deladane

[deladane]

Whirlwind Weekend in the Windy City ~ 05.28.18

Monday, May 28, 2018

Today was our last day in Chicago, and we still had 2 attractions left on our City Pass.  So far, the pass already paid for itself with our visit to the Adler Planetarium, riding the HOHO bus, and taking the architectural river boat tour, so these last 2 attractions would just be icing on the cake!  We wanted to go to the observation deck at the top of the Willis Tower for our first stop of the day.  They opened at 9am, so our plan was to wake up at 8am, get dressed quickly and walk the 3 blocks over from our hotel bright and early to be one of the first on line.  There was a Dunkin Donuts on the way, so we planned to stop there for breakfast to eat while we waited in line.  Everything was going according to plan until we got to the Dunkin Donuts and saw a huge line of people waiting to order!  That would have wasted a lot of time so we decided to keep walking to Willis Tower and we would get breakfast afterwards.  When we got to Willis Tower, we were hit with another surprise… the line was already so long that it wrapped around the corner from the front entrance and then down the entire city block!  I was definitely not expecting so many people to be here so early, so we quickly got on the end of the line.  DH decided that he would go back to Dunkin Donuts and buy something for breakfast because it looked like we would be in this line for a long time.  

While I waited for him to return, I looked up to see the top of the tower and noticed the ledges jutting out of the observation deck all the way at the top!  In just a few minute, we would be standing on those ledges!!

We were in for another hot day today.  This photo was taken at 8:48am and it was already 86 degrees.

DH returned just as the line started to move.  I knew we had to go through security before going upstairs in the elevators, so I expected the line to creep slowly, but it actually moved pretty fast and we got inside the lobby within 10 minutes.  Maybe this big crowd wasn’t such a big deal after all!

We counted our chickens too soon because we quickly realized why the line was moving so fast.  They have corals set up inside the lobby which end at an escalator which goes down 2 stories.  They made us walk through all the corals even though there weren’t enough people to be backed up, so basically it was just a way to get people inside.  Once we got to the bottom of the escalator, we had to walk through a bunch of long hallways, and then there was another set of corals that we had to wind through before finally reaching the metal detectors.  The hallways were decorated with facts and history about Chicago, but we didn’t stop to read it since the flow of traffic just kept moving forward.  DH and I were two of the last people to get through the security checkpoint without having to wait in line, so I guess all of that walking through the corals did help to spread people out enough that the metal detectors didn’t cause a bottle neck.  Since we were using our City Pass, we didn’t need to buy tickets, so we walked passed the ticket booths to a lady at the back of the room who scanned our vouchers and printed us real tickets to go to the observation deck.  This is where we finally ran into a bottleneck, and it was caused by the elevators.  They have 2 elevators that go up to the observation deck, and each one holds about 20 people, so it took a while get in one of the elevators.  Once inside, it took just a minute or two to zoom up to the top floor.  As we ascended, there was a tv screen which announced other iconic buildings that were the same height as the floor we were passing.  As we exited the elevator, we could see the balconies to our right, but the guides directed us to the left.  They knew that everyone wanted to go to the balconies, but they forced us to walk the entire perimeter of the building before getting on line for the balcony.  All in all, it took 30 minutes from the time we entered the front doors of Willis Tower until we took our photo on the famous clear floor balconies.  The guides are willing to take photos on your personal camera before they take their photos that they will try to sell to you.  Of course, DH and I had no interest in the paid photos so we just posed for a bunch of photos with my camera.  There is a timer for how long each party can take photos which helps a lot to keep the lines moving.

The balconies are on the side of the building which faces west.  I purposely planned to come here in the morning to have the best lighting in that direction to optimize our photos.  After our time was up, we walked around the perimeter again to look at the views that we passed when we first arrived.  It was fun to look out over the city and identify all the places we have been over the last 3 days.

We stayed at the Willis Tower until around 10:30, including the time it took to wait in line for the elevator back downstairs. On the walk back to our hotel, I stopped to buy something for breakfast, then we went back to our hotel room to gather up our bags.  We had to check out by 12 noon, so we brought our bags downstairs and left them with the front desk to hold until we were ready to go to the airport later this afternoon.  

We still had one last attraction left on our City Pass, so we decided to spend the afternoon inside the air conditioning of the Art Institute of Chicago.  This museum houses one of the largest collections of art in the world, and has the added bonus of being the closest museum to our hotel!  When we got to the museum, we entered through the center door which was clearly labeled for City Pass holders and allowed us to bypass the long line of people waiting to buy tickets.  There was just one person ahead of us finishing up her transaction, and then the employee helped to exchange our City Pass voucher for a real ticket to the museum.  This museum is so huge that there is no way we could thoroughly see everything in the few hours we had to spend here, so we took a map and found a few exhibits which interested us.  

We started downstairs with an exhibit of glass paperweights, then a photography exhibit depicting lesser known areas of Chicago, and finally the Thorne Miniature Rooms. The best way for me to describe these extremely detailed works are professional dioramas, but I think the Art Institute’s website has a better description:

The 68 Thorne Miniature Rooms enable one to glimpse elements of European interiors from the late 13th century to the 1930s and American furnishings from the 17th century to the 1930s. Painstakingly constructed on a scale of one inch to one foot, these fascinating models were conceived by Mrs. James Ward Thorne of Chicago and constructed between 1932 and 1940 by master craftsmen according to her specifications.

It was really interesting and incredibly detailed, so we spent some time looking at each of the rooms. They were giving a free tour in the Modern Wing that we wanted to check out, so we walked over in that direction. I have never been a big fan of modern art, but somehow the docent was able to explain things in a way that made me understand and appreciate the works on display.  The tour took one hour and I thought it was time well spent and that the docent was very interesting.  By the time the tour was over, we were starting to get hungry, so we spent a few more minutes seeing some of the most famous works in the museum like the Chagall stained glass windows and Serat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La  Grande Jatte, and then left the museum in search of a snack.

We didn’t want to eat too much because we planned to have an early dinner at around 4pm before going to the airport.  We had yet to redeem our vouchers for the free bag of popcorn from the HOHO bus tour, so we walked a few blocks north on Michigan Avenue to find the nearest location of Garrett’s Popcorn.  It took a bit of searching to find the store because the street numbers in that area are out of order.  The lady behind the counter explained that they sell several flavors of popcorn, but the voucher we had from the HOHO bus tour entitles us to a small sample size of popcorn- half cheddar cheese and half caramel flavor.  They also handed us a wet nap to clean up after our snack, which was very useful because the cheddar flavor left orange stains on our hands. It was just the right size for a little snack, and a great excuse to get out of the heat for a few minutes.

Walking back down Michigan Avenue, we went into the souvenir store below the Bean to pick up our free drawstring backpacks with the other voucher from the HOHO bus tour.  They are pretty cheap and would probably fall apart after one use, but you can’t complain when it’s free!  We still had an hour or two before we needed to go for dinner, so we decided to grab a drink at the outdoor patio at the Plaza at Millennium Park.  Shaded by the giant, colorful umbrellas, and in a prime location for people watching on Michigan  Avenue, The Plaza was a great find!  Sure, the drinks are overpriced, but it was worth it for the setting.

We wanted to get a train to the airport at around 5pm, so we needed to eat an early dinner.  Two consecutive nights of Giordano’s pizza was not sufficient, so there was no question that we wanted to return to the restaurant near our hotel for dinner tonight. When we left The Plaza, we went back to our hotel to pick up our luggage since it was on the way to Giordano’s and then we wouldn’t need to double back later.  Luckily, we only had carry-on sized rolling bags and a backpack each, so it was easy to tow everything the 3 block walk to Giordano’s.  We arrived at 3:30pm and the restaurant was only half-full so there was no wait for a table.  They seated us at a table in the back of the restaurant with enough space under the table to stow our bags.  Since it takes 45 minutes to cook the pizza, we ordered right away to give us enough time to finish eating before we needed to leave for the airport.  I didn’t take any photos at dinner because we ordered the same thing that we had on Saturday: a small deep dish pizza with meatballs, mushrooms, and black olives.  And just like Saturday, the pizza arrived promptly and tasted delicious. I really miss all of that Chicago pizza!

After dinner, we walked back one block to the L train.  I really liked how easy it was to get around on public transit in Chicago, and it was very convenient that the line that goes to the airport also went close to our hotel.  The ride took about 30 minutes, but we had seats and the train was air conditioned, so it was a comfortable ride.  I wish I could say the rest of the weekend went as planned… you know, we got to the airport, breezed through security, and flew home with no delays. Unfortunately, we were not that lucky.

Everything was going as planned and the plane was on time, but after they finished boarding the A boarding group, they closed the door to the gangway.  The flight attendant kept going in and out of the plane and running over to the check in desk, and it was clear that there was a big problem. After 20 minutes, they resumed boarding and we got on the plane, but we noticed that only a few people boarded after us and then they must have stopped the boarding process again.  After several minutes of confusion and not knowing what was happening, one of the flight attendants on the plane came on the overhead to explain the problem.  Apparently it was so hot here in Chicago and it would also be extremely hot in San Jose, and we were flying on one of the new bigger planes which are too heavy to safely take off or land in this heat. They needed 15 people to volunteer to fly tomorrow instead to get some weight off the plane, and they were offering $1200 per person, plus a night in a hotel and a flight credit for the cost of tomorrow’s flight.  That was an extremely generous offer and we were so tempted to jump on it, but we both had to work on Tuesday and could not take the day off, so we needed to stay on this plane.  It ended up taking a full hour for them to sort out the details and get the 15 volunteers off the plane before we could finally leave.  I really did not understand why they waited until after half of us had boarded the plane before dealing with this issue.  It was no surprise that it was extremely hot in Chicago today, as it had been all weekend.  And they knew long in advance that the plane was fully booked and would be too heavy to fly, especially considering it was a 7pm flight at the peak heat of the day.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the same problem on last night’s flight too!  So why couldn’t they ask for volunteers to be bumped in the hour or two before the flight when we are all sitting in the terminal, twiddling our thumbs?? That would have been a much better se of everyone’s time and it would have avoided delaying our flight by an hour!

Once we finally did take off, the rest of the flight was uneventful.  I passed the time by taking some note in my trip journal and looking through my photos, and DH watched a movie on his tablet.  Soon enough, we landed back in San Jose and took an Uber home to return to reality.  Thank you to the city of Chicago for showing us a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. Despite the extreme heat, Chicago was a beautiful city and we really enjoyed every minute of our time there.  I leave you with this photo of the flag of Chicago that hung on the wall of Giordano’s Pizza.

Step Tracker Daily Total: 13,830 steps; 5.61 miles

#Chicago for MDW 2018 #chicago #windycity

[deladane]

Whirlwind Weekend in the Windy City ~ 05.27.18

Sunday, May 27, 2018  

After a decent night’s sleep, we awoke this morning feeling recharged and ready for another exciting day of exploring Chicago!  Our first mission of the day was to get to the ticket booth for the architecture river tour as early as possible.  This boat tour was one of our must-do activities, but since we wanted it to be one of the attractions on our City Pass, we could not buy tickets in advance.  Instead, we had to wait for the day of the tour and redeem the City Pass voucher for a specific tour time based on availability.  This tour is very popular and we saw many boat tours on Friday and Saturday with so many people crammed onto the boat that they must have been sold out.  My original plan was to take the tour mid day so the sun would be shining straight down and I would be able to take good photos of the buildings from every direction.  Given the extreme heat this weekend, I adjusted my plans and hoped to take the earliest tour possible because there is no shade on these boats and we didn’t want to bake in the sun for 75 minutes at the hottest part of the day!

After DH made some coffee in a to-go cup from the fancy machine in the hotel lounge, we left the hotel around 8am to make the one mile walk to the Riverwalk.  The boat tour has 2 ticket offices.  One is at Navy Pier, but since that is such a hub of tourism, it tends to be more crowded and tickets sell out faster.  The other location is at Michigan Avenue down on the level of the Riverwalk, and not only is this the location that the company recommends people use because it is less crowded, but it is also about a half mile closer to our hotel so it was our preferred location anyway!  On the way there, we walked passed this building, which I thought looked exactly like the Grace Building in Manhattan, but according to Wikipedia, there is no connection.

When we got to the river, it took a few minutes to find the ticket office for Shoreline tours.  It was located on the north side of the river, just passed the new Apple store.  They don’t open until 9am, but when we arrived at 8:30, there were already 3 or 4 couples online ahead of us.  Perhaps because it was a holiday weekend, or just because they felt like being nice, the employees opened the ticket window early and we only had to wait a few minutes after arriving.  The lady scanned our City Passes and gave us tickets for the 10am River boat tour, which was their first tour of the day.  

We had over an hour of spare time, so we walked back up to Michigan  Avenue and over to the Corner Bakery Café for breakfast.  This was a great find, and we were really happy that they were opened today because it is in the lobby of an office building and all of the restaurants like this near our hotel are closed on the weekends.  DH ordered huevos rancheros and I got the egg and cheese breakfast sandwich.  Both were very tasty and it was nice to have a warm, filling breakfast seated indoors with air conditioning.

When we were done eating, it was only 9:30 but we had nothing better to do so we went back to the Shoreline ticket booth to get in line for our tour.  One of the employees directed us to where a line was already forming for our boat tour, so it’s a good thing we arrived somewhat early!  It was a little bit chaotic at first because there was also a line for the 9:45am tour, but that tour is in Spanish.  This was the boat they used for the Spanish tour, so you can see it is smaller than the boat we will use for the tour in English.

After they boarded the 9:45am tour, this boat pulled up to the dock, and this was the boat for our tour.  

As you can see, there is hardly any shade on the boat.  The idea is that you can look up at the buildings and see what the guide is describing as the boat sails down the river.  The big white structure at the back of the boat is the bathrooms and the bar area.  We immediately eyed the seats in the last 2 rows and noted that they were in the shade from the bar.  Of course, once the boat turns around and goes in a different direction, that shade will disappear, but we wanted to get a seat back there so at least we could have a few minutes of shade.

The boarding process takes a few minutes because they try to take photos of each party to sell as a souvenir after the tour.  When we finally got down the stairs and onto the boat, there were 2 seats left in the back row on the left side, so we quickly walked over and sat down before someone else got there first!  Yay! While it was only 10am, it was already very hot and humid, so any little bit of shade was appreciated!!  It took about 20 minutes for everyone to get on the boat and find a seat.  Each of these benches holds 6 people and the tour was sold out, so we really had to squeeze to let everyone find a spot.  

All of those people up on the sidewalk are waiting to board the boat.

The tour started a few minutes after 10am, and there was a guide narrating over a microphone at the front of the boat.  Because there are so many buildings very close together at this section of the river, he had to speak quite fast and it was hard to keep up. We had already learned about several of these buildings on our walking tour on Friday night, so at least it wasn’t our first time hearing the information, but it was still a little hard to understand him at first.  Luckily, the tour got better as the buildings spread out more, further down the river.

Here is just a sampling of the photos that I took on the tour…

These 2 buildings are the Marina Towers.  When they were first built, it was meant to be a place where you could live and find all of your necessities close by.  It had a supermarket, a shopping mall, a movie theater, and a bowling alley, all on the same property as the towers.  Often called the Corn Cob building for its unique shape, the bottom 10 stories of each tower are the parking garage, and then the upper floors are all condominiums.  

The parking garage spirals all the way down and they require mandatory valet parking so that no one gets into an accident!  Notice how all of the cars are perfectly backed into their spots, and there are just 3 thin wires as protection against the cars falling over the edge?  I can only imaging how nervous those valet parking attendants must be on their first day of work!!

Looking up through the grates of one of the bridges

This gigantic building is Merchandise Mart.  When it was opened in 1930, it was the largest building in the world, with 4 million square feet of floor space.  The building originally housed Chicago’s architectural and interior design vendors, but later expanded to other industries as well.  Merchandise Mart is so large that, until 2008, it had its own zip code!

I really liked how so many of the skyscrapers had mirrored glass windows to reflect the city skyline.

This building is 150 North Riverside Plaza, and it was built to look upside down, but it also accomplished something very functional.  Notice how narrow the building is at its base?  As required by the city of Chicago for any new building, the developer was required to set aside part of the lot size for public park space. The building’s footprint encompasses just 25 percent of the lot, and the remaining 75 percent of the project site is reserved for a public park, amphitheater, and the Riverwalk.  The site is built with air rights over tracks that carry Metra and Amtrak trains into Chicago Union Station.

The boat turned right to head up the north fork of the river, but because this is a residential area, the guide was not permitted to talk on the microphone at that time.  We only went a short distance though, and then made a U-turn to head down towards the south fork of the river, which eventually feeds into the Mississippi River.

More beautiful reflections off the Nuveen building

This building figured out a clever way to provide more “corner” offices.  This zig-zag structure to the outer corners of the building allows for 4 highly-desired corner offices where there would normally be just one.

This building features a map of the Chicago River, and the red rectangle shows where the building is located.

Making a U-Turn again to head back towards the main branch of the river.  From here, we had a nice view of the Willis Tower.

This interesting building is often known as the Morse Code building

A better view of the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower)

I am always drawn to geometric shapes and buildings, so this perfect grid with bright white walls against the black mirrors caught my eye

A better view of Merchandise Mart as we turned back up the main branch of the Chicago River

Tribune Tower, former home to the Chicago Tribune but it was recently sold to be converted into condos.

The Tribune Tower is known for it’s gothic-inspired architecture

A daytime shot of the NBC Tower (I had another photo of it during our walking tour on Friday night)

Remember how our walking tour on Friday ended at the Centennial Fountain where we saw the water shooting across the river?  Well we saw it again today, but this time we were on one of the boats who had to wait until the water stopped so we could finish our tour!

A daytime photo of Lake Point Tower, aka: The Giant Fidget Spinner!

View of Navy Pier from the water

The boat had to make one final U-turn here or we would end up out in Lake Michigan. As we turned around, we were treated to a beautiful panoramic view of the whole city skyline, which made for a wonderful way to end the tour!

The triangle-shaped building on the left was designed to maximize how many condos had views of the Chicago River.  Behind that is Aqua, a condo building where Lady Gaga once lived, which features wave-like balconies that are shaped differently on each floor.

The architecture boat tour ended about 10 minutes late at 11:25, likely due to the delay with getting everyone on the boat at the start of the tour. We had nothing specific on the agenda for the rest of the day, aside from wanting to get Chicago-style hot dogs for lunch.  Aram, our guide from the walking tour on Friday, had mentioned that there is a bar Trump Tower which offers great views of the river.  It is located on the rooftop of the lowest tier of the building on the 16th floor, so it’s not at the very top of the building or anything crazy like that!  Since our boat tour ended just a few blocks from Trump Tower, we decided to walk over and check it out. We didn’t really plan to buy drinks there considering it wasn’t even 12 noon yet, but we wanted to go upstairs to see the views, and then discretely get back in the elevators to leave.  

Walking into the main lobby of Trump Tower, there were signs directing us to the elevator for the 16th floor, but when we pushed the button, nothing happened!  It turns out that they open at noon, so the elevator access is shut off until they are officially opened each day.  That was fine with us though, and we enjoyed the opportunity to relax on a couch in the lobby and soak up all of the air conditioning we could!  When the bar finally opened at noon, we went upstairs and were treated to beautiful views, as promised!

Looks like the next boat tour is loaded up and ready to go!

A better view of the details on the roof of the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower

 The outdoor space wraps around the building so you can see the views in nearly every direction

We were starting to get hungry, so we left Trump Tower in search of lunch.  Like I mentioned, we wanted Chicago-style hot dogs for lunch today.  Portillo’s is one of the top-rated places for that, and it was about a mile walk from where the river tour ended, so we decided to walk over there for lunch.  The building is really old and you can tell there is a lot of history here.

Inside, it was extremely chaotic!  You order at one counter and wait at a different counter for them to call your order number when your food is ready.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Not quite, because there were hundreds of people who also wanted a hot dog for lunch today!!

This photo was actually taken after we finished eating and the line had died down a bit.  When we first arrived, we entered through the front door which is on the far left side below the giant clock and the line went nearly to the door.  We had no idea what the process was, but the employee in the white shirt with a black hat was very helpful and explained how things worked.  I waited on line to order our food while DH went to scout out a table. There were actually 3 lines because each register had its own line, but it still moved very slowly.  When I finally got to the front of the line, I ordered DH a jumbo hot dog with everything on it, including mustard, relish, onion, tomato, pickles, celery salt, and sport peppers.  I guess I am too picky because the only topping I wanted was pickles (which I planned to remove and eat separately lol), and I also got an order of cheese fries for us to share.

After that, I waited about 15 minutes at the other counter for our order to be called.  You know how most places like this just call the number of a loud speaker?  Well things are a bit more fun here as the guy calling the numbers would make a rhyme for every order.  “Number 5, look alive!”  “Number 22, this food’s for you!”  While it was clever and gave the restaurant a lot of personality, it made it really hard to hear your number called because you had to listen for the number between all those words, which isn’t easy to do in a room this loud!  

When he finally called for our order, I grabbed the food and went over to the condiments station for ketchup.  Notice how they don’t serve ketchup as an option on the hot dogs?  You have to get it for yourself because they don’t usually put ketchup on hot dogs in Chicago.  I totally forgot to take a photo of DH’s hot dog because we were both so flustered from this whole experience that I didn’t think to take out my camera until we were nearly done eating.  The hot dogs were really good though, and the cheese for our fries was in a container on the side so I could also spread some on my hot dog to make it into a cheese dog! Overall, we enjoyed our experience at Portillo’s, but I think we would have liked it more if it wasn’t so hectic and crowded!

By the time we finished lunch, it was nearly 2pm so we walked the one mile walk back to our hotel.  It’s a good thing that Chicago is such a flat city because we really did a lot of walking while we were here!  On the way, we passed an interested sculpture which we later learned was designed by Pablo Picasso.

Back at the hotel, we quickly took showers and got changed for the evening.  Tonight was the night when we had tickets to the Cubs game, and we wanted to get there early to have time to check out the neighborhood around Wrigley Field, and to enter the stadium when it opened at around 5pm so have time to walk around and buy dinner before the game started.  

Wrigley Field is conveniently located one block from the red line on the L train, so we left our hotel and walked 2 blocks to our nearest red line stop.  Even though it was before 4pm and the game didn’t start until 7pm, there were already lots of people on the train wearing Cubs gear and who were going up to the stadium early.  Luckily, we got on the train pretty early in the route so we were able to get the last 2 seats in our train car, but not long after that, it was extremely crowded with no spade for anyone else to squeeze in our car.  The ride took about 20 minutes, and when we pulled into the Addison station, we could see Wrigley Field right there. We followed the flow of traffic out of the station and towards Clark  Street to where all the bars are located.

We made it to Wrigley Field!

The first bar we walked into was Cubby Bear, but it was very loud in there and felt more like a nighttime club than a place for an afternoon drink.  Next door, we found Vines on Clark which was more our speed.  They had a nice bar inside, but what really attracted us was the large outdoor patio with lots of tables and umbrellas for shade. Although it was crowded, it was a relaxed vibe and not too loud, and we were able to find a table in the shade.

We each ordered a beer and enjoyed the atmosphere for about half an hour until it was time to go to the game.  Walking back towards the stadium, I asked a lady to take our photo, and this is what I got…

Geez, you’d think she could have waited 3 seconds for the big police truck to get out of the way. And maybe she could put a tiny bit of effort in to centering the stadium behind us?  Some people just have zero common sense!  The stadium opened 2 hours before first pitch, so that’s when we arrived, but it was already extremely crowded with hundreds of people crammed on the sidewalk waiting to go through security.  While we waited, we noticed that not only do they hang up the flag of the opposing team, but also the flag for that team’s home state.  

The security lines moved quickly and soon enough, we were walking into the stadium.  They had a free give away at the game today so we picked up our free reusable shopping bag with the Cubs logo printed on it, then we walked around the stadium and watched batting practice.  I don’t know what the problem was tonight, but we just couldn’t get a decent photo.  This was the best of the photos we took inside Wrigley Field before the game.

We made a full loop around the outer concourse of the stadium to check out all of our food options. I thought it was fun that they had a mural depicting how the mascot has changed over the years.

I wanted another taste of that delicious Giordano’s pizza, and DH wanted another Chicago-style hot dog, so we found a vendor who sold both of those items and bought food for dinner to eat back at our seats while we watched the game.

Amazingly, this ballpark version of deep dish pizza was just as good as what we had at the restaurant last night!

 You can barely see the hot dog under all those toppings!

Our flight home tomorrow leaves at 7:50pm, which meant we needed to remember to check in during the game.  I set multiple alarms on my cell phone to make sure we didn’t forget, and we had our phones ready to go the second the clock changed to 7:50 and our check in window was opened. Despite all of that work, I got B-25 and DH got something similar.  It used to be that if you were diligent and checked in right away, you could get an A boarding zone, but we got B’s for both legs of our flight.  What a bummer!

This was one of the highest scoring games I’ve ever watched, so it was a lot of fun to see this game live. While part of me was rooting for the SF Giants because we live in the Bay Area, I couldn’t help but get excited for the home team as they were playing really well tonight.  The downside to them scoring so many runs was that this game seemed to drag on forever.  I think they were only in the 6th inning at the 3-hour mark!  On top of that, it was extremely hot with temps over 80 degrees for the entire game and very little wind inside the stadium.  At one point, I got really overheated and needed to find a fan or something to cool me down.  Downstairs under the bleachers section, they have misters blowing cool water so I sat down near there to cool off, and felt better after a few minutes.  In the end, the Cubs won with a score of 8 to 3.  

After the game, DH wanted to check out one of the bars near the stadium for the post-game celebrations. We picked Sluggers Bar, which was located next to the bar we went to before the game.  Sluggers Bar is 2 stories.  Downstairs looks like a typical bar with a big open space for a dance floor and a DJ playing loud music.  Upstairs, the space is divided into 2 sections for a piano bar and a batting cage! This was unlike any bar we’ve ever seen and it was a lot of fun.  DH was excited to try the batting cages so he bought a token which is good for 10 pitches. There were already a lot of people on line so he picked the cage with the shortest line which was for “slow pitch” even though he would have preferred the faster pitches.  Luckily, the line moved quickly and after about 10 minutes, it was his turn to play.

After that, we went over to the section with the dueling piano bar.  They have this every Friday and Saturday night, and also after every home game, but they only have a cover charge on Saturdays so we lucked out that we were here on a Sunday night.  We have been to dueling piano bars in San  Diego and Las Vegas, and we always have a great time.  This bar was no different and the piano players were a lot of fun, taking requests from the audience and singing great sing-along songs.  I was so exhausted and overheated from the game that I only anticipated staying for a few minutes, but I think we ended up staying here for close to an hour.  The other benefit to that, aside from enjoying the bar a little longer, was that it gave time for the crowds to thin out for our trip back to the hotel on the L train.  It was still fairly crowded and there were no seats available on our train car so we had to stand for the whole ride, but at least we weren’t packed in like sardines!  When we got back to the hotel, we set an alarm for 8am and went straight to sleep after another fun day in the Windy City!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 17,219 steps; 7.1 miles

#Chicago for MDW 2018 #chicago #windycity

[deladane]

Whirlwind Weekend in the Windy City ~ 05.26.18

Saturday, May 26, 2018

We woke up bright and early today, and when I checked my email, there was a second reply from the general manager of Big Bus Tours Chicago.  He said they would be running modified service because of today’s parade, and there would be a shuttle between stops 1 and 3, so we could get on at our normal stop at the Willis Tower at stop 3, and ride back to stop 1 to join the normal bus for the rest of the route.  That sounded too complicated and with too much room for error, so we decided to go with our alternate plans.  After going back and forth a few times about what to do about the Memorial Day Parade impacting the HOHO bus, we finally decided to use the public bus that can pick us up 2 blocks away from our hotel, and drop us off right at the Adler Planetarium. Our plan was to take that bus to the Planetarium and arrive before they open at 9:30am, and then by the time we finish at the museum in the early afternoon, hopefully the HOHO bus will be back on track and we can get on at stop #7 at the Planetarium and continue around the loop from there.  The sun was already shining bright when I peeked out the window of our hotel room!

First thing on today’s agenda was to find something to eat for breakfast.  When I booked our hotel, I knew it did not include a big breakfast buffet, but yesterday when we checked in, they told us there are granola bars and cereal available at the lounge downstairs.  I wanted something more substantial than that, so DH got some espresso in a to-go cup from the fancy self-serve machine downstairs, and we set out to find somewhere to eat.  This area of the Central Loop is made up of mostly office buildings, so while there are lots of places to grab a quick breakfast, none of them are open on the weekends!  That was really a bummer because there were a bunch of places that would have been perfect breakfast options for us, but they really cater to the business crowd and it does make sense for them to stay closed when people are off from work.  We found a Subway around the corner from the hotel where I could get an egg and cheese sandwich, so that would have to do for today.

After breakfast, we walked over to the bus stop to catch the bus to the museum.  This bus normally runs down State Street, but we didn’t think it would be a problem because the road was still open to traffic since the parade didn’t start for a few more hours, so surely the bus should still be running on the normal route, right?  Nope! We got to the bus shelter and saw a sign that our bus was being rerouted starting at 8am today, and it was now around 8:45am.  I was a bit annoyed about this because we did look for signs in the bus shelters last night as we walked back from the hotel at 11pm, but there were no signs posted at that time.  I also looked online at the public transit website and could not find anything about route changes for the parade.  Maybe this new plan of ours wasn’t meant to be?  The sign was very confusing and said we could catch our bus on Harrison Street between State and Michigan Avenue, so after a bit of searching on Google Maps, we figured out where that was located and walked down that way.  When we got to Harrison  Street, we realized that State and Michigan are 3 blocks apart, so how could we know where the bus would stop?!  We walked that whole stretch of road and did not see any bus shelters or signs about makeshift bus stops.  I even went into one of the hotels to ask their concierge, but he had no idea where they bus stop was located.  Just as we were about to give up and use Uber instead, a bus turned the corner off of Michigan  Avenue!  We flagged him down in the middle of the street as if he was a taxi driver, and when he opened the door to tell us that we aren’t at an official bus stop, we just boarded the bus right there!  We put in more than enough effort today trying to find this bus, and there was no chance we were letting him drive away without letting us on board!  After we got on and he continued on his route, he turned left off of Harrison to go south on State Street and stopped at that corner. Wouldn’t it have been better if the detour sign told us to board the bus on the southwest corner of State and Harrison?!?  That would have been a whole lot more clear than making us run up and down a 3 block stretch of city streets trying to guess where the bus might stop!  Ok, rant over!

The bus ride itself was very quick, and we pulled up in front of the Adler Planetarium at 9:10am.  There is a promenade that runs along Lake Michigan between the Planetarium and the Shedd Aquarium, which offers beautiful panoramic views of the downtown Chicago skyline.  The trip down here is worth it just for this view, even if you don’t want to visit the museums!

We still had a few minutes before the museum opened so we walked around the grounds, admiring the beautiful views of Lake Michigan.  Along the south side of the museum was a small beach.  I imagined this would be quite crowded later today when the temperatures were due to top 90 degrees!

The instructions on our City Pass said to enter the museum from the marked door at the side entrance where we could skip the lines of the main ticket office.  One of the employees unlocked the door promptly at 9:30am and we were first in line to have our pass scanned and exchanged for an actual ticket to the museum.  We were also given a list of all the shows playing on the various screens, and the lady told us to pick 2 shows to start.  Our pass gave us access to unlimited shows all day, but she could only give us 2 tickets to start and then we could return to the ticket booth later in the afternoon if we wanted to add more shows.  We didn’t want to spend the whole day here since we still had to go on the HOHO bus, so 2 shows seemed like a perfect amount.  We signed up for the 11:30am showing of Planet Nine, and the 1:15pm showing of Skywatch Live, thinking that would give us 2 hours to enjoy the museum first, and we could eat lunch at the museum cafeteria between the 2 shows.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I visited a planetarium, so I was really looking forward to seeing the exhibits here.  They had exhibits about the various planets, telescopes, the moon, the history of astronomy, and current space research.  Some of the exhibits were geared more for children, but a lot of them were informative and 2 hours was the perfect amount of time for us to see the whole museum.  This was from an interactive exhibit where you could take an infrared selfie!

The doors to the theater opened about 10 minutes before each show, so we headed that way at 11:20am and there was already a long line to get in. Definitely try to line up a little early so you can get a good seat because this show was in the dome theater where the movie will surround you and it’s best to sit towards the back in the middle of the row for the best view.  We were really excited to see a show in the big dome as that is one of the best features of planetariums!  Here was the description of this show, Planet Nine, from the museum website:

In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft gave us our first close look at Pluto, the most famous dwarf planet in the outskirts of our Solar System. The New Horizons flyby was big news, and the pictures it continues to send back to Earth reveal a world far more complex than anyone realized.  Using nothing but their wits (and high-powered telescopes and a thorough understanding of orbital mechanics), these intrepid explorers are making new discoveries about how our Solar System formed—and what it may be hiding. Follow Mike Brown and his team at CalTech as they uncover dwarf worlds like the remarkably bright Eris; Haumea, an egg-shaped object rotating incredibly fast; and Sedna, whose orbit takes it deep into the far reaches of the Solar System. Is there a new planet beyond these distant objects? We’ll tag along on Mike Brown’s first night searching for the ninth planet at the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. Join us on the hunt!

