Anthem of the Seas Cruise 1/25-26 - 2/6/2016

Cruise of January 25/26 – February 6, 2016 (Cruise was delayed 1 day)

Getting there

Hired Ferrazzi Limousine to take us to and from the ship. We can’t say enough good about them. They were on-time (even a bit early actually), courteous (thanks Joe Kup), and John Ferrazzi kept us in the loop even while on the cruise. I'd use them again in a heartbeat!

Embarkation

Embarkation was the easiest I’ve ever seen. We had completed all of our information, including photos online, so we just had to show our passports and Set-Sail paperwork to the people at the door, they quickly checked us in with a smile. We were aboard after going through the scanners in another 5 minutes where our stateroom key (one of them) was taped to the door (odd). The other was inside on the bed in a beautiful balcony stateroom. Note: The Royal IQ App wasn’t working for just about the entire first day and a half.

Stateroom

While the stateroom is gorgeous, there were some good things and bad.

Placement of a huge flat-screen TV at the end of the bed was a problem, unless you sat all the way up against the backboard of the bed. If you just sat on the edge of the bed, you were less than a foot away and not good. I also never saw any mention of it, but some (not all) correspondence about the cruise is on the TV in the “messages” section. Included were invitations to different events that we missed until we figured this out.

The bathroom however, was a hit. Just the right size, and they re-shaped the shower, with a curved glass door, to give more room to us larger people. Perfect!

I have to mention, that our bed was rock hard. I asked the stateroom attendant if they had one of those waffle, foam things and he said unfortunately not. One new thing I love, is the bathroom light, when you turn it off, becomes a nightlight! Very cool!

The Ship

Well, I’d love to say I love the ship layout, but I’d be lying. The layout is beyond awful when compared to other RCI ships. The theater seems way too small, and was always overflowing 30 minutes before shows. (more on entertainment later)

Coming out of the theater you’ll see the first problem. You run smack into The Music Hall, and actually have to go around it to go anywhere else on that floor. Honestly, it should have been put somewhere else. One of my biggest complaints, is no nice, wrap-around deck where you can sit and look out at the ocean like on most ships. On this ship, the lifeboats ruin the view for 99% of the deck.

The Music Hall / The Diamond Lounge

First time we saw The Music Hall, was when we went to the Diamond Lounge on our first night there. Once again, RCI in their infinite wisdom made the Diamond Lounge way too small, and the overflow goes into the second floor of the music hall. Not good. We had non diamond members getting diamond perks. The Diamond Lounge was way understaffed, and we had to wait more than 30 minutes to get a drink on multiple occasions.

In The Music Hall, top floor, there were 2 very old pool tables that had us confused. They looked way more used than the ship was, but we couldn’t figure out why someone would put used pool tables on a new ship.

We went to see one show in The Music Hall (Aerosmith tribute band), and unless you’re on the lower level, in the front near the dance floor, good luck seeing the band at all. Seating upstairs was awful, and very few seats were able to see the band. The other problem is, the music was SO LOUD! Way more than it had to be.

The basic ship design was poor in my opinion, as there was virtually no windows to see outside from any public venue, and a severe lack of places for people to read/play cards.

Oh, and who thought it’d be nice to put the Concierge Lounge on deck 12 aft?

The Esplanade

I’m extremely disappointed in the layout of this part of the ship. It’s REAL short, and they put a small piece of it up one floor near Jamie Oliver’s restaurant.

Why would you put a Cartier store on one level, and a Hublot and Bulgari on another floor?

There’s also no Cupcake Cupboard on this ship, but they have “La Patisserie” that has large pastries that cost extra. Being a sweet eater like I am, it’s saying something that nothing there interested me. The last day on the ship, they had widely advertised a $10 sale on t-shirts at 9am. The Esplanade was mobbed to the point of not being able to go from one end to the other by 8:30am. When the sale began, it looked like a shark feeding frenzy.

Entertainment

The main show, “We Will Rock You”, was extremely good and was a Queen Music show with a storyline. The lead singer wasn’t close to being as good as Freddy Mercury, but it was passable. Ps, don’t leave early!

The other 2 shows, The Gift and Spectra Cabaret, were semi disappointing as nobody I spoke to could figure out a point to them.

