, a bit sweet, a bit boozy.

random buildings

Then we kept wandering, listening. BTW, we used earpieces and Andre had a mic. This was ideal. There’s no way in the skinny streets we could have heard half of what he said. It’s rare that we use, these…like basically never, but they’re great.

that's a public elevator!

The last food/drink stop was for cod fritters - Pastéis de Bacalhau, cod, potato, parsley, fried. We expected a small golf ball sized one or 2 bite thing – nope…it was a multi-bite situation.

By 7:30 we were back at the ship, took a quick shower and were out for our final ship dinner. We never request a particular waiter, a table by the window request…yes, but never a specific waiter – we like to get to know everyone. However, this being our last dinner, we wanted to sit with Dhiraj. Luckily, he had an open table. It was a lovely last meal.

Candy Lisa candy store

We were back in the room by 10:30, had our suitcases in the hall shortly after to be taken into the terminal for us to pick up tomorrow and we were in bed.

random buildings