When we were at the ticket booth this morning, we basically picked our shows blindly because it was hard to know what the show was really going to be like just by reading the descriptions.  We both loved this show!  It was very informative and explained things we knew nothing about in a way that made it very relatable and easy to understand.  The images were amazing and you really felt like you were moving at some points as they showed you images from space.  The show lasted 30 minutes, and as soon as the lights turned back on, we headed straight to the cafeteria.

The theater was quite big and held over 100 people, and I had a feeling lots of people would want to get lunch when that show ended at noon.  I was right!  We were one of the first to arrive and there was no line at all, but by the time we finished ordering, there were at least 50 people in line behind us!  Timing is everything!!  The cafeteria had a bunch of salads, sandwiches, and mini-pizzas, and everything was very well priced at under $10 a dish.  

DH ordered a chicken sandwich and I got The Harvester salad with grilled chicken, apples, grapes, craisins, walnuts, feta cheese, and balsamic dressing.  They gave us a buzzer and told us to find a table and we could pick up our food at the counter when it was ready.  It took about 10 minutes for the buzzer to go off, so the wait wasn’t too long, but I can imagine people at the end of that long line would be spending a lot more time at the cafeteria than they may have wanted!  My salad was delicious and so big that I couldn’t finish it!

After we finished eating, there were still a few minutes before we needed to line up for our second show.  Outside of the main museum building, they have the Doane Observatory which houses the largest aperture telescope available to the public in the Chicago area.  We walked over there to check it out, and they let us look through the telescope to see the surface of the sun.  They said they were looking for sunspots and that they could see 2 of them today, but honestly, I just saw a blob of orange haha  It was fun to check it out though and the docents were happy to answer any questions.  The walk back between the observatory and the main museum offered beautiful views of Lake Michigan.

Lots of people are out on their boats today!

We went back inside to a different dome theater for our second show: Skywatch Live.  I think the museum had 2 dome theaters plus 1 or 2 flat screen theaters, so there was really a lot to offer here!  This is the description of the show from the museum website:

The Adler’s view of downtown Chicago is magnificent, but the lights of the city make it a little tough to see the ones in the sky. What’s a stargazer to do? Join us for Skywatch Live!  In this show, your live presenter will turn down the city lights and crank up the stars to show you the night sky over Chicago like you’ve never seen it before. You’ll learn how to navigate by starlight, get to know the stars behind your favorite constellations, and witness the incomprehensible vastness of the Universe without ever leaving your seat.  Our view of the real sky shifts each day as Earth makes its way around the Sun, and so does the model sky in Skywatch Live! Every day, the show matches the view of the sky directly over Chicago on that day, so you’ll get a new perspective on the Universe every time you return.

This show was more of the typical show you see at most planetariums.  The docent used an interactive computer to point out which constellations are visible in the sky tonight over the Midwest region.  She explained about how each constellation got its name or what the history was behind it, and a little bit about how to find it for ourselves, although the bright city lights make it very hard to see most of these stars while in Chicago.  It was interesting, and we were both glad we saw the show, but it was not very unique and we both liked Planet Nine much more.  This show also lasted 30 minutes, so it was over at around 1:45pm.  By then, we were ready to move on with our day, so we headed out to look for the HOHO bus stop.

There was a long driveway along the water, and there were bus shelters marked for several other bus tours, but we didn’t see any signs specifically for Big Bus Tours.  Luckily, we had seen the buses driving around town yesterday, so we knew what to look out for.  After about 5 minutes, we saw our bus pulling up so we walked over to where it stopped.  When we showed our City Pass to the driver, she was supposed to exchange it for a real HOHO bus ticket.  There were several people boarding the bus at this stop and she didn’t want us to hold up the line, so she said to just get on and take a seat and that we could process our ticket before we got off the bus.  Ok! Sounds good to me!  We saw a few people getting off the bus as we got on, so we went up to the top level in hopes of finding a seat up there.  Sure enough, there were a few available seats, so we sat down and got comfy for our big bus tour.

While the open top design of the bus is great for seeing the views as we drove around the city, there is absolutely no shade up there, so it was very hot in the 90+ degree temps! Good thing we had a small tube of sunscreen in my purse to prevent a burn!

Our plan was to ride a full loop of the tour, and then to get off when the bus got back to Millennium Park.  While it would have been a shorter walk to get on/off at Willis Tower, that would mean we’d have to stay on the bus for an extra ¾ of the ride, so it made more sense to get off at the Millennium Park stop, which is just 3 stops after where we boarded.  It was now after 2pm and there was a lot of traffic, but the guide did a good job of keeping us entertained between stops.  It’s not always easy to take good photos on a moving bus, especially when trees and power lines block your view, but I did my best.

First, we passed the Field Museum.  

Beautiful views of the city on this bright sunny day!

The Buckingham Fountain was going off as we drove by.  Obviously my photos were better yesterday when we got right closer to it, but it was still fun to see it again today.

Last glimpse of the skyscrapers before we go under ground…

Chicago was built as a city above a city.  There is a whole network of roads below the main city roads which allow traffic to get across the city without stopping at every intersection at all of the stop lights.  This also allows them to keep the delivery trucks and garbage trucks somewhat hidden from the tourists and locals up on the main city streets.  The HOHO bus took us down there to cut across the city, but I’m not sure that it was much of a short cut because the traffic was very heavy.  The guide made sure to tell everyone to stay seated when the bus was underground, and I could see why.  Look at how close our heads were to the top of the tunnel!!

When we emerged from the tunnel, the bus headed north on Columbus  Drive to cross over the Chicago River.

Trump Tower really stands out from this perspective!

The bus then turned right onto Illinois  Avenue towards the next stop at Navy Pier.  I told DH that I thought this building looked like a giant fidget spinner, and then a minute later, the tour guide said the same thing!  This is actually called Lake Point Tower and is the tallest building along the waterfront.  There was a law passed that no other tall buildings could be built that close to the water because it obstructed the views of the surrounding buildings and created an eyesore, but this building was grandfathered in.  Lots of famous people own condos here, including Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Alice Cooper, among others.

Navy Pier looked a lot more crowded now than it did when we were here last night.  Crowds are not my favorite thing, so we opted to stay on the bus instead of hopping off to check it out.  Plus, when we got to the bus stop, there was a very long line of people waiting to get on, and it looked like it would take 3 or 4 buses for everyone to find seats, so we didn’t want to deal with that hassle.  Just a thought:  if you do take this HOHO bus and want to get off at Navy Pier, don’t try to reboard here.  Instead, walk a few blocks back to the prior stop at the Sheraton Grand Hotel as it is a flat walk and only about half a mile away.  That way, you won’t have to wait in a long line, and you can get a seat when lots of others get off the bus at the Navy Pier stop!

Next, the bus drove along the Magnificent Mile to point out all the high end stores, and then drove through the River North neighborhood.  I loved how there were random old building scattered between the new modern skyscrapers.

Then, we turned a corner and could see the building formally known as the John Hancock Tower.  A few weeks ago, John Hancock actually gave up the naming rights, so the building does not have a name right now, and it will remain that way until someone wants to pay $1 million per month to name it!

The bus continued on its way through the River North neighborhood.  There were tons of interesting restaurants and shops here, and I think I’d want to spend more time in this area if I ever returned to Chicago.  This is also where we had dinner last night at Lou Malnatis.  

This is the original location of Pizzeria Uno.  Our guide explained something that should have been obvious but that I never really thought about before.  Why is it named Pizzeria Uno?  Because they were the first pizza restaurant to make deep dish pizza!  There is also a Pizzeria Due a few blocks away, likely the second pizza shop.

This is Tribune Tower, at least that was its name the day we saw it. It is the long-time home to the Chicago Tribune, but due to declining sales in print newspapers thanks to the internet, they no longer needed such a large building.  They are relocating to a smaller office and have sold the building, which will soon be converted to condominiums.  The building itself is beautiful, with an ornate neo-Gothic façade, designed to mimic the Rouen Cathedral in France, complete with gargoyles and flying buttresses. The lower part of the outer wall is comprised of pieces of stone from famous landmarks all over the world, including the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, Parthenon, Westminster Palace, the Great Pyramid, The Alamo, Angkor Wat, and Notre Dame, just to name a few.  I truly hope that they keep the outer façade of this building intact when it is converted to condos as it is such a unique piece of architecture.

We saw this flag all over the city, and then learned that it is the Chicago flag!  The white sections represent the North, West, and South sides of the city.  The blue stripes represent Lake Michigan and the Chicago River.  The 4 Red Stars each have 6 points, which represent something different for each of the stars.  The stars represent Fort Dearborn, the great Chicago fire of 1871, the 2 times Chicago hosted the World’s Fair in 1893 and 1933.

After that, the bus returned to the first stop on the route at the Riverwalk.  Our guide was ending his shift, so we waited a few minutes for a new guide to get settled, then we continued along the first part of the bus route.  Just as we were getting ready to go, the guide found out that State Street was now opened to traffic, so we were the first bus to resume the regular bus route!  I guess our plan to ride the HOHO bus in the afternoon paid off after all! We drove down State Street, passing the Chicago Theater and several old department stores, then turned west on Adams Street, driving passed our hotel, to reach the Willis Tower.

There wasn’t much to see or photograph in this neighborhood since it’s mostly just office buildings for government and private businesses, but then we returned to Michigan Avenue to see Millennium Park and the Art Institute.  

Like I mentioned, our original plan was to stay on the bus to hear the full tour back to where we boarded at Adler Planetarium, and then to get off the bus 3 stops later when the bus returned to the park.  By now, we had been on the bus for over 2 hours, it was extremely hot, and we found this new tour guide to be kind of annoying, so in a split second decision, I turned to DH and said, do you want to just get off now?  We were only a few blocks from our hotel, and we were both ready to move on with our day, so he said YES!  No time to think twice, since the next stop is much further down on Michigan Avenue, so we quickly ran down the stairs and off the bus before we missed our chance.   Once we were standing on the sidewalk, we realized we never redeemed our City Pass for an actual HOHO ticket.  In theory, we could have just walked away and no one would know the difference.  The lady driving the bus ended her shift when our original guide did, back at the Riverwalk, so the new bus driver had no idea that we didn’t pay yet.  That didn’t seem right though, and we suspected that they get reimbursed somehow based on how many people redeem their City Pass each day, so we wanted to do the right thing and pay for our fare.  Besides, we had such a jam-packed weekend planned that there wasn’t even time to add another attraction to our agenda, so there was no reason not to just redeem or pass. There was a Big Bus Tours employee on the sidewalk, so we asked him if he could help us redeem our City Pass, and he said that was no problem.  He printed out a receipt that we could use if we wanted to reboard the bus, but it was now 4pm and the pass is only good until 5pm, so we knew we wouldn’t use it for that purpose. The receipt also included a voucher for a free souvenir bag to be picked up at the store below The Bean, and a free sample of popcorn from Garrett’s Popcorn.  The employee said we could redeem those vouchers any day we wanted to, so I put them in my purse and figured we’d deal with it tomorrow or Monday. For now, we just wanted to go back to the hotel and take a nice, long shower!

We realized an added bonus to cutting the HOHO tour short was that we’d have time to attend the free wine and cheese event at the hotel at 5pm.  That is, until we walked in the lobby of the hotel and asked the front desk staff where the event is held, and they said it was cancelled today.  Wait, what?!  We didn’t even know this free wine and cheese existed until we checked in yesterday, and now you’re telling us it’s cancelled??  That’s not fair!  Apparently, the hotel was short staffed because someone called out sick, and they were extremely busy dealing with all the tourists staying at the hotel for the holiday weekend, so they didn’t have anyone to staff the event.  We were a bit annoyed about that and thought they could at least make it self-serve like the coffee and breakfast food, but I guess that wasn’t an option and instead, they just cancelled it.  Oh well, such is life!

While we were talking to the front desk staff, we asked if they had any thinner pillows and explained the saga from last night.  They said they would talk to housekeeping and try to send something up for us.  With that settled, we went up to the room to get showered and changed for the evening.

By 5pm, we were ready to go.  Instead of sitting around killing time, we decided to just go out to dinner now.  Our plan was to go to Giordano’s for another dinner of deep dish pizza.  They have a location just 3 or 4 blocks from our hotel, so we decided to go over now in hopes of beating the dinner rush and getting seated quickly.  

Our suspicions were right, and the hostess seated us immediately!  Deep dish pizza takes 45 minutes to cook, so we knew it would be a while before we saw our food anyway, so why not just get the evening started early? Tonight, we kept it simple and ordered a small cheese deep dish pizza, and added mushrooms, black olives, and meatballs for our toppings.  We knew it would be a while before the food arrived, so we also ordered a pitcher of Goose Island beer because it is local to Chicago!

Exactly 45 minutes after ordering, our waitress brought our pizza out to us.  Immediately, we knew we would like Giordano’s pizza better than Lou Malnati’s.  The presentation was much better with it being served out of the cooking pan, and we could see the crust looked tastier and it was much thicker than our pizza from last night.

All it took was one bite and we were obsessed!  This pizza was amazing, with rich, buttery crust, a thick layer of cheese, perfect seasoning in the sauce, and just the right amount of toppings.  Unlike the small pizza we ordered last night which was barely enough to fill us up, tonight’s small pizza was cut into 6 slices and I could only eat 2 of them before getting full and admitting defeat. Not wanting any of this deliciousness to go to waste, DH was happy to finish the rest of my portion.  Just when we had written off the hype of Chicago style pizza, we discovered Giordano’s and our opinions completely changed.  These two New York natives can officially say we loved our Chicago pizza!

We were done with dinner a few minutes before 6pm, which meant we could officially start our night out on the town!  Last night on the walking tour, Aram suggested a few bars that offer great views of the city, so we thought tonight would be a great time to check them out. Our first stop was Cindy’s, a stylish and trendy rooftop bar in the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel on Michigan Avenue.  We walked about a mile from the restaurant to the hotel, and found a long line in the lobby to get on the elevator.  We waited about 20 minutes to reach the front, then rode the elevator up to the top floor.  The bar was super crowded, and the hostess said it would be a wait if we wanted a table for food service, but we were just there for drinks so we went straight outside to the balcony and were treated to a beautiful view of Millennium Park and Lake Michigan. DH went back inside to get us some drinks from the bar while I took a bunch of photos and marveled at the great views!

Fun view of the Bean… you can see how big it is as compared to the people standing next to it

Looking past the Art Institute, you can see the Planetarium out in the distance at the end of the peninsula jutting out into Lake Michigan

This water feature was directly below us.  We would later learn that the faces on the towers are people blowing kisses.

It also spurts water out from their mouths.  I am sure the people playing in the water enjoyed cooling off a bit from this hot day!

Cheers to a great Saturday night out in Chicago!

We planned that our next stop would be at London House, which is another rooftop bar located along the Chicago River.  When we arrived, there was an extremely long line to get in so we decided to skip it and just continue walking north to the John Hancock Building.  We knew there would be a long like there too, but that destination was more important to us than the London House.  Luckily, all 3 of these bars are located right on Michigan Avenue so the walk was easy.

I really liked this sculpture and water feature in the lobby of the John Hancock building.  The lights from the fixture hanging from the ceiling reflected on the smooth water below, creating a modern and elegant focal piece to the lobby.

As expected, there was a very long line for the elevators at the John Hancock building.  One of the big tourist attractions is called Chicago 360, which is on the 96th floor of this building.  They charge about $25 to go up and see the views, and there is a slanted glass window where you can lean out and feel like you are floating above the city.  We decided to save some money and opted for the free version.  There is a restaurant on the 94th floor and a bar on the 95th floor of the building, so our plan was to go up to the bar for a drink and enjoy the same view as those people one level above us at the tourist attraction. When we eventually got upstairs, the staff was surprisingly rude and unhelpful.  The man standing outside the elevator door pointed us in one direction, but we really should have gone the other way.  There was a line forming to get a table, and we all just waited there, with no host or anyone telling us what was happening.  After a few minutes, another employee came over and asked the people at the back of the line if they were a party for 2, and when they said yes, he brought them to a table, ignoring the rest of us who were already waiting in line before them!  Realizing it would take an extremely long time to be seated if they weren’t even going to go in order, DH and I decided to just get off the line and walk over to the windows to check out the view.  At first, another employee tried to stop us because I think she thought we were going to seat ourselves at an empty table.  We said we just wanted to look out the window and walked passed her to see this stunning view looking south over downtown Chicago.

Pardon the glare, but it was hard to avoid with the windows.  There was another long line to get on the elevators to go back downstairs. Overall, our experience was disappointing, given the rude staff and difficulty getting a table.  Had they treated us better, we would have paid for a drink here, but instead, we just ended up getting a free view of the city and leaving shortly after arriving.  While we waited online for the elevators, we could look down to the restaurant on the floor below.

By now, it was close to 10pm so we started walking back towards the Riverwalk.  It was a clear night, so with no chance of rain we wanted to try out one of the bars along the river.  Unfortunately, this really was not meant to be because we walked down several flights of stairs just in time to find out the bar was closing!  Apparently everything on the Riverwalk closes at 11pm and the bars stop serving drinks at 10:30pm, so we barely missed last call.  The Riverwalk was on our way back to the hotel from the John Hancock Building, but it would have been nice to take a break from walking and enjoy a drink on the river.  Instead, we climbed back up several flights of stairs to reach street level and walked back to the hotel.  DH wanted one last drink before calling it a night, so he went to the bar downstairs in our hotel.  It was called Elephant & Castle and was a typical pub with a decent beer selection. I was exhausted by the point and just ordered a water to keep DH company, and when he was done, we retired back to the hotel room to hopefully find our replacement pillows.  When we opened the door, we found one thinner pillow sitting on the desk.  Okay, this will work for me, but DH wanted a thinner pillow too.  We called down to the front desk and they said they only had one pillow like that.  Ummm, ok? This whole thing was really irritating, but DH said that he was able to get a little sleep last night so he would make due with the original pillow and let me use the new one since I did not sleep at all.  After such a long day of walking around the city, we both fell asleep shortly after laying down in bed!

Step Tracker Daily Total: 19,049 steps; 7.69 miles

#Chicago for MDW 2018 #chicago #windycity

[deladane]

Whirlwind Weekend in the Windy City ~ 05.25.18

Friday, May 25, 2018

When my alarm clock buzzed at 4am, it took all of my willpower not to hit the snooze button.  Luckily, the thoughts of deep dish pizza were strong enough to pull me out of bed.  We quickly got ready and ate breakfast, and then requested an Uber at 4:30. It took the Uber 15 minutes to arrive, which didn’t really surprise me considering how early it was, but there was no traffic and we arrive at SJC around 5am.  The line at security was much longer than I expected given the early hour, and it took even longer to get through because they stopped the line to reposition the ropes for each security line.  Isn’t that the kind of thing they should take care of at 3am when there aren’t any passengers waiting??  On the bright side, we didn’t need to remove our liquids, shoes, or tablets because they let us all just go through the metal detectors instead of the thorough screening process.

One big advantage of a flight leaving at 6:30am is that it is unlikely to be delayed.  Our plane was already sitting at the gate when we arrived, and they began boarding at 6am for an on-time departure.  Southwest has some new planes in the fleet that are bigger with about 30 extra seats.  It was nice that they used a brand new big plane for our flight because it is one of the longest routes they fly.  Since the flight was twice as long as most of their flights, they had a little surprise for us when they came around with the basket of snacks.  They served plane-shaped cinnamon cookies that tasted like Teddy Grahams, and coconut biscuit cookies, in addition to the standard peanuts and pretzels.

As we flew over the Sierras, we had beautiful views of snow-capped mountains through light puffy clouds.  

As we made our way further east, the views changed to endless farms and crop fields as far as the eye could see.  I passed the time by watching the new season of 13 Reasons Why on my iPad, and before I knew it, we could see the Chicago skyline in the distance.  We sat on the right side of the plane (when facing the front), and had beautiful views of the city and Lake Michigan as we made our final descent into Midway Airport.

We landed a few minutes early at 12:30pm local time, but we had to wait about 10 minutes for our gate to open up.  Midway is a nice, small, convenient airport, and we easily found our way down to the L train station.  It did take a few minutes to walk down all of the corridors, but once we found our way, it was clearly labeled.  We bought one Ventra card to share because they cost $5 each but you can scan on up to 6 people at a time.  L train rides cost $2.50, and bus rides cost $2.25, so we loaded $20 onto the card, knowing we planned to ride round trip to the airport and to Wrigley Field. If we needed to add more money later in the weekend, we could easily do that at any vending machine in the L train stations.  The orange line ends at Midway so it only goes in one direction and you can’t get lost when boarding the train.  I appreciated that even though there were 2 trains waiting, they had a sign indicating which train was next to leave so we knew which one to board.

The ride to our stop took about 25 minutes, and we exited at the Quincy stop in the Central Loop.  From there, we only had to walk 2 blocks to reach our hotel. We arrived a few minutes before 2pm and our room was ready even though check in wasn’t officially until 3pm. They explained that there is complimentary coffee and snacks in the lounge downstairs (in addition to the Keurig machine in our room), and they have a complimentary wine and cheese happy hour from 5-6pm each night. We went up to our room to drop off our bags and change into shorts, and then we set off to explore the city. Just one block away, we found this huge sculpture (use the women standing below it to show the scale of its height!).  We didn’t know it at the time, but later learned that this sculpture was 53 feet tall and designed to look like a flamingo.

Our hotel was on Adams Street, and as we walked a few blocks east, we found a sign marking the start of Historic Route 66.  I’m not sure of the exact path it travels, but I have been to the sign at the end of the route at the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles, so it was neat to see the starting point and know that our hotel is on the same road.

Proof that I also saw the end of the route in 2011…

From there, we walked south on Michigan  Avenue, passed the Art Institute of Chicago to Grant Park.  There were lots of pretty fountains, sculptures, and gardens along the way.  Being a warm, sunny day on Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, the sidewalks were buzzing with lots of people out and about, enjoying the day, and it was such a great way to start our weekend here.

Dan Kiley Plaza at the Art Institute

I love how the clouds reflect off the skyscrapers

This Abraham Lincoln statue was meant to be placed in Lincoln  Park, and there should have been a statue of Ulysses S. Grant in this location.  Somehow things got mixed up, but it was decided to just leave this Lincoln statue here in Grant Park.

North President’s Court

Buckingham Fountain

As we were admiring the fountain and taking photos, this happened…!

Every hour, the fountain shoots this impressive stream of water up into the sky for about 10 minutes. We could actually see the fountain going off from several other places around the city during our visit, so it was fun to see it now up close and personal.

Walking around to the opposite side of the fountain, you can see the city skyline in the background of the photo.

Next, we continued back north, walking from Grant Park to Millennium Park.  On our way, we saw this beautiful garden.  The Lurie Garden spans 5 acres within Millennium Park, and is dedicated to eco-friendly botanical landscaping.

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion is used for music festivals throughout the year

Just a short walk further and we found The Bean!!  Officially called Cloud Gate, this silver bean-shaped sculpture was something I really looked forward to seeing.  The sun was shining bright and the skyline looked so pretty in the reflection of the metal. 

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who wanted to see The Bean today, so it was super crowded and impossible to get a photo of just the statue without any other people in the photo.

Our reflection in The Bean

Once we had our fill of The Bean, we walked further north along Michigan Avenue until we reached the Chicago River.  We’d be spending lots of time here later tonight on our walking tour, so we took a quick photo and continued on our way.

Looks like these people are having a fun Friday evening on their boats!

We were getting hungry since we hadn’t eaten since the sandwich we ate on the plane, so we weaved our way through the River North section to find something for dinner. One of our goals for this weekend was to eat as much deep dish pizza as possible, so why not start right away?! I tried to research the “best” restaurants for deep dish pizza in Chicago but it was nearly impossible to get a straight answer because it is so subjective.  DH heard about this place called “Illuminati” that was said to have good pizza, but I couldn’t find that restaurant anywhere online.  I did notice a handful of places that appeared on more than one top 10 list, including Lou Malnati’s.  We both laughed when we realized he had misheard the name of that restaurant and thought it was called “Illuminati” instead!  With that straightened out, we decided to eat there on our first night in town.  According to reviews, this place is very popular and can have very long waits to get a table.  We were scheduled to take a walking tour tonight which met at 6:45pm so we knew we had to eat an early dinner, but between the risk of a long line, and the fact that it takes 45 minutes to cook deep dish pizza, we knew we had to get to the restaurant very early.  We arrived at 4:15pm and were shocked to be seated immediately!  There were lots of people at the restaurant but luckily there was no wait for a table for 2.  

Lou Malntai’s menu

We were going to order a plain pizza, but “The Lou” caught our eye.  It included a spinach mix with garlic, basil, onions, mushrooms, and sliced roma tomatoes, covered with 3 cheeses.  It was nice that our waiter warned us it would take 45 to 60 minutes to cook the pizza, even though we already knew that.  I can imagine if they don’t warn everyone, they must get lots of complaints from impatient people.  We ordered the small, which is said to serve 2 people, and asked for the tomatoes on only one side because I don’t really like tomatoes.  We passed the time catching up on social media and missed emails, and just enjoying the cool air conditioning after spending several hours walking around in the heat outside.

The pizza arrived just about an hour after we ordered.  It was served in the baking pan and the waiter helped serve our first slices.

While I have never been to Chicago and therefore have never had official Chicago deep dish pizza, we do have a Chicago-style restaurant we enjoy eating at at home called Patxi, so I only had that in mind for comparison.  Honestly, neither of us was blown away by this pizza.  The crust had a grainy cornmeal-like consistency, and the pizza was too salty.  We both thought it was just okay, as in we didn’t hate it, but we definitely didn’t love it.  Maybe our standards were off and this was what Chicago pizza was supposed to taste like?  We ordered the small size because the menu said that was good for 2 people.  It was cut into 4 slices, and we had no trouble finishing the whole pie.  We didn’t really want any leftovers considering we were not going back to the hotel anytime soon, but had there been a little more pizza or had it been a little bigger, I think we both would have eaten more. We were both satiated, but neither of us was really full.  

We finished dinner by 5:45pm and had about an hour before our tour, so we started to walk back towards the Riverwalk.  One thing we were not quite prepared for this weekend was the heat and humidity.  It was over 90 degrees and very humid every day this weekend and ended up being Chicago’s hottest Memorial Day Weekend on record!! Instead of walking around to kill time before our tour, we went into the lobby of one of the hotels to relax and enjoy the air conditioning.  While we were there, I was looking at Google maps for directions and noticed a parade route along State Street showing up on the map.  I have never seen that before and I thought it was a little weird, but I clicked on it and noticed that the Memorial Day parade was on Saturday.  Uh oh!  We were planning to ride the Hop On Hop Off (HOHO) bus on Saturday at the same time as the parade and State Street is on the HOHO bus route.  Not only that, but we were going to board at stop #3 at the Willis Tower, located just a few blocks from our hotel, and stop #2 is the Chicago Theater on State Street, so the bus wouldn’t be able to get to our stop if State Street is closed for the parade.  This is so not good!  I immediately went onto the website for the HOHO company Big Bus Tours, but they did not mention anything about changes or cancellations for this weekend.  I tried to call their office, but it was now 6:30pm and they closed at 6pm.  Too bad I didn’t catch this problem earlier in the day, but why would I know to think about that when Memorial Day isn’t until Monday?  Who has a Memorial Day Parade on a Saturday?!?  There is no contact email address on their website and the ‘contact us’ online form would not load on my phone, so I did not know what to do.  I didn’t want to risk showing up at our HOHO stop #3 and waiting for hours but the bus never showed up because of the parade.  I went onto Trip Advisor and searched their reviews for the word ‘parade’ to see how they handled this situation in the past, and luckily there was one very helpful post about the 2017 Columbus Day Parade and how the HOHO bus was a total fiasco.  He said he was stuck on the bus in traffic for a long time and it was a terrible experience, and that no one should ride the bus on the day of a parade.  Big Bus Tours wrote a long reply, and included an email address at the end of their post.  I knew it was after hours and unlikely that I would get a reply tonight, but just in case, I sent them an email to ask about the plan for tomorrow. Our original plan was to get on the first bus which would pick us up at 9:15am. We would need to leave our hotel a few minutes after 9am at the latest to catch that bus, and their office as not due to open until 9am tomorrow.  I did not expect a reply by then, but it was worth a shot.  By the way, for those of you thinking “Why not just swap your Sunday plans for tomorrow?,”  we panned to ride the HOHO bus on Saturday morning and get off after one full loop when we got back to the Planetarium to spend the rest of the day there. The Planetarium is 2 miles south of our hotel, so it was a little too far to walk to in this heat and it worked well to use the HOHO as free transit to the Planetarium.  On Sunday, we had tickets to the Cubs game and we planned to spend some time at Wrigleyville beforehand, so it would be too rushed to do all of that on Sunday.  Anyway, all of this happened at the same time as we were meeting up with our evening tour so it was really stressful.  I just told myself to forget about it for the time being and to try to enjoy the tour, and I would figure out tomorrow’s plans later.

Last night, I got an email from Aram, the guide from Free Tours By Foot.  He sent instructions on where and when to meet him and included his photo so we knew who he was.  Right at 6:50pm, Aram arrived wearing a company logo on his shirt and holding a clip board to check us in.  There were about 25 people on the tour with us.  This walking tour was to point out key sites along the Riverwalk and to learn about some of Chicago’s history.  Aram explained that this is a “pay what you want” tour and that we could do so at the end if we felt so inclined.  The tour lasted exactly 2 hours and covered 1.5 miles, with lots of stops and photo opportunities along the way.  Aram was a fantastic guide.  Instead of simply rattling off facts, he told stories and explained the history and significance of the sites in a way that made it both interesting and memorable.  We were very impressed with this tour and thought he was one of the best guides we have had on any tour we have ever taken!  He even incorporated a bathroom break in the middle of the tour at Ghiradelli, with a chance to sample some chocolate.  This is just a small sampling of the photos I took on the tour…

The Vietnam Memorial is decorated with wreaths for Memorial Day

Trump Tower Chicago is the 7th tallest building in the world.  While the building itself is quite sleek, with 5 distinct levels symbolizing parts of Chicago’s history, and a nearly all glass exterior to reflect the surrounding riverfront skyline, the 2,800 square foot TRUMP sign creates a controversial eyesore.  The sign was granted permits through proper proceedings, but the city council was so upset by the final product that they revamped the rules for signs on buildings in the city.  Since the current Trump sign is grandfathered in, they effectively guaranteed that this eyesore will always be by far the biggest sign on a building in Chicago.  Maybe they should have just left the laws as they were originally!

The Wrigley Building was built as the headquarters for the chewing gum company, and is famous for being the first major office building built north of the Chicago River.  After this building opened, many other companies followed suit and it was the start of a new downtown area in Chicago.

The Wrigley Building’s white glazed terra cotta façade glows beautifully in the evening light… with Trump Tower looming over in the background.

I loved how beautiful the riverwalk looked as all the lights came on at night.

The NBC Tower was built to resemble the art deco buildings of Rockefeller Center in New  York.

The views grew even more beautiful as the sky darkened and the lights reflected off the water.

Aram timed the tour to end at exactly 9pm at the Centennial Fountain on the river so we could see the fountain go off.  This happens every hour to commemorate when Chicago reversed the flow of the river’s current because the trash and sewage they had been dumping in the river was polluting Lake Michigan and their drinking water.  They engineered a way to force the river to flow south and connect with the Mississippi River to send the pollution south and clean up the lake water.  This was a huge turning point in Chicago’s history (even if it did annoy the people who lived down stream in St. Louis!), so they created this fountain to honor it.

The problem is that it creates a waterfall over the river so boats need to wait for it to end before proceeding if they don’t want to get soaked haha

The Centennial Fountain

After the tour, we walked over to Navy Pier to check out what all the fuss is about.  Navy Pier is listed on all of the lists of top attractions in Chicago, and all the tour guides say it’s a must-see for tourists, so since our tour ended a half mile away, we decided to walk over and check it out. When we arrived, there were lots of people leaving and hardly anyone was there.  We thought this was a popular tourist attraction and expected it to be really hopping at 9:15 on a Friday night, but it was nearly deserted.  We walked around to see the gardens, the carnival rides, and the nice views of the nighttime skyline, but didn’t stay long because it was dead.  Maybe it is more exciting here during the day, but we did not understand the hype.

A few people were playing in the fountain, likely trying to cool off after this extremely hot and humid day!

This indoor garden is sometimes used as an event space.

 We could have redeemed our City Pass to go on these rides, but decided against it.

There are great views of the Chicago skyline from out on the pier.