The other shows in the theater were much better. They had a good Motown tribute band, a Southern Rock band named Savannah Jack, a Beatles tribute band named The Beatlemaniacs (most of these did sets on other nights in The Music Hall) and a magician we missed.

My wife and I love playing trivia in The Schooner Bar, and we weren’t disappointed there (with one exception) as they seemed to have trivia at least 4-5 times a day!

BUT… someone should tell the Cruise Director (Abe) to NOT have someone running trivia that does not speak good English. I’ll leave it at that.

Bars

All bars but one seemed to be just fine, with enough people to take care of you.

The Bionic Bar (robots make your drink) is pretty tough to figure out (they have someone there to help you), but I asked for a Cosmopolitan, and it’s served in a plastic cup with ice. Huh?

Also, what’s this automatic tip on my bill? For a robot?

Pools/Solarium

The pool area is about normal for a RCI ship, except the big screen TV is on the side of the ship, instead in the middle looking towards the larger area. Wonder whose idea this was.

The Solarium was breathtakingly gorgeous! Better for sure than any other RCI ship. The downside, everyone knew it, and all chairs were usually taken (on sea days) by 8am by towels, and a small number of real people. Again, RCI needs to enforce the 30 minute rule for towels holding chairs. The views from here, off the front of the ship are outstanding. Don’t forget to check out the two person swing! The 3 cascading pools were great, as well as the hot tubs.

Fun/Sports

OK, I have to start by saying I had serious doubts that the bumper cars would be any fun at all, and I am glad to say I was VERY wrong! They were great, and the spot they’re in is incredibly large! The line forms fast though, get there early.

The North Star was open often, and the best time probably to get on it, is on embarkation day! There was no line, and you get to see the beautiful NYC skyline! Other than that, I think you have to make reservations.

The RipCord by iFly, was outstanding! My wife did it, and loved every second of it. Give it a shot if you can!

Lastly, there’s a Flowrider, like most of RCI’s large ships that appeared fun (but not for me!).

Food/Dining

Well, this is where it gets complicated.

American Icon

The first night, we ate in American Icon. Nice place, most food good but I chose the baby back ribs, and they were awful. Dry, small and way overdone. Otherwise, food was good and dessert, with beignets was great. Breakfast here is also great with Eggs Benedict every day.

Silk

The least favorite of the restaurants, serving Asian cuisine. Everything there was at best, OK.

Chic

The food here was very good, and we made a point to reserve this restaurant again during our trip.

The Grande

Let me get this out of the way. I HATE having to wear a jacket to get into a restaurant. Once I got to the table, I took it off and put it on the back of my chair. They never threw me out.

This is where the great food is! Best steaks, lobster.. everything. Why anyone has to wear a jacket to get great food, is beyond me.

Solarium Bistro

We have a winner! This is the least publicized, best kept secret on the entire ship! The wait staff was incredible, though this restaurant is a bit different in you get up to get your salad at a salad bar, and appetizers too which are very good, and quite varied. We ate here 3 times, and enjoyed every single meal. ps, dress here is casual.

Jamie’s Italian

By far, the most disappointing meal yet. You pay $30/person and sit on hard, cheap, metal chairs while sitting at a stainless steel table without a tablecloth. The food was about average, even for fresh, homemade pasta. I wanted my money back. All of it.

Izumi / Wonderland

We did not try either of these restaurants as there was nothing on the menu my wife would enjoy.

Two70
This place is a mystery to me. They have sandwiches and soups, but when you go to find a place to sit down, the little tables are so small, you can barely fit your drink and a napkin! (don't get me started about the shows here...!) Food was OK, seating, horrendous.

Windjammer

The Windjammer was around the same as most, except for breakfast, they had a French crepe station! One downside I noticed, lots of people in here, playing cards, reading, and not eating as there seems to be very little public spaces with tables for people to use on this ship.

It’s not good when you’re hungry, have food in hand and no tables available and you watch people playing cards.

One thing nobody tells you, is that in any of the big 4 restaurants (American Icon, Chic, Silk and The Grande), you can order off any one of the 4 menu's if you don't find something you like on the menu of the restaurant you're in!

