January 15 – Fort Lauderdale to Calgary

Weather – 25º, sunny

Steps – 4,297

Travel day was perfect. Didn’t have to get up early as the flight wasn’t until 3:30 and also didn’t have to stress about getting to the airport; the drive to the hotel was about 15 min.

We had a great time away, especially from the winter for a bit, but I’m always, always happy to be home.

Thank you for the good wishes, for the comments, for the interest, and for coming along with us!

Until next time…

January 14 – Miami to Fort Lauderdale

 Weather – 23º, very overcast

Steps – 8,242

Disembarking the ship with no flight to catch was lovely. We still had to be off the ship before 9, but otherwise had a no schedule. We’ve disembarked and headed straight to the airport in the past and this can be stressful. You do it only because you have to. Fortunately for us, there is no direct flight from Fort Lauderdale to Calgary on Tuesdays, so we are staying the night.

that's a big one!

One issue we had to deal with was an Uber driver who only spoke Spanish and lost his GPS halfway between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. We figured out how to tell him where to go using Chris’ GPS, so in the end it was no big deal.

view from lunch

We arrived at the Riverside Hotel before 10 and got into our room! This is a miracle as far as I’m concerned. Of course, the hotel could store our bags, and we could wander, but it is just so much nicer to just put our stuff into our room and especially our passports into the room’s safe. We aren’t prone to losing things, but it’s nice not to carry passports around.

The Riverside Hotel is an old hotel on Las Olas

lunch

blvd. We came to Las Olas at the beginning of the trip when we were staying by the ocean, so we are familiar with the area. The location on the ‘river’ couldn’t be better. It’s not the swankiest hotel in the world but is old and charming.

The hotel pool is right on the canal, so we sat at the pool for the rest of the morning reading and watching the boats go by. Some of these are massive! We looked one up and it was 16.7 million EUROS! That’s about 24 million Canadian!

charming hotel stairwell

We walked about 30 steps to the hotel restaurant and had lunch right next to the canal and continued boat watching.

After lunch, we picked up a few snacks and some water from the dumpiest CVS I think we’ve ever been in, and it was time for nap-town. I was

Chris settling up

determined to finish the book I’m reading. I started it on Regent from their library, but didn’t finish before we had to get off the boat. Then I found it on a ‘skip-the-line-‘ 7-day loan from the Calgary Public Library. It was going to automatically return this afternoon, and I was almost done…I got to it! In the end I finished.

pouring my dessert

In the evening, we had a drink in one of the hotel’s 2 bars. Then dinner at a very bustling Italian place and that was THAT!

Fort Lauderdale is a nice place to spend some time, pre and/or post cruise. If we ever leave on a cruise from here or Miami again, I’d be happy to spend more
time here.

random building

January 13 – AT SEA

retractable roof

cheking out the sea

Weather – 25º, very windy

Steps – 6,596

LAST day of vacation. The last day of each vacation always come with the same feelings…disappointment that the time away (often in the warmth when home is cold) is ending, and excitement to be home again back to routines and predictability.

Each of the 2 cruises that made up this vacation started and ended with sea days…very civilized. We can go about our day in a relaxed way, the only thing needing to be done is to pack.

one last sunset

all over the boat

We wanted to sit at the pool for a while this morning, but it was hard to find a spot due to strong winds. We finally found a spot both in the shade and out of the wind as much as possible. Eventually we inched into the sun as the wind made things a bit cool.

This ship has a ‘conservatory’ area. This is a pool and seating area with a retractable roof – very neat. This area was closed until late morning when it only takes a few minutes to open.

We had one last outdoor meal followed by a drink at the astern pool. This isn’t necessarily our usual after lunch routine, but a DJ was playing, so we went to
listen for a bit.

daily program

I mentioned in an earlier blog that this ship could use some more shady spots at the pools. This especially applies to the astern pool today!

daily program

Because of the wind, the patchy coverings that provided at least some shade had to come down. We luckily found a small area of shade at the edge of the bar. Despite the full-on sun and absolute lack of shade the chairs around the pool were packed! I am in awe of people who can lie out in the sun for hours on end. I would last about 2 minutes!