After about 15 minutes of exploring, we decided to walk back to the river walk to grab a drink at one of the outdoor bars.  Navy Pier is 2 miles from our hotel, so we considered just taking an Uber to the hotel and calling it a night, but it was only 9:30 and we thought we could tough it out for 1 drink.  The Riverwalk was a mile away so that would break up the long walk.  Unfortunately, life does not always go according to plan. We arrived at the riverwalk around 10pm, just as the skies opened up and it started to rain.  All of the bars on the Riverwalk are outdoors with no inside seating, so we had to think of a plan B.  We decided to duck into the Renaissance Hotel where we had been hanging out earlier before the tour, and ordered a round of drinks at the lobby bar.  This was the first chance I had to look at my phone in a few hours, and I was shocked to see an email reply from Big Bus Tours.  This is what it said…

Thank you for your inquiry.  As far as we know right now we will not be impacted too much during the parade. However, sometimes the city does shut down certain streets that prevents us from stopping at certain locations. If this does happen, we will adjust accordingly and signs will be posted amongst the buses as you board.  We do still expect to pick up at the stop number 3 and majority of the locations along the tour.

Ummm, how can you tell me you don’t expect any problems?  Surely the city will shut down State Street to vehicular traffic during the parade.  This sounded like a big fiasco, so we started thinking of alternate plans.  While it may be possible to take the Architectural River Tour in the morning, then take an Uber down Michigan Avenue to the Planetarium, that didn’t sound like a good idea because we wouldn’t get to the Planetarium until 12:30pm, then we’d need to eat lunch, leaving us not much time at the museum before they closed at 4pm.  Instead, we decided to take a public bus from near our hotel to get to the Planetarium when they opened at 9:3am.  We would spend a few hours there and eat lunch in their cafeteria, then catch the HOHO bus in the mid-afternoon.  Hopefully by then, the parade would be over and traffic would be back to normal.  It meant spending a little more money out of pocket to get to the museum (which should have been free with the HOHO bus), but that wasn’t a huge deal.  It also meant we would be sitting outside upstairs on the HOHO bus during the peak heat of the day, instead of in the earlier morning hours as planned, and on a day with a predicated high temperature in the 90’s, we were not thrilled about that, but with the parade, this seemed like the best option.  

After finishing up our beers, we made the one mile walk back to our hotel, passing the famous Chicago Theater on State Street on our way.

When we got back to the hotel, all we wanted to do was crash on our bed and get some sleep after an extremely long first day in Chicago. Unfortunately, that was not to be.  When we checked into our room this afternoon, we were very impressed with how clean and modern it was.  We were up on the 9th floor so we couldn’t hear any noise from the street, the room was very large and fairly recently renovated, and they even had a fill-your-own filtered water bottle station on each floor.

What we didn’t notice or bother to check was the pillows.  OMG, these pillows were terrible!!  They were very firm and way too thick, and we had no idea how anyone would find them comfortable for sleeping.  After waking up at 4am, and then walking all over Chicago all day, you’d think we could sleep on a concrete slab, but after 30 minutes of laying in bed, we were both still awake. We were completely exhausted and it was nearly midnight, but neither of us could sleep.  DH called down to the front desk to ask if they had softer, thinner pillows.  He said he didn’t know and would ask housekeeping and they would send some up if they had it.  Well that didn’t work at all because we had our ‘privacy’ door tag out for the night which said they staff would not knock on the door if displayed. We explained that and asked him to call us back after he spoke to housekeeping.  Ten minutes later, he didn’t call back yet so DH called again and the guy said they don’t have any other pillows.  How is that possible?  Most hotels have either a small variety of pillows or a standard, generic pillow that is likely to appeal to a lot of people.  This pillow was very thick and hard and likely uncomfortable for many of their guests.  With no other options, I tried to get comfortable, but ultimately I was awake much more than I slept that night.  DH and I planned to purchase a travel pillow tomorrow if we could find one because there was no way we would survive two more sleepless nights like this!  

Step Tracker Daily Total: 23,358 steps; 9.4 miles

#Chicago for MDW 2018 #Chicago #windycity

[deladane]

Whirlwind Weekend in the Windy City

Planning Phase

Late last year, Southwest Airlines offered a great incentive to sign up for their credit card: California residents who charged at least $1000 in 3 months would earn a free companion pass for the year of 2018, in addition to the 40,000 bonus miles normally awarded.  We fly on Southwest several times a year, so this is a great deal for us. We wanted to make the most of the promotion, so we decided to plan a long weekend trip for Memorial Day Weekend (MDW).  Looking through the list of cities with direct flights from San Jose, we decided Chicago would be the perfect place to visit.  I have never been there before, and DH has only been there to run the marathon so he has not done any of the touristy activities.  On top of that, we would be traveling in late May, when the weather in Chicago is usually warm.  There’s no chance I’d voluntarily visit there during the winter!

Southwest offers 2 direct flights a day from San  Jose to Midway. The afternoon flight doesn’t land until 9pm, so that would get us in too late to do any touring on Friday.  The earlier flight lands at 12:45pm, leaving us half a day to enjoy the city after checking into our hotel.  The one dilemma is that this flight leaves San Jose at 6:30am.  That means an extremely early wake up call that morning, but I guess it’s not so bad if we adjust our clocks to Central time zone the night before! Haha

Up next, we needed to find a hotel.  We frequently use AirBNB and VRBO for long weekends out of town, but when we have a late evening flight home at the end of the trip, we end up struggling to find a place to store our luggage after checking out in the late morning.  In the past, we have rented a car for the day, stored our luggage in the trunk, and spent the day visiting places a little further from the city center before driving ourselves to the airport when it’s time for our flight home.  This time, we wanted to spend all of our precious touristy minutes in the city center, so renting a car for the day wouldn’t be very convenient.  We decided to book a real hotel for this trip, and then we could leave our luggage at the front desk after checking out on the last morning.  That way, we could spend the whole day enjoying the city, and just retrieve our luggage at the end of the day on our way to the airport.  Our flight home isn’t until 7:50pm on Monday night, so we really will have a full day to explore Chicago.  

We knew it was important to stay at a hotel in the Loop, near public transit and near the touristy things in the city.  After a bit of searching online, we decided to stay at Club Quarters Hotel in Central Loop.  It is a clean, modern, affordable hotel with good ratings from past guests, and it is located in the heart of downtown Chicago, just a few minutes from several lines on the L train.  They also offer free cancellation up to 24 hours prior to arrival, which is always nice reassurance in case anything comes up last minute.

With our flights and hotel all set, it was time to figure out what we wanted to do with our 3 and a half days of touring.  Obviously, we wanted to see all of the highlights like Millennium Park and the giant bean, eat Chicago style hot dogs and deep dish pizza, go to a few museums, and DH really wanted to go to a Cubs game if they were in town this weekend.  A quick Google search confirmed the last item on that list to be a possibility.  Not only are the Cubs scheduled to have several home games over MDW, but they are playing the San Francisco Giants!  Being current Bay Area residents, it will be a toss up on which team we should root for at that game!  There are games scheduled for Friday afternoon (which we can’t attend because it starts right around when our flight lands), and Saturday and Sunday evening. Originally, DH planned to wait until a week or two before the game to look for cheap seats on Stubhub.  One of our friends in California is a big Cubs fan and has season tickets to their games.  He was not planning to go to that game in Chicago over MDW and he offered to sell us his tickets, which DH gladly accepted.  

It was a little overwhelming trying to narrow down which of the touristy things we should do during our limited time in Chicago.  I was looking for ideas on Groupon when I found the City Pass Go Card.  You can purchase the pass for 3, 4, or 5 attractions for a discounted rate, and then Groupon had a sale on the pass so it was a really good deal.  There is a list of 27 attractions and we can pick whichever ones we want to visit at that time (ie: no need to pre-book attractions for a specific day).  This is a great feature because it allows us to be flexible and change the order of our plans in case of rain or whatever.  If you by the pass on the Go Card website, it costs $79, $104, and $119 per person for the 3, 4, and 5 attraction passes. Groupon had the 5 attraction pass on sale for $98 per person, meaning it would cost an average of $20 per activity. Looking through the list of 27 attractions, the 5 that we wanted to do all cost between $24 and $45 per person, so it was a no-brainer to buy the pass!  They sent me a voucher which is good for up to one year after purchase, and then once I activate the pass, I have 30 days to visit the 5 attractions. I’ll hold off on sharing which attractions we visited until we get to that part of the review… ya know, just to add a little suspense!

While looking online for other ideas of things to do in Chicago, I stumbled upon a website for a free walking tour.  We have taken lots of free walking tours both at home in San Francisco and while traveling, and have always had a great experience with knowledgeable and enthusiastic guides.  Free Tours By Foot offers a 2 hour “Riverwalk and History Twilight Tour” from 7 to 9pm.  Here is the description from their website:

Chicago is the birthplace of the skyscraper and home to one of the world's most recognizable skylines and the northern section of the Chicago Riverwalk is a great place to experience it from the inside - there's no need to take an expensive boat cruise. The buildings form the perfect photogenic backdrop when hearing the great stories of the men and women who built them and who built the city of Chicago. We will show you the birthplace of the city and where a terrible massacre took place. You will hear stories of great fortunes and a great fire as well as the incredible story of how Chicagoans re-engineered the flow of their river.  Join Free Tours by Foot as we take a leisurely stroll along the northern reaches of the Chicago River and take in the beautiful architecture, such as the Tribune Building, and learn the stories behind the men and woman who built them. The tour ending point is near Municipal Pier #2 (better known as Navy Pier), where you can easily stroll over to see the sites- including the Ferris wheel. The Pier is filled with delicious Chicago favorites like Garrett's Popcorn, Chicago style hot dogs (NO ketchup allowed), and of course, a Billy Goat Tavern.

I was able to reserve our spots on the Friday evening tour with their website and I received an email confirmation right away.  This might be a terrible decision considering how early we are waking up that day and how exhausted we may be by the time this tour starts, but I think we’ll be okay to tough it out.  It will be worth it as the tour sounds like a fabulous way to get an overview of the city on our first night in town!

I attempted to research where to find the “best Chicago style deep dish pizza” but ultimately gave up! There are way too many people with different opinions about this topic, and it is impossible to narrow it down to just one or two places that we must try.  Somehow, this didn’t really surprise me considering the same would likely happen if I tried to Google the best place for New York style pizza in Manhattan haha  I did compile a list of a few options that got glowing reviews (both for pizza and for hot dog restaurants), with locations scattered around the city, and we planned to just play it by ear and pick a restaurant that is close by when we are ready to eat.  That wraps up our planning for this whirlwind weekend in the Windy City!  

#Chicago for MDW 2018 #Chicago #windycity

[deladane]

Day 18: Sunday, March 18 ~ Disembarkation Day

Day 18: Sunday, March 18 ~ Disembarkation Day

Two years and one day after originally booking this cruise (we booked it with a St. Patrick’s Day special on the Equinox in 2016), and after endless planning and anticipation, our cruise was officially over. They stopped serving breakfast at 8am in the MDR, so I had set an alarm clock for 6:45am to give us enough time to finish packing up our bags before going downstairs to eat.  We were already docked back in Miami when we woke up… before sunrise!!

After a lot of squeezing and smushing, we were able to get our carry on bags closed with the rest of our belongings.  We checked and re-checked that we hadn’t forgotten anything in one of the closets or drawers, then went downstairs to deck 3 for breakfast in the dining room.  I always like to eat breakfast in the dining room on the last morning of a cruise.  They have space at the front entrance to store the rolling carry on bags, and then we can sit for a relaxing and quiet breakfast at our leisure.  The other option is dealing with thousands of people squeezing into the buffet with all of their carry ons, and trying to balance a plate of food while rolling a suitcase through the buffet line.  No thank you!!  We were escorted to a table at the very far corner of the room… I had no idea the dining room went back this far, but if that was my assigned table for dinner every night, I probably would have asked to switch!  It worked out just fine for one breakfast though.

Breakfast menu

The menu is pretty similar to what we had for room service so we both ordered our usual:  omelets and bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese.  I must have been feeling particularly lazy because I did not take a photo of my food this morning.  While we were eating, they walked around with a basket of breads and danishes, a tray of different fruit juices, and a carafe of coffee.  

We were assigned disembarkation number 15, so we listened to the announcements while we ate.  Conveniently, they called our zone just as we finished eating, so we collected our rolling bags from the front of the dining room, carried them up 2 flights of stairs (since there was zero chance of getting into an elevator this morning!), and followed the flow of traffic to exit the ship.  It’s amazing how excited we felt to walk through this gangway 2 weeks ago, and how depressing it was to be back here today.

There were quite a few people ahead of us in exiting the ship, so it took a few minutes to wind through the lines and down the escalator to the luggage carousel.  As opposed to every other cruise terminal I have seen where they line up all the suitcases in a big warehouse, labeled for each zone number, they use airport-style luggage conveyor belts at the Miami terminal.  I think there were 4 or 5 carousels, and each one was labeled for which zone numbers would be on it.  DH spotted our big blue suitcase immediately, so he grabbed it while I towed the 2 smaller bags.  The next step was to go through customs, where we waited about 10 minutes to reach the front of the line, but were then greeted by the friendliest government employee I have ever encountered.  She glanced at our passports and waved us on our way, and just like that, we were standing on Florida soil.  

It was kind of chaotic as we tried to figure out where to stand for ride share pick up.  DH requested an Uber to drive us from the Port of Miami up to Ft. Lauderdale, and it was due to arrive within 5 minutes, but there were so many people walking around with all of their luggage and it was hard to figure out where exactly to stand for the driver to find us.  Ultimately, DH stood out in the shoulder of the road to track down our Uber and waved him over to where I was standing with our bags.  We loaded our bags into his trunk, and then set off for FLL.  DH spent most of the ride napping while I scrolled through 2 weeks of missed posts on social media.  It was not even 9am yet on a Sunday morning, so traffic was light and we pulled into the airport 45 minutes later.

Out driver dropped us off at the departures door for JetBlue, but just as we were pulling up, I realized we should have told him to drop us at arrivals.  We were way too early to check our bags because our flight wasn’t until 6:30pm, so our plan was leave the suitcases in luggage storage for the day. I pre-booked a reservation for 3 bags online through Bagstogo.com for $7 per bag for the whole day.  It was very easy to arrange and I pre-paid by credit card. We were told to look for their booth near the baggage claim, so that meant we needed to get to the arrivals level (duh!  Too bad I didn’t think of that before we got to the airport so I could direct the Uber driver! Haha)  We took the escalator downstairs to the baggage claim level, and after asking the lady sitting at the help desk, we found the small white door hidden against the wall for the luggage storage.  They really need to make it more obvious because we didn’t see it without asking for help. This small sign was on the door to the office:

Notice how small the logo is for Bags To Go?  I was searching for a big sign with that logo… no wonder I didn’t see this sign!  There was a teenager sitting behind the door and she told us she had to look inside all of our bags before we could leave them in storage.  Ummm, really?  She pointed to the sign on the wall which said bags are subject to inspection. Normally that implies that they may inspect bags if they have reason to believe the bag is harmful, not that they need you to open every bag that is left there!  Our bags were packed and locked to take on an airplane… anything we had inside needed to get past TSA so surely it should be fine to leave in a storage closet for a few hours.  I wasn’t thrilled about opening up my suitcase in the middle of a crowded airport, but we had no choice as there was no where else to leave the bags this early. Once the girl was satisfied that our bags didn’t contain explosives or any other contraband, she stacked them on top of each other in the room, gave us a receipt, and told us we needed to pick up the bags before 5:30pm.  That is when their office closes and you cannot leave bags overnight, but it wasn’t an issue because we needed to check in our bags with JetBlue by then anyway.

Now that we were down to just our (extremely heavy) backpacks containing all of our electronics and valuables, we set off to find the Sun Trolley.  This is a free bus that runs between Ft. Lauderdale airport and the downtown riverwalk area.  They don’t let you bring luggage on the trolley, so that’s why we needed to check our bags.  They have a pick up location at each terminal in FLL- just look for this sign near the ground transportation pick up spot.

I didn’t catch this detail when I was reading through the information about the trolley, but they pick up from the airport once an hour, on the hour.  We were incredibly lucky that we got to the bus stop at exactly 10am, just as the trolley pulled up!  Had we taken even one extra minute dealing with the bag check girl, we would have missed the trolley and wasted an hour of our day, so we had extremely lucky timing!  You can’t miss the trolley- it is painted bright red and yellow and is a full-sized bus.

The trolley only operates on weekends, and there is only one physical bus that runs laps back and forth all day.  The ride downtown took about 20 minutes, and the bus driver talked the entire time, explaining the rules of the trolley.  He was actually very funny, although I don’t know if he intended to be!  When he dropped us off at the Ft. Lauderdale Historical Society, he said that he would pick us up at this location every hour on the :40, with the last bus leaving at 4:40pm.  He recommended we go inside the historical society as they can help direct us towards tourism points of interest, so that’s what we did.  

The lady at the front desk told us about the riverwalk and that there are 2 kinds of tourist boat rides.  One is a yellow boat called the Water Taxi and costs close to $30 per person for a 3 hour tour around Ft. Lauderdale.  The other one is Water Trolley that is a red, white, and blue boat, and is free, but only runs a short distance for a 20 minute tour.  She recommended the latter and told us where to find the first pick up location.  It was now 10:30am and the first water trolley started at 11am, so we decided to just go for a walk down to Las Olas Boulevard, and we planned to pick up the water trolley down there.

We wondered around the streets of Ft. Lauderdale and eventually found our way to stop number 4 on the water trolley route at the Laura Ward Riverwalk Plaza at 11:15am.  

It was a very pretty spot along the river, surrounded by high-rise condos and hotels, and with a parade of yachts floating passed us. We sat down on the curb and waited for the water trolley to arrive.

A few minutes later, this big yellow boat pulled up to the dock and we realized it was the more expensive 3 hour tour boat. I guess both boats share a dock since they come and go throughout the day.  I asked the guy who worked for the water taxi and he confirmed that we were at the right spot for the water trolley to pick us up.

That is when things went down hill.  After 30 minutes of waiting and not seeing the water trolley, we started to wonder what was going on.  If the trolley tour is only 20 minutes long, then surely it should have come by our stop by now, right?  We tried calling the phone number on the sign, but no one picked up the phone. Then we started to wonder if the water trolley only runs once per hour just like the sun trolley.  We decided to wait it out until 12:15pm as that would be one hour after we originally arrived, and if it runs once per hour then it would arrive by then… hopefully!

This tiki bar boat floated by at one point. I’ll bet it is a lot of fun, especially for a party or a big group of friends!

Do you know the feeling where you are waiting for someone to pick you up but you don’t know what car they drive?  Maybe it’s just an acquaintance or someone you don’t know very well.  You feel kind of anxious because you don’t know when or if they will ever come.  And you stare longingly at every vehicle that passes by, hoping it’s the one you are waiting for, but it’s not, and it just keeps driving by?  It’s not the best feeling, and it makes time seem to drag on extremely slowly.  Well, that’s how we felt right now.  The lady at the tourism desk hyped this trolley up like it was the best thing we could do in Ft. Lauderdale, and we waited over an hour but it never showed up!  At 12:30pm, we were tired, hot, and bordering on pissed off.  We had just wasted over an hour of our day, and clearly this mystery water trolley was never coming, so we cut our losses and left the riverwalk in search of lunch.

We were just a few blocks away from Las Olas Boulevard, so we walked over there to pick a restaurant.  We considered coming over here back in 2016 but we never made it, so it was fun to check out what we missed out on.  There were tons of different restaurants lining the street, most of which with outdoor seating, and many of which had a DJ or some kind of live music.  It was such an exciting vibe for a Sunday afternoon, and I can only imagine how crazy things must get down here on a Saturday night!  After standing around outside for over an hour, we really just wanted a quiet lunch inside an air-conditioned room.  We decided to go to Mango’s Restaurant and Lounge as they had one of the more affordable menus (many of the other restaurants were over twice the price for each item as Mango’s) and they were able to set us right away since we were willing to eat inside (there was a longer wait if we wanted an outside table).  

The restaurant was nearly empty as the hostess led us to our table.  The waiter came over with a large bottle of water, which he left on the table for us to refill our glasses as needed, and a basket of bread.  As an added bonus, there was a lady playing a keyboard and singing stripped down versions of pop songs, setting the tone for a quiet and relaxing meal. She is sitting in the lounge on the other side of the wall to the right, so you can’t see her in this photo, but we could hear her just fine.

We both ordered the chicken burger, which was a grilled chicken breast with caramelized onions, provolone cheese, and mushrooms, with a side of French fries.  It was simple but very good and we felt much better after our stomachs were filled.

After lunch, we walked back to the water trolley stop.  It didn’t look like the trolley was anywhere in sight, so we just decided to walk back to the historical society office along the riverwalk.  We didn’t realize it, but the whole walk was less than one mile! That’s not much of a tour, and had we known it was such a short route we may not have wasted so much time waiting for the trolley to never show up.  It was a beautiful sunny day, so it was lovely to walk along the river, watching the boats and the other people pass by.  When we were almost at the end of the path, we finally spotted it… the red, white, and blue water trolley was tied up to the dock, with no employees anywhere in sight!  We finally realized that the trolley must not be running today.  I’m not sure if the crew never showed up to work, or if the trolley was broken, or what the reason was, but clearly there would not be a water trolley today.  I was really disappointed that no one made any effort to announce that the trolley was out of service.  There are only 8 pick up stops over a route that is less than a mile long, so it wouldn’t take much effort to someone to go around and post “out of service” signs at all of the stops.  At the very least, they could have posted an announcement on their website (we did check that but saw no indication that it was closed today).  We went inside to tell the lady at the tourist desk what happened, and she explained that she had no idea they were closed today as it is part of a different company and she just recommends it to tourists but she does not work for them.  At least now she knows they’re closed today so she can stop telling people to look for those boats and wasting their time!

We went back out to the river and found a park bench in the shade to relax and people watch for a little while.  We were originally planning to take the 3:40pm bus back to FLL, but we were hot, tired, and bored, so we decided to go back on the 2:40pm bus instead.  If we needed to sit around for a few hours, may as well do it in the bar at the airport where it’s air conditioned!  The trolley pulled up right on time, and we headed back towards the airport to wrap up the end of our vacation.

Pay attention when the driver announces your stop name as you board the Sun Trolley at the start of your day.  Even though we got on at terminal 3, he told us to get off at the Green 4 stop when we returned to the airport in the afternoon. We went back into the terminal to pick up our luggage, and then brought it upstairs to the departures section to the JetBlue bag drop.  Amazingly, when we put the bag up on the scale, it weighed in at exactly 49.9 pounds! There was a short line at security, but that didn’t surprise me considering how many cruise ships disembarked today from Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.  We finished going through security by 3:45pm, so we still had over 2 hours to go before they started boarding our plane. Amazingly, we found 2 seats at the bar in Chili’s, and there was even an outlet right there at our seats so we could charge our cell phones.  It was too bad our seapass cards weren’t valid at the airport though because they charged $12 for a pint of beer!  CRAZY!!! I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised considering they have a captive audience, but $12 for a Blue Moon was a bit steep in my opinion.  We drank our beers verrrry slowly so we could hang out there for a while.  When our cell phones were sufficiently charged, we walked over to the food court to pick up a couple of sandwiches at Einstein Bagels to eat for dinner on the plane.  

You know how the rest of the story goes… we boarded the plane around 6pm, took off on time, kept ourselves entertained on the 6+ hour flight by watching TV and looking through photos on my iPad, and landed back at SFO around 10pm local time.  We still had an hour-long drive to get back home to San Jose, so by the time we walked in the door, it was after 11pm… which felt more like 2am on Florida time!  I’m not gonna lie… going back to work the next morning was rough!

Step Tracker Daily Total*:  15,215 steps; 6.25 miles; 3 flights of stairs

*My FitBit was set to Florida time so I made sure to check my steps while on the plane before it reset the tracker for the new day!  This total includes all of Sunday in Florida, plus the 2 hours extra because we went to sleep at 2am Florida time.

So that’s the end, folks!  Overall, it was a great vacation and we really enjoyed our time on the Celebrity Eclipse.  I do kind of wish we could have a re-do with some of those ports on a day with less wind. I feel a bit cheated that I have now been to Bonaire but did not get to snorkel there, and there were several other days when the snorkeling would have been significantly better without the strong winds churning up the water.  One of my photography goals on this cruise was to take a great photo that is half above and half below the water line, and that was completely impossible with all of that wind.  I guess that means we need to book another tropical cruise and try again, but for the time being, we are putting cruising on hold to take a few land trips instead. We will definitely cruise again eventually, and when we do, I promise to come back here and tell you all about it!

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebrityeclipse #CelebrityCruises #cruise #vacation #travel #Florida #Ft Lauderdale

[deladane]

Day 17: Saturday, March 17 ~ Sea Day #5

Day 17: Saturday, March 17 ~ Sea Day #5

 The final sea day of the cruise conjures up thoughts so packing and moping around the ship, fearing the return to reality that comes with the end of a vacation.  The one good thing that made this final sea day different than all other final sea days was that today was St. Patrick’s Day!  How can you mope on such a festive holiday?  We’re not Irish, but everyone is Irish today!  

As usual, I woke up before DH.  Knowing that would likely happen, I put a few piles of dirty laundry and a few empty packing cubes over near the bathroom last night so I could silently sit on the floor in the glow of the bathroom nightlight and start folding and rolling our laundry to start the packing process.  I managed to get through most of our clothes before DH woke up, so I think that was a good use of time.  The hardest part of packing is figuring out how much we can fit in our big suitcase without going over the weight limit, and then trying to cram everything else into our rolling carry on bags and backpacks.  On all of our previous cruises, packing is a full-day project where we do little bits at a time throughout the day.  Despite my best efforts, sadly, today would be no different.  

Now that DH was awake, it was time for a break from packing, so we went upstairs to the buffet for breakfast.

I was very pleased with the number of activities offered on sea days during this cruise, and we had quite a few things we wanted to participate in today.  First up was that Eddy gave a talk in the theater called “10 things you didn’t know about ship life.”  It was a behind-the-scenes look at life working on a cruise ship, followed by a question and answer period with 3 of Eddy’s team members.  Cruise ships are like their own floating cities and it takes thousands of people to keep the operation running smoothly.  Not only do all of these people work on the cruise ship, but they also live here.  When they finish their work day, they don’t get to go home to their family.  They go to a small cabin, which they often share with another crew member, spend a few hours eating, showering, and sleeping (not necessarily in that order), and then they do it all over again tomorrow.  I find the whole thing fascinating and always appreciate when a cruise offers a talk on this topic.

Eddy explained that there is a whole language of words that only people who work on cruise ships can understand.  For example, paisano is someone who is from the same country as you but works in a different department on the ship.  If someone gives you a banana, it means they are reprimanding you for something you did wrong.  

Several of the “10 things” were things I already knew, like that there is a bar for the crew on the lower decks, and that the crew always know the best places to find free wifi while in port.  It was an interesting perspective, and Eddy was funny and entertaining, as always.  The talk lasted about an hour, and was followed by a talk about ship navigation given by Captain Leo.  We listened to a similar talk on the Equinox, but it was given by one of the other officers, not by the ship captain!  It was pretty cool that he took the time to come talk to us.

After that, we went back to the cabin to do some more packing until it was time for lunch.  Not only was today the Extravaganza Lunch Buffet, but they also had decorations set up for St. Patrick’s Day.  There was even a station selling green beer!

So I have a serious question… was this little piggy stashed away at the back of the freezer for the last 2 weeks?!  Or did they pick him up while we were in Aruba? Haha

They weren’t kidding when they labeled this an extravaganza!  There were so many great options that I wound up with food piled high on my plate… there was seafood paella, lasagna, meatballs, fish and chips, grilled zucchini, and a few other things buried on the bottom

After all of that, I barely had room for dessert, but I couldn’t pass up dipping a donut in the green chocolate fountain!

Lots of shamrocks and green cakes

They also had this cocktail special for sale. It was called the shamrock cocktail, made with vodka, melon liquor, and pineapple juice, and cost $5 including the souvenir cup.  I asked the bartender if it was possible to just get the cocktail poured in a normal cup so it would be covered by the beverage package.  After consulting with her manager, she said that was okay and poured me a little sample in a champagne flute.  It was okay, but I think the color was more fun than the actual drink.

After lunch, we went down to the pool, grabbed 2 of the wicker chairs in the front corner, and ordered some drinks from the roaming drinks server.  If you’ve read my 2015 and 2016 reviews, then you know our tradition on St. Patrick’s Day. Once again, DH packed his tube of green food dye so we could improve our beverages for today.  This is what happened when he got his hands on my pina colada!

I am wearing my “lucky shirt” while DH is wearing a Thanksgiving shirt, but we’re both rocking our green party beads!

We hung around out there for another hour or so until it was time for the hot glass auction down in the Grand Foyer.  As per the contract between Celebrity and the Corning Museum, they auction off 7 of the pieces created on each cruise.  Proceeds from six of the pieces (2 by each of the gaffers) go towards scholarships for students to learn the art of glass blowing, and the final piece is something created by all 3 gaffers together and the proceeds go to Celebrity’s charity of choice- the World Wildlife Fund.  

We both LOVED this piece by Tom of a baby sea turtle hatching from an egg.  We thought it was so beautiful and unique and we tried to bid on it, but were soon outbid beyond our budget.  It sold for over $1000.

We couldn��t stay for the whole auction because it was running late and we needed to get back upstairs for the last day of 3pm music trivia at the Sky Lounge.  Like I said before, there were a lot of activities we wanted to participate in today… go big, then go home!  Or something like that hehe  When we got upstairs, our teammates were waiting for us so I’m glad we made the effort to show up.  I think the activities team was running out of ideas by this 14th day of the cruise, so there was no theme again today.  That’s okay though as it leads to more diverse song possibilities.  As usual, we did fairly well, but not well enough to win.  So now it’s official, we did not win any of the rounds of trivia that we participated in on this cruise.  We always had fun playing though, so I guess that’s all that really matters!

We went back to the cabin to finish packing our big suitcase.  We had to put it outside of our cabin by 10pm, I think?  Not wanting to worry about it during dinner or when we were at the show, it just made more sense to finish with it now.  I always bring my suitcase scale with me from home, so we weighed the bag and spent a few trials pulling things out to get it under 50 pounds.  I swear, clothing weighs more on the trip home!  

Keeping with tradition, we went to the Martini Bar for a pre-dinner cocktail.  I ordered a Blue Wave Martini, but of course DH brought his green food dye to jazz it up a bit!  Usually the bartenders notice us drinking bright green drinks and give us quizzical looks because they realize that wasn’t what they served us, but that didn’t happen tonight.  Maybe these guys are just too busy to notice?

Even though it was the last night of the cruise, the bartenders still put on quite a show.  Whenever one of them was pouring a bunch of drinks like this, another bartender was blowing a whistle to draw more attention.  

At 7pm, we went to our last dinner in the MDR.  Cervine had a table for 2 next to the window in Pinto’s section ready and waiting for us.

 Chilled Seafood Salad

 Warm Goat Cheese Croustillant

 French Onion Soup

 Vitello Tonnato

 Aged Prime Rib of Beef

 Creamy Corn Farrotto

 I don’t think I have posted this yet… This is the drinks from the dessert menu and it remains the same for the whole cruise

 Dessert Menu

 New York Cheesecake with Strawberry Topping

 Chocolate Cake

 Our waiters Jose and Pinto

After dinner, we went over to the theater for one final show.  Eddy had mentioned that he likes the final show of the cruise to be a big production show, and this show definitely fit that description!  Euphoria highlights the aerialists and acrobats in a performance similar to Cirque du Soleil.  I really loved this show and I was so impressed that these acts could perform perfectly on a moving cruise ship!  They are all extremely talented!

 They flew out over the audience creating a really cool effect!

 The dancers came out dressed in these funky outfits…

 …which somehow morphed into a giant inflatable crab!

 Inflatable sting rays swimming down the aisles

 Eddy fondly refers to these aerialists as “bed sheet dancers” haha

 When the show ended at 10pm, we went upstairs to the Sky Lounge for “The Voice of Eclipse Karaoke Finals.”  DH loves to sing karaoke on cruises, but somehow we never managed to make it to karaoke over the entire 2 weeks.  They offered it 4 or 5 times, but it was always at 9:45pm in Quasar and half the time we were still at the big show in the theater at that time, or by the time the show ended, we were just too tired to do anything else that night.  There was one time that we stopped by, but no one was there so we left.  I guess it just wasn’t meant to be this time around. The event tonight was not an open event- they seemed to have pre-selected 3 people to sing one song each, and then the audience voted by applause for who should be crowned the winner.  

Since we knew we’d stick around for a little while, I decided to try out one of the cocktails from the Sky Lounge menu.  We had been up here nearly every day for music trivia, but I never wanted a cocktail at that time (usually, I needed something with caffeine or just a bottle of water after a hot day in port!). I ordered the Sagittarius, made with Ketel One vodka, sherry, maple syrup, fresh lemon juice, strawberries, and Veuve Clicquot.  While the cocktail was quite tasty, it took them 15 minutes to make it and bring it to my table!  It wasn’t even crowded at the lounge so I don’t know what took so long, but maybe not many people order these cocktails from this bar?