Casino
The casino on this ship is small. Way smaller than it should be for a ship this size. It's also very understaffed as I experienced one night when I went to play blackjack. The only table open was full, and they couldn't open another because they had no employees available (I only saw a few casino employees working and it was around 8pm). Not good.

Crew
The Crew on this ship was outstanding. I did notice, they're still quite understaffed, and even the crew mentioned it a few times. The crew in charge at each restaurant seemed to know me from the second day on-board, and were always very accommodating to our needs, even though we were told by others we'd never be able to get reservations for 6pm after the 4th day, we never had trouble.

That all being said, the ship was very steady in rough waters off the Outer Banks. Would I do this class again? Yes, but I’m not in a hurry to do so.

Disney World 3-14-2015 Part 3

After having some lunch, we decided to head over to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping and relaxing (pretty hard to do with my injuries).

The stores have changed quite a bit since we were there last, but everyone was nice, the weather was perfect and we picked up a few small things for our future granddaughter coming soon. Nothing there was compelling us to stay, so after browsing most of the stores, we slipped out and back to our room to rest my poor ankle and knee.

Day 3 we went to The Magic Kingdom. Starting out in AdventureLand, we worked our way around doing Pirates of the Caribbean and other fun rides before stopping for lunch.
After lunch, we did Fantasyland so my wife could do "It's a Small World" which honestly drives me nuts.. but, I have to keep her happy.

Next we went over to Frontierland, then Tomorrowland, and did a few rides and just enjoyed the day.
Notable rides are the Stitch's Great Escape, Tomorrowland Transit Authority and the old standby, Parade of Progress, which has become pretty dated now.

After another ride around the park on the railroad.. we called it a day and went back to our hotel for dinner and relaxation.

More soon...

Disney World - 3-14-2015 Part 2

After arriving at Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney MGM Studios), we got some lunch at the Brown Derby, sit down restaurant which was outstanding. The quality of food at Disney has gone way up since the last time here.

We next made it over to The Great Movie Ride (all ride names are as close as I can remember) which was a lot of fun. Then, it was over to the Star Tours ride, which is now in 3-D, and much different from the last time we were on it. More action, more excitement and the 3-D was great. Highly recommended!

After that, it was on to our old favorite, Muppet Vision 3-D, which hasn't changed in many years, but is always fun.

There wasn't much else we wanted to do after that, so we headed back to the hotel and rested my sore leg and watched some NCAA Basketball (we're big fans).

Day 2, we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom, as it opened an hour early for resort guests, and we went all the way tot he back immediately to the Kilimanjaro Safari Ride (always do it as early as possible, as the animals are out and about and not hiding from the hot sun yet). We saw dozens of great animals including Lions, Giraffe's, Hippo's and all kinds of great things!

(click on the photo to 'embiggen')

When done with that, we had breakfast, and walked the entire park.

Next, we did the Maharajah Jungle Trek, which was great, and we saw Tigers and lots of great birds and other small animals.

We did the Migratory Birds show (highly recommended) which lasted about 30 minutes and was well worth it!

We did the Wilderness Train, enjoying the cool morning that was quickly warming up before slipping out and heading to our room to get refreshed and get ready to head to Downtown Disney to do some shopping and more walking.

More soon!

Disney World - 3-14-2015 Part 1

Well, we were very excited to be going to Disney World for our 35th anniversary, especially since we honeymooned at Disney World, back when there was only a Magic Kingdom (no Epcot, no Hollywood Studios, no Animal Kingdom.. etc).

So excited, when I got off the shuttle bus at our local airport for the plane ride to Florida, I mis-stepped off the bus and fell flat on my face!

I severely strained my Achilles tendon on my left foot, and hit my knee real hard on my right leg! At this point, I could barely walk, but I figured if I walked it off, I’d be OK.

Walking into the terminal was excruciating. I could walk about 50 feet before I had to sit down, and searching for places to sit before I even got up from one seat was pretty tough to do. My wife, thank God for her, was right there with me helping me along the way. We made it through all the security checks, and to the gate, but I wondered if my leg would tighten up if I sat too long. When it came time to get on the plane, I was sure I hadn’t torn anything, but knew I’d be in for some pain for quite a few days.