Back to the room for a nap, followed by packing and one last sit on the balcony before dinner.

Mario at the Monumento a la Patria

loooong pier

Weather – 28º, real feel 34º today was the hottest of this vacation

Steps – 7,544

Today we were back in Mexico for the 4^th time this vacation. Mérida is close to Cancun where we’ve been many times, but we’ve never been to Mérida, I would come back for
sure.

Mérida is an authentic Mexican city, pop 1.3 million. While Mérida relies heavily on tourism like other cities in the area (Cancun or Playa del Carmen) it is an old city, founded in 1542 (not like Cancun or Playa del Carmen.) There are huge colonial haciendas and the oldest cathedral in mainland America. Apparently, Mérida is the second safest city in North America (Ottawa is the first.)

cinco de mayo

tacos!!

We are actually docked in Progreso (pop 54,000), a port city with the longest dock in the world - 4 miles into the Gulf of Mexico! That means it would take over an hour to walk!! The sea is too shallow for ships to get any closer. Apparently, the plan is to dredge the sea to allow for
larger ships to get closer.

Our tour today is all about food and history. We start with a 40 min drive to Mérida. The whole journey there Mario, our guide, described what we’d be eating today and a bit about the history of the Mayans who have lived in the area since 2000BC. He was a terrific guide. Super knowledgeable and into the subject matter.

Mexico's history

Occasionally, guides will tell us off limits topics – usually politics. Today Mario’s non-go topics were politics and sports. He said he didn’t play sports, watch sports and knew nothing about sports – funny.

cathedral

Our first stop was at the Monumento a la Patria, or the monument to the homeland. The monument has over 300 carvings showing the history of Mexico.  It was very hot, but Mario was interesting, so we didn’t mind the heat for a few minutes.

bustling square

Next, we visited a kind of food fair/hall – very authentic. At least it seemed authentic with plenty of Mexicans, not just us tourists. We were served 4 tacos – 1 cochinita pibil (pork), 1 pavo pibil (turkey), one lechon (pork) and another relleno negro (turkey) one. The relleno negro one has a sauce made from the ashes of burnt peppers. I’m not
entirely sure I have all of this right. They were all good, but I expected more flavour. There was hot sauce to add ourselves. I was afraid at first, but it was mostly flavour not heat. This was a lot of food! All of this was washed down with a Mexican Coke. I suppose the Mexican Coke was sweeter than our Coke, but if I didn’t know it was Mexican I wouldn’t have known the difference.

Next, we visited Mérida’s cathedral built between 1561 and 1598. We arrived just as noon mass was starting, so we only took a peek from the back. In addition to this cathedral being the oldest in the Americas it also has the largest indoor crucifix – 12 meters high.

cathedral

mural depicting the importance of corn

Then we crossed the street to visit Palacio de Gobierno Mérida, a government building with over 25 murals depicting important moments of the Yucatan's history. Mario stopped in front of 5 or so murals and told us the story depicted in those murals. This building also gave us a great view of Mérida’s main square.

Next, we were off for more tacos. This time, the 2 tacos were shrimp, again – these were good, but not super flavourful, washed down with a delicious margarita.

mamey

Our last stop was for Mexican ice cream, which I would describe more as sorbet – it was less creamy and more icy, it was tasty. I originally ordered tamarindo flavour, which I know I like, and Chris ordered mamey. Mario described mamey to us earlier as creamy and soft kind of like an avocado, with a flavor like a mix of sweet potato, pumpkin, honey. Guess who ended up eating most of the mamey?? It was good, and in reality, I should have ordered it and am glad between us we had one. I like to try new foods and

random interesting building

tastes which is what I thought I was sort of doing with the tamarindo. The margarita I had yesterday
in Cozumel was tamarind – I know I like that flavour…tart, citrusy, kind of limey. I didn’t really love the mamey, but I’m glad Chris got it (for me – he’s always thinking of me!!)

pilot finished with us

Anyway…this place was charming, filled with Mexicans, and had table service based off of a list on the wall. While we ate our ice creams, we chatted with Anastasia a worker from the ship‘s Destinations dept. She’s from Indonesia and has been with the ship for only 3 weeks!