The first guy to perform sang My Way by Frank Sinatra.  He had a great voice and really won over the crowd, but I think it helped that he had a lot of family members loudly cheering for him.

 I think this lady sang an Adele song, but I don’t remember exactly what.

 And somehow I missed taking a photo of the third performer.  In the end, the first guy won.  Personally, I actually liked the lady better, but like I said, the guy had a big family to loudly cheer for him and that’s what won in the end.

Back Before Sunset was performing in the Grand Foyer for the St. Patrick’s Day party.  It was nearly over when we arrived, but we caught the last song or two, then went back to the cabin for the night.

 Step Tracker Daily Total:  5363 steps; 2.17 miles; 14 flights of stairs

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebrityeclipse #CelebrityCruises #cruise #travel #vacation #sea day

[deladane]

Day 16: Friday, March 16 ~ Sea Day #4

Day 16: Friday, March 16 ~ Sea Day #4

I am so sorry to say that I forgot to take photos of today’s daily schedule.  On all of my previous cruises, I brought home all of the daily schedule papers so if I forgot to take any photos, or if I realized one of the photos was blurry and needed a re-do, I could flip through the pile of papers and get what I needed. This time, we were very tight on space and weight in our bags so I decided to leave all the papers behind. I thought I had taken all the photos I needed, and I almost never refer back to the originals once I get home, so why bother schlepping all of that extra weight?  Well, it looks like I did accidentally miss taking photos of the schedule for today, so I apologize for that.  

After going to sleep so early last night, I was awake at 7:15am today.  I couldn’t fall back asleep and I didn’t want to wake up DH, so I quickly got dressed, grabbed my camera, and left the cabin to walk around the ship taking lots of photos of the public spaces while they were still vacant.  I already posted all of these photos at the start of the review, so I won’t repost them here.  About an hour later, I arrived at the Solarium.  I was getting hungry so I stopped by the Aqua Spa Café for a light breakfast.  They have a bunch of options set out on individual plates, and the options remained the same for the whole cruise.

Dry cereal canisters

Fresh fruit and turkey wraps with tomato, kale, and cinnamon sweet potato spread

Avocado bruschetta on multi grain toast with mashed avocado, tomato, chive, and grated eggs; a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter, apple, bananas, and blueberries

Zucchini muffins, banana nut muffins, and 3 types of fruit and nut bars (apricot/coconut/walnut/honey, pumpkin seed/chia seed/raisin, and dates/almonds/figs/apricot/honey)

I picked out a muffin and an apricot and nut bar, and I ordered one of the juices from the menu.  This was the Purple Rain, made with blackberry, blueberry, pear, apple, and acai.  Everything was light and tasty, and it was a nice change from the breakfast I ordered from room service on all of the port days.

After my light breakfast, I continued walking around the ship, snapping more photos.  At 8:45, I went back to the elevators outside of the buffet, planning to head down to the cabin and see if DH was awake yet.  When the elevator doors opened, guess who stepped out… DH!  We had perfect timing!  I asked how he knew where to find me and he had a funny story to tell me… When he first went to look for me, he went to the MDR to see if I was eating breakfast there.  Cervine was standing at the hostess stand and she told DH she had seen me stop by at 8am when the MDR first opened so I could take some photos, and then I left. Glad to see she was keeping track of me and that she let DH know I had been there!  That’s when DH decided to go up to the buffet because he was planning to wait for me up there, assuming that I would need to eat breakfast eventually. When I ran into him, I told him that I had already eaten a light breakfast at the Aqua Spa Café.  He thought that sounded good so we went back down there so he could get something to eat.  Of course I couldn’t let him eat by himself, so I took another mini-muffin and fruit and nut bar.  I also ordered a pina kale juice, made with pineapple, kale, cucumber, and I skipped the ginger.

After breakfast #2, we went back to the cabin and relaxed on the balcony for a few hours, just gazing out at the endless ocean and watching the waves pass by.  At noon, it was time for our next feeding so we went down to the buffet for lunch.  The theme was Falafel and Kebabs, and they had a station set up with several kinds of each.

I tried 2 kinds of falafel but didn’t care for them. The lamb kebab with tzatziki sauce and hummus was quite tasty, as was the pasta and pizza of the day.

We took some dessert to go and brought it downstairs to eat by the pool.  I love red velvet cake, but this was very dry and I didn’t like it at all.  They made a huge apple pie in one of the paella pans, and that was delicious!  I was tempted to go back upstairs to get more but restrained myself.

There is a section of upright chairs and couches when you first enter the pool area on the starboard side.  Whenever we had trouble finding a vacant lounge chair, we could usually find a place to sit over here.  It was close enough to all of the action in the pool and with the DJ and activities team, but still far enough away that we could have our own little quiet corner.

We pulled 2 of the chairs to the side and relaxed there until it was time for pool volleyball.  DH really wanted to play pool volleyball, but he was disappointed to learn it is only offered this one time through the whole 2 week cruise. They have a tournament where several teams compete and the winning team goes on to then compete against a team of ship officers.  Flory was hosting the event and when he asked for volunteers to play, DH ran right over to him.  They had enough people to form 3 teams, so Flory divided the players up and DH’s team was playing in the first round.  They had a few minutes to practice, and then started the game.

DH’s team won this round, so they got out and the losing team played against the third team.  I think the third team won that round, so DH’s team got back in the pool and they played each other to determine who goes on to play against the officers.  DH’s team was really strong and they won the tournament!  They had a few minutes to rest, then Flory introduced the officers and it was time for the final round.  

DH serving the ball

The teams were pretty evenly matched so the score kept going back and forth for who was in the lead, but in the end, the officers pulled away with a victory.  To be fair, they probably have more practice considering they get to play pool volleyball on every cruise, whereas the people on DH’s team likely haven’t had as much experience.  In the name of good sportsmanship, everyone walked away with a medal and Flory lead the crowd in a rousing rendition of “We Are The Champions”

Volleyball ended with just enough time for DH to get dried off before we had to go up to the Sky Lounge for music trivia.  At this point in the cruise, our teammates were counting on us showing up to help with the more current songs, so we couldn’t let them down!  There was no real theme today, just a bunch of random songs, but our team did really well. We scored 24 out of 30 points, but of course another team scored 29 points and beat us.  We were okay with that though because we were proud of our team’s performance.

After trivia, I wanted to go watch the hot glass show because this was the last one on our cruise, and DH went back to the cabin to change out of his bathing suit.  When I arrived, Tom was working on a vase with a pretty twisting pattern on the outside.

It is so impressive how these guys work together so seamlessly.  This was Tom’s project, but Jeremy jumped right in there to do the blowing work. They worked together as a team with an almost unspoken knowledge of what needed to be done.

When they pull out the giant gloves, you know the project is nearly finished.

Right around then, DH showed up with a little treat. We get drinks like this at one of our favorite restaurants at home in San Jose, so he was super excited to find it on the ship.  This was the Margarita Coronita from the new menu at the Sunset Bar, and DH drew a lot of attention as he carried it over to the hot glass area, with everyone wanting to know what that was and where he got it lol

(yes, he is still wearing the medal he won from the pool volleyball tournament haha)

At the end of the show, the gaffers raffled off 4 of the pieces they made during the cruise.  Since the next cruise would be the last one with the Corning Museum on the Eclipse, they wanted to clean out some of the older projects.  I really hoped we could win one of these because they were all so beautiful, but unfortunately, we were not that lucky. The man sitting right next to me did win, so I was close, but not close enough!  This would have made an incredible souvenir to bring home from the cruise.

There is a funny story about that larger piece on the far right side.  That is a giant bowl with an irregular shape.  Tom gave a disclaimer when he picked that piece to be part of the raffle. They usually give out some bubble wrap to protect the pieces for transport home, but he warned us that the larger piece would not survive airline travel.  He said he normally puts a piece that large into a crate for special shipping, and that if we were flying home after the cruise, we could not have that piece.  He said that if the first 3 tickets he pulls belong to people who are flying home, they must pick the 3 vases, and then he would do another raffle for only the people traveling by car to try to win that large piece.  As it turned out, the very first ticket he picked belonged to a lady who lives in Florida, would be driving home from the cruise, and who really wanted that big piece! It was fate for her to get it!  I would love to see how she put that on display in her home because it was really quite large and heavy!

Tonight was our last Elegant Chic night, so after the raffle ended, we went back to the cabin to get ready.  

After a quick photo shoot outside the entrance to Blu, we went to the World Class Bar for a few pre-dinner drinks.  DH had the Zacapa Old Fashioned and I had the Celebrity No. Ten.  I love how it worked out that they are on the same page of the menu for easy photographing hehe

I don’t think I posted this yet, but this is the wine and cocktails menu from the MDR.  It was the same menu for the whole cruise.

 Tonight’s dinner menu

Creamy Salmon Rillette

Elderflower Blush cocktail

Broiled Lobster Tail (I requested 2 lobsters but only 1 portion of the side dishes)

Creamy Wild Mushroom Risotto

Dessert Menu

We skipped dessert tonight because we wanted to hear Back Before Sunset playing in the Grand Foyer.  They always put on a lively set that is worth checking out.

On most cruises, they do one of the big production shows on formal nights.  Eddy said that he likes to save that for the last night of the cruise to end on a high note, so tonight’s show was more subdued.  It featured the 6 core singers from the shows, each singing a Broadway showtune of their choosing, backed by the Eclipse Orchestra.  As I’ve already mentioned, we are big fans of Broadway shows, so we were looking forward to this performance.  They all have wonderful voices so it was great to see them show it off!  They sang songs from Motown, Les Mis, Cabaret, Guys and Dolls, Jersey Boys, and a few others.

The ladies sang a “Single Girl’s Medley” where each sang one of these songs:  On My Own from Les Mis, Maybe This Time from Cabaret, and I Don’t Know How to Love Him from Jesus Christ Superstar.

Then the men all sang Bring Him Home from Les Mis.

After the show ended, they had another event called the Liar’s Club.  This is a game hosted by one of the women from the activities team, and the contestants are Eddy, Captain Leo, and the comedian from last night’s show, Dan Wilson. They pick a word that most people have never heard of, but it is really a real word, and the 3 contestants try to convince the audience of what the definition is.  After all 3 have had a chance to say what they think the word means, the audience votes by applause as to who we think said the correct definition, and then they reveal who really got it right.  They used 4 different words, and the contestants did everything from just stating “oh, I know that word, the definition is ****”, to telling a big long-winded story to explain the meaning of the word.  Some of their replies were funnier than others, but it was a clever game and we learned a few new words in the process!

Does anyone know what zopissa means??

The show ended around 11pm, and we went back to the cabin to rest up for our last full day of the cruise.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  9302 steps; 3.761 miles; 18 flights of stairs

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebrityeclipse #CelebrityCruises #cruise #travel #vacation #sea day

[deladane]

Day 15: Thursday, March 15 ~ Aruba Day 2

Day 15: Thursday, March 15 ~ Aruba Day 2

Our wonderful cruise was coming to an end, and today was our last port day.  Since we docked in Aruba overnight, we didn’t have to wait to dock and for the ship to be cleared before getting off this morning.  That was a good thing because we had our earliest start time of the entire cruise today!  We booked a 3-hour champagne brunch snorkeling tour with Octopus Aruba, and we had to meet them by 8:30am at their beach hut up on Palm Beach.  We wanted to take the bus again, but the bus only runs at certain times, plus time to walk there and to walk from the bus stop out to the beach, so we wanted to leave the ship by 7:30am.  That wouldn’t be possible on any other day of the cruise because we always docked at 8am, so today was the perfect day to take this tour.  The tour cost $60 USD per person, and they required a $10 per person deposit paid via PayPal with the balance paid in cash on the day of the tour. Here is a tour description from the Octopus Aruba website:

During our morning half day cruises we stop to explore two snorkeling destinations. The first is “The German Freighter” and the second is “Catalina Bay”. We sail to the famous Antilla shipwreck, home to millions of tropical sea dwellers. The Antilla, which sank more than 60 years ago, remains completely intact and is widely regarded as one of the best sunken shipwrecks in the Caribbean. The next stop is in shallow waters of Catalina Bay you will brush up on your snorkeling skills as you spot angel fish, damsel fish and more swimming around sea fans and coral. New to snorkeling? Not a problem! Your experienced captain and first mate will patiently work with you to make sure you have a safe and enjoyable experience. We provide a homemade breakfast of baked goods and open cocktail bar. And our delicious lunch features a fresh crusty French bread, topped with salad, cheese or meat.

We requested room service deliver our breakfast between 6:30 and 7am… the earliest time we needed for the whole cruise.  It wasn’t even light outside when they knocked on the door to deliver our food!  We ate inside the cabin while we finished getting ready, so no photos today of our breakfast with a pretty view in the background.  We left the ship so early that the main terminal area wasn’t opened yet and we had to detour through the shops to get out.  A short 10 minute walk later and we arrived at the bus station. Today we noticed there was a lady sitting in the ticket booth, so we were able to buy a roundtrip Arubus card which was valid for 2 trips and cost $5 USD.  That was much more convenient than needing the exact change to pay for 2 one-way bus rides!  I’m not sure if the ticket booth was opened yesterday and we just didn’t see it, or if it was closed when we arrived, but keep your eye out for it on the side of that white booth.

There was actually about 10-15 other people taking the bus so there was already a line to board when we arrived.  We all piled on quickly and the bus left once we were all seated, even though it was at least 5 minutes before the scheduled time. Considering we were in the Caribbean and everything is usually on “island time,” it was surprising that the bus left early!  I was glad we gave ourselves a few extra minutes or we may have missed the bus. The ride up to Palm Beach takes about 20 minutes, and the bus driver was nice enough to announce each of the stops so we knew when to get off.  Our instructions said we needed to meet on the beach between Playa Linda and the Holiday Inn, so we got off the bus at the stop for Playa Linda and continued walking until we found this path to cut through to the beach.

That path led to a parking lot, and just beyond that was another path that led to the beach.  We immediately spotted this booth straight ahead of us, with a sign for Octopus Aruba.

I did find it a little strange that our instructions just said to find their beach hut between the two hotels considering they are located right next to the Pelican Pier and that would have been a more specific landmark to find them.

The beach looked beautiful in the early morning sun.  Finally, after 2 long weeks of harsh winds, the weather started to cooperate and there was just a light breeze.

Our instructions said to meet at this hut on the beach at 8:30am, but there was no staff from Octopus Aruba anywhere to be found.  At around 8:45am, a guy walked up to the booth, took out a binder, and said it was time to check in.  I guess he was working on island time?  He checked our names off of his list and we paid him the remainder of our fee for the tour.  Unlike yesterday when we could board Mi Dushi’s boat directly from the pier, Octopus leaves their boat anchored off the beach and sends a small boat back and forth to ferry us over there.  In theory, this shouldn’t be a big deal, but they could only fit 6 passengers on the boat, and there were over 40 people on our tour, so it took over half an hour to ferry everyone back and forth.

We were in the first ferry, so we had a while to just sit on the boat and wait for everyone else to arrive.  At least we had time for a nice photo before the boat started moving and my hair got all crazy!

Finally, at 9:30am, all the passengers were on the boat and we could get the tour started.  There were 4 guides on the boat with us, and they explained how the morning would go, that we could use the bathroom down on the lower level if needed, and then they started to serve a light breakfast.  First they came around with a basket of pound cake and banana bread.  It had been 3 hours since DH and I ate breakfast on the ship, so we were ready for a snack and this hit the spot!

After everyone had some food, this guide came around to pour us a mimosa.  I was surprised that they served alcohol before we went snorkeling until I took a sip of the mimosa… there definitely was some champagne in there, but it was very diluted and I doubt anyone felt the effects or would be at all impaired if they tried to snorkel after this drink haha

We sailed north along the coast in the same path we went last night on the sunset cruise.

Along the way, we spotted Mi Dushi heading in the same direction!

At 10am, we arrived at our first stop: the Antilla Shipwreck.  This is a very popular spot for snorkeling tours and there were already several boats here by the time we arrived.  This was one of my complaints with Octopus… they took one whole hour between the time we were told to be at their hut and when we started the tour.  We could see many other boats load up and leave while we were still anchored at the beach.  It seemed like a poor use of time, and as a result, when we finally got to the snorkeling location, it was very crowded.

The guides handed out snorkels, masks, and fins to anyone who needed it, and instructed us to swim forward of the boat in the direction towards shore to find the sunken ship.  The current was very choppy today (not surprising given the strong winds from the last 2 weeks!), so I asked to borrow a life vest to wrap around my waist to help me float.  When I jumped in the water, I could barely see anything.  It was extremely murky and I had to swim really strong to go against the current towards where the guides told us to go. Unfortunately, the water was so churned up that could just barely make out the shape of ship.  I couldn’t see any coral or fish or anything worth seeing, and it was quite a disappointment given how hyped up this snorkeling location was.

DH dove down to see if the conditions were any better when you got deeper into the water, but he came up a few seconds later and said it didn’t make any difference.

We decided it wasn’t worth wasting our energy and that the water was just too choppy and murky to see anything down there, so less than 10 minutes after jumping in the water, we swam back to the boat and gave up.

When we first arrived here, the guides said we would spend 40 minutes snorkeling at the shipwreck.  I told the lead guide about the poor conditions and hoped that we could wrap things up a little sooner here to give us more time at our second snorkel location.  Unfortunately, they were a bit disorganized in helping people get into the water, so even though no one stayed out there for much time, we ended up staying for the full 40 minutes because it just took that long to get everyone off the boat and then back on and settled after snorkeling.

At 10:40, we left the shipwreck site and motored about 5 minutes up the shore to Boca Catalina.  Once again, there were already a lot of boats here when we arrived.  In fact, many of them were the same boats that we saw at the shipwreck because they left first and arrived here before us.  It really would have made more sense if we could have come here first, before all of the other boats arrived, and then gone to the shipwreck second, after they all left.  But what do I know??

I count 8 big tour boats already here before we arrived

These boats looked very crowded!  The Carnival Vista was also in port with us, and I think they may have chartered some of these boats for ship excursions.  We could see the towels from a distance and all I saw were bright blue Carnival towels… none of the yellow Celebrity towels.

The guides spent a full 10 minutes trying to pull our boat into the middle of the other boats, but for whatever reason, they couldn’t get the right position and had to take us out to the far right side on the end.  Not only did that waste time, but it meant we had a lot further to swim to get back to where the coral was.  I’m not sure if it was their first day on the job or what the problem was, but this tour just didn’t seem very organized at all.  When they finally dropped the anchor, they said we could have 30 minutes to snorkel here.  This spot was much calmer than out by the shipwreck, so I wasted no time and jumped in the water to explore.  As disappointing as the snorkeling was at our first stop, I was very impressed with the snorkeling here!  Although the coral wasn’t very colorful and was likely just dead and rocks, there were tons of different fish hiding in the rocks and it went on for quite a distance so there was a lot to see.  

One last snorkeling selfie for the trip

Christmas Tree Worms on the Brain Coral

Sharptail Eel!!  Part of me was freaking out when I saw this because I thought it was a snake, then I realized it may be an eel, but either way I was freaking out but kept telling myself to stay calm so I could take a few photos and then swim away lol

Don’t miss the giant Stoplight Parrotfish camouflaged on the ocean floor

I stayed out there for 25 minutes, then swam back to the boat and was one of the last people back on board.  Since our snorkeling tour was cancelled in Bonaire, I think this was the best snorkeling spot of our cruise (second runner up was Sugar Beach in St. Lucia, which may have topped the ranks had it not been so choppy, murky, and windy that day).  After all that swimming, I was ready for a snack!  The guides walked around with a basket of pre-made sandwiches for lunch. It wasn’t the most generous portion considering it had one slice of turkey, one piece of cheese, and one slice of tomato, but it was good enough to curb my hunger for the time being.

They also took orders for drinks.  They had a few fruit juices, sodas, and a variety of liquors including rum, vodka, tequila, and whiskey.  I ordered a rum punch and it was quite tasty.

The guides pulled up the anchor, raised the sails, and we spent the last half hour of the tour sailing back down the coast towards Palm Beach.  While I don’t love that catamarans offer no shade, I do love that they can let wind catch the sail instead of using the motor.  It is so relaxing to coast along the water, listening to the waves gently hit the side of the boat, and not having to block out the noise of a loud motor.

I think this was the beach where we stopped for 20 minutes on our tour yesterday… those yellow trucks look familiar!

A little blurry, but check out all of those windsurfers!

These guys were really flying!  It was so fun to watch them and I was quite impressed with their skills

It didn’t take long before we were passing the big hotels in Palm Beach

We got back to our spot next to Pelican Pier at about 12:15pm, and they started the slow process of taking us back to shore on the little boat, 6 people at a time.  Honestly, I thought this tour was just okay.  I thought they needed some help being more organized and there were just a few things they could change which would have made the tour much better. Another thing I just realized now was that when I was emailing back and forth to get the details for our tour, they told me we would have a maximum of 24 people on the boat.  There were DEFINITELY more than 24 people on this tour with us because there was one big party of 15 people, plus several other smaller groups of 2 to 4 people, and I did a headcount at some point and counted close to 40 people (and that was just from who I could see sitting at my spot, so I may have missed a few).  I always prefer to book tours with fewer people involved, so I don’t really appreciate that they crammed that many people on our boat.  Seating was a bit limited and lots of people had to sit on the flat part at the front of the boat when they would have preferred to sit on a bench.  I should have taken a better photo to show how it looked with everyone on board but I didn’t think of it at the time.

On the bright side, the boat was in good condition, the snacks were tasty, and any day sailing in the Caribbean sun is a good day in my book! Once we got back to the beach, we walked back to the bus stop to catch a bus back to the cruise port.  The bus shelters all show this map with the various bus routes.

Look for this yellow sign to designate the bus stop.

We had very good timing with the buses in Aruba and a bus picked us up just a few minutes after we got to the bus stop.  We had originally considered spending some time at the beach after our tour, but DH wanted to do some shopping to buy souvenirs and we thought we would find more options if we did that back near the cruise ship.  Taking the bus in this direction is really easy because the last stop is the one we needed to get off at for the cruise port.

The main street is lined with lots of jewelry and souvenir stores selling anything you might want or expect to see.  We poked around in a few of the stores but DH didn’t see anything worth buying.

You can also get a nice view of the cruise ship from across the water

We had spotted another market further up the street that we rode past on the bus so we decided to walk back that way and see if DH could find what he was looking for.  On the way, we found the I <3 Aruba sign and took the obligatory photo.  To be fair, we had a great 2 days in Aruba, so we could truly say we loved this island!

We crossed a little side street and reached this flea market.  It was far enough away from the other shops that the prices were a bit cheaper, but unfortunately DH still didn’t find anything he liked (he is very picky!).

We walked back towards the cruise ship and found a large souvenir store that had tons of souvenirs and DH finally found something he liked.  By now, it was 1:45pm and I was starving so we walked back to the ship to grab food before the lunch buffet ended.  Today’s theme was pubs and pies, and they had lots of mini pot pie options.  Sadly, these were like 80% crust, 20% filling, and they looked better than they tasted.

I was always a fan of the cold salads station as there was usually a pasta salad and a seafood salad that looked good.

Lots of options for breads

Deli meats and cheeses

When in doubt, I grabbed a small slice of pizza to finish off my lunch

On the way out of the buffet, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful views of Aruba from so high up on the ship so I walked around on the outside decks to take a few photos.  

The island looks so completely flat except for that one hill in the distance

Looking out into the distance to the north, we could see some of the high rise hotels on Palm Beach

At 3pm, we went up to the Sky Lounge for another round of music trivia. Today’s theme was The Beatles and DH and I gave it a go with just the 2 of us.  Since we obviously knew the artist for every song was The Beatles, we only had to guess the song titles for 15 songs, with a maximum score of 15 points. In the end, we scored a 13, but of course another team scored a perfect 15 and we did not win.

After trivia, we headed back to the Sunset Bar for one last sail away.  Both the Eclipse and the Vista were due to sail away to head north to Miami at around 4pm.  We grabbed 2 seats at the bar and ordered a round of fruity cocktails:  a Bahama Mama for me and a Miami Vice for DH.

We had a great view of the front of the Vista from back here.

For round 2, I ordered a Blue Hawaiian.  One of the ladies sitting next to me saw my drink and asked what it was, and then ordered one for herself haha  These always look so fun!

At about 4:45pm, I noticed the ship was moving.  We had officially pulled away from our last port and were making our final journey home for the end of the cruise.  It was such a bittersweet moment because I didn’t want this wonderful vacation to come to an end but I was still looking forward to our final 2 sea days.  

Bye bye Aruba

Lots of people were out on deck to watch the sail away

That water park at the end of the airport runway must be pretty exciting if there is a plane taking off or landing!  It reminded me of like Maho Beach in St. Maarten

That hotel looks really nice… I think it’s the Renaissance Island Beach

One last glimpse of Aruba

The pilot boat headed back to shore for the Carnival Vista’s turn to sail away

We stayed out at the Sunset Bar until Aruba was just a spot on the horizon, then went back to the cabin to get ready for dinner. Tonight’s menu was new to us and had a few interesting options that I was looking forward to trying.

Venison Carpaccio

Seafood Crepe

Crispy Pork Schnitzel

Whole Wheat Spaghetti Pomodoro

When Pinto brought over our dessert menu, he mentioned the customer satisfaction survey that we would receive by email at the end of the cruise.  He told us that the scores we give for the Oceanview Buffet also reflect on him and the rest of the MDR waiters because they work up there too, and he encouraged us to give him as many 10’s as possible.  Celebrity uses these surveys to decide who gets promotions and other accolades, so Pinto stressed how important it was for us to fill it out and give positive feedback.  We were very happy with Pinto and Jose, and we did plan to give them good marks on that survey, but this whole interaction felt very awkward.  I don’t like being told how I should fill it out and what scores I should give.  That defeats the purpose of asking about customer satisfaction!  Perhaps he is instructed to do this by his superiors? I’m not sure, but it just felt awkward and forced.

Dessert Menu

Blueberry-Apple Turnover

Beggar’s Purse

After dinner, we went to the Martini Bar so I could order my favorite after-dinner drink:  the Black Forest Martini with Grey Goose Cherry Noir, Godiva Chocolate Liqueur, maraschino cherry juice, and chocolate syrup (it can come with whipped cream on top but I skipped that)

Just as we were finishing our cocktails, we noticed Captain Leo was walking by so we asked him to pose for a photo.  He was a great captain- very funny, often visible on the public decks, always willing to chat or answer a question, oh, and he’s pretty good at driving the ship too!

Tonight’s show in the theater was a comedian named Dan Wilson.  The daily schedule described him as a class clown, and his act was very funny.  Of course, comedy and humor are subjective, but judging by all of the laughter from the audience, it sounded like lots of other people enjoyed his act too!

After the show ended, we went upstairs to the Sky Lounge for a few minutes where the house band Back Before Sunset was performing for a dance party.  We only stayed for a few minutes though because we also wanted to check out an event down at the Martini Bar.  It was called Mirage @ Martini and was described as an MTV video hits dance party. We weren’t quite sure what that meant, but when we got downstairs, we saw that they had cleared away all of the couches and coffee tables from the area around the martini bar.  They set up 2 large screens, one which played the original music videos for some popular 80’s songs, and another which was back lit to show the silhouette of one of the dancers performing from behind the screen.

It was an interesting concept, and I do love some good 80’s music, but ultimately that early wake up call this morning got the best of us and we retired to the cabin by 10:30.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  10,077 steps; 3.826 miles

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebritycruises #celebrityeclipse #cruise #travel #vacation #aruba

[deladane]

Day 14: Wednesday, March 14 ~ Aruba Day 1

Day 14: Wednesday, March 14 ~ Aruba Day 1

(Eddy’s pronunciation: ARAB – ah )

I was really excited that the overnight port on this cruise was in Aruba.  Not every Eclipse 14-night sailing stays overnight here, but this is the most commercial of the ABC islands and has the most variety of things to do, so I was glad we had 2 days here to explore.  I wanted to do a good variety of activities, so we did a 4x4 jeep tour on Wednesday morning, a sunset cruise on Wednesday evening, and a snorkeling tour on a catamaran on Thursday morning with time for shopping in the town on Thursday afternoon.

ABC Tours is one of the top-rated tour companies in Aruba, offering land tours in 4x4 jeeps and UTVs.  The UTVs looked a bit too adventurous for my taste, but we have toured in 4x4s before and enjoyed it so we decided to go with that instead.   Aruba has a really rugged east coast as compared to the beaches along their west coast, so I used this tour as an opportunity to explore the east coast and booked us on the Natural Pool Safari.  The tour is 4.5 hours long, including 4 stops, lunch, water, free pick up and drop off at the cruise port, and costs $86 USD per person if booked online, including a 10% discount for booking 7 days in advance.  The only issue I had was that we had to prepay in full upon booking online, which I prefer not to do in case the itinerary changes and then I have to deal with getting a refund.  They do have free cancellation with one week notice, so we had that reassurance at least!

Here is the tour description from ABC-aruba.com…

If you are looking for a quick get-away from the busy areas and can’t wait to be mesmerized by some serious scenery of Aruba’s jaw-dropping coastline, our half day, four hour Natural Pool Safari is designed for you.  We leave ABC’s headquarter in a small caravan and before you know it you will be stopping at the beautiful historical sites on Aruba, such as;

-The Natural Bridge

-Bushiribana Gold Mill Ruins

-Aruba's Arikok National Park

-Natural Pool at 'Conchi'

The Natural Pool Safari tour will take you down the rugged roads of our beautiful island. The best part of this trip is that you will get to experience the Natural Pool by swimming and snorkeling. The pool is formed by a wall of volcanic rock formation that allows a tranquil and refreshing swimming, on a side of the island that is otherwise not possible. While snorkeling, you will be amazed by colorful fishes and coral life.

Here is today’s daily schedule:

Today looked like a cloudy day.  When we went outside on our balcony, it was hard to know if we were docked because we faced out to the water.  I know it is luck of the draw and depends on the port and the Captain’s preferences, but overall, the port-side balconies had better views of land on nearly every day of our cruise.  

After another omelet and bagel with smoked salmon for breakfast on the balcony, we left the ship just after it was cleared at 8:10am.  I wasn’t exactly sure what I was looking for, but just after stepping outside the cruise terminal, I ran into a lady holding a sign for ABC tours.  She checked our names off her list, then directed us to a 15-passenger bus which would take us to the office to start our tour.  We waited a few minutes for 4 other people to get off the Eclipse and join us, and then we set off for the 5-minute drive to the office.  We knew we were at the right place when we saw all the jeeps parked out front.

These were the UTVs for a different tour.

OMG, this part was total chaos!  We walked into the small office and there must have been 100 people in there and no one really knew where to go.  We found the woman who drove us to the office when she got behind the desk, and she helped us sign our safety waivers and fill out our lunch request forms.  The options for lunch were BBQ chicken drumsticks, soup, or a vegetarian dish.  ABC Tours offers 3 or 4 tours in both jeeps and UTVs, so everyone had to get sorted out to the right group.  The lady told us to stand outside and look for our guide, Rocky. At least we could get out of the tiny office, but it was still a bit confusing outside because no one knew who was on the tour with them and who the guides were so we were all just milling around. They really need a better system for getting the day started- perhaps staggering the start times of the different tours so everyone doesn’t arrive at the same time?  

Eventually, Rocky introduced himself and gathered up the 18 people taking the Rugged Natural Pool Safari tour.  He said there would be 3 jeeps for the 18 of us, but only 2 guides so we needed one person to volunteer to drive the last jeep.  DH wanted to volunteer but I discouraged it because I had a feeling the driving would be challenging and it would turn a fun day into a stressful one.  Luckily, there was a family of 4 with 2 teenagers and the father volunteered to drive so they got their own jeep, Rocky took 8 people in the back of his jeep, and the remaining 6 of us went into the last jeep with Andrew as our driver. Spoiler alert:  DH was really glad he didn’t drive because we were in for a bumpy ride!  But let’s not jump too far ahead.

It took a really long time to get everything organized and start our day, but we finally left the office parking lot at 9am.  Our caravan rode about 10 minutes to the first stop of the day- the Diocese of Willemstad church.  

Rocky gathered up everyone from all 3 jeeps and explained some background about the church, then gave us time to go inside and explore.  

We stayed here for about 5 minutes to see the gold-plated church altar.  It was also pretty to see the bright sunlight shining through all the stained glass windows.

Next, we rode a few more minutes to the Casibari rock formations.  This is a very popular tourist site and there were hundreds of visitors when we arrived here (including several excursions from the cruise ships).  It is a series of huge boulders where you can climb up a marked path of rocks and stairs to reach an overlook point on top.  When we first arrived here, Rocky gathered up everyone from the 3 jeeps to give us a little history about Aruba.  He spoke for about 10 minutes, then told us we could have 20 minutes to explore the grounds.  Because it was so crazy crowded when we were there, it took nearly 10 minutes to climb to the top of the rocks.  The climb as not very hard, but I would recommend wearing closed toe shoes (our tour description actually said no flip flops allowed so we were wearing sneakers anyway).  