When I got off the plane in Orlando, it was quite painful again, but the more I walked the more it stretched out (to an extent). I was still hobbling quite badly, and by now, shifting the weight to my right leg, was making my knee ache!

After an uneventful trip to our hotel at the Caribbean Beach Resort, we checked into our room, grabbed some lunch there and took an internal bus to Disney’s Hollywood Studio.

More to come…

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part IX

Yes, this is the final chapter in my 10 night cruise, as the last 2 days were at sea, relaxing and thinking about the wonderful ports we had visited.
We spent a lot of time at the pool, in the solarium, and generally enjoying everything this ship had to offer.

Oh, we did go to see Avatar in the ship's theater.

I thought I'd show you now a few pictures of the breakfast buffet on board!

And just to make sure you believe they had other things, more healthy, I'll add a picture of the fruit section!

We at lunches here too most times we were on board ship, but at night, we ate at the nice dining room.

Lastly, a photo of the Centrum, looking up at the different levels. It truly was a beautiful ship, and I can't wait to board her sister ship, the Jewel of the Seas in November!

That's it for this trip... feel free to ask any questions and don't forget to click on any picture to 'embiggen'!

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part VIII

Puerto Vallarta.
Pulling into Puerto Vallarta, you got the feeling it was the most "Americanized" port (see the picture at right)

Can you see the Wal-Mart on left? Or the Sams Club on the right?

Better than that, you wouldn't believe how many people were dying to go to Wal-Mart from the ship! People, this is vacation!!!!!

Oh well.

In Puerto Vallarta, we were doing another Tequila Factory tour that included a tour of the city with a few stops.
Our first stop, was downtown, on the water where we saw sand sculptures that people were making that were breathtaking. Take for example, the one at right: a full sized version of The Last Supper!

It was breathtakingly detailed, and if the sculptor had a nickel for every photo snapped of this, he'd be rich.

I'll post one more, a bit more of a close up of a full-size person so you can see the incredible detail.

These people accept donations for their works of art, and I can only imagine how they must feel when it rains and washes away their hard work.
I can only imagine how long it takes to create these pieces of art.

As you can see behind the sand sculptures, the water was a nice blue, and mild waves. It was a gorgeous 85 degree morning as we walked up and down the street.

Next, we walked a bit more up the street, and saw a religious ceremony that is hard to describe.

Five men climb this pole, and four of them have ropes tied around their legs. They spin the top platform to wrap the rope around the pole, then they lean over the back and allow themselves to spin around and be ever so slowly lowered to the ground while only being held by the rope tied around their legs while the 5th person chants and bangs on a tiny drum.

It's a scary thing, but mesmerizing to watch for sure!

(please click on any picture to 'embiggen')

We watched them do this a couple of times, all the time wondering how you become someone who does this ritual.

When they reach the ground, they sit for a minute, then climb up the pole again and the ritual begins again.

Next, our tour guide named "Pepe", told us about a church we were about to enter, named "Our Lady of Guadalupe" in downtown Puerto Vallarta.

Now, I've seen churches in the US, and in Europe (including Notre Dame in Paris, and a cathedral in Milan, Italy) and this church was gorgeous. Not for it's "ornateness", but for it's simplicity, and raw beauty.

Next, we were off to the Doña EngraciaTequila Factory.

Now if you remember, I had mentioned that Tequila was made from the Blue Agave plant. The actual part used to make the Tequila, is beneath the ground and is called the "piña". There's 3 of them at right.

They kinda look like pineapples, albeit large ones and they can weigh up to 150-200 pounds! Behind them is one of the ovens they're cooked in to release their juices and to bring out the sweetness.

After cooking, they're soft and they're mashed and the liquid that comes out is the liquid that is found in Tequila.

This was another small Tequila factory, and you could probably call their Tequila "artisan" as it's not very widespread, and pretty rare to find, even in Mexico.

Here, they had flavored Tequila like Almond, Coffee, and Peach flavors!

While the Tequila itself wasn't as good as the one we had at La Noria, it was good to try something else new.

That's about it for Puerto Vallarta, and I'll probably do one more installment of our last days at sea soon.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this, as it's brought back some great memories for me!

