Oct 13, 2012 - Arrived Fort Lauderdale- ready to cruise

Arrived in Fort Lauderdale, gathered our luggage and called the Roadway Inn for pick-up, conveniently they also supply transportation directly to the cruise terminal in the morning. Checked in and then went down to their restaurant to meet my brother for dinner. It was nice seeing him, I hadn't seen him in years. The morning of the 14th we boarded the Coral Princess for our Panama Canal cruise, first Stop Aruba.

May 16, 2012 - The Journey Begins

While carefully packing the RV to be our home away from home, which took several days, and having music playing the entire time, and not realising that the radio power came off of the engine batteries, left us with a minor problem, as I tried to fire up the main engine, for our new adventure. NOTHING worked. Hello AAA, we needed a big jump. The poor road service tech, couldn't believe what he needed to start with his little jump box, but it did start. Yeah !!! Pulled the coach our of our driveway, letting the engine warm up while I hooked...

Apr 3, 2012 - Now at sea

April 3 - Now at sea *ADDED PHOTOS 4/13* Let's see...we're nicely into our next cruise, 17 days to Barcelona (though we will continue on 12 more days to Venice). On our last day at sea before Lauderdale we filled out the customer survey and made comments about the volume of musical events in the Showroom being too terribly loud but that the cruise staff is awesome. April 1st found us in Lauderdale waiting for our billing statement that never came. (We were to have until 9:00 A.M. to point out any errors.) I phoned the Front Desk at 7:45;...

Mar 25, 2012 - The Journey Begins

A warm sunny day made our departure melancholy. We knew we would not see the ocean and palm trees again for a very long time. One only appreciates paradise when it comes time to leave. Yes,South Florida is a very special place! We leave on a different journey this year as it has come time to replace two worn out knees. This old friends have carried me many miles over many years and now I must look forward to new bionic replacements with the promise of much improved mobility and stability--and reduced pain. We are headed to our northern base...

Mar 22, 2012 - At sea

*PHOTOS ADDED 4/13* Some misc. items while we spend today filling out the US Customs form, packing up our 'stuff' and going to some last activities before disembarking tomorrow (Friday, 3/23) in Ft. Lauderdale. We shall be returning to the Ramada Cruise Port hotel for 2 nights before we board the Nieuw Amsterdam on Sunday morning, 3/25, to see 3 new ports in the Western Caribbean plus go ashore to see their own cay, Half Moon Cay, and take a guided nature walk there. But before that, we'll be having a 'reunion' with the husband and family...

Mar 12, 2012 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL

I felt a bit 'fragile' but good enough to go on our Land & Sea Excursion in Lauderdale this morning.We had a dynamic and peppy tour guide who loves history and told us all about the city though she's only lived here for a couple of years. Hector, our bus driver, drove us through the part of town where Mom and I used to live in the 50's but I didn't recognize a thing! When we got onto A1A and drove along the beach and hotels – still little looked familiar. The beach seemed narrower; all the neat hotels I remember were replaced with huge...

Mar 11, 2012 - At Sea

We were at sea yesterday. We attended the Captain's Mariner Luncheon, a talk on pirates and privateers and a piano concert given by an overly enthusiastic pianist, watched a movie on TV and enjoyed the company of 2 French-speaking ladies from Montreal at formal dinner night. And we learned there are 1,228 guests on board this cruise with one of them having logged over 1,300 days cruising with HAL! In fact, we had dinner one evening with a fellow who said he's sailed over 900 with HAL as well as with a few other lines. (We're just getting...

Mar 1, 2012 - Short stay in Lauderdale

We got to Ft. Lauderdale yesterday afternoon and managed the heavy traffic to reach the Ramada Inn and check in before 4:00. Immediately turned on the AC; it has been running constantly ever since as we are not used to 87 temps with humidity! (My hand wash is not drying as quickly as expected.) We signed up for the shuttle service to our ship, the Maasdam, for tomorrow morning, settled in and unpacked a few things. 5:00 dinner in the hotel restaurant was quite good; a relaxed evening with TV, reading and tatting was enjoyable. This...

Feb 29, 2012 - Day 3: At sea

Today was spent at sea. We awoke to a beautiful blue sky and unbelievably blue water. For breakfast we opted to head up to the Lido deck. If you’ve never cruised, it’s hard to imagine the amount of choices that are presented at every meal – and between meals as well. I bypassed the omelet station, heading instead to the Bistro where I chose fried eggs, bacon, and cream of wheat and whole wheat toast. Ralph went with the omelet. Our one complaint is the small coffee cups and small iced tea glasses so we get two instead of one! There was a...

Feb 28, 2012 - Day 2: Half Moon Cay

Why we were up at 6am I don’t know, but we were. Breakfast is being delivered between 7 and 7:30 so I guess we’ll shower and dress before then. The sky is blue, but our balcony is wet so I guess it rained last night. Today we visit Half Moon Cay, Holland America’s own private island. Should be interesting. Actually I don’t think it rained – the water probably came from above when they washed the pool area. Our breakfast arrived a little before 7 so we ate and headed up to the Lido deck for more coffee. A visit to the cay was something we...

Feb 27, 2012 - Day 1: Underway

Day 1 The drive from home to Ft. Lauderdale was uneventful – a little rain but on the whole a nice run. The directions to the parking area were terrible! Fortunately we had allowed extra time so there was no problem. The two guys at the parking were from Peru and Colombia! The van brought us over to the ship. Of course you don’t just walk onto the ship. You have several lines to go through but everything moved smoothly so we boarded before 1pm. Our verandah is on the navigation deck, #8. Above us is the lido deck which has the pools and the...

Feb 12, 2012 - Looking for a Window

The Vero Beach stop resulted in an all new fathometer to supplement the erratic ones. We are coming up on the part of the journey where weather begins to be a big player in our plans. Thru the weekend a low is settling over the crossing points and we will have to wait for that all to pass before moving into the gulf stream. From Vero we made the transit to Lake Worth on Saturday and decided to stop at the Old Port Cove marina in the north of the lake while the winds howled. We parked next to a big Defeever named Sojourner and right behind...