Climbing up and through the boulders

Notice the hair on these 2 women… yup, it was another super windy day in the Caribbean!

Once we got to the top, the views of Aruba were quite impressive. Casibari is located a bit inland, but we were able to see out to the ocean and even see the cruise ships docked in the distance.  

See the cruise ships in the distance?

Looking back towards the parking area, you can see all the big tour buses and vans.  This was definitely a popular stop for tours today.

We took a few photos, then made our way back down to the ground.  Luckily there was a separate staircase to go down so it wasn’t nearly as crowded.  

Down on the ground, there is a walking path that winds through the park and is lined by super tall cacti.  Aruba is technically in a desert climate, but there is something weird about seeing a cactus and a cruise ship in the same line of site.

After we all piled back into our jeeps, we headed off to the highlight attraction of the tour- the Arikok National Park.  I knew we were in for a bumpy ride over the rugged terrain, but nothing could prepare me for this!  Luckily the seats in the back of these Land Rovers had extra cushioning and they are built for driving over rocks and up and down steep hills, but don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt tight!!  We were bouncing all over the place, so I was glad we only had 6 people in our jeep because I am sure those with 8 people in their jeep were bumping into each other more than is comfortable.  Andrew had great control over the vehicle and really knew how to get us excited by speeding down the steep hills and around curves so fast I thought the jeep may tip over.

Things got especially tricky when a bunch of bigger tour jeeps approached in the opposite direction as they were leaving the park.  The path we were driving on was barely wide enough to count as a one-way road, but definitely not wide enough for two-way traffic!  Andrew handled it like a pro- he just drove off the road!  Crisis averted!  Incidentally, I was very happy we booked with ABC Tours in this moment as we only had 6 people in our jeep while the people on the tour with that other company (not sure which one) had 16 people in each jeep!  It looked very crowded in there and definitely not comfortable for such a long day of riding on uneven surfaces.

Anyway, after a while of driving through dirt and rocks with hundreds of cacti surrounding us, we reached the ocean! The steep cliffs and jagged shoreline reminded me a little bit of the California coast.  I am not sure how it looks on a normal day, but the extreme winds crashed the waves against the shore, creating an incredible explosion of water.  It was like liquid fireworks!  

When the guides parked the jeeps, Rocky told us all to get out and gather around as he explained what would happen next. This stop was at the natural pool at Conchi and the original plan was for us to go swimming and snorkeling here. The tour description on the ABC Tours website said: “The best part of this trip is that you will get to experience the Natural Pool by swimming and snorkeling. The pool is formed by a wall of volcanic rock formation that allows a tranquil and refreshing swimming, on a side of the island that is otherwise not possible. While snorkeling, you will be amazed by colorful fishes and coral life.”  Obviously, this was the thing I most look forward to on the tour, so you can imagine my devastation when Rocky explained that it was too windy and unsafe for us to swim here today.  He said that the water is usually very calm inside the pool because the rocks surrounding it create a barrier against the waves, but that today it was so windy and the waves were so rough that they were crashing over the protective rocks and we could get swept out to sea if we tried to swim here today.  He said that he would let us walk down to the beach to take some photos and we could stay here for about 20 minutes, and as a replacement, we would go swimming at a different beach for a few minutes at the end of our tour.  Yet again, the wind would ruin our tour, but such is life so we just tried to make the best of it and enjoy what we could of this natural pool.

Climbing down to sea level was no easy feet (…see what I did there? Hehe)  If you take this tour and do get to swim in the natural pool, make sure to bring along water shoes for the hike down there because it would be really challenging to walk down these stairs in flip flops.  

These photos do not really capture how incredible this beach was.  The wind was fierce and the sun was at a funny angle so it’s hard to show in a photo what we could see in person, but I’ll do my best.  

We stayed for about 15 minutes, then climbed back up the stairs to the jeeps.  I am still quite disappointed that we missed out on the opportunity to swim here, but maybe someday I’ll be lucky enough to return here in the future.  We left Arikok the same way we entered, then drove over to our next stop.  On the way, we passed some pretty sites.

Our next stop was the natural bridge.  Or should I say, the site formerly home to the natural bridge, since the bridge itself fell down over a decade ago.  There is now a smaller bridge that formed next to where the original stood, and they have a huge mural showing what the bridge originally looked like.

Rocky told us the story of the natural bridge and how it fell down early in the morning when no tourists were around, so luckily no one was injured.  A new natural bridge is starting to form, as you can see over Rocky’s right shoulder.

I know I look ridiculous, but just in case you didn’t believe me about the wind…

It took me a loooong time and a lot of ripped out hair to untangle my rats nest when we got back to the ship after the tour haha

Here is where the original natural bridge stood.

We walked around a little and explored the grounds.  These rocks stacked on top of each other are said to bring good luck or something like that.

Too bad I wasn’t aiming my camera just a little more to the right!  There were some serious waves crashing against the shore here!!

There was a little gift shop with some food and restrooms, but I didn’t go inside.

Time to get back in the jeeps

Riding over to our next stop

Our next stop was the Bushiribana Gold Mill Ruins. Right now, it is the stone shell of a building, but originally, it was home to a gold mill that was designed to look like a fort so pirates would think this was protected land and not come ashore here and no one would know about the gold.  Andrew explained that the original name of this island was Orouba which means “there was gold” but it later shortened to Aruba.  We spent a few minutes climbing around inside the mill, but the guides said we needed to return quickly so we would have time to go to the beach.  

By now, it was 12 noon, so we jumped back in the jeeps and sped off for the 20 minute ride to our last stop at the beach. Since this was added on as a replacement for our stop at the natural pool, I didn’t know where we were going. When we arrived, Rocky explained that this was Tres Trapi, a section of Malmok beach with a scenic view of the very clear water.  He said we could stay here for 20 minutes, and then we would have lunch.  I decided to just enjoy the views and take photos along the beach since 20 minutes was not really enough time to bother getting in the water, but DH did go swimming for a few minutes and said the water felt refreshing.

When it was time to leave, we piled back in the jeeps for the short ride back to the ABC Tours office.  The way Rocky had described it, I thought we were eating lunch at the beach, but instead, we were actually eating at their office.  They have a restaurant set up along the side of the office with several long tables such that each jeep is set up at its own table to eat the lunch we selected earlier this morning.  We were so dirty and sweaty at this point, and we didn’t really want to eat lunch at the office with a view of the parking lot, so we asked Andrew to drive us back to the cruise ship.  Also, I thought lunch was included in the time of the tour, but it was now 1pm, when the tour was supposed to end, and we had not eaten yet and still had to get back to the ship.  We needed time to shower and get ready for our afternoon tour so I really just wanted to get back to the ship at this point.  Had we been eating on the beach as we thought, then we would have been fine with it, but at this point it just made more sense to skip the ‘free’ (pre-paid for with our tour price) lunch and go eat something even better back on the ship. No one else on our tour was from the ship, so it was no big deal for Andrew to drive us back now instead of after lunch.

Andrew drove us back to the port in our jeep, but he could only go as far as the security gate, so we had to walk another 10 minutes to get back to the ship.  We were back on the ship by 1:30pm and went straight up to the Oceanview Café for lunch.  I apologize to anyone who had to look at me at this moment because I looked ridiculous.  The extreme winds from the jeep tour really did crazy things to my hair and I desperately needed a shower, but that would take too much time and lunch would be over if I took care of that first, so I had no choice but to brave the buffet looking like a crazy person.  At least it was worth it for a very tasty meal.

The ‘pizza of the day’ was kind of random today, with spinach, olives, feta cheese, and baby shrimp.  I’ve never had shrimp on pizza, but it was surprisingly good! I also really liked the tortellini salad, shrimp salad, and mushrooms.

After lunch, a painful experience of removing all the knots from my hair, and an extremely long shower, we got ready for the second tour of the day.  We were staying in Aruba overnight tonight, so we wanted to take advantage of it and book a sunset catamaran tour.  Mi Dushi has a big 60-person catamaran docked in Palm Beach and they offer several options for daytime snorkeling tours plus this 2-hour evening tour.  We did not plan to go into the water on this tour as we have a snorkeling tour scheduled for tomorrow morning, so we just dressed nicely in plain clothes.  There was also the option to wear a bathing suit because the boat would anchor off the coast of one of the beaches and they have a rope swing if you want to jump in the water.  The tour also includes “light snacks” (whatever that means!) and an open bar with cocktails, soda, juice, and rum punch.  We had to meet the tour at 4:40pm at their dock in Palm Beach near the Marriott Hotel, and they do not include transportation from the cruise ship.  We could have taken a taxi from the ship to the Marriott for $14 each way, but we wanted to save a little money and be adventurous, so we took the local bus. After exiting the cruise terminal area through the security gate, we continued walking up to the main street. Directly across the street is a little alley that opens up to a big parking lot and this is where you can catch the local bus.  The bus system is called Arubus, and they have a very helpful website where I was able to find the maps and schedules for each route, so I knew we needed the L10 bus and it runs approximately every 15-20 minutes.  We left the ship at 3pm and arrived at the bus stop just as they were loading the 3:15pm bus.  The bus driver let us pay for our tickets on the bus, and he did take US dollars but he did not have any change in US currency.  The bus costs $2.60 per person, each way, so we each ended up with the equivalent of 40 cents in Aruban currency.  We did not know this at the time, but there is also a place to buy a roundtrip bus card for $5 USD so that will save you a few cents and eliminate the currency issues, so we did that the next morning when we took the bus to our other tour.  The bus is very clean, and it was interesting to see the mix of locals and tourists on the bus.  I told the driver where we were going when I boarded the bus, so he was helpful about announcing each stop so we knew when to get off the bus.  It was actually an interesting ride as the bus took us along Eagle Beach and then up towards Palm Beach so we got a good introduction to the hotels and touristy beaches in Aruba.  In the high-rise section, the hotels were HUGE and reminded us of Las Vegas.  It took about 15 minutes to reach the high-rise area and we got off the bus at the stop in front of the Marriott.  

We weren’t exactly sure where to go to meet our tour since the directions just said to find their pier between the Marriott and Holiday Inn hotels.  The first hurdle was figuring out how to get from the main road to the beach.  After walking for a little while, we couldn’t find any cut-throughs to the beach so we eventually gave up and just walked through the main entrance of the Holiday Inn.  Luckily no one seemed to mind.  We got out to the beach and started walking in the direction of the Marriott, but wow, this hotel is huge!  Just when we thought we got to the end of their property, there was another building that was still part of the Holiday Inn.  When we finally did reach the end, it wasn’t hard to find the pier because the Mi Dushi boat was docked and very easy to spot.  It has bright colors painted all over it and is clearly labeled so it’s always nice to know we found the spot we are looking for.  I made sure to give us lots of time to get down here, not knowing how fast or reliable the bus would be and not knowing exactly where we needed to find the boat, but now we were 45 minutes early for the tour. We spent a few minutes walking around the beach near the Marriott, and oh my, was this place ever hopping! Maybe it’s because it is spring break time, but it was very crowded at this beach with hundreds of lounge chairs filled with people.  It seemed like a vibrant, fun atmosphere but this beach was definitely not relaxing at all.

At around 4:15pm, we were tired of walking around the beach and wanted to get out of the sun.  It was still 25 minutes before we were due to check in for our tour, but the boat was docked right there so we decided to walk down the pier and ask if we could sit onboard a little early.  

 Like I said, the Mi Dushi boat is hard to miss!

Our notes said that the boat would be docked at the Hadicurari Pier.  Unfortunately, this giant sign is located at the end of the pier, so you can’t easily see it from the beach.

Looking back towards the beach from the end of the pier

When we got there, one of the employees was starting to set up.  He said it was too early to check in because the girls who did that process aren’t there yet, but he was nice enough to let us sit on the boat to get out of the sun. The boat is really big with 4 different levels of seating.  Since we were not going swimming, I wanted to sit as far from the water as possible to avoid getting splashed or bumped into by people in wet bathing suits, so we went straight up to the top level.  There were 2 long benches that could easily seat 4 people each, and the roof above it was lined with palm fronds for a little extra Caribbean flare.

At around 4:45pm, the girls arrived from the office to start checking everyone in.  They checked our names off their list, then asked us to sign a safety waiver and gave us each a wristband with a silver charm dangling from it.  They told us they would collect the bracelets later (as if we would have wanted to keep it??), and that we should go sit and relax until everyone else was checked in.  The boat was big enough to hold 60 passengers but there were only about 30 people on our tour, so we had plenty of room to spread out.  DH and I spent most of the tour up on the top level, and another family of 4 sat up there with us.  There was a group of around 10 college-aged kids who were likely on spring break. They were the only ones wearing bathing suits and they took over the front section of the boat.  The rest of the passengers spread out in the middle section and the back section of the boat and everyone seemed very comfortable.

Promptly at 5pm, the check in girls came around and collected all of the plastic bracelets.  I don’t exactly understand what the purpose was since we only had it for 15 minutes and they collected it before we left the dock.  It was a bit weird, if you ask me!  The girls left the boat and we were left with 3 guides for the remainder of the tour.  They explained that we would sail out along the coast towards the north for about half an hour, then we would anchor off the shore of one of the beaches so we could go swimming and use the trapeze swing if we wanted to, and finally we would sail back south as the sun was setting.  The tour was 2 hours long and we would be back at the pier by 7pm.  There was a bathroom on the boat, and an open bar for the whole length of the tour.  He pointed out a few safety things and then we were on our way!  

Despite the strong winds, we had clear skies and it was a lovely evening for a sunset cruise.

Looking back towards the high rise hotels on Palm Beach

The best part of having such strong winds was that there were lots of wind surfers.  It was amazing to watch them fly across the water… they were moving faster than us on the boat!

We climbed downstairs to the bar area to check out the situation.  This guy stayed down there the whole tour, acting as the bartender.  They had lots of different fruit juices and sodas and he mixed it with either rum or vodka.  They also had a pre-made cocktail called Boom Boom.  We tried that first, but neither of us liked it.  I stuck with rum and pineapple juice for the rest of the tour.  I was a little surprised to see that they did not serve beer, only rum and vodka, but I was okay with that.  They also had a bowl of pretzels and tortilla chips and some salsa for us to snack on.

He served the drinks in small cups that were probably 8 ounces, so we had to make several trips down to the bar to get refills. At least the drinks were very strong!

At 5:30, we arrived at our destination and they dropped the anchor just off the shore of one of the beaches.  They invited us to swing on the rope swing or go swimming if we wanted to, but only about half the people on the tour actually went in the water.

One of the guides helped people climb up onto the ledge and then he told them how to use the rope swing.  Even though I didn’t go in the water, I had a lot of fun watching these crazy people try to use the swing, some more successfully than others!

Don’t mind my crazy hair and my dress blowing everywhere in this photo… the strong winds plagued us yet again!

 This photo shows a good perspective of the seating on the boat.  I was standing at the very front on the lowest level, then there are 2 middle levels, and you can see the top level at the back where we were sitting under the shade of the little roof.  They also had cup holders near the seating around the whole boat.  That must come in handy for the daytime tours so you have a place to put your cup if you want to go snorkeling.

At some point, the Jolly Pirates boat anchored next to us.  I did consider their tour when I was looking at our options, but they required payment in full at the time of booking and I usually avoid that kind of tour in case the cruise ship doesn’t arrive in port or something.  I was glad we booked with Mi Dushi when I saw how crowded the Jolly Pirates boat looked!

When we signed up for the tour, the description said it included light snacks.  When I saw the pretzels and chips and salsa, I assumed that was our snacks, so imagine my surprise when the guides handed out warm chicken and veggie skewers, followed by cheese empanadas!  Both were delicious, and while not quite filling enough to substitute for dinner, it was enough of a snack to hold us over.  

It was hard to capture this as a photo, but this woman was swimming out past the buoys with her dog.  They came up alongside our boat from the shore, and then kept swimming further out into the ocean.  I assume she turned around eventually!

As the sun sank lower in the sky, the guides called everyone out of the water, pulled up the anchor, and we continued on our way.

They sailed further north along the coast, all the way to the tip near the lighthouse, then made a big U-turn to go back south.

The lighthouse in the distance

This boat looked like a lot of fun with the twisty slide off the back

We spent the rest of the tour slowly cruising south, watching the sun set and sipping fruity cocktails.  Not a bad way to spend an evening in paradise!

I kept watching for the Green Flash as the sun dipped below the horizon, but no such luck. The boat docked back at the pier promptly at 7pm, marking the end of the tour.  Overall, we were pleased with the tour.  This was more of a booze cruise than a romantic sunset sail, but we knew that going in and we knew what to expect, so that was okay with us.  It was nice that the boat was only half filled so we had lots of space to spread out, and the little snacks provided were unexpected and tasty.  We would definitely book with Mi Dushi again, but maybe for a daytime tour instead next time.

Our original plan was to go out for dinner at one of the restaurants along the beach, but after eating a few chicken skewers and empanadas on the tour, neither of us was hungry.  We wondered back towards the Marriott and went into their lobby to use their restrooms.  While there, we noticed that they have free wifi for one hour!  We were both getting tired and still feeling the effects of those fruity cocktails on the boat, so we lounged around in the hotel lobby and checked our emails and social media feeds for a while.  As it got closer to our 60-minute time limit, neither of us was hungry yet for dinner so we decided to just head back to the ship instead of going out for dinner at the beach.

We asked one of the employees at the hotel front desk where we could catch the bus and she directed us to walk across the parking lot out to the main road, and we would find a bus shelter nearby.  As we exited the hotel, we spotted a taxi looking for passengers so we asked what it would cost for a ride back to the cruise port. He said it was $14, so we decided to save a few dollars and just stuck with our plan to take the bus for $2.60 per person. When we got out to the main road, we stayed on the same side of the road as the hotel and turned left in search of a bus shelter.  It was quite easy to spot at night because the shelter is well lit, and about 3 minutes after we arrived, a bus pulled up that was clearly labeled as going towards Oranjestad.  I must say that the bus system in Aruba is very convenient, efficient, and surprisingly clean!  The bus was at the end of its route and at the end of the day, yet it was still spotless!

I’m not sure if you can see it from the photo, but after you pay your fare to the bus driver, you pass through a turn style. When you need to get off the bus, you must exit at the back door because you can’t go back through the turn style in the wrong direction.

This is a photo of the bus schedule.  Either of these bus routes will take you up towards Eagle Beach and Palm Beach.

This is not the greatest photo because I took it at night, but I just wanted to show you where to catch the bus.  This photo was taken at the edge of the sidewalk, coming from the cruise ship.  After you exit the gates to the cruise port, keep walking straight until you reach the main road.  If you turn right, you will see this cross walk just a few feet ahead.  Cross the street here, and you can buy a ticket from that white booth and then continue to the parking lot behind the booth to board the bus.  It is very easy and a short walk from the cruise ships, plus it’s very affordable!

When we reached the cruise port, it was 8:30pm and there was a security guard sitting at the gate, ready to check our seapass cards.  I think they had someone stationed here all night so we could come and go as we pleased. From there, it was another 5-10 minute walk to reach the gangway and reboard the Eclipse.

I still wasn’t very hungry, but it was getting late and I knew I should try to eat something for dinner.  We could have gone to the MDR but I didn’t really want to deal with a long meal.  Instead, we went up to the buffet and DH picked a few options from the Mexican food station while I got a made-to-order pasta dish.  

I was so exhausted that I nearly fell asleep mid-meal, so when we finished eating, we just went back to the cabin and called it a night.  When we arrived, we saw that Albertina had left us our disembarkation information.  

I was way too tired to deal with reading that right now so I stuffed it in a drawer to worry about later in the week.  I quickly filled out the breakfast room service door tag, then crawled into bed and fell asleep.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  12,436 steps; 4.703 miles

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebrityeclipse #celebritycruises #vacation #travel #cruise #aruba

[deladane]

Day 13: Tuesday, March 13 ~ Curacao

Day 13: Tuesday, March 13 ~ Curacao

(Eddy’s pronunciation: kur – ACK – ow)

I have always wanted to visit Curacao on a cruise to see the famous colorful buildings along the water and walk across the floating pontoon bridge.  Needless to say, I was thrilled we would be visiting Curacao on this cruise!  When I researched tour companies for our day here, I read many wonderful reviews about Irie Tours.  Most people book the 3 hour East Side Tour to visit the Blue Curacao Factory, drive through the old Jewish neighborhood and the Spanish water area, and to spend an hour or two at Mambo Beach, but I wanted something a little more exciting.  Last May, I emailed Irie Tours to book the Short West Side Beach Hopping tour for $75 USD per person.  It was a 5 hour tour with stops at 3 beaches, included beer/soda/water on the bus, and would leave us plenty of time afterwards to walk around in town.  Then, sometime in the fall, I was looking at their website and noticed our tour description was no longer listed.  Hmmm, that’s weird!  I emailed them to ask what was going on, and they wrote back to explain that they did not have enough interest in separate short vs. long beach hopping tours, so they combined it.  We were automatically transferred to the new tour which would visit 4 or 5 beaches in 6 to 7 hours, and cost $65 USD per person.  Since they lowered the price, they said they would honor the new lower price for us.  This meant that we got a longer tour with more stops for less money! Winning!!  The only problem was that now we had less time for exploring the town, but that is okay and well worth the trade off.  Originally, we were going to go back to the ship for lunch before returning to the town, but now we would just plant to eat lunch at the beach and go directly into town after the tour.  Sail away wasn’t until 8pm, so we were looking forward to a fun, long day in port.

This is the description of our tour from the Irie Tours website:

The west side of the island is known for its nature, history and incredible beaches!  Along the way our professional guide will tell you all about our Island’s rich history.

Our first stop will be at National Park Shete Boka. We’ll stay here for 45 minutes while you can walk around and enjoy the spectacular scenery. You have the option to visit one of the 7 caves or just watch large, unpredictable waves crush against the rocky North coast.

We then head to Playa Forti for the ones who dare to go cliff jumping or else enjoy the beautiful view and take some awesome pictures.

The next stop is at Kenepa Beach, which is one of the most popular and beautiful beaches on the Island.  Here you have the opportunity to enjoy the breathtaking view or dive into the crystal blue water. If you're into snorkeling, Kenepa beach is the perfect spot to do this.  We stay at this beach for 1 hour.

Now it’s time for our last beach stop, which is Porto Marie Beach. Porto Marie is also known for its incredible snorkel sites. You can also grab something to eat & drink at the beach bar/restaurant. Here we stay for 1,5 hour.  On our way back to town, we drive by the salt lake at St. Willibrodus to see the Flamingo's.

Today’s daily schedule:

We didn’t need to meet our guide this morning until 8:45am, and the meeting spot was right off the ship on the pier, so we got to sleep a little later today and ordered room service breakfast to be delivered in the 7:30-8:00am time slot.  I really liked that they always called us on the phone 5 minutes before delivering our food so I had time to throw on some clothing, clear off the coffee table, and grab some cash for a tip before they knocked on the door.  While eating on the balcony, we noticed that today was another sunny but windy day (see how the water is all choppy and churned up?)  We ordered a few extra goodies with breakfast today to keep us full long enough to make it to our lunch at the beach.

After breakfast, we ran upstairs to check out the views of Curacao from the port side of the ship (too bad our balcony was on the starboard side and facing nothing but ocean!).  The sun is at a funny angle in the morning, so I made a mental note to come back here later in the afternoon in hopes of getting better photos.

Notice how rough the water is and all the white water crashing against the shore?  It was WINDY today!

The white tents in this photo are where we needed to meet our tour guide… conveniently located very close to the ship!

Ok, time to head off the ship and get our day started.  

Welcome to Curacao!

Wow, check out those waves!

As I approached this tent, I quickly spotted a man holding a sign for Irie Tours.  

He said, “You must be Dana!”  I am always so impressed when the guides can greet me by name before I introduce myself.  His name was Eddy, and he said we would have 7 people in our group today, but only the 2 of us were from the cruise ship.  That explains how he knew who we were!  

He was holding this sign with a list of all of our stops for today, perhaps in an attempt to recruit others to book our tour? That didn’t happen though.

We walked over to the parking area and hopped on one of the colorful open-air school buses to ride around the corner to pick up the 5 other people from the Renaissance Hotel.  The bus was a full sized school bus with a few of the rows at the back removed to make space for the speaker system and the giant cooler of drinks.  There was plenty of space for the 7 of us to spread out and have our own row, with a separate row for our beach bags.  We drove over to the Irie Tours office to pick up some snorkel equipment for the others on our tour.  While we were waiting, I noticed this neat painting depicting the scene across the water…

By 9:15am, we were on our way to start a fun day exploring Curacao!

Yrad was our bus driver so that Eddy could narrate as we traveled to our first site.  Unfortunately, Eddy had a fairly thick accent so it was hard to understand half of what he said, but he started the tour by explaining a brief history of Curacao and running through the day’s itinerary.  He said the bar is always open so we should help ourselves to the water, soda, and beer from the big cooler at the back of the bus.  Whenever Eddy wasn’t talking, they played fun loud music as we drove to our next stop.  The bus had no windows, and as usual, it was a very windy day, so it was quite breezy, but that added to the fun!

After 15 minutes, we pulled up to our first stop: a lake filled with flamingos! Today we were much closer to the flamingos as compared to yesterday.  We had about 10 minutes to get off the bus and take photos.  The water in this lake was shallow so we had an unobstructed view of the flamingos!

We even saw a few of them fly away.  I had no idea that flamingos could fly!

This was our bus for the day… pretty hard to miss it!

We made several brief stops along the road to see some of the sites from inside the bus.  Up first, we saw the smallest church in the Caribbean.  It was basically just a hut on the side of the highway, but Eddy said that lots of people love to pray here because of a miracle that happened in the 50’s or 60’s where a woman was able to get pregnant after praying here and she had been trying for 12 or 14 years, or something like that.  

I’ll bet those windmills in the distance are collecting a lot of energy on a windy day like today!

Our next stop is called Kunuku House, and it is a museum of restored slave houses.

I thought the fences made out of cacti were pretty neat.  Eddy said these are to keep the animals out.

Driving along the highway, we passed a few small towns with houses for the locals, but mostly, we just saw lots of bushes and clear skies ahead.

Eddy pointed out this church because they do not bury people underground in Curacao.  Instead, they use mausoleums like you can see here behind the yellow wall.

The church looked quite large.

At 10:15am, one hour and 15 minutes after starting the tour, we arrived at our first beach.  

Shete Boka National Park is located on the rugged north coast and offers an incredible view of the waves crashing against the shore.  It was mesmerizing to watch it!  It was very rough and definitely not safe to swim in the water here, so this was more of a photo opportunity than a real beach stop.  Eddy told us to walk along the path out to the water, and then to climb up some stone steps to reach the trail that goes around the edge of the cliff to get the best views of the waves, which crashed several feet high.

This not-so-little iguana was there to greet us as we got off the bus.

Walking along the “trail” towards the water…

The “beach”… I use that term lightly haha

We turned back towards these steps to climb up to the top

The trail was well defined and totally flat, so if you didn’t want to climb on the slippery, uneven rocks, you could easily just walk along this path instead.

I made excellent use of the burst mode in my camera to take photos at this point.  I have never really used the burst mode before because I just never think of it, so I got a little carried away and ended up with over 1000 photos that I then had to delete off my memory card! LOL  oops!!  It is kind of hard to pick which photos to share with you, so pardon me while I overload you with just a small sampling of the photos I took here!

I call this photo “A rainbow in the mist”

Notice that we are wearing our aqua socks.  I wasn’t sure how safe it would be to do this “hike” in flip flops, so we put these on before leaving the bus.  We probably would have been okay in flip flops, but better safe than sorry!

Walking back to the bus, you can see the rest of the grounds here are baron.  Not much to see except for all the excitement by the shore.  

Once back at the parking lot, Eddy showed us where to find the restrooms.  They were clean and free, which was more than we could say for most beach stops, so we took advantage of it.  There was also a small café if you wanted to buy something to eat, including their specialty, iguana soup!

We stayed at Shete Boka for about 30 minutes, then drove 10 minutes to our next stop.  Along the way, Eddy pointed out this funky house up on the hillside:

Do you see it?  How about now…

I’m not sure what the deal is with this display, but it was at the entrance to our next stop…

Play Piskado is a fisherman’s wharf where there are often sea turtles in the water trying to eat the scraps thrown in from the fisherman.  Eddy said we had 30 minutes to snorkel or just relax on the beach.  We were thrilled as this stop was not originally on the tour, and it gave us a chance to swim with the sea turtles after missing out in Barbados!

To enter the water, you need to walk down this ramp that the cars use to lower their boats into the water.  It was covered in moss, so I was glad to have something protecting my feet!

DH is ready to search for turtles!

Eddy told us to swim out towards the boats for the best chance at spotting the turtles.  It didn’t take long before I spotted this little guy!

Yay!  I was so excited that we got to see turtles!!

All of a sudden, I noticed this huge school of fish swimming below me!  I have never seen anything like that while snorkeling, but it reminded me of the Monterey Bay Aquarium where they have this round circular tank mounted overhead as you enter one of the exhibits and there are thousands of sardines in there, constantly swimming in circles.  I got this image off Google Images to show you what I mean because it’s a very impressive exhibit…

Anyway, back to Curacao… I looked down to see this swimming below me!  So cool!!

I just love the shape of their formation and how they all know to stay in line and follow the pack.

There wasn’t much in the way of coral or other fish, but I did spot this bright purple coral.

Oh look, another turtle!  I thanked him for swimming in a good direction for the sun to shine on his shell… he must have been a model in a former life!

I stayed out in the water to snorkel for only about 15 minutes so I could have some time to check out the rest of the beach. It looks like a tour group was here to observe from standing on the pier.

The area wasn’t all that big, but it was perfect as a spot to observe the turtles.  The water was such a pretty shade of turquoise!

The sand was very course with sharp pieces of shells, so I wouldn’t recommend walking around barefoot.

Eddy pointed out the building in the distance up on the cliff with the red roof and yellow wall… that would be our next destination.

I walked down to the end of the pier and then I understood why all those people were standing out here… there were pelicans!

 This was a much more up-close encounter with them as compared to when we were in Antigua and could see them from our boat.  

Timing is everything… I was just clicking away, taking lots of photos, and I happened to snap a photo just as this guy was receiving his lunch!

Every time I encounter a pelican, I am so impressed at how tame they are and how they don’t seem to mind when humans come too close. This photo was taken on New Years Eve 2011 in Half Moon Bay, CA.  I had a brief chat with the pelican, and once we were friends, he posed for a photo with me!

What is it about this spot in Curacao that keeps reminding me of life back in California? Haha

Ok, I’m sorry, I’ll try to stay more focused…

It was nearly time to leave, so I started walking back towards the bus and came across this guy…

I didn’t expect to see all these birds at this stop, but it was so fun!  Whoever left their shoes on the beach might need to spend the rest of the day barefoot if she doesn’t come back soon!

Once everyone was back on the bus, we drove just a few minutes up to the top of the hill to Playa Forti.

From here, we had a beautiful overlook of the coast, and could see back towards Playa Piskado.

Just look at the color of that water!  So pretty!!

Ever since I booked this tour nearly a year ago, I was looking forward to this stop because it offers a very unique experience… cliff jumping!  There is a small platform where you can jump from, with a 40ft drop before you reach the 14 foot deep pool of water.  All along, DH and I both planned to jump from here, but now that I was standing up here, I got scared.  Eddy explained that you have to stay stick straight in a vertical position, and to hit the water with your feet first in order to avoid injury.  After that, you need to swim back to the shore to reach the stairs and climb back up to the top of the cliff.  I am not the best swimmer and I was worried about getting back to shore, especially without my goggles.  In the end, I chickened out, as did everyone else on our tour, except for DH. He was the only person brave enough to make the jump, although it did take him a few seconds of standing up on the platform, plotting his technique and gaining the courage to take the jump. Again, this was a great opportunity to use the burst mode on my camera.  I got some really cool photos, but I didn’t have the right angle to see when he actually hit the water.

Judging by the splash, he was not perfectly straight when he hit the water.  If there is anything I have learned by watching competitive diving on the summer Olympics, it’s that the bigger the splash, the more of an angle your body had when hitting the water.

It took him a few seconds to swim back up to the surface.  I was glad to see that he was still breathing and that he survived the jump, but I could tell he wasn’t feeling quite right.

He took a few minutes to swim back to the shore and climb up the stairs.  There he is, walking to the stairs on the beach.

When he got back up to the top of the cliff, he said his neck and shoulder were hurting and we think he may have given himself whiplash.  As the day went on, the muscles in his neck got very tight and it hurt him to turn his head to the side.  I used my Physical Therapy skills to try to work out the knots in his muscles and one of the ladies on the tour offered him some Advil.  The soreness continued for a few more days, getting gradually better, and he was back to normal by the end of the cruise.  Looking back, DH said he was glad he jumped because he would have regretted not doing it, but I was very happy that I skipped it!!  