Another interesting thing Mario mentioned was that Progreso/Mérida sees a

Progreso street shot

handful cruise ships a week but would love to see more. They rely on tourism, so more tourists would improve their economy.

balcony friend

We spent our evening on the balcony reading and blogging – I gave up on my nap today in favour of the balcony.

lobster roll for dinner!

January 11 – Cozumel, Mexico

Weather – 26º, humid – 80%

Steps – 10,775; what happens when we wonder

We are back in Mexico today – Cozumel. We were here last week with Regent so didn’t feel a huge need to take an excursion. Good thing, since the one we were semi-interested in was waitlisted. The excursion we were kind of interested in was to ruins and then to the chocolate factory we visited last time.

A couple of days ago, we decided to take ourselves off the waitlist and have either a ship day or a low-key port day.

getting tied down

It was a bit of a groundhoggy morning…no alarm (slept until 8!), room service muesli, bacon, warm milk for the in-room coffee machine coffee, and a couple of yogurts for the future. I took my breakfast and laptop onto the deck around 9 for sail in. No matter how many sail ins I’ve seen, it’s always fascinating to watch the tugs, the ropes, and the whole shebang of getting docked. Watching other people work isn’t bad either!

This ship has a total of 4…yes 4 laundry machines for potentially 900 people! No one wants to do laundry on vacation, but it’s nice to have all your things clean – major Regent perk!! We didn’t have much hope for finding an open machine, but

it's almost our own private pool

thought a port day would be our best chance – we were in luck.

Then it was up to the pool to wait – not a bad place to wait with a mimosa.

at the pool with me

Eventually with laundry all done, we wandered into Cozumel to see what we might have for lunch. Of course we could eat on the ship, but it’s always interesting to wander for food. It was sooooo humid and still. We walked up and down the strip, checked out a couple of town squares tucked back a bit from the main drag and about an hour later settled on a place for a margaritas and nachos. This was right on the strip along the water. The road is busy, so there is definitely vibe, but I found myself longing for a place where I could put my feet in the sand. A few years back, we stopped in Zihuatanejo on a cruise and found a super charming place for a couple of beers, right along the water where we drank beers with sand between our toes.

post lunch $3 beers

After lunch we stopped for one more beer at the place we had a beer last week, before we made it back to the ship. Things in Cozumel didn’t seem super expensive. Each of the margaritas we had were about $10USD and the beers were $3USD. By the time we were heading back the humidity wasn’t so bad, but wow, I was damp when we sat down for lunch.

By about 3:30 we were back on the ship. Sail away was at 6, but we were on the go by 5:30. Explora does not mess around. Regent was never late

ship has a bit of an art gallery

either, but here, as soon as all are abord, we are off.

Dinner was at the ship’s Mediterranean restaurant. This our second visit. The first time we had ALL 6 of their tapas plates and a dessert. This time was similar – 3 tapas, then Chris had a pasta, I had a haloumi salad, and dessert of course!

I was in the mood for an early night, so we were in bed before 10. It really was

tapas

11, but we changed the clocks back for tomorrow.

It was a nice relaxing day.

Chris and I have been chatting a lot this vacation about the pros and cons of a Caribbean cruise versus a land resort. We’re finding activities in the Caribbean not exactly up our street. This is hardly a surprise – we aren’t exactly beach, water sport, water, baking in the sun kind of people – if you are, the Caribbean is where you need to be. We have always liked resort vacations ever though they are designed around beach, water sport, water, baking in the sun activities. For us, we can laze at our swim out room for 7 days reading and chilling, walk the beach a bit and that’s all the activity we need for a week.