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part VII

Dinner and a Murder
The evening of our trip to Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa, we were all signed up for a Murder/Mystery Dinner on the ship. It began in a large lounge where the acting began with a mystic (Madame Valushka) telling us there was "Murder in the Air!" 
We were introduced to the players in this fun, the rich husband (eventually murdered), the scheming wife (having an affair with her husband's brother), the brother, his fiancé (having an affair with the murdered husband) and the detective who disliked them all. Oh, did I mention a million dollar diamond necklace that was missing too?

After about 10 minutes of dialog and people coming and going, we were led to the dining room for Dinner and a Murder.


After dinner, during dessert, we were allowed about 3 minutes with each character to ask questions (which they may or may not lie to).
Here's a picture of the scandalous fiancé of the deceased.
Before I go any further, let me say the dinner was incredible, with Filet Mignon, fresh asparagus, scalloped  potatoes.. and an incredible dessert I'll show you later. We were at a table of at least 20 people, and we all had fun grilling the suspects on where they were, what they were doing.. etc.


The next picture, is of the scandalous wife (with yours truly) who seems perfectly nice to me! (way fake angelic smile)

Funny... I can 't find any pictures of the husband or his brother, or the detective on my camera... hmm, maybe it's broken.. *chuckling*
At this point, I didn't care if I guessed the right person or not! *S*


I don't think any of us guessed the correct murderer, but all in all it was a lot of fun, and a great dinner.


Oh, I forgot to show you our dessert:
Tiramisu in the most delicate cup made from chocolate... it was completely decadent and delicious!

Coming soon, Puerto Vallarta!

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part VI

Our next stop, was Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa Mexico. Actually, Ixtapa is about 2 miles North of where we were.


The ship had to tender us in at this location as it's a kind of small bay/inlet but the trip from ship to shore was around 8 minutes, so we were very close.

We knew ahead of time that this was going to be our beach day, so we decided to go to Los Gato beach, on the other side of the bay. So, as soon as our tender docked, we got on another small boat to go across the bay. 
This area had a bit more vegetation than the others we'd visited, and the homes were a bit nicer.


You can see at right, how far we were from our cruise ship. The beach itself was soft sand, and gentle waves as we were in a gorgeous little cove.

As we walked up the beach, a local man came to us and asked if we were going to spend the day, then led us to his place up the beach, with comfortable chairs, umbrellas and tables with tablecloths on them which was surprising considering you're at the beach. When we asked him how much for the chairs, he said no charge, just tip well when we drink or eat. Sounded like a deal so we sat down.
We were literally 10 feet from the water, it was about 88 degrees out, and we were all very relaxed.


We all watched as fishermen would occasionally come in and bring freshly caught fish to the various places like ours. 

Lunch was something that'll be hard to describe, but I'll try. 
I had beef fajitas, Mike had a dish of small soft taco's, but his wife Jeralynn had the special of the day. They cut a pineapple in half top to bottom, hollowed it out, put in some of the fresh fish, shrimp, mango, papaya and pineapple chunks and baked it with a tiny bit of local cheese on top. Words won't do it justice.

Now, I don't know if you see it, but the thing with the  flowers sticking out of it is actually Jeralynn's drink! It's a pina colada made inside a hollowed out pineapple! The flowers were breathtakingly beautiful, and the drink was great.
At right is a better picture of her lunch, and the drink, don't forget to click on any picture to 'embiggen'.


The food and drink were outstanding, and the prices were so inexpensive.. it's embarrassing.  By far, this was one of the best stops yet on the trip.


One last picture, to show you the beauty of this place:

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part V

Our next day, was at sea as we were travelling from Mazatlan, down the coast to Acapulco.

The day at sea was relaxing, and we basically hung around the pool, or played some trivia, or found some things to do around the ship. In the afternoon, I found that the movie theater on board was showing Avatar, so my wife and I watched it. While I enjoyed the visual part of it, the storyline/plot was horrible. It's been done so many times before, that it was disappointing.

At a informational session on board for shopping in the next 3 ports, I won a bottle of Tequila Cream! We enjoyed it in my room after chilling it on some ice that evening!

That evening, I took this gorgeous picture of the sun setting alongside the ship from my balcony.

The next day, we arrived in Acapulco. Now, I have to say, there wasn't too much exciting to do in Acapulco, so we basically just wanted to walk around and get to see the city.