After all of that excitement, we were ready for some time to relax at a beach.  We drove about 10 minutes to our next stop, and along the way, we passed this monument to freedom from slavery.

Our next stop was Playa Kenepa Grandi, and we had just over 1 hour to enjoy this beautiful beach with stunning views and to go snorkeling.  If we wanted to rent lounge chairs and an umbrella, it would cost $18, and it was $1 to use the bathroom, but it was free to put your towel down on the sand.  Eddy said we were free to stock up on some drinks from the cooler to bring down to the beach with us.  Yrad parked the bus at the back of the parking lot so we could come back for refills if we wanted to.

This is often rated as one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean, and I can see why!

Looking straight down, I made a note of these rocks under the water because it probably has some good snorkeling over here.

We climbed down the stone steps to reach the beach below.

Restrooms and the restaurant is to the right

There was lots of shade on the closer side of the beach, just as we got off the steps.  DH was really sore, so he opted to drink a beer from the bus on his towel in the sand while I went snorkeling.  I started on the left side of the beach (facing the water), heading towards those rocks I saw from above.  The snorkeling was okay… nothing spectacular, but I did see a puffer fish and a few other interesting fish.  There wasn’t much coral though, mostly just sand and rocks.

White Spotted Puffer Fish!

I stayed out there for about 15 minutes, then swam back to the beach to walk over to the far right side and see what the snorkeling was like over there.

It didn’t take long to realize the snorkeling over here was even more impressive.  I stayed close to the rocks and found lots of interesting fish.

Tiny bright blue fish

I looked down and check out what I found…

Squid!!!  I am always super excited when I spot something I’ve never seen before, and this was my first time seeing squid!  They moved really quickly and they were small and stayed close to the ocean floor, so it was hard to get a clear photo, but I did my best.

Of course, that was my highlight of snorkeling here!  There was still a little more to explore though.

Our time here passed quickly, so with 15 minutes to go, I made my way back to where DH was sitting so I could get dried off and help him walk back to the bus.  It was now after 1pm and we were starting to get hungry, so I was ready to move along to our final stop.  On the way, we passed this sign for Williwood, but I don’t remember what Eddy said was the reason for it.

Another huge church

The last stop on our tour was Playa Porto Mari, where we would have 2 hours to spend at the beach.  They have a beach bar and restaurant where we could buy lunch, they have good snorkeling, and they also have bathrooms with showers that we could use for free.  They charged to rent lounge chairs on the beach, but there were some Adirondack chairs that were free to use if we could find one that was available.  

We were hungry, so we went over to the restaurant to buy something to eat for lunch.  The menu offered typical beach food with burgers and sandwiches, so we got 2 cheeseburgers with fries for $10 USD per person.  

We took a seat at the bar to wait for our food. It was nice to sit in the shade, and the view was beautiful.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of smokers at this restaurant. They weren’t there when we took our seats or we would have opted to sit somewhere else, but lucky us… 2 parties showed up and sat on either side of us, and then proceeded to smoke a bunch of cigarettes, one after the other.  It was really unpleasant and ruined the beautiful atmosphere for us, and it didn’t help that it took 45 minutes for our food to be ready.  Had I known the food would take that long, I probably would have gone snorkeling right after placing my order to use the time better.  There weren’t that many dishes coming out of the kitchen, so I guess the cook works on “island time.”

When the food finally arrived, it was good. Nothing special, but basically what we expected it to be.  I have never seen this before, but they served the burger with a slice of cucumber instead of a pickle.

The food came at 2:15pm, so by then we were starving and scarfed it down really quickly.  We paid our bill (after taking 10 minutes to hunt down the waitress), and then left to go check out the beach.  It was really pretty here, but more crowded than our last beach.  

We went towards the left side of the beach as there wasn’t anyone over here and we spotted some rocks that would make a safe spot to stash our beach bags.

Just as we were about to go in the water, I noticed this man walking his pet… pig!  Kinda bizarre, but I guess pigs like going for long walks on the beach?

Ok, time to go snorkeling… There’s a smooth sandy entrance to the water here so no need for water shoes.

From the shore, we could see a bunch of snorkelers out in the water, and the water was a slightly darker shade of blue out that way, so we knew that’s the direction in which we should swim.  At first, it was sort of barren with just a handful of fish and some coral here and there.

We went out a little further and that’s when things got interesting!  They sunk these giant hollow concrete spheres in the water, and they had big holes in them to allow the fish to swim in and out and to give a place for coral to grow. It was so much fun to float above them and peek inside to see which fish were lurking in the shadows.

It kinda looks like the big fish is kissing the smaller fish… either that, or he’s sizing up the smaller fish to eat for lunch!

Peek a boo, I see you!

I really enjoyed snorkeling at this beach, but I only stayed out there for about 20 minutes so I would have time to get showered and changed before it was time to meet back at the bus.  Unfortunately, it was nearly impossible to use these showers! There were 2 outdoor showers, which would have been fine but the handle was mounted at least 7 feet off the ground, and you had to keep holding it to keep the water flowing.  Who thought that was a good idea?  It must have been installed by a very tall person!  I gave up quickly and just went into one of the toilet stalls to get toweled off and changed.  You’d be surprised at the balancing act involved with getting changed in a fairly small stall when you don’t want anything to touch the wet ground or the toilet, and when there are no hooks to hang your bag and the door to the stall is over 10 feet high so you can’t throw stuff over the top of the door haha It was an interesting experience, but I succeeded (even if it took me over 20 minutes!).

Now that I was all cleaned off and in dry shorts and a tshirt, I met up with DH again and he said he found something to show me.  There is this wood lookout tower in the back of the parking lot, which looks fairly new.

We climbed up to the top to see beautiful panoramic views over the beach!  I didn’t stay up here too long because it was extremely windy, but it was worth it to take a few photos.  Possibly the only complaint I have about the TG-5 is the way it takes panoramic photos. It stitches them together, but you can always see an ugly seam between each section of the photo and I just think it’s not worth the effort to try and take the photos because they never come out good.  I usually carry my old Sony underwater camera specifically to use for panoramic photos because those always come out perfectly, but I didn’t have it with me today. Instead, I just took 3 separate photos of each part of the beach.

By 3:30pm, we were all back on the bus and ready for the 30 minute drive back to the port.  I liked how they structured the tour in that we drove out to the furthest spot first, then gradually worked our way back towards the port so we didn’t have a super long ride at the end of the day.  It wasn’t much of an issue for us with an 8pm sail away time, but for people on cruises that leave earlier than that, it is nice to know you don’t have very far to travel at the end of the tour to minimize the risk of traffic or other delays making you miss the ship.  Eddy asked us if we wanted to be dropped off at the cruise port or closer to the floating bridge, and we opted for the latter so we’d have a shorter walk to get downtown.  Overall, we really loved this tour and both agreed it was one of our favorite days of the 17-day vacation.  Eddy really knows how to keep his guests happy and entertained, and the itinerary was a lot of fun!

The walk towards downtown is very easy and all on flat roads.  We walked down to the end of the street to the Rif Fort.  This is an old fort that has been converted into a shopping and dining plaza.

It’s hard to get lost with signs like this!

It was really pretty inside the Rif Fort area, with tall palm trees and lots of bright colors!

Of course, you can buy all the different flavors of Curacao Liquor at many of the shops here- no need to visit the factory if you don’t want to.

There was a young woman who lived in a shoe…

We kept walking passed all the shops and exited the Rif Fort at a sidewalk along the water.  The current was so strong and the water was so rough that it kept crashing up along the walls and I got splashed a few times!  It’s a good thing I was using my waterproof camera!!

We walked further along the water, passed a few vendors in tents selling touristy souvenirs, to reach the base of the pontoon bridge.  This was that iconic view that I have been eager to see in person!

The bridge is officially called the Queen Emma Bridge, and was built in 1888.  It is designed to open laterally, floating along the water creating an angle against this side of the wall so boats can pass through.  It was closed now so we could walk across the bridge, taking our time and admiring the beautiful views.

This is the Queen Juliana Bridge, and is obviously much larger to allow cars to drive over the St. Anna Bay.

I just loved how bright and colorful all the buildings were!

When we reached the other end of the bridge, we just wondered around the streets of the downtown area.  Many of the buildings had an interesting outer façade, and there were lots of interesting stores to check out.  You could easily spend a whole day exploring here, with no need to book a formal excursion if you don’t want to.

I’ll bet you mis-read the name of this store at first glance!

Don’t you just want to run up and give her a hug? She matches the statue we saw when we first exited the ship this morning.

We meandered through the streets until we reached the Mikve Israel Emanuel Synagogue, which is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere.  Unfortunately, we arrived just a few minutes after they closed at 4pm so we couldn’t go inside to see the famous sand floors, so a few photos from the outside will have to do.

It was late enough in the afternoon that most people had come and gone so there weren’t many tourists walking around.  I imagine it looked very different a few hours earlier!

We spent about 30 minutes walking around and checking out the shops, and then tried to walk back across the bridge to get back to the cruise ship but we arrived just as it was opening.  They open the bridge as needed for either 10 minutes when it opens halfway, or 30-40 minutes when it opens fully to allow larger ships to pass.  Luckily this was only a 10 minute time, so we got to see the whole process but it didn’t delay us too long.  There is also a ferry to take you across the water if you don’t want to wait for the bridge, but it is not worth it when the bridge is only open for 10 minutes.

If you happen to be on the bridge when it starts to open, then you get to go for a little ride!  I wonder if they will let people off at the other end or if they are trapped there and have to wait for the gates to open?  

The bridge opened just enough to allow this boat to pass through, then it swung back the other way to close.

While we were waiting, I noticed this heart next to the bridge.  Many bridges around the world have had trouble with people hanging locks and then tossing the keys into the water for good luck or romance or whatever, and it is causing damage to those bridges.  I thought it was clever that they had this giant heart sculpture for people to safely place their locks without damaging the bridge.  It even makes for some pretty urban art!

After about 10 minutes, the gates lifted back up and we were allowed to walk across the bridge.  It was very interesting to watch the whole process so I’m glad we happened to be there at that time.

We walked around the Rif Fort for a few minutes, looked in a few of the shops, then walked back to the ship.  We were back onboard by 5pm, so we went upstairs to deck 14 so I could try to take some better photos.  As predicted, the sun was at a much better angle and I was able to take some beautiful photos of the port area and all of Willemstad.

Wow! Look at those waves crashing up against the sea wall!!  The strong winds from the last 2 weeks continued today, and I heard a few people had their snorkeling tours cancelled.  I was glad we booked a land-based tour today and not a boat tour so at least we were not impacted as much.

When I was planning our dinner reservations for the cruise, I debated about what to do for tonight.  All aboard was at 7:30pm with an 8pm sail away time, so I considered pushing back our dinner reservation to maximize our time in Curacao.  While it may have been nice to spend a little more time walking around the town, I decided it was better to keep with our consistent 7pm dinner reservation to increase our chances of always sitting with the same wait staff.  As it turned out, I think I made the right choice because Pinto and Jose only have 6 tables in their section, and it was always roughly the same group of people seated in their section each night.  Each night, we all arrived between 6:45 and 7:15pm, and we finished eating between 8:15 and 8:45pm, so had I made us 8pm dinner reservations for tonight, there wouldn’t have been a table in that section for us.  I think the hostess seats people as they arrive into a section with the same wait staff so the waiters can keep all the tables on the same courses at the same time to minimize how many times they need to run down to the galley.  Showing up for dinner at an off time would probably mean we would be seated with a different wait staff whose tables are synced with that later dining time, whereas a random couple who did not make reservations would be seated at our normal table.  

Anyway, after taking photos of the cruise port area from upstairs on the outer decks, we went back to the cabin to quickly shower and change for dinner.  Tonight’s dinner menu was another new one for us, and I loved all of the seafood options!

Creamy Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Bay Scallop and Shrimp Ceviche

Seafood and Lobster Pappardelle

This was one of my favorite meals of the week! We skipped dessert (so I don’t have a photo of that menu for tonight) because there was a special show happening in the lobby at 8pm that we didn’t want to miss.  I really liked how the production cast performed these little shows in the Grand Foyer throughout the week, like a bonus show in addition to the bigger productions in the main theater.  Tonight’s theme party was called Reigning Rocks, and featured songs by British rock bands.  

It’s hard to see, but one of the dancers was swinging around inside of the neon guitar.

The costumes for this show were really fun, but be sure to show up early as it’s a popular event but it is standing room only and the best spots are taken quickly!  We saw some people riding up and down in the glass elevators to watch the show, so they may have had the best ‘seats’ in the house!

Tonight’s show in the main theater was a singer named Jesse Hamilton.  Like several other solo performers on this cruise, he has performed on Broadway, most notably as Simba in the Lion King and the Tin Man in The Wiz.  For tonight’s show, Jesse performed a mix of soul and pop hits, with a little comedy thrown in for entertainment.

After that, we went back to the Grand Foyer for the Silent Disco at 10:15pm.  I have never done this before and we missed a few opportunity to participate in other Silent Discos earlier during the cruise, so I made sure to stay up late enough tonight that we wouldn’t miss out again.  They provide you with a set of wireless headphones which can be tuned to one of 3 stations (hence the 3 colors- red, green, and blue).  

Each station has its own theme with one of the ship staff acting as DJ.  Cruise Director Eddy played songs from the 50’s and 60’s, Activities Manager Kristine played songs from the 70’s and 80s, and DJ Mace played songs from the last 30 years.  You can control your own headphones so you can either stick with one station the whole time, or switch around to hear different songs.  It was such a fun event and very well attended, with tons of people dancing and singing along to their favorite songs.  It was even fun for people just watching but not wearing the headphones or participating because the DJ’s encouraged us to sing along to the chorus, which created a cacophony of voices singing 3 different songs at the same time!  

I only planned to stay for a few minutes but we ended up staying until 11pm!  This was the view from the glass elevators as we went back to our cabin.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  16,486 steps; 6.711 miles

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebritycruises #celebrityeclipse #cruise #vacation #travel #curacao

[deladane]

Day 12: Monday, March 12 ~ Bonaire

Day 12: Monday, March 12 ~ Bonaire

(Eddy’s pronunciation: bon – EYE – ree)

One of the main reasons we picked this itinerary was the chance to visit the ABC islands.  Located outside of the hurricane belt in the southwest corner of the Caribbean Sea, the ABC islands offer a very different vibe than the other Southern and Eastern Caribbean islands which I have visited.  Bonaire is known for having some of the best snorkeling and scuba diving in the world, and ranks #2 for snorkeling in the Caribbean (Belize is said to be #1, and yes, I am secretly hoping to take a Western Caribbean cruise at some point to experience Belize first hand!).  In fact, 85% of the people who visit Bonaire are there to see the marine life.  They have a marine park that is protected, and I knew I wanted to see it for myself.  Woodwind Bonaire is one of the top rated snorkeling tour companies on the island. They were very easy to communicate with online, and I booked us on the 4 hour morning sail which would visit 2 sites in the marine park for snorkeling, and included lunch and an open bar for $65 USD per person.

Here is today’s daily schedule:

While we ate our room service breakfast on the balcony, we could see that we were in for another windy day in paradise.  I was really hoping that when we cruised all this distance west yesterday, that we would get into a new weather pattern, but we could already tell that it was super windy in Bonaire today.

Woodwind sent us detailed instructions on where to meet them the morning of our tour.  It was a short 5 minute walk to the right as we exited the cruise port, and we had pretty views of the ship along the way.

We were instructed to meet outside the Divi Flamingo Casino at 8:20am.  It was very obvious where we had to go, especially when we saw this big sign:

We arrived about 10 minutes early, and the guide was there waiting to greet us.  Unfortunately, he came bearing bad news… Due to the extreme winds, he had to cancel our tour for today.  He said he had cancelled all of his tours for the last 5 days, and he would probably need to cancel tomorrow’s tour too.  I can’t even describe how disappointed I was at that moment.  When he cancels a tour, he loses a lot of money, so I knew he didn’t make this decision on a whim and conditions must be really bad if he needed to cancel the tour, but I was so disappointed to miss out on snorkeling here. Not many cruises visit Bonaire and who knows if or when I will be here again.  While we did go snorkeling on a few other islands throughout this cruise, I always knew that snorkeling in Bonaire would be the highlight, and now I wasn’t going to experience it.  Even now, several weeks later, I am still sad to miss out on that opportunity.

Meanwhile, it was now 8:15am and I had no idea what we should to today!  I did not research any back up plans because it never occurred to me that the tour would be cancelled.  Someone asked the guide if we should take the water taxi to Klein Bonaire to snorkel there off the beach, but the guide did not recommend that because it is a barrier island with no protection from the wind, so the conditions would not be safe, plus the water would be too churned up to see anything anyway.  As we walked back towards the ship, we saw a few tents set up with vendors selling island tours, golf cart rentals, and water taxi tickets.  In lieu of twiddling our thumbs on the ship all day, we spoke with a few of the vendors offering tours of the island to see what our options were.  I really did not like booking a tour like this.  As you all know, I am used to doing extensive research, reading reviews on Trip Advisor and Cruise Critic, and making an educated decision on how to spend the day with no pressure.  I did not know how to tell if these vendors were a scam, or offering a good deal, or if the tour would be any good.  Had this happened in Antigua, we probably would have opted to abort the mission completely and retreat back to the ship haha  We were surprised to find the vendors in Bonaire were very easy to work with.  They explained what they had to offer with no pressure to book right away, and they didn’t mind when we walked away to think about it and speak with other vendors before committing.  We spoke with 3 vendors offering island tours for about 3 hours, costing $25 to $30 USD per person.  One had a 12 person van, one had a large open air bus for 15 people (I think?), but we opted for the vendor with a small minivan holding just 6 guests with air conditioning and free wifi for $30 per person.  The guide, Justino, said we would visit the whole island to the south first, then to the north, and we would spend some time at the beach.  He showed us these maps to highlight the stops along the tour:

It was only 8:30am and the tour was due to start at 9:30, so we paid for the tour and Justino gave us a receipt and said to meet him back at the tent in an hour.  I was wearing a long sleeve rash guard in anticipation of a day on a sail boat with no shade, so we went back to the ship to get changed.  The security guards who scanned our seapass cards were quite surprised to see anyone reboarding the ship so early!

Back at the cabin, we got changed into tshirts and shorts, repacked our day bag to ditch the towel and snorkel gear in exchange for our cell phones from the safe to make use of the free wifi in the van.  We still had about 20 minutes to spare, so we walked around the area near the cruise port until it was time to meet Justino.

The Eclipse looks so pretty in the early morning sun

This looked like a great photo opportunity, but there was no one in sight to take the photo for us!  Just imagine that we are standing next to those flamingos haha

We returned to Justino’s tent just as he found 2 other couples to join us on the tour, so the 6 of us walked over a block or two to where his van was parked.  The van had enough space for the 6 of us to sit comfortably, and we were all happy that the AC was very strong and had individual controls to adjust it. Justino also had bottles of water in a cooler in the trunk that we could have as needed, plus he had space back there to stash our bags for the day.  We were on the road by 9:30am, and Justino immediately started giving us lots of facts and information about Bonaire’s history.  Bonaire is a tiny island of only 112 square miles, located about 60 miles off the coast of Venezuela.  Formerly part of the Netherland Antilles, it became a legal “municipality” of the Netherlands in 2010, when the Netherland Antilles was dissolved and Curaçao and Aruba became autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

On our way to our first stop, we drove past this brand new resort with brightly colored buildings.  I think he said it is a Courtyard by Marriott?

The colors of the water were so beautiful… too bad we won’t get to swim in it!

Our first stop was at the salt fields. Justino explained that they harvest the salt here by collecting water from the Caribbean into a series of huge ponds, where the sun and wind work to evaporate the water, leaving behind crystals of salt.  One of the characteristic features of salt produced by solar dehydration is the size of the resulting salt crystals. Unlike “rock salt” from underground mines, salt obtained from “natural” processes like solar dehydration produces much larger crystals of salt, which can be used in water softeners, swimming pools, dinner table salt, de-icing roads in the winter, and more.  There is a special algae which thrives in this salty water, which reacts to turn the water pink in color, making it a really interesting site to see.  

Mountains of salt piled up, waiting to be processed

Justino found some crystals of salt for us to look at.

Proof that we were here!

It is hard to tell because my hair is tied back in braids, but it was extremely windy out here.  Justino has an app where he could look up the wind speeds and he said it was 30mph, but I thought it felt like more than that.  We had to really brace ourselves and keep a wide base of support to avoid being knocked over!

After a few minutes of taking photos and looking around at the salt flats, we piled back in the van to drive to our next stop, just a few minutes up the road- the slave huts.  These huts each housed 7 or 8 people (notice the size compared to our van… they were tiny!)

Justino explained that the slaves used to work at the salt fields all day, and they returned here to sleep at night.  They were fed just one handful of food for the entire day of work, so I can imagine how grueling that life must have been, especially in the hot Caribbean sun.  We spent a few minutes walking around, looking at the huts, and admiring the beautiful view.

Inside one of the huts

They used a color coding system to identify the groups of slaves.  We were at the homes of the White Slaves, but there were also other groups with other color names.

This marker on the main road indicated that we were at the section for the white slaves

Justino lined us up to pose for a fun photo looking through the window and door of the hut

There was no sand on this beach, just beautiful stones and shells that were worn away from the sea.

 A few other tour groups arrived as we were getting ready to leave

Once we were all settled back in the van, we drove back the way we came, going north passed the cruise ship, to drive through the downtown area of Kralendijk.  We didn’t get out of the van here, but DH and I decided we would come back to walk around here later this afternoon.

I thought it was funny that they call their post office the Flamingo Express haha

We drove along the coast, admiring the views and the new upscale houses and hotels.  Everything was very green, and there were tons of cactus in between the trees and bushes.

Justino explained that there are hundreds of sites where you can go scuba diving in Bonaire.  Because the road which circles the island is so narrow, there isn’t a lot of space to park your car, so they have these cross walk signs to keep the divers safe. I thought this was really funny…

Our next stop was the 1000 Steps.  No, there are not 1000 steps here.  I think it was more like 70 steps haha  Under water, the steps continue and create one of the best scuba diving spots on the island as the plateaus and drop offs repeat and create a beautiful underwater world.  We spent about 20 minutes here, with time to walk down to the beach and take some photos.

These yellow painted stones mark all the dive spots around the island.  Most are named for the person who discovered the site, but this one has a more specific name.

Another rocky beach

 The ocean eroded the side wall of the hill, mimicking the steps under the water

I can’t imagine walking back up all of these steps, lugging scuba gear!!    

One last view of the beach.  This was really a beautiful spot!

Next, we continued driving north towards the town of Karpata.  There is a large protected nature reserve at the northern end of the island which is home to hundreds of flamingos.  Justino passed around this poster to show us that flamingos are actually white in color when they are born, but they feed on shrimp which turns them pink.  The older they get, the more shrimp they eat, and the pinker they become!

After a few more minutes of driving, I looked out the front window to see this:

It was a beautiful lake and home to many of the flamingos.  Justino pulled off into a parking area so we could get out and observe the view from an overlook point.  It was nearly impossible to capture the flamingos on my camera because we were quite far away, but I could see them with my naked eye.  If you look very closely in the lake, the tiny pink spots are all flamingos!

We continued driving around the lake to get a closer look at the flamingos.  Justino said we had to keep a safe distance so we couldn’t get too close, but at least we could see them clearly now.  I think it was lunch time as they kept ducking their heads under water to eat. While I have seen many flamingos at the zoo or in enclosed animal habitats, this is the first time I have seen a flamingo in the wild, and I was thrilled!

As we approached the lake, Justino said that there is this little yellow bird who always lands on his side view mirror whenever he drives through here.  Sure enough, as we were slowing down to watch the flamingos, the yellow bird found us!

It was really cute- he kept peering down to look at his reflection in the mirror, then getting confused and thinking it was another bird so he flew into the mirror, then he went back on top for a second and started the process all over again.  This went on for several minutes, until he realized we were driving further and further away from his nest, so he gave up and flew away.  Justino said the same thing happens every time he comes to this lake, always with the same yellow bird.  How funny!

Last few glimpses of the flamingos as we drove off towards our next destination…

Next, we drove further inland towards the town of Rincon.

We pulled up to the Cadushy Distillery, where they make cactus liquor.  They usually charge $5 per person to take their tour and sample the liquors, but it was included in the $30 price we paid for our tour.

They took us to a shaded area at the back of the property and offered everyone a sample of the cactus liquor.  This is Justino serving the samples… he made a silly face when he saw I was taking his photo haha

I thought it tasted kind of sweet, but I liked it.  

We watched a short film about the process of making the cactus liquor.

After that, we had a few minutes to walk around the grounds, use the rest rooms, and sample the other flavors of liquor.

This cute bird was hanging out in one of the trees… Maybe he turned green from drinking too much cactus liquor??

Some photos of their grounds…

Sign for the restrooms

There is a bar area set up where they offered tastings of their rum, whisky, vodka, and a few other flavors of liquor.  I tried a few but didn’t really like any of them. After everyone had their fill, we piled back in the van to finish off the rest of the tour.

We passed this big yellow church, but I don’t remember what Justino told us about it.

Lots and lots of cactus everywhere we looked

We continued driving a little further to see views of the waves crashing along the shore on the north side of the island. By now, it was 12:15pm and the tour was due to end back at the ship at 12:30pm but we still had not gone to the beach.  Justino asked us if we wanted to be dropped at the beach or the ship. I had assumed the beach stop was included in the 3 hours of the tour, but it appeared to be in addition to it. It was still very windy so we didn’t want to be blasted by the sand, and we were hungry for lunch now anyway, so we decided to skip the beach stop and just asked to go back to the ship.  The other 2 couples in the van had the same plan in mind, so that’s what we did.  We arrived back at the cruise port area promptly at 12:30pm.  Overall, I think it was $30 well spent and it was nice to see the island of Bonaire, but I know the snorkeling tour would have been way more enjoyable and memorable had the weather cooperated.  

Back on the ship, we went up to the buffet for lunch. I tried the made-to-order stir fry station because it is only available for lunch on port days.  It was very tasty and made for a nice alternative to the pasta station which I had already eaten several times.

At 1:30pm, we ventured back off the ship to walk around the town.  It was pretty small, spanning just two or three blocks, but there were a few shops, galleries, a brewery, and a few restaurants along the water.  

The sun was beating down on us, and even though we were wearing hats, it was still very hot, so we only lasted about half an hour before we returned to the ship.  On the walk back along the water, we spotted this little guy crossing in front of us.

Back on the ship, we went up to the Sunset Bar to admire the wonderful views and cool off with a cold drink.  Bonaire is a very flat island, so the view from deck 15 of our ship was incredible!

I ordered a Blue Hawaiian and this is what the waiter brought me… it looked like the cactus liquor from Cadushy! Haha Usually these are frozen blended drinks, so I guess this was the on the rocks version?  No worries, it was still cold and refreshing, which was what I wanted anyway!

I think this island out in the distance is Klein Bonaire.  There is supposed to be great snorkeling out there, but I didn’t see anyone snorkeling today (not surprising given all the wind!)

At 3pm, we went over to the Sky Lounge for today’s round of music trivia.  They just did general music trivia today so there was no specific theme.  DH and I just played on our own team, so we did okay, but didn’t come close to winning. The views out the windows of the Sky Lounge are always so pretty!  Unfortunately, the glare off the windows makes it hard to take a good picture, but I wanted to post this for anyone who is booked with Woodwind because it shows where we met our guide this morning.  Do you see the first pier coming out into the water that is closest to the ship?  The one with the building on the end with the reddish brown roof?  We met our guide on the sidewalk right next to that pier, so you can see it is not a far walk at all.

After trivia, we went back to the cabin to get ready for the evening, then went down to the Martini Bar for a drink.  Now that it was week two of the cruise, I had a feeling for which martinis were my favorite, so I ordered the Blue Wave again, knowing it was tropical and refreshing.

While I was sipping on my cocktail, I re-read today’s daily schedule and noticed that they were having a tapas and sangria event on the lawn at the Sunset Bar, and the Passion Duo was going to perform during sail away.  We wanted to go upstairs to watch the show, so I started to walk towards the elevators with my martini glass, but the bartender stopped me.  He said he had to transfer my drink into a highball glass and then I could take that with me wherever I wanted on the ship.  I guess they don’t want their special large martini glasses disappearing all over the ship, but I didn’t mind at all because this made it easier to walk with the drink and not spill it! Haha

When we got up to the Sunset Bar, we saw that they had set up blankets and little tables on the lawn for the event.

There was a nice spread of food set up in a buffet with breadsticks, cheeses, meats, and veggies.

At the end of the table, you can see 2 big silver bowls- that’s where they had the sangria.  They served it like punch from the bowl, but they were charging $10 per glass and it was not included in the beverage packages, so I just stuck with my martini.

The Passion Duo was set up in the corner of the bar, performing a set of acoustic songs.

It was such a nice event, and made for a beautiful ambiance as we sailed away from Bonaire.  I really loved hanging out at the Sunset Bar as the ship sailed away, and having this event at the same time made it even better!

Once we were far enough out to sea, we went back to the cabin for a few minutes, and were just in time to catch the sunset!

Looks like a few others were out on their balcony to observe the sunset as well.

After the sun dipped below the horizon, we went downstairs to take our nightly photo.

Then, it was time for dinner.  This menu was another one of the new ones for us, and it featured a few things that looked really good to me.

Maine Lobster Ravioli- This was soooooo good! Had I known, I would have ordered 3 or 4 plates to be delivered as my entrée!

Cured Atlantic Salmon

BBQ Pork Spring Roll

Sauteed Duck Breast

Dessert Menu

Chocolate Lava Cake (this is DH’s plate, as it is meant to be served)

I asked for mine without the ice cream and bananas, so Pinto brought me 2 cakes!  Winning!

We were done with dessert by 8:10pm (Pinto and Jose must be the speediest MDR waiters on the ship, just how we like it!!), so we had time to go watch the evening hot glass show.  The Passion Duo had a busy night as they were performing here as well.  The gaffers stayed pretty quiet, so instead of listening to them explain what they were doing as they worked, we listened to The Passion Duo playing some music.  

We stayed for about half an hour, then went downstairs to catch tonight’s performance by Jeri Sager.  She is a Broadway actress who started in Evita, Les Mis, Cats, and Fiddler on the Roof.  She has a big belting voice and performed a great show, singing an assortment of Broadway classics.  I apologize that these photos came out embarrassingly bad, but it’s the best I could get from the back of the theater…

At 10pm, the Eclipse singers and dancers performed a little show in the grand foyer called Groove.  It was supposed to features songs of the 60’s, but the songs weren’t actually from that decade.  Instead, they were 60’s themed songs like “Welcome to the 60’s” from Hairspray and the theme song to Austin Powers.  You need to arrive early if you want to get a good spot to see the show, especially since you are not allowed to sit on the stairs since they use them as part of the performance.  I thought it was a lot of fun, especially being so up close to the action!  I guess this is how people feel when they gets seats at the front of the theater for the main shows haha

Singing “Welcome to the 60’s”

There are no lyrics to the theme song from Austin Powers, so they only had the dancers performing.  In case you don’t know what I am talking about, this is the theme song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90h2gLgTz5g

As you can see from all the people lining the railing upstairs, the show was very well attended.  It lasted about 20 minutes, then they invited everyone to join them on the dance floor.  We took that as our cue to leave, and went back to the cabin to rest up for tomorrow in Curacao!

Step Tracker Daily Total:  12,467 steps; 4.703 miles

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebritycruises #celebrityeclipse #vacation #travel #cruise #bonaire

[deladane]

Day 11: Sunday, March 11 ~ Sea Day #3

Day 11: Sunday, March 11 ~ Sea Day #3

Today was a much-needed sea day sandwiched between 2 sets of 4 port days in a row.  Even though we did not set an alarm this morning, we still woke up at 8:15am.  At least we got over 8 hours of sleep!  We took our time getting ready, then went to the Oceanview Buffet for breakfast.  It was nice to add some variety after eating basically the same thing for breakfast for the last 5 days (how ironic considering I eat the exact same thing for breakfast every morning at home! Haha)

We spent 2 hours relaxing on our balcony, watching the waves go by, with me writing in my trip journal while DH read a book. Since our cabin is on the starboard side of the ship, we were facing north for today’s journey west.  We had shade all day on our balcony, which was great! There was nothing else to see but water because there aren’t any islands in this part of the Caribbean Sea, but maybe people on the port side balconies could see Venezuela?

At noon, DH wanted to get some coffee from Café al Bacio, so I joined him for a walk downstairs.  While there, I noticed they were playing archery in the Grand Foyer.  It was really a neat set up- they had an inflatable target area and 4 cone-shaped nozzles blowing air straight up so there was a ball hovering mid-air.  The contestants had to knock the ball down, either by hitting the ball directly with their arrow, or by hitting the cone so the air stream was blocked and the ball would fall.  It was fun to watch, and the players were actually pretty good at it!