On a cruise, I always feel like we need to be doing something, but why? I could very easily laze at a pool in the shade or on our balcony and read – especially on port days when most people are off the ship. This is basically what we did this morning, and it was lovely.

required ship shot

Cruise prices are about the same as for the swim out rooms we prefer at resorts. The main difference we have determined is the food and booze are not even comparable on the cruises. Food and cocktails are adequate at resorts, but the wine is almost undrinkable at any of the resorts we’ve ever stayed at, and we’ve probably stayed at 25 resorts over the years.

another stunning sunset

I’d say staying at a resort is slightly easier…one

flight, one resort, one flight back
home. With a cruise, we always arrive at least one night before and often stay the night before flying home. The resorts package flights with the stay, so that requires no thinking.

We’re still completely happy with this vacation…the main goal was to get out of the winter for a bit – mission accomplished. 

Lori – good question…we learned that there are now ‘hundreds’ in the preserve. Not sure if they’ve released any into the wild. There probably are some in the wild, because we learned that there is a huge fine for killing one, not sure why you'd do that, but...

January 10 – Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands

Weather – 27º, more like 22º and very overcast when we started out at 8:30 this morning, by 10:30 there wasn’t a cloud to be found

Steps – 7,996

Grande Cayman is another repeat stop for us, we were here last Sunday.

Just like last visit, we tendered to shore. We were closer than last time and there was only one other ship in with us, different from 4 in with us last time. We didn’t

blue iguana

notice a difference at all.

very close

Today was all about animals. The tour we selected was titled “Flora and Fauna” - it was mostly Fauna. Our first stop was visiting Grande Cayman’s blue iguanas in a preserve. The blue iguana is an endangered species endemic to Grande Cayman, apparently there were fewer than 13 left in 2003. Calling these ‘blue’ is a bit of false advertising. These definitely aren’t the typical green iguanas we’ve see a lot of but are kind of a dull blueish. The blue iguana is the biggest native animal on Grande Cayman, I’d say the biggest one we saw today was 3 feet long.

like a tunnel of hanging flowers!

There were also a few gardens at the preserve, but we didn’t have nearly
enough time to visit them well. We sprinted through the preserve and really only visited the ‘colour’ garden (garden with flowers) to find the loo. I’m glad we needed ‘to go’ because we saw some amazing plants. We also encountered some random iguanas.

We also saw a agouti or Cayman rabbit dart across our path at the Iguana preserve. It was too fast to get my own pic of, but I found one online.

enroute to see some stingrays

A visit to ‘Stingray City’ was our second and last
stop today. I’m not usually up for animal encounters and prefer to see animals by chance. Before we decided to go on this excursion, I looked into it and while humans definitely attract the rays to the area, they aren’t in captivity. The stingrays at Stingray City are technically wild but have become somewhat domesticated by to human feeding.

meeting a ray

Apparently, decades ago, fishing boats cleaned their fish in the calm waters of a shallow sandbar. The fish guts eventually attracted the stingrays and it’s now a tourist attraction. About 20 of us boarded a small boat for a 30 min ride to the sand bar. We got into the chest deep (sometimes only waist deep) water with a guide and waited for the rays.

It didn’t take long for there to be 7 or 8 of them swimming around us. The guide explained a bit about the rays and then we got to touching them, having them lean on us and basically letting them swim around us. A photographer took about 10 shots of us (some very cheesy) for the low, low price of $60 USD!

port beers

I’m still a bit conflicted about this experience and prefer to let animals just be and see what I can see. It was a very cool experience that definitely could have been longer.

"Playbook"

A rum punch was served on the ride back to the van. Then a 7USD local beer at the port and we were back onboard by 1:30. We set sail early today to make it to Cozumel for tomorrow.

We knew we’d want to shower when we got back to the ship, and we’d be ready for lunch. The plan was to order right away and then use the waiting time to

sunset blogging

shower. By the time I got out of the shower the food was already there!
Definitely one of the fastest room service deliveries EVER! A couple of sandwiches and a salad really hit the spot!

evening cocktail

The show tonight was called “Playlist” basically random songs (possibly requested) that the singers and band performed. It was great, upbeat “modern’ songs’

Definitely couldn’t have made it to Casa Nova today – no time.

another water shot

In the spirit of factualness, I need to report that

agouti or Cayman rabbit

according to my travelling partner, the silent disco was nowhere near 'OK'. Also, according to him, describing it that was is a boldfaced lie!!

another iguana