The city was really nothing nice to look at from the ship.. and we were beginning to debate even getting off. We were told that Acapulco wasn't the best or even safest place to go, but we plodded outside anyways. We left the cruise ship area, walked around a bit and window-shopped a bit before my wife asked me to go back to the ship, as she didn't feel safe. I obliged her, and we went back and spent the rest of the day on the ship.

All in all, I was disappointed in Acapulco, picturing it being something out of an old Elvis Presley film. Even the people that went to see the cliff divers, weren't very happy about it. Oh well, hopefully the city will have a resurgence and come back to it's old glory.

To the right is one of the few pictures I took there, the other, directly below it of some of the beautiful flowers there.

Coming up in my next post, Zihuatanejo/Ixtapa Mexico.

Remember, click on any picture to 'embiggen'!

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part IV

Our next day, we docked at Mazatlan, and as you can see, it was a gorgeous day, with temps again around 80F at mid day, with bright sunshine and blue skies.

We were beginning to notice, there was no humidity to speak of there which is surprising to me, as I would have thought prevailing winds coming from the ocean would have made it very humid. Nope, none at all.

(Click on any picture to 'embiggen')

On this day, we took a trip to La Noria, Mexico, to a Tequila factory that makes Los Osuna. Now, to set things right, fermented Blue Agave can not be called Tequila here, as by Mexican law, Tequila can only be produced in the state of Jalisco, and we were in Sinaloa. So, if you click on the picture at left, it's not really called Tequila, but "100% Agave Azul" or, 100% Blue Agave.

We saw fields of agave plants, the ovens that they cook the big pineapple like parts of them, the machines that mash them, ferment and distill them into this wonderful alcoholic beverage that I enjoy so.

At right, are the in-ground ovens that we saw, with the stainless steel tops. They're more or less pressure cookers, and when done, the large pineapple looking things at the base of the blue agave plant is mushy, and sweet. When they extract the liquid from that, it makes Tequila (again, after fermentation and distillation).

The place was absolutely beautiful, with Blue Agave plants as far as the eye could see, and I wasted no time getting a picture of me and my friend Mike in front of one of these large plants.

The part that makes the Tequila, is actually just at the base of those large leaf like things.

Quite honestly, the plants look like Aloe Vera plants on steroids! *L*

After looking around a bit, they had a tiny straw market there that we poked around in, then we tried some of their delicious Los Osuna Agave Azul.

Well, I'll have to say it's probably one of the best Tequila's I've ever had, extremely smooth and delicious. I ended up buying 2 bottles to take home,

one for me, and one for my friend Dave who also loves good Tequila. After many, many shots of this nectar, I remembered to take a picture of my friend Mike, hoisting his... oh, 13th or 14th shot. (hey, I only had around 11... so I behaved!)

(then again, I brought 2 shots on our tour bus "to go", so I was no angel either)

The good news was, everyone had a great time, I wasn't driving and no headache or hangover happened. Back near the ship, we did poke in and out of a few stores just to see what kind of trinkets they had, and I bought myself and Mike a Los Osuna shirt.

All in all, a wonderful day!

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part III

On our first full day at sea, I woke up, opened the door to the balcony and sat outside for a bit watching the water. Honestly, this was the first balcony cabin for us, and I was already loving it. Then, it was a leisurely breakfast, then bathing suits and a trip up to the Solarium for some quiet time by the pool and hot tub. I brought my iPod Touch with me as I'm reading the complete works of Sherlock Holmes on it (free from Gutenberg.org).
The day out was still a bit cool (around 70F), but the Solarium roof was closed and it was gorgeous with bright sunshine out.
Around 1pm, we played some trivia in one of the lounges, then walked the ship some more, working off lunch.
Nothing more exciting going on this day, so after dinner we saw the show and hit the sack, as the fresh sea air was making us tired still.

The next morning, we pulled into Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The views were outstanding (you can see from the pictures here). The weather was around 75F already, and the water a beautiful blue. (click on any picture to 'embiggen')

We used tenders to get into Cabo (small boats as the city has no big pier for our ship), and around 9am, we slipped off the ship to our first stop.

At left, this is the first store we see over by the pier. Did I mention, I love Tequila? *L*

I found one bottle I had been looking for here, but figured I'd look around town to see if I could get a better price (which I did).