Eddy was hosting a game of music trivia name that tune at the pool, so we went upstairs to give it a go.  Today’s theme was “Names” so every song title had a name in it and we had to guess both the song title and the artist.  They played 15 songs for a total of 30 points.  We only got an 18 out of 30, so we didn’t stand a chance because the winner scored a perfect 30!  I did think it was fun that they picked songs from the 50’s through the 90’s to appeal to a wider audience, but that also means we are less likely to win because we don’t know most of the older songs.

It had been several hours since our last feeding, so we went upstairs to get something to eat for lunch from the buffet.  The theme of the day was Mediterranean food, and they had a specialty station with made to order schwarma.  I wasn’t in the mood for that, so I opted for a random assortment of carbs (as usual!).  The dumplings from the Asian station were delicious!

For dessert, I went over to the Slush Bar and ordered the Mint Cookie drink.  This is by far my favorite drink from this bar, but it is very filling so I only let myself have it one time on this cruise.  It’s totally worth it though!

Watching the wake on a lazy sea day

We spent some more time relaxing on the balcony until 2:45pm when we made our way up to the Sky Lounge for another round of music trivia with the CLA staff.  Today’s theme was songs from movies, and we had to guess the title of the movie, not the actual song name.  They had 20 songs for this game, and some of them were much harder than others!  We teamed up with a pair of ladies which did help because we knew the answers to different movies from them, but we still only scored 14 out of 20.  I think the winners scored a 17 or 18, so again, we didn’t win, but that’s okay because we made some new friends and we had fun trying!  

Next, we went down to the World Class Bar for the mixology class.  DH had a great experience with this class on the Equinox, so he wanted to do it again as long as the bartender was teaching about different drinks.  The class was taught by one of the World Class Bar bartenders named Marius, and we ended up having a private lesson because we were the only people that showed up!

The class was very different from 2 years ago because instead of DH going behind the bar to actually make the drinks, Marius just talked about the process of how to make each drink, and why they use certain shakers or strainers or whatever other supplies.  Last time, we learned about 3 categories of cocktails (a Collins, a Swizzle, and a mojito), whereas this time, Marius taught us how to make 4 specific drinks from the World Class Bar menu.  Last time, the class cost $35, but it was only $25 this time (plus a mandatory 18% gratuity).  We learned a few new pointers and it did give us an appreciation for the art behind making cocktails, but we weren’t sure how useful it was since it’s not like we will ever make these specific cocktails at home.  The drinks he taught us were the Kentucky Calling, Celebrity No. Ten, Ketel One Strawberry Fields, and Zacapa Above the Clouds.  For the last one, Marius pulled out the fancy smoker machine, which is always fun to watch.

The class was about an hour long, and then we went back to the cabin to get ready for our second Elegant Chic night.

Random side thought that I am going to talk about now because this was when I took this photo… Sometimes it can be a bit disorienting when you get off the mid-ship elevators on your deck to go back to your cabin.  If you didn’t pay attention when you got on the elevator, then you may not know if you are on the port or starboard side of the ship, and then you don’t know if you need to turn left or right out of the elevator and where you need to go to get back to your cabin.  Today I had an epiphany!  There are different pieces of art hanging on the walls opposite the elevators, and it is different on every deck as well as on the port vs. starboard side.  If you take note of which piece of art is on your side of the ship on your deck, then you will know that you are on the correct side if you see that piece of art when stepping off the elevator (and if you do not see that piece of art, then you are on the opposite side of the ship!). This slice of a tree trunk was the art on deck 10, starboard side:

If we stepped off the elevator on deck 10 and saw this, we knew we were on our side of the ship.  On top of that, if we saw this tree trunk, we knew we had to turn towards the left to walk in the direction of our cabin.  If we got off the elevator and did not see the tree trunk, that meant we were on the port side and needed to turn towards the right and cut through the library to get back to our cabin.  It sounds silly, but it really made a huge difference in feeling like we were “home” and knowing our way around the ship!  Thank you Celebrity for posting so many different pieces of art to make this solution possible!

It became a game for us to seek out spots around the ship that gave a nice background for a photo when we were all dressed up for the evening.  Elegant Chic nights are even harder than casual nights because there are more ship photographers to contend with, but we got creative tonight and took some photos in the library.

When we arrived at the hostess stand for dinner, Cervine greeted us by name and knew our cabin number and preferred table number without us even speaking a word!  I think this is one of the (many) benefits of a 14 night cruise.  We spend such a long time on the ship that the staff really gets a chance to know us, whereas on a 7 night cruise, the cruise is over before you get a chance to form a routine and know the staff.  Dinner was delicious as always, especially since we were seated with our favorite waiters, Pinto and Jose!

Dinner menu

Wild Mushroom Vol-Au-Vent

Traditional Steak Tartare

Classic Chateaubriand

Moroccan Spiced Ahi Tuna Steak

Dessert Menu

Dessert Drinks Menu

Tonight, we decided to try some dessert wines, and we both liked them so much that we asked the sommelier to bring us the bottles so we could take a photo in hopes of buying a bottle to drink at home!

Frosty Ice “Bombe”

Tonight’s show in the main theater was called Amade. There was no real plot to this show, but the best way to describe it is a combination of Lady Gaga and Mozart. The costumes were incredible, and we really enjoyed the dance numbers to modern music.  Personally, the highlight for me is always when the aerialists perform because they are extremely talented, especially considering they perform on a moving cruise ship!

I apologize that these photos are so blurry. We always preferred to sit at the back of the theater so we could make a quick escape as soon as the show ended, but that meant I had to zoom in a lot to take my photos and they always came out blurry.

After a full third sea day, we went to bed early tonight, excited to finally arrive at the ABC islands tomorrow!

Step Tracker Daily Total:  6,003 steps; 2.38 miles; 7 flights of stairs

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebritycruises #celebrityeclipse #vacation #travel #cruise #sea day

[deladane]

Day 10: Saturday, March 10 ~ Barbados

Day 10: Saturday, March 10 ~ Barbados

(Eddy’s pronunciation: BAR – bah – dose)

This was my third visit to Barbados and my third trip to the Boatyard Beach club at Carlisle Bay.  It is such a pretty beach with powder-soft white sand, turquoise blue water, and it is close to the cruise port, making it an easy and enjoyable plan for the day. They have a package where $20 USD buys you a lounge chair, a shared umbrella, a cup of rum punch or a beer, use of their bathrooms, use of their water toys on the beach, and free wifi. They also have a bar and restaurant with decent prices if you want to buy lunch.  One thing that has changed since our last visit here 3 years ago is that they now also include a short boat ride out to the bay to go snorkeling, whereas we used to have to pay for that separately with a vendor on the beach. We had a not-so-great experience with that last time we were here (see my Carnival Valor review for more details!), so we were happy to have it included with admission this time.  The $20 also includes a taxi ride back to the port at the end of the day, but you need to find your own way there in the morning. They open at 9am, so my goal was to leave the ship by 8:30am to get a taxi and arrive there just as they opened so we would get lounge chairs in a prime location.

Today’s daily schedules:

As usual, we started our day with room service breakfast on the balcony.  

At 8:30am, we gathered up our bags and took the elevator down to Deck 2 to exit the ship.  I have always been on the only cruise ship in port when I visit Barbados and I have always been docked very close to the cruise terminal. Unfortunately, today there was a P&O ship docked in that spot so we were docked further away from the terminal. There is a shuttle to bring you from the gangway to the terminal, but it was not there when we left the ship so we just started walking.  It took us 15 minutes and over 2,000 steps on my Fitbit to get from the gangway to the taxi stand on the outside of the cruise terminal!  We were walking very quickly because we were eager to get to the beach, so the walk probably would have taken a lot longer at normal walking speeds.  

We asked one of the taxi dispatchers for a taxi going to the Boatyard and he directed us to a van that was nearly full. Half of the passengers were getting off downtown for $2 per person, and we were charged $5 per person to get to the Boatyard.  I guess they don’t have inflation in Barbados because that is the same price I paid in 2012 and 2015 haha

We arrived at 9:05am and there were already a lot of people at the beach.  Our goal was to arrive early enough to get lounge chairs in the front row along the water, and while we did accomplish that, there were only a few chairs left in the front row, so it’s a good thing we didn’t arrive any later! At the entrance, they explained everything included in the package, collected our $20 per person, and gave us each a wrist band with a pull tab flap to redeem for our free included drink.  We went down to the beach and got settled in our loungers, and then realized that they never told us about the snorkeling tour.  DH went back inside and put or name down on the list for the 10:30am tour.  We didn’t know if this was the first tour of the day, but there were already a few names on the list.  I usually prefer to snorkel as early in the day as possible before the other tour boats arrive and it gets too crowded, but the schedule is less flexible now that the tour is included with admission.  

We spent some time relaxing on our lounge chairs, and then at 10:10am, they made an announcement over the PA system to call several parties by name to go on the tour.  This was sooner than we expected so we rushed to get our belongings ready.  We took our money, ID, and seapass cards with us in a plastic bag in the pocket of DH’s bathing suit, but we left the rest of our stuff behind on our chairs, including our towels.  I am actually pretty sure that they did not allow anyone to bring their bags, towels, or shoes on the boat.  It was okay to bring hats, sunglasses, and of course, snorkeling equipment.  The reason they called us so early was that everyone was given an inflatable life vest which they put on each of us individually, and they also gave out snorkel equipment if you didn’t bring your own.  There were about 25 to 30 people on the tour with us, so that took a few minutes. Once we were all ready, they walked us up the pier and onto the boat.  The boat was pretty big, with plenty of seating and shade, and there were cubbies below the seats to stash your hats and sunglasses while swimming.

We went out a short distance into the bay and then dropped anchor next to the ship wreck.  There were already 2 or 3 boats snorkeling at this spot, so the water was crowded with lots of swimmers.  The heavy winds continued to follow us through the Caribbean, and the water looked very choppy with a strong current.  The guides instructed us to stay directly over the ship wreck and not to swim further away, and everyone was required to keep their life vests on at all times.

As soon as I jumped in the water, I immediately felt the current.  It was really hard to stay over the ship wreck because as soon as I stopped actively swimming and tried to float, I was carried away.  Plus, with so many people in the water, we kept bumping into each other and getting kicked.  It was definitely not the greatest of experiences, but on the bright side, the snorkeling was wonderful!  This was my third time snorkeling over the ship wreck here, and I think this was the most fish I have seen.  There were tons of the sergeant major damselfish that I am used to seeing all over the Caribbean, but there were also lots of other fish.  The current made it hard to take good photos, but this is the best of what I could get…

I spy two parrot fish!

I stayed out in the water for 15 minutes, and then went back on the boat to save some energy to swim with the turtles. The guides never told us how long we would stay at this location (and shame on me for forgetting to ask!).  It turned out that I could have stayed in the water an extra 15 minutes so I only did half the snorkeling time.  That’s okay, we are still going to the other snorkel spot with the turtles, right?  Wrong!  Once everyone was on board, the guide said we were heading back to the Boatyard.  I asked him if we were going to snorkel with the turtles and he said there have not been any turtles in Carlisle Bay for over a week so we were just doing the one snorkel stop today.  I understand that the guides probably assume we are all first timers to this our and didn’t know anything was missing, but there was a sign posted at the entrance to the Boatyard which mentioned snorkeling with turtles and when DH signed us up for the our, they told him it is not guaranteed we will see a turtle.  That implies that we will TRY to see it, but the guides indicated we were not going to try because it had been so windy all week that there were no turtles in the bay.  If that is the case, it would have been nice for someone to tell us that upfront so we would know what to expect.  I wasn’t even that upset about missing the turtles… after all, this isn’t a zoo and the turtles are free to come and go from the bay as they please!  I was really just bothered by the poor communication. I like to be kept informed so I can make my decisions accordingly, and I would have stayed in the water to explore the ship wreck longer had I known this was our only stop.

Anyway, we got back to the pier at 10:55am and the next group was already lined up to take their tour.  I guess they try to make it an efficient process to get guests out to snorkel quickly.  From the pier, I could see the cruise ships docked in the distance.

There is also a great view of the Boatyard and the neighboring restaurants and beach clubs.  The yellow umbrellas are all part of the Boatyard.

Every lounge chair is occupied by 11:15am so you have to arrive early if you want a seat!

I also wanted to point out those 3 brightly colored Adirondack chairs in front of all the loungers.  Those are a new addition since I was last here 3 years ago and they seem to be a big annoyance.  When we first arrived this morning, nearly every seat in the front row was occupied, except the seats directly behind those chairs!  They have these chairs on the other side of the pier too, and those were also the only vacant seats in the front row on that side.  We were lucky to get a spot 3 umbrellas over (you can see our spot if you look closely- it’s the 2 vacant chairs to the left of the Adirondack chairs, with grey towels and my bright teal beach bag on the seat). Notice how there is more space between the sets of lounge chairs that are behind the Adirondack chairs?  That’s because the people on either side moved closer to their neighbors so the Adirondacks don’t block their view!  I guess these chairs look cute and beachy, but they sure do cause an annoyance to people wanting front row seats with unobstructed views of the beach and water!

My hair was a mess after coming back from snorkeling, so I went to dunk my head under water really quickly.  I was holding my camera at eye level to take this photo- notice how close I was to the water line?  There is a steep drop off not to far into the water so just be careful not to lose your footing!  No need for water shoes here- there is nothing but soft sand on the floor of the bay.

As evidenced in the photos above, our bags were waiting for us back at our lounge chairs when we got back from snorkeling. Unfortunately, the other thing waiting for us was the wind!!  It was very windy the whole day and the waves were quite loud crashing in on the shore. Usually the water is very calm here, but not today!  Much like we saw in St. Maarten, people kept getting knocked around by the waves.  At least it was entertaining to watch them from our front row seats haha

At around 12:30pm, we started to get hungry.  We always bring a few Clif Bars into ports with us because they are filled with protein to fill us up, and they meet the requirements of being pre-packaged food that is safe to enter a foreign country.  Today, we decided to try something new and we ordered food from the restaurant.  We have never tried flying fish and I have read that people really like it so we ordered the Flying Fish Fingers and Fries appetizer to share.

DH placed the order at the bar and they told him to pick it up from the counter when his name was called.  They said it would take 30 to 45 minutes for our order to be ready, so we used this opportunity to redeem our free drink coupons. I ordered the Shark Bite (left) and DH ordered the Pirate’s Punch (right), and both were strong and tasty. We brought them over to one of the tables at the restaurant and waited for our food order to be called.

Sure enough, it really did take 45 minutes for our food to be ready!  I guess they needed time to go out into the bay to catch the fish fresh for us??  The portion was a bit on the small side, but it was very good and I’m glad I tried it.

We returned to our lounge chairs to enjoy the rest of the afternoon at the beach.  This isn’t exactly a calm and relaxing beach because they play loud, upbeat pop and hip hop music in the background, but I enjoy the fun vibe here.  At some point, DH went up to the pier to use the rope swing, but I didn’t join him because I was too comfortable sitting in my lounge chair.  I was so lazy that I didn’t even take any more photos here for the rest of the day! To be fair, this was my third visit here and not much has changed in the last 6 years, so I guess I just didn’t feel that inspired.

At around 2:30pm, we decided it was time to head back to the ship.  When we got to the front parking lot, they immediately directed us to one of the waiting taxis with another couple.  I think the first shuttle back leaves around 11:30 or noon, and then the shuttles run every 15 minutes or so for the rest of the day, so there is never much of a wait.  The ride only takes about 10 minutes, and they dropped us off at the front of the cruise terminal.  We walked passed all the shops and exited at the other end to find a nearly-full shuttle bus that was about to leave.  Perfect timing!  It was standing room only, but we didn’t mind standing for the 2 minute ride back to the ship, considering that saved us 20 minutes of walking!  

Once we were back on the ship, we went upstairs to the Solarium to spend 20 minutes soaking in the hot tub.  There were a few people in there already when we arrived, and they were still in there when we got out. I always thought you aren’t supposed to sit in a hot tub for too long, and the water actually was quite hot, so it seemed weird to me that these people were spending so much time sitting there, but I guess it’s not for me to judge!

Neither of us was feeling 100 percent tonight. I’m not sure if it was a little sea sickness from the boat rocking so much, or maybe it was dehydration, but we both just felt off.  Instead of our usual routine of bar hopping before dinner, we decided to take it easy and relax in the cabin.  For the first time ever, we spent a few hours watching TV!  I watch tons of TV when I’m at home, but I have never spent any time watching TV on a cruise ship before!  We found a marathon of Property Brothers running on HGTV, so that was the perfect way to pass the time until we had enough energy to go downstairs for dinner. I was kind of bummed that I didn’t feel well tonight because this was another new menu for us and I was really looking forward to trying some of the new dishes!  The first appetizer on the list was Hawaiian Tuna Poke.  In the last year or two, poke bowl restaurants have popped up all over San Jose and it is one of our favorite dinners, so I was really looking forward to trying Celebrity’s version.

Tonight’s menu:

Poached Anjou Pear and Gorganzola Cheese

Hawaiian Tuna Poke (this was delicious and had I had more of an appetite, I would have asked for a second round of it!)

Pappardelle Con Funghi

I am still disappointed that I didn’t have more of an appetite that night because I would have loved to try the pate and the lamb kebab, but I guess that’s a good excuse to take another cruise!  In the end, I only had room for my 2 appetizers and about half of my entrée, so I definitely didn’t have room for dessert. We finished eating rather quickly since we didn’t order as many courses as we usually do, so we just wondered around the ship to walk off the meal.  They have this funky wall sculpture back near the entrance to the Ensemble Lounge, and we thought it made a nice background for a photo.

I really like this piece that is located next to Qsine.  It reminds me of origami…

The Wine Cellar was almost always empty.  I liked the décor in here but we never spent much time here because it was always deserted and boring.  It does make for a pretty place to take photos though!

Tonight’s show was a solo performer named Liam Ryder. We thought he was a very talented pianist, and a pretty good singer.  He played a few classical music pieces, and a few rock and roll songs.  

My favorite part was when he played the full version of The Flight of the Bumble Bee and played a cartoon that was perfectly synced to it.  I was able to find the cartoon on Youtube so you can see what I am talking about. Imagine seeing this live with the cartoon playing on a big screen at the back of the stage, and a pianist playing the music perfectly synced to the cartoon.  I can’t really give him credit for the cartoon itself, but seeing him keep up with the music was absolutely incredible to watch in person.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZG8bN8tAws

After the show, we were feeling much better so we went over to Café Al Bacio for dessert.  The cakes in that display case always look so yummy, and since we skipped dessert after dinner, we thought this was a good opportunity to finally try it out.  DH had the coconut cake, and I had a slice of strawberry chiffon cake.  Honestly, both were just okay and they looked a lot better than they tasted.  Maybe it just wasn’t sweet enough for me?

Tonight was one of the theme parties up in the Sky Lounge, so we headed up there to check it out.  The Eclipse Orchestra performed songs from the Big Band era while the performance dancers danced to it.  

The Sky Lounge has a terrible set up for a show like this where everyone wants to see the dance floor.  The chairs and banquets are positioned poorly and block your view, and there are thick support beams surrounding the dance floor area.  There are very few seats offering a good view, so people end up standing around the perimeter of the dance floor, just behind the first row of chairs, and that blocks everyone else’s view.  We had to keep asking people to move so we could see the show from where we were sitting, and it made for a frustrating experience. We stayed for about 20 minutes, then gave up and grabbed a quick snack at the buffet before going to sleep just before midnight.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  7,632 steps; 3.060 miles

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebrityeclipse #celebritycruises #travel #vacation #cruise #Barbados

[deladane]

Day 9: Friday, March 9 ~ St. Lucia

Day 9: Friday, March 9 ~ St. Lucia

(Eddy’s pronunciation: sta – LUKE – ee – ah )

This was our second time visiting St. Lucia together, and my third time here.  When we were here in 2015, we did a zip lining tour at the Treetop Adventure Park.  We had a great time there and briefly considered just booking the same tour again, but I wanted DH to see some more of the island.  My first time here, I took an island tour with Cosol, and I loved seeing the famous Pitons.  I really wanted DH to see the Pitons and visit Sugar Beach, so I researched our options.  The thing I didn’t like about Cosol’s tour was that we spent a lot of our day sitting in the tour van and driving around the island, so I wasn’t interested in booking that same tour again.  Spencer Ambrose gets wonderful reviews both on Trip Advisor and on Cruise Critic.  He offers a land and sea combo tour which takes a speed boat to and from the town of Soufriere, thus cutting out much of the driving portion of the day.  His website offers a detailed description of the tour, and we could book a reservation online by paying a $10 per person deposit, with the remainder of the cost due in cash on the day of the tour.

Today’s daily schedule

Today was another early morning for us, starting with room service delivering our breakfast at 7am.  We were happy to see that they delivered the smoked salmon today!

As we were eating, the Eclipse made a 180 degree turn before docking, so we had wonderful views around the port area.

We finished eating and headed downstairs as soon as the ship was cleared at 8am.  Our instructions told us to find our group in the port shopping area, and it couldn’t have been easier to spot the lady holding a big sign with the Spencer Ambrose logo as soon as we stepped into the terminal.  She checked our name off on her list, gave us each a wrist band, and collected the rest of our money to pay for the tour ($96 USD per person).  We waited a few minutes for the rest of the group to arrive, then we walked a short distance across the parking lot to a dock where we loaded into 2 speed boats.  I thought it was a little strange that each boat had half people for the tour we were taking (the Land and Sea Combo) and half people for the Beach Break Tour.  Perhaps there wasn’t enough people on the beach tour to fill a full boat?  The boats were fairly new with ample seating around the perimeter, but not very much shade.

All ready to go!

By 8:45am, we were on our way, and spent about 30 minutes speeding around to the other side of the island.  The guides explained that we would make several stops along the coast on our way back at the end of the day, but for now, we just needed to get to Soufriere ASAP to beat the other tour buses.

First sight of the famous Pitons!  They were just as majestic as I remembered them!

I thought we were the only cruise ship in St. Lucia today, but it turns out that we had company.  There was a Silverseas ship anchored on this side of the island.  

I was a little surprised when we took a detour to look at the bat cave.  I expected that to be part of the tour later this afternoon, but maybe we don’t pass it then?  Anyway, the bat cave is a crack in the cliffs where hundreds of bats are hiding.  The boat got pretty close to the cave and we could hear the bats, but it was hard to see inside.  I tried using the zoom on my camera but I don’t think I can see any bats. Don’t worry though, they are in there and don’t seem to have much interest in flying out to see us!

We only stayed here for about 5 minutes- long enough to take a few photos and for the guides to tell us about the bats.  Next, we continued to the dock in Soufriere where we got off the boat and loaded into a 12-person van for the land portion of our tour.

We drove for about 10 minutes to our first stop: the mud baths and volcano tour. There wasn’t enough time to do both activities so we had to pick just one, and everyone in our van except one couple opted for the mud baths.  Here is a description of the baths from their website:

“The Soufriere Volcano (Sulphur Springs) last erupted in the 1700's - over 200 years! It originated from a weak spot in the crust of a collapsed volcanic crater, and is considered to be a dormant volcano - unlike the active Soufriere Hills Volcano in the island of Montserrat. One of the best features of the volcano is the ability to dive into the mud baths.  The mud baths at Sulphur Springs attract people from all over the world because it detoxifies the body and helps heal sun burns, eczema, arthritis, sore joints, and more.”  

These are the prices for the mud baths if you visit here on your own (it was included in the price of our tour):

The guides told us to leave all of our jewelry in the van because it would get ruined if exposed to the sulfur.  I don’t usually wear any expensive jewelry off the ship in the Caribbean anyway, but I didn’t want to tarnish my costume jewelry so I discretely removed it and put it in a small pocket in my beach bag.  Realistically, I doubt the driver of our van would try to steal anyone’s jewelry.  It would be easy to know who took it since he was the only one left alone with our bags, and I doubt he would risk his job over petty theft.  Just keep this in mind to leave any of your expensive or sentimental pieces of jewelry on the ship if you are planning to visit the mud bath!

As soon as I stepped out of the van, I was confronted with a strong smell of sulfur.  It honestly wasn’t that bad, and I got used to it after a few minutes, but the air definitely did smell like rotten eggs.  If you have a poor tolerance for bad odors, this might not be your favorite part of the tour.

Wearing just our bathing suits and flip flops, we walked down a flight of stone steps to a small area with 2 or 3 picnic tables. The guides told us to leave our towels and flip flops here, and to give them our cameras so they could take photos of us in the baths.  They told us to step down into the pool of hot water and to soak there for a few minutes to allow our pores to open up.  Be very careful here as the stones were slippery and the muddy water was too dark to see your footing as you climbed down the steps inside the pool.

The guides helped us to climb out the far end of the pool, and they directed us to the plastic tubs of mud.  There were 2 types of mud: a light grey color and a dark black color.  The guides told us to apply the light mud in thin layers all over our skin and to let it dry and harden.  The dark mud can stain your clothing, so they said not to use it, but if you did want to use it, you could apply it on top of the grey mud as a decoration.  It was a little weird that the tubs of mud hardly had anything in them.  As you can see, we didn’t have much mud to work with, but we got it on as best we could.

You can barely see it, but I promise, we did have some mud on us!

After the mud was dry, the guides told us to get back in the hot pool of water to wash it off.  There were some tiny rocks in the mud, so as we rubbed it off, it exfoliated our skin.  It was slippery, but it felt nice, and the warm water felt great.

In the background of this photo, you can see the picnic tables where we left our stuff.

I did bring my towel with me, but opted to just air dry when I got out of the pool.  We had 2 more stops that involved getting in the water and I wanted to keep my towel dry for as long as possible.  Once we were all out of the baths, we walked back up the stairs to wait for our van to pick us up.  In all, we were at this top for 30 minutes and were finished by 10am.

At the top of the stairs, there is a small “Vending Village” if you want to shop for souvenirs.  I didn’t look closely so I don’t know how the prices were, but I can’t imagine it was any cheaper than you would find near the cruise port.

This was our van for the land portion of the tour. It had 4 rows of seat, with 3 people per row, and the air conditioning was cold and strong!

Our next stop was about a 10 minute drive away on the opposite side of Soufriere:  The Toraille Waterfall.  

This was one of our guides- she left the mud mask on from the baths so it would work a little better.  She must have wonderful skin if she applies a mud mask every day she visits there with a tour group!!

We spent about 20 minutes here, with just enough time to hop in the pool of water below the waterfall.  There were changing rooms available if you needed it, but we were all wearing our bathing suits already.  

Just a warning:  the water here is FREEZING cold!  I guess some might consider this refreshing, but I just thought it was freezing… especially after soaking in the hot water at the mud baths! Also, the entrance is very rocky, so I would recommend wearing aqua socks if you have them. The guides encouraged us to stand under the waterfall for a “power shower,” but that was too adventurous for me haha  

We only had about 20 minutes to spend here, but that was plenty of time because the water was too cold to want to stay much longer. On our way out, there were a few vendors set up on the street, offering samples of hot sauce, banana ketchup, and spiced rum (and of course they had bottles for sale if you liked what you tasted). They also sold a few souvenirs and crafts.

At 10:45, the guides rounded us up to get back in the van.  That was the end of the land portion of the tour, so we drove back down to the marina to wait for our boat to pick us up.  Given how steep and windy the roads are in St. Lucia, and how long it takes to drive from the cruise port to these popular tourist destinations in Soufriere, I much preferred the way Spencer Ambrose structures his tour over how Cosol did things back in 2012.  It was now only 11am and I felt like we had already done so much today.  We were the first tour groups to arrive at both the mud bath and the waterfall, so it wasn’t crowded, and it felt like a better use of our limited time in port.

We had a short wait when we got back to the dock because the person bringing our food for lunch had not yet arrived.  No worries though, we had a nice view of one of the Pitons in the background!

Notice the orange stain all over DH’s bathing suit? Unfortunately, the sulfur in the water at the mud baths stained everything that was light in color.  Not only did it ruin his bathing suit, but it stained the little white flowers on my bikini, the white band of my waterproof watch, and even the plastic band of DH’s snorkel goggles (and he didn’t even wear those in the mud bath!  It must have rubbed off from his hair when we went snorkeling nearly 2 hours later!!). When we got back on the cruise ship at the end of the day, we rinsed out the bathing suits, and then we ran them through the washing machine when we got home, but it’s official… the stains are permanent.  I honestly think the only bathing suit that would survive that mud bath is one that is solid black, and even that might show a slight orange tint!

When the food was delivered, the guides helped us climb back into the boat for the 5 minute ride around the bay to our next destination.  I think this beach used to be called Jealousie Beach, but it is now called Sugar Beach.  It is located between the two Pitons and has one of the only white sand beaches in St. Lucia.  As we approached the beach, we could see several beautiful white buildings dotting the side of the hill.  That was the Viceroy Sugar Beach Resort, a very fancy, high-end resort where rooms run for over $1000 per night.

Of course, we were not going to that part of the beach.  The guides explained that all beaches in St. Lucia are public, and we were free to walk along the water for the entire length of this beach.  However, the hotel owns the lounge chairs and thatched umbrellas on their side of the beach, and those are mostly reserved for hotel guests.  If we wanted to use their chairs on the beach towards the right side of the pier, it would cost $50 per person.  As pretty as they looked, that was more money than I wanted to spend for the 2 hours we would be here!  I took this photo while standing on the pier, looking to the right towards the hotel property:

This was as close as I got to those fancy schmancy lounge chairs…

As a consolation prize, the hotel allows non-hotel guests to use a small section of the beach to the left side of the pier. These lounge chairs were free to use, even if they weren’t as fancy as the ones near the hotel, and there were a few umbrellas, plus tons of natural shade from the trees overhead.  When we arrived, most of the public lounge chairs were occupied, but I spotted 2 vacant loungers up on the ledge in the back row which were perfect for us.  Being up on the ledge meant we had a great view, and being in the back row meant we had full shade to hide from the sun.  I circled our seats in yellow so you can see what I mean...

We arrived at the beach at 11:30am, and the guides said we would stay here until 2pm. Originally, I wanted to book the Beach Break tour to have more time to spend at this beach, but considering we had 2 and a half hours here, plus the experience of the other stops on the tour, I am glad we took this tour instead.  Most tours that I have taken with similar itineraries to this where you make a bunch of stops and then go to a beach to eat lunch, only give you an hour or so at the beach.  I was thrilled to have 2 and a half hours to spend here at this beautiful tropical beach! The guides said that it would take them about 15 minutes to set up the food for lunch, so I used that opportunity to walk along the beach and take some quick photos.  

Looking back towards the pier:

Promptly at 11:30am, lunch was served buffet style with a choice of jerk chicken (that was NOT spicy at all), fried rice, noodles with saffron sauce, green banana salad (that tasted like potato salad), green salad, and fried plantains.  The food was all delicious, even the things that I didn’t think I would like haha  

They also had a cooler fully stocked with bottles of water, soda, and beer, and we were free to help ourselves to as much as we wanted.  We ate lunch sitting on our lounge chairs, and the guides came around to collect our plates as we finished.  

Bellies full, it was time to go snorkeling!  The last time I visited this beach, I was a fairly inexperienced snorkeler.  The friend I was traveling with did not like snorkeling, so I went out by myself, and I was somewhat intimidated by the current and the noise of boats rushing by overhead.  Even though I stayed within the buoys, I still got nervous every time I heard a boat speed by, and it was hard to enjoy the experience.  Needless to say, after we booked this cruise and picked this excursion, I was very excited to get a re-do since many people have proclaimed this is their favorite snorkeling spot in the Caribbean!  

If you look back at the photo I posted with the lounge chairs on the pubic side of the beach, you can see that the entrance to the water is very rocky.  I would definitely recommend wearing something to protect your feet here!  I also opted to borrow a life vest from the guides to wrap around my waist to help me float.  The best snorkeling spot is along the far right side of the water (when standing on the beach, looking out at the water), and there is a series of ropes and buoys to make a safe section so swimmers do not get hit by the boats coming to/from the pier.  Unlike snorkeling tours when you jump in the water from a boat and there are usually guides available to keep an eye on all the swimmers, on this tour, the guides just hang out on the beach to assist with serving the food and drinks.  I did not get the feeling that they paid any attention to the swimmers out in the water, so definitely keep your own safety in mind as you are snorkeling!

Ok, let’s go snorkeling!!

My goal for snorkeling today was to take my time. I got in the water at exactly 12 noon, so I had a full 2 hours to spend out here, if I wanted to.  I had no reason to rush and I really wanted to take it all in and make sure to cover the whole snorkeling section.  Back in 2012, I was afraid to swim too far out, and I honestly had not read many reviews about snorkeling here so I didn’t know what I was looking for.  This time around would be different because I have spent the last 5+ years reading reviews and looking at photos of people snorkeling here, and I now know that the best snorkeling is out at the far end of the snorkeling area.  My strategy was to swim out all the way to where the ropes ended by staying out in the middle of the water, and then to swim back along the wall, staying closer to the rocks.  

