Everything related to cruising, including cruise ships and shore excursions in cruise ports.
Yesterday, we boarded Royal Caribbean’s Independence of the Seas in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We’re on board for a 14 day Atlantic Crossing with a destination of Southampton, England. From there we’ll stay on board for another 14 days as we tour the Mediterranean with stops in Barcelona, Gibraltar, Rome, and a few others. We’ll post more on that later. Continue reading →
We’re in the Caribbean aboard the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas. This is the biggest ship we’ve sailed, and probably the largest cruise ship afloat. This week, we’re traveling from the Fort Lauderdale Port Everglades, to Haiti, jamaica, Cozumel, and back. We’ll have three “sea days”.
It’s been a couple of years since we’ve been aboard a Royal Caribbean ship, and we’ve almost forgotten how different it is compared to some of the other cruise lines we’ve tried. The service is great and the ship is full of Wow factor.
Join us again in the next few days and we’ll have a complete description of this great ship with as many pictures as we think you can stand.
Last week we made a quick five day Caribbean cruise on the Princess’s “Caribbean Princess”. We left Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, November 29th and sailed to Nassau in the Bahamas. From there we made a stop at Princess Cays located about fifty miles east of Nassau, then back to Fort Lauderdale. There were two “at sea” days on this cruise. Continue reading →
Over the years, we’ve made eleven cruises on various ships and cruise lines. From that experience we’ve always maintained that “we never met a cruise ship we didn’t like”. We’ve been on Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Disney, and lately our last three cruises were on various Norwegian Cruise Line ships, the latest being the Norwegian Epic. The Epic is the largest ship we’ve sailed on, but it’s a far cry from the best, at least in our estimation. Continue reading →
Not long ago, we had the fortunate occasion to spend the day in Barcelona, Spain. We were traveling from Orlando, Florida and catching a cruise ship in Barcelona back to Florida. We’ve grown fond of Atlantic crossings in the last couple of years and found a great price on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship, the Epic.
The last time we were in Barcelona for just a day we were seeing it from the comfort of a cruise ship shore excursion and decided that if we ever returned, we’d make some time to explore it on our own. Continue reading →
Germany is probably going to be the high point of our trip, at least the high point of our cruise. We arrived in Warnemunde along the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, May 20th. The day was about as perfect as you could imagine for a warm spring day.
We traveled by bus for about 1 ½ hours from Warnemunde to a little town called Schwerin for the purpose of viewing the Schwerin Castle, which has been in existence in one form or another since at least 973 AD when it was controlled by The Polabian Slav Tribe. It was primarily a fort at that time rather than a “castle”. Around 1160, it was targeted by Germanic Nobelmen under the leadership of Henry the Lion. From then on, the Schwerin Castle has had a rich history, serving as a castle and home for many nobles, a military barracks, and even a nursing college during the time of the German Democratic Republic after WWII. Presently, Schwerin Castle serves as a museum and the seat of the local state parliament. Continue reading →
Today was a lazy day in Copenhagen, Denmark. We left the ship at around 9:00 AM and were guided by a tour guide to all the various sites of the city, including the palaces of the royals of Denmark, the Parliament building, the Old Stock Exchange, and even passed an amusement park. Continue reading →
It’s mid May as we write this little article about Helsingborg and already the sun sets at 9:41 PM and rises at 4:55 AM in this part of the world. For us Americans, this kind of behavior is reserved for our Canadian and Alaskan friends almost exclusively, but for Sweden, Denmark, and the rest of the folks up around the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic, this is how life is, and how it’s always been. Temperatures are in the mid 50s’ and low 60s’ today, which seems to be normal for this time of year. What a hardy bunch of people they must have been in the earlier times when life wasn’t so easy.