At this point, there were a bunch of stores around we poked our heads in.. including a Senor Frogs (great watering hole).

At this point, my friend Mike and his son Ryan were about to go their separate ways as they were going zip-lining out somewhere and the rest of us didn't wish to go. Did I mention, that one of the zip line runs was over 1800 feet above ground? And me, deathly afraid of heights... I don't think so! *chuckling*

So, the two girls and I started wandering around the downtown area, just window shopping mostly. I was looking for something for my God-daughter for her Confirmation which happened just before we left on this trip.

I found it amazing how desert-like Cabo was, outside the city. The houses were built right into the sides of the mountains.

Not finding too much to buy, but interesting to window-shop in nonetheless, we walked through a beautiful marina, and stopped in a restaurant there for some lunch.

The food was excellent, the Margarita's were delicious, and they even had wandering mariachi's for musical entertainment!

By later in the afternoon, we found Mike and Ryan having lunch at Senor Frogs, and we headed back on board ship, having loved Cabo!

More coming soon....

10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part II

On the morning of April 23rd, we woke up, casually packed our bags and with our friends in tow, went down to the hotel restaurant for a breakfast as we looked out the windows at our ship right across the street! It was great not to have to rush to get a cab or transfers, and I'd like to do this again if I could.. going out a day early.

At around 11am, we checked out of our rooms, and walked across the street and were on the ship in under 15 minutes. Once onboard, we went to check out our dining room table which was great, a 10 person table up against one of the windows on the lower deck of the dining room. (again, click on any photo to 'embiggen')

Next, we went to check out the Africa-themed Solarium (quiet area with pool and hot tub for adults). As you can see from the pictures, it's gorgeous!

The chairs aren't plastic with straps across them, they're wood, with nice padded cloth tops. The place just made my jaw drop at how gorgeous it was.

The hot tub was very inviting, but we had more to see... and it was getting after noon now, so we headed up to the "Windjammer" restaurant on the 11th floor, rear of the ship for lunch.

Lunch was very good as usual, and when finished we finally got a look at our rooms. Now, keep in mind this was our first ever balcony room, so we didn't know what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised when our balcony was oversized due to the deck we were on (our friends had a smaller balcony than us as they were three decks above us).

Well, enough for right now.. more coming up soon including the Sail-Away from San Diego!

April 23, 2010, 10 Night Cruise on the Radiance of the Seas Part I

Itenerary:
San Diego, CA
Day at Sea
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Mazatlan, Mexico
Day at Sea
Acapulco, Mexico
Zihuatanejo, Mexico (Ixtapa)
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Day at Sea
Day at Sea
San Diego, CA

This ship is in the "Radiance Class" of ships that Royal Caribbean International (RCI) has.
Other ships in it's class are:
Radiance of the Seas
Brilliance of the Seas
Jewel of the Seas
Serenade of the Seas        (Click on any picture to 'embiggen')

Ship Facts

Maiden Voyage: March 10, 2001
Passenger Capacity: 2,501
Godmother: Margot Pritzker
Gross Tonnage: 90,090
Length: 962'
Beam: 105.6'
Draft: 26.7'
Cruising Speed: 25 knots

The trip to San Diego was non-eventful, and we met our friends Mike, Jeralynn and their son Ryan at the    Holiday Inn On The Bay, directly across the street from where the ship would dock. (Click on any picture to 'embiggen')
They got in a bit after us, and we noticed they gave them the next room to us when they popped out on the balcony to see us!
After a bite to eat for lunch, we proceeded to explore a bit of San Diego before meeting a friend I know from San Diego for dinner (another Ryan). We took a trolley to Old Town, San Diego, and it was a great look back at San Diego around the turn of the century.

A bit later, we met up with my friend Ryan, and had some Tequila and dinner.

The place he chose, El Agave, must have had over 500 Tequila's. We tried a few, and Ryan finally got a chance to try my favorite, Tres Mujeres Reposado.

The food was great, the Tequila even better, and we just had a great time. I wish we had more time in San Diego to browse around.

I'll end this post now, with more to come about the cruise very soon.

Until then, 'Carpe Tequila' (Sieze the Tequila!)