Oh my, let me tell you, it was definitely worth it to swim all the way out to the end!!  I found these funky pink sponges that completely covered the wall of rocks and continued several feet down below the surface of the water.  It was so neat and something I have never seen before! Honestly, I think that is one of the things that gets me the most excited about snorkeling… the possibility of seeing something new that I’ve never seen before.  I experienced a lot of firsts when we visited French Polynesia (who ever thought I would get to swim with sharks and octopus?!), so I wasn’t sure if I would discover new things on this trip to the Caribbean.  So far, I’ve been doing pretty well, between getting to hold a conch shell for the first time yesterday, and seeing this crazy pink wall today!

I did my best to capture this in a photo, but it was reallllly challenging.  The sun kept sneaking behind the clouds, which meant the colors weren’t as bright as they could have been.  On top of that, the current was very strong and it was such a windy day that it was hard to hold still to capture a decent photo.  I honestly don’t think these photos do it any justice, but I tried…

I think this photo probably shows it best… some of the little round pink balls opened up to reveal bright yellow tentacles popping out!  I was so mesmerized by this that I could have stayed out here all afternoon… that is, if I wasn’t constantly being pushed toward the rocks from the current!

As I started to swim back along the rock wall, I found a little alcove that had a bunch of bigger fish hiding in there.

As you can see, the snorkeling here was pretty sparse. Yes, I did see some interesting fish, a little bit of interesting coral, and of course, that amazing wall of pink and yellow spongey thingies, but it was all very spread out.  I’m not sure if there just weren’t as many fish here today because of the winds and the choppy water, or if it is normally like this, but you really did have to search to find something worth photographing. Other than that, it was just a lot of rocks.

After 30 minutes of snorkeling, I was getting tired and decided to swim back towards the shore.  This is when things got interesting.  Holy moly!  The current was reallllly strong!  No matter how hard I swam towards the shore, I just kept getting pushed further out into the water.  I have never swam in one of those endless pool swim spas that I always see commercials for on TV, but I would imagine this is what it must feel like haha  It was so frustrating to swim and swim and swim, but not get any closer to shore.  At one point, the water was so churned up that I couldn’t see anything in front of me. It was just total darkness, and I started to freak out a little bit because I didn’t want to get thrown into the rocks if I couldn’t see where they were.  Eventually, I did make it back to the shore (…obviously, since I lived to finish the cruise and come home to write this review for you to read lol), but I was so exhausted that my legs were shaking and I could barely walk back to our lounge chairs!  

I spent the next hour and a half just relaxing on my lounge chair and drinking Piton beer.  Originally, I thought I might go out snorkeling again, but I was way too exhausted from round one to even consider attempting round two!  

Drinking Piton beer with a view of the Piton!

There are free bathrooms and a shower available to use on our side of the beach, so we took advantage of that as our time at the beach was nearly done.  Promptly at 2pm, our boat returned to pick us up for the final leg of our tour.

Remember how there were 2 different boats at the start of our day, each with people from both of Spencer’s tours?  Well, now we had to go back in our original boat. This was a little tricky since the two boats are nearly identical, but we just stayed with our original guides and that worked out okay.  The last part of the tour is a tour of St. Lucia from the sea, and the guides made several stops along the way to point out various landmarks and towns.

First, some final views of the famous Pitons

Spencer driving our boat with both Pitons in the background

Speed boat selfie!

This was another really fancy hotel where every room has their own infinity pool!  From this angle, I thought it looked more like a parking garage, but I am sure it is very pretty from inside the hotel haha

Notice the fish image on the side of the wall?

Another fancy resort, and it looks like lots of tour boats stop at this beach too

a pirate ship!

Approaching Marigot Bay

The long white building on the left is Doolittle’s Restaurant and Bar

There were some beautiful yachts anchored in this bay

Marigot looks like a fun town with little restaurants and bars all along the bay

We really got an interesting perspective being able to tour the bay from a boat.  Spencer took us all the way to the back of the bay, then around the side of this mega-yacht before returning out to the sea

The building with a round shape is George Foreman’s house

Continuing on with the tour, our next stop was at this land formation that kind of looks like a shoe.  I had seen this from up on the side of the hill when I toured with Cosol, so it was fun to see it up close from the water this time around.

I don’t remember exactly where we were when this happened, but about 45 minutes into the ride, one of the guys asked Spencer if there is a head on the boat.  A minute later, Spencer stopped the boat in a little alcove along the coast and told us it was time for a potty break and that we should jump in the water if needed! All day, Spencer and his crew really a great job of reading the needs of their guests and making sure we were well taken care of.  There was plenty of Piton beer, soda, water, and rum punch in the cooler on the boat, and they kept the drinks coming as we continued our tour (just be careful not to drink too much, given the restroom options!).

At 3:15pm, we rounded a corner and saw a welcome sight waiting for us in the distance.

Not that we wanted the tour to end, but it’s always a good feeling to see your cruise ship waiting for you where you left it this morning!  Spencer had promised us at the beginning of the tour that we would return back to the pier by 3:30pm at the latest.  As promised, he tied up the lines at exactly 3:25pm!  All aboard wasn’t until 4:30pm, so we had no need to worry about missing the ship.  Overall, we had a fantastic day in St. Lucia with Spencer Ambrose, and I wouldn’t hesitate to book a tour with his company if I ever return here.

After some quick showers and getting dressed for the evening, we went downstairs for a few pre-dinner drinks.  DH got a beer from the Gastro Bar and brought it up to join me at the Martini Bar.  I started with a Sunset Martini, made with Grey Goose Le Citron flavored vodka, Bacardi Coconut flavored rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine.

For round two, I ordered the Fresca Martini, made with Grey Goose Vodka, fresh watermelon juice, mint, lime juice, and simple syrup.  I really liked this cocktail- it was very light and refreshing, and made a perfect end to a day in the hot Caribbean sun!

They have these little jars with something to snack on while we enjoyed our martinis.  The only problem is that DH would eat the entire jar and then spoil his appetite for dinner, so be careful with these snacks… they’re addicting!!

A little balancing act while he made someone’s drink

There’s never a dull moment at the Martini Bar!

At 7pm, we went over to the MDR for our dinner reservations, and were happy to hear that there was a table for us in Pinto’s section.  Here is tonight’s dinner menu:

Prosciutto di Parma

Spinach Turnover

Homemade Gnocchi al Quattro Formaggi

Butternut Farrotto

We skipped dessert tonight because we had an errand to run.  The Captain’s Club host has very limited hours when they are at their desk.  It is either mid-morning while we are off the ship in visiting one of the ports, or from 7:15-8:30pm while we are eating dinner.  We tried for several days to meet with them, but the timing was never convenient, so finally tonight, we realized our only chance to catch them was to skip dessert. They sit at one of the desks in the mid-ship elevators area of Deck 7.  When we got up there, we asked them about changing or expanding their hours, but they said they need to work around the hours of the Elite breakfast and cocktail hour every day.  Honestly, I think that was a lame answer because there are lots of Captain’s Club members who have not yet reached Elite status, and we have questions too!  There are two of them, so surely it must be possible for one of them to handle the Elite events while the other mans the desk on Deck 7 (even if not every day, maybe they can be flexible and do that every other day?).  Or maybe they can have some days when they are at the desk before the cocktail hour, like from 3-5pm?  Most people are back on the ship by then considering our all aboard time was 4:30pm every day so far on the cruise, and then it wouldn’t conflict with anyone’s schedules.  Ok, sorry, rant over!

DH wanted to check with them about his Captain’s Club points and we had a few other questions for them.  I was surprised to learn that now that we are married, we have the same number of points.  They said that they make our points match to whoever has more points because we will be sharing a cabin and both get those benefits anyway.  It makes sense, I just didn’t think about it before they mentioned it.

Tonight’s show was a solo performer named Sean O’Shea. The description from the daily schedule was very vague and just said he is a man of many voices and personalities, so we had no idea what to expect.  After seeing his show, I now understand the vague description because he has a little bit of everything- 1 part singer, 1 part impressionist, 1 part comedian.  DH thought he reminded him of if Jim Carey was a singer because he had that kind of humor.  He was quite an interesting character, but I honestly can’t say if I enjoyed the show.  Maybe it just isn’t my kind of humor?

After the show, we went up to the Sky Lounge for ABBA night, featuring name that tune music trivia followed by an ABBA dance party. The guests on our sailing were big ABBA fans because it was super crowded up there!  We stayed for a little while, until the excitement of a busy day got the best of us and we retired back to the cabin.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  4,658 steps; 1.801 miles

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebritycruises #celebrityeclipse #cruise #vacation #travel #St Lucia

[deladane]

Day 8: Wednesday, March 8 ~ Antigua

Day 8: Wednesday, March 8 ~ Antigua

(Eddy’s pronunciation: ant – IG – you – ah*)

*I haven’t really mentioned much about the Cruise Director Eddy.  He was very funny and we really enjoyed him as our CD.  One of his shticks is that he mispronounced the name of all of our ports. We didn’t really catch on to it at first, so neither of us remembers how he pronounced St. Maarten, but when we heard him say Antigua, we caught on.  Part of what made it so funny was that he is from Wales and does have an accent, so between his normal accent and his mispronunciation of these island names, we couldn’t help but chuckle.  I’ll include Eddy’s version of the island names for all the rest of our ports.  Emphasis is on the capitalized syllable.

Antigua was one of the ports on this itinerary that I was most looking forward to (along with the 3 ABC islands, of course!) because it was the only new port for the first week of the cruise.  Antigua is famous for having 365 beaches- one for every day of the year. I briefly considered using today as a beach day, but then decided against it because we were using St. Maarten and Barbados as beach days and I wanted something more adventurous for today. Antigua Adventures receives a 5 star rating on Trip Advisor, and also gets great reviews on Cruise Critic.  We decided to book their Eco Tour, which would take us out on a boat for 6 hours, including stops for snorkeling, hiking, a visit to Hell’s Gate Island, and lunch on the beach.  They offer a 10% discount if you pay a deposit online with a credit card, so I paid $23.50 per person online and was instructed to pay the remaining $80 per person in cash in US dollars on the day of our tour.

We woke up to an overcast and cloudy sky as we sailed into Antigua this morning.  The temperature felt much warmer and more humid than it had been so far this week, so we crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t rain during our tour!  We put the room service breakfast tag on our door last night, and it was delivered promptly at 7am.  As I had done yesterday, I requested smoked salmon for our bagels, but when I divided up all of our food, there was no plate with salmon. I just assumed they ran out or forgot or whatever, but it wasn’t a big deal.  We took our breakfast out onto the balcony to watch as we sailed into port.

Good morning Antigua!

Just as I finished eating, I heard the phone ring inside the cabin.  It was the room service manager calling to check up on us and make sure our breakfast was to our liking.  I’m not sure if he does this for all the cabins or if it was because we spoke with him last night during dinner, but I thought it was a nice touch.  I told him everything was great, but since he called, I asked if it was okay that we were writing in smoked salmon on the order form. I explained that we had ordered it yesterday and it was delivered, but it was not delivered today so I wasn’t sure if we were allowed to order it.  He said that was no problem at all to order the smoked salmon, apologized that it was forgotten with today’s order, and offered to send it up to the cabin right away.  I told him not to worry about it since we were already finished eating and needed to leave for our tour soon.  He told me to make sure to write down any other special requests when I order room service for the rest of the cruise and he would make sure that we got it.  I was quite impressed at the level of service and concern for our happiness.  Well done, Celebrity!

We packed up our beach bags and headed off the ship at 8:15am to meet our tour group.  We were instructed to meet at 8:45am at a boutique located just a 5 minute walk from the cruise ship, but I always like to give us a little extra time just in case we get lost and to make sure we are not late.  These guys were playing the steel drums when we got down to the pier.

When we got to the base of the pier, I immediately saw our meeting spot for the tour.  The instructions told us to walk across the wood bridge to the Exotic Antigua Boutique, so it was a relief to see a huge sign on their roof labeling the building so I could see it from right next to the cruise ship.

Now that I saw how close we were to the meeting spot, and since we were still a bit early, we walked past the bridge and continued straight towards the shops.  I have never been to this port before and I was curious to check out the port area, but I almost immediately regretted my decision.  It wasn’t a particularly pretty port area, and honestly it looked a bit run down.  

On top of that, the locals were extremely pushy. Every time we took a step down the street, another vendor approached us trying to get us to go into their store to buy something, or to book their tour or get in their taxi and they would take us to the beach.  I answered “No thank you, I already have a tour booked” which is usually enough for the vendors to back off, but they still kept pestering us.  I felt very uncomfortable and after just a few minutes, I told DH I had enough and we turned back to go wait at our meeting spot for the tour.  That didn’t give me the best first impression of Antigua, but I was hopeful that things would improve once we started our tour.

At 8:40am, we spotted our tour boat, clearly labeled with “Antigua Adventures” painted on the side of the boat.  There were already a few people on the boat who were staying at a hotel on the island, and the rest of us boarded after they tied up on the dock.

When I booked the tour, they said there was a maximum of 31 people on the tour, but the guides told us there would only be 22 people on our tour today with 3 guides, so there was lots of space to spread out.  The boat had a big canopy over the back half of the boat for shade, and it had a lower level with space to store our bags to keep them dry, as well as a bathroom. Once everyone was settled, the guide came around to collect our money to pay for the tour, and we left the dock promptly at 9am.

We spent the first hour of the tour speeding around the island, making occasional stops so the guides could point out the landmarks along the shoreline.  The guides also explained some of the history of Antigua.

This was an old navy fort… if you look closely about a quarter of the way in from the left side, you can see one of the canons still perched on the edge of the cliff.

Antigua has some very expensive, high end houses, so the guides pointed it out as we sped past them.

I think this was at one of the hotels

Our tour was called Eli’s Eco Tour, but the tour company Antigua Adventure also offers an Xtreme 360 tour which circumnavigates the entire island in a much faster speed boat.  At some point, that boat sped passed us and everyone looked like they were having a great time.  I did notice that the boat looked much more crowded than our boat, so I was happy to be on our slower boat with more space to spread out.

Our first longer stop was at Long Island, which I thought was funny because I was born and raised on Long Island in New York.  This section of the island has beautiful turquoise water, soft white sand, and lots of very expensive houses.  The guides spent a few minutes explaining about how sea turtles lay their eggs on this beach and the island requires the residents here to help facilitate that process and protect the eggs.  Something I found really interesting is that the guide told us that the turtles always return to the beach where they were born to lay their eggs. If a turtle was born here, but then swims over to St. Lucia for a few years, it will swim all the way back to this beach to lay it’s eggs.  Crazy!

While we were listening to one guide, one of the other guides served us fruit juice or water, but no rum punch just yet- we had to wait for the end of the day after snorkeling before they would serve the good stuff!

We stayed at Long Island for about 20 minutes, then made the 15-minute journey over to the mangroves.  When I went through the mangroves in Puerto Rico and Costa Rica, I spotted lots of interesting animals and birds.  These mangroves weren’t quite as exciting and we didn’t spot any animals, but maybe they were just deeper inside and not visible from our boat?

Our next stop was at Pelican Island, where we saw tons of pelicans perched up on the hill.  There were so many of them, and it was interesting that they all stay close by this one island.

Look closely and you can see lots of pelicans hiding in the bushes.

After leaving Pelican Island, we traveled less than 5 minutes to reach our next destination: Hell’s Gate Island.  This was the first time we could get off the boat, and we had the option of snorkeling, swimming in the natural jacuzzi, or going on a hike though a cave and up to the top of the bridge to see the views.  The guides explained that we only had about 40 minutes to spend here, so there was only time for us to do one activity.  They warned us that the last option was the most adventurous option, so of course that is what we picked to do!  

Approaching Hell’s Gate Island

Lots of coral and rocks just below us

That’s the bridge we were climbing up to

As we approached the island, the water was very choppy so I was a bit nervous about swimming over there from the boat.  The guides had life vests and pool noodles that we could use to float, so that did make the swimming a little easier, but be careful!  There are rocks in the water that come up close to the surface.  I was getting tossed around a lot and it was hard to control my direction with the current, and I scrapped my knee on the top of one of the rocks.  That scrape is still not fully healed today, over a month later, and I am fairly sure I will end up with a scar on my knee.  

Yay! We made it!

The guides were wonderful about helping everyone swim over to the island from the boat.  If anyone wasn’t a strong swimmer, the guides were there to help out.

As tough as that swim was, it was totally worth it!  The island is really unique.  There’s a small patch of soft sand forming a small beach with crystal clear bright blue water washing through the opening in the rocks.  That’s the area they referred to as a natural jacuzzi, and I could see it being a lovely place to sit and relax if you don’t want to hike through the cave.

Looking back towards our boat, you can see that the rocks which form the island are very sharp.  This natural landform is made of porous limestone rock, and there were lots of sharp jagged edges sticking out.  I would definitely recommend wearing water shoes to protect your feet if you are going to take the hike here.  We have our own aquasocks, but the guides had little booties for us to borrow if needed.

This photo shows where we entered the cave… do you see the vines hanging down from the top of the bridge?  There is a dark opening on the left side towards the bottom of the vines- that’s the cave we walked through.

The guides gave us very specific instructions for how to climb up the rocks, and they pointed out where to turn and how to maneuver safely through the narrow cave opening and up through the middle of the rocks to reach the top.  

It was really fun to climb up through the cave, but you need to be careful of your footing and be aware of what is around you. Some parts had a lower ceiling so you had to be careful not to bump your head, and some of the rocks were slippery. I did my best to snap lots of photos, but it wasn’t the greatest lighting conditions in there so I apologize that some of these came out blurry.

The last part was the steepest, but one of the guides stood at the top and told us where to step, and then reached out his hand to help us climb up to the very top.

Looking back down at the water flowing through the middle of the rocks

The views from the top of the island were stunning! It was totally worth the effort to hike up here as we had unobstructed panoramic views of the whole area.  

Notice how my hair is blowing all over the place? It was very windy up there so you had to be careful not to lose your footing while gazing out at the views.

When time was almost up, the guides helped us climb across the top of the bridge, and back down to the beach where we started the hike, and then we all swam back to the boat.  Hell’s Gate was one of the highlights of this tour.  The scenery was amazing and it was such a special experience to see this natural land formation.  I was a bit nervous going in because the guides did say it is a challenging hike, but I am so glad I did it and I would highly recommend giving it a try if you take this tour.  Yes, it was a little difficult to climb through the narrow spaces, but it was very doable with the help of the guides, and every one of the 15+ people in our group who attempted it was able to complete the hike.

Once everyone was back on the boat, we made another short 5-minute ride to our next stop at Bird Island.  The guides mentioned that the islands in Antigua have very simple names (Pelican Island, Bird Island, etc).  They pulled the boat into a little alcove with crystal clear aqua blue water and told us it would take them about 15 minutes to set up for lunch so we could do some swimming or walk around on the beach.  There was a small boat here when we arrived, but they were just getting ready to leave so we would have the whole island to ourselves.  

I liked the name of their boat… Do It Tomorrow

DH decided to go out for a swim

I took a little walk along the beach

This is what happens when I leave DH to hold my camera for a few minutes…

The water was so clear!

Lunch was served buffet style and included pasta salad, BBQ chicken, garden salad, and fried plantains.  They also had water, Coke, Coke Zero, beer, and rum punch to drink.  All of the food was delicious, and I was very impressed that they served lunch on real plates and with real silverware (ie: not disposable)!

There were a few picnic tables along the beach, and the trees helped provide some shade.

There was more than enough food, and anyone who wanted seconds was welcome to help themselves.  When we all had our fill, we cleared our plates and got ready for another little hike along a small trail that climbs up to the top of the hill on Bird Island.  Definitely make sure to wear good shoes for this hike.  Even though it only takes about 10 minutes to reach the top of the hill, it is steep and slippery in spots so it’s important to have good traction.

This is a map of the island and some of the animals that live here

As expected, the views from the top of the hill were beautiful.  We could see the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and many of the islands around Antigua.

I love how this photo came out!

We found a little friend in the bushes

On the way back down the hill, we walked passed another beach on the opposite side of the island

After the hike, we all climbed back on the boat and motored about 5 minutes off the shore of Bird Island to the coral reef to go snorkeling.  The guides divided the group into 2 groups- the beginners stayed close to the boat, and the advanced group went out further from the boat with one of the guides.  We went with the advanced group and had no trouble keeping up with the guide despite the choppy current.  Unfortunately, all of the heavy winds really churned up the water so visibility was limited. We saw lots of rocks and coral, but not many fish.  I thought the snorkeling here was okay, but not great.

The guide dove down to the ocean floor and came back with a surprise… a conch shell!  This was the first time I have seen one of these while snorkeling!

He handed it to me to get a closer look…

That was the highlight of today’s snorkeling trip! It was also around the spot where we turned around to swim back towards the boat.  Swimming out was against the current, so the rest of the time we just floated and let the current gradually drift us back towards the boat.

I was out in the water snorkeling for about 20 minutes.  When I got back to the boat, the guides were ready and waiting with a special treat. They served us fresh baked banana bread, water, fruit juice, and very strong rum punch.  The rum punch was so strong that I actually asked for a cup with half punch and half fruit juice to dilute it to make it more drinkable haha The snack was much-needed after all that swimming!  

After that, we made the 45-minute journey back to the cruise port.

We docked back in front of the Exotic Antigua Boutique at 2:45pm.  Overall, I enjoyed the tour and thought the guides did a great job.  Antigua is a beautiful island, especially as seen from the water, but I would definitely recommend doing some research and picking a tour in advance. The locals at the port are incredibly pushy and I would not recommend trying to book a tour right there when you arrive, nor would I recommend spending too much time walking around the port area.  Our itinerary had many islands that are better for shopping where you don’t have to deal with the pushy locals.  Sorry Antigua, but you were not my favorite island of this cruise. 

We thanked our guides and went straight back to the ship, happy to find our afternoon cheese plate waiting for us in the cabin.

Yay!  We finally got real crackers instead of saltines!  Call me crazy, but it really did make the cheese taste better.  After some quick showers, we headed down to the Gastro Bar because DH wanted to try some new beers (and we kind of needed a break from the Martini Bar lol)  DH had a beer and I tried some champagne.

We could see a beautiful sunset through the windows, so we went up to the outside deck on deck 5 to get a better look. This is what cruising is all about!

Such a perfect night to lounge on an outside deck, watching the sun set over the ocean with some drinks.

At 7pm, we went down to the MDR for dinner.  Here is tonight’s menu:

My favorite treat on cruises is escargot.  I never eat this any other time besides on a cruise, so I love that Celebrity offers it as an every day appetizer.  I ordered this many times over our 2 week cruise, but I’ll only post the photo this one time.

Spiced Duck Rillettes

Celebrity Signature Crab Cake

Penne Primavera

Oven Roasted Chicken Saltimbocca (this was the only dish from the entire cruise which I thought was a miss… it just wasn’t what I expected and I didn’t really enjoy it.  We had planned to share the penne but I ended up eating most of it on my own.)

Dessert Menu

I don’t have a photo of the dessert but I am fairly certain that I ordered the Apple Tart.  After dinner, we went upstairs to watch a few minutes of the evening hot glass show.  We never got to do this on our 2016 cruise, but I really liked seeing the shows at night. The hot glass seems to glow brighter at night, and it was much cooler watching the show in the evening air instead of in the daytime sun.  We only had a few minutes to watch the show because we needed to get to the main theater by 9pm, but it was worth it to see them make one piece.

Tonight’s featured performer was Savannah Smith, backed by the Eclipse Orchestra.  She is a singer and performer in Las Vegas and she put on a wonderful, entertaining show.  She sings songs by the famous female divas, and her voice is very strong.  We really enjoyed it.

After the show, we went straight back to the cabin, tired from a busy day in Antigua but looking forward to tomorrow in St. Lucia!

Step Tracker Daily Total:  4367 steps; 1.671 miles

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebritycruises #celebrityeclipse #cruise #vacation #travel #antigua

[deladane]

Day 7: Wednesday, March 7 ~ St. Maarten

Day 7: Wednesday, March 7 ~ St. Maarten

Our absolute favorite part of our snorkeling tour in St. Maarten in 2015 was the 20 minutes we spent at Pinel Island.  Everything there was so beautiful… the soft white sand, the bright blue water, the views looking back at the main island.  At the time, we wished we could have spent more time there, and we always said we wanted to return the next time we had a port stop in St. Maarten. A year later, we booked this cruise, and when we saw our first port of call on this itinerary, it didn’t take long to decide our plans for the day.  There is a company called Caribbean Paddling who has a tour that provides round trip transportation to their office, and then you rent a tandem kayak for the day and can take it over to Pinel Island, all for $80 total ($40 per person).  It sounded like a fun activity to make it more than just a beach day, and I was planning to wait until a few months before the cruise to book our reservation on their website.

Unfortunately, the rough hurricane season in the fall of 2017 put a kink in our plans.  St. Maarten suffered devastating damage, so much so that cruise ships could not visit the island for several months.  I decided to hold off on booking anything specific for our port stop here as I did not know for sure if we were going to St. Maarten or if we would have an itinerary change at the last minute.  I was diligent about checking Cruise Critic as people reported back their experiences as the first few ships docked in St. Maarten, and the overall consensus was that the Dutch side of the island was recovering much faster than the French side. Since Pinel Island is on the French side of the island, and I knew they suffered major damage in the hurricane, I decided to postpone our return visit for a future cruise (I am sure we will return here again eventually!), and I started to research options closer to the cruise port area.  In the end, we decided our best option would be to not book any specific tours. Instead, we decided to spend the day checking out the beach and boardwalk in Phillipsburg, renting an umbrella and lounge chairs for a relaxing day at the beach, and possibly going for lunch at one of the restaurants nearby.    

Today’s daily schedule:

I woke up this morning around 7am, with just a few minutes to get dressed before room service delivered our breakfast.  After re-plating all of the dishes onto our own individual plates, we brought our breakfast outside to the balcony to admire the beautiful views of the bay. This is definitely my favorite part of having a balcony cabin!

Side note:  The breakfast menu offers a choice of onion or plain bagels.  We ordered 1 onion bagel for each of us.  When we opened the basket of breads and pastries, we found 2 bagels, neither of which had any onions on them!  At the time, we assumed they must have run out of onion bagels and just gave us plain instead… okay, not a big deal.  But then the same thing happened again tomorrow, and the next day.  Ok, so let’s try a new tactic- one day we decided to order 1 plain bagel and 1 onion bagel as an experiment.  We definitely received 2 different kinds of bagels with our delivery, but neither one had any onions haha  One was the same size as the bagels we had been getting, and the other was quite a bit smaller, like a mini-bagel.  We came to the conclusion that “onion” really means “large” bagel, and “plain” means “small” bagel.  And to clarify, even the “large onion” bagel isn’t very large… it’s fairly thin and airy (not dense), so we had no trouble finishing the bagel with lox and cream cheese and the omelet, and even had room for a pastry for dessert.  If you like big, filling breakfasts (as we do when we will be out on a tour in port for several hours and won’t be able to eat lunch until mid-afternoon), then order accordingly!  

Looking out over the railing of our balcony to the far right, we could see the beach where we will spend our day.  I am used to traveling quite far from the port area, so this would be a first for me- relaxing on a beach so close to where the cruise ship is docked.  

The sun was shining bright and it looked like a beautiful start to our day in St. Maarten!  At 8am, they made the announcement that the ship was cleared, so we packed up our bags and went down to deck 2 to get off the ship.  

It has been 3 years since we were last here so it was hard to remember the specifics of the cruise village to know how many buildings were destroyed by Hurricane Irma.  I did notice a few buildings under construction, plus a bit of debris tossed to the side, but for the most part, most of the stores were open and looked like they were in good shape.

We followed the signs for the 5-minute walk from the ship to the water taxi booth to buy our tickets.

At some point yesterday, DH picked up a coupon for $1 off the water taxi.  He said they were handing it out somewhere on the ship but couldn’t remember exactly where he got it.

As it turned out, the lady selling water taxi tickets did not need the coupon to honor the price.  As we approached the booth, she said it would be $6 USD per person for unlimited rides all day.  Does anyone pay $5 for a one way ride??  That is not a good deal at all!!  The lady handed us each a wrist band and directed us to walk between the buildings, out to the water, then to turn left and walk down to the pier to board the water taxi.  It took us about 5 minutes to reach the water taxi, and luckily, it was just about ready to leave as we boarded.  Once we left the dock, the crew on the taxi announced that they were selling bottles of water and cans of soda for $1, and cans of beer for $2.  

While I know the walk from the cruise ship to downtown Phillipsburg only takes about 20 minutes, and we had at least 10 minutes of walking to get to the water taxi, it was still worth it for the beautiful views as we sped across the bay.

Some of the boats that were destroyed in the hurricane are piled up on the shore

Approaching Bobby’s marina

Lots of lounge chairs and umbrellas set up along the beach, ready for hoards of cruise passengers to arrive

I thought that each water taxi made 3 stops at the piers along the beach, so I planned to get off at the second or third stop. When we got to Bobby’s Marina, the driver said that everyone had to get off and he was not going to the other piers.  As it turned out, each boat only went to 1 pier and then returned to the cruise port, but there was no way to know which pier they were going to because they just said they were going “to town”.  The entire taxi ride took exactly 5 minutes, so honestly, I don’t think it saved us much time over walking the whole way, but like I said, it was worth it for the views.

We got off the taxi and as soon as we started walking towards the beach, someone approached us to ask if we needed beach chairs. He offered us 2 chairs and a shared umbrella for $20.  The loungers he pointed out to us did not have any padding, so we said “No, thank you” and kept walking down the beach for a better option.

The next guy we saw had loungers with thick yellow cushions that looked very comfortable.  He offered us 2 chairs, a small table, 1 umbrella, free wifi, and changing rooms for $15, plus we could buy a bucket of 5 beers for an additional $10. We tried to negotiate unsuccessfully, so we agreed and picked 2 loungers in the front row along the water.  It was barely 9am so very few people had arrived yet, and we had the beach to ourselves!

Notice how all of the cushions are flopping over? It was another windy day in the Caribbean!

Looking back towards the boardwalk… throughout the day, the guys continued to set up more loungers behind ours

I really liked that they put the umbrellas close together so there was lots of shade on the lounge chairs for most of the day (…until the sun moved over the bay and then there was no way to avoid it!)

Soft white sand, turquoise water, views of the cruise ships and the island of Saba in the distance… what more could I ask for?  (It also helped that there was a major blizzard in the Northeast today, so when I posted this photo on my social media, I made a lot of people very jealous haha)

Be careful where you step… there were a lot of small shells washed up along the shoreline

Good morning from St. Maarten!

It was so relaxing to sit on my lounge chair, take notes in my journal, and listen to the waves roll in against the shore.

We had the beach mostly to ourselves until around 10am when a cruise ship excursion took over the chairs in the next section over from ours.  At that point, there was a DJ who started playing somewhat loud music, and lots of people started splashing around in the bay.  It didn’t really bother me, but it was noticeable that our quiet beach morning was turning into a more vibrant and lively scene.  With our prime front row seats, at least we could do some great people watching!

At around noon, we started getting hungry for lunch.  We considered eating at one of the restaurants along the boardwalk, but ultimately decided to make use of our unlimited water taxi rides and to head back to the ship for lunch at the buffet.  The guy who rented us the chairs said it was no problem to leave for a few hours for lunch, and he would hold our chairs for us.  We left behind a few less valuable things (sunscreen, water bottles, and books) to hold our chairs, and took our now-much-lighter beach bags with us as we walked back to the water taxi dock.  When we got to the dock, someone told us we missed the last taxi by 5 minutes, so we sat in the gazebo to wait for the next one which arrived about 10 minutes later.

Note that all the seats are protected from the sun… something I always appreciate!

This was the gazebo where we waited for the taxi… again, in the shade!

Our chairs were in the section of blue umbrellas. This also shows some of the damage to the hotel behind the section of red umbrellas.  There was lots of construction going on the whole time we were there.

Almost back to the dock at the cruise port

This beautiful yacht was docked next to where the water taxis left from.  I would love to travel around St. Maarten on a yacht like that someday!!

In all, it took us 45 minutes to get from our loungers at the beach to get back on the ship.  I had thought we could do the entire journey round trip, including eating lunch, in about an hour, but obviously that was not possible!  We went straight up to the buffet for lunch, where the theme of the day was A Taste of France.  I didn’t see anything at the specialty stations which appealed to me, so instead, I went to the made-to-order pasta station.  I love that they have so many fresh ingredients and you can pick as many as you want, including proteins, and then a few different sauce options which change day to day.

Bowtie pasta with mushrooms, onions, sun-dried tomatoes, zucchini, garlic, chicken, and tomato sauce, with a side of spinach and goat cheese pizza.  Don’t forget to take some parmesan cheese before leaving the station like I did! Oops!

I took a chocolate chip cookie for dessert as we left the buffet, and by 1:15pm, we were on our way back to the beach.  This time, when we got to the water taxi dock, the water taxi was already there but they said they were taking a lunch break and directed us to a larger ferry further along the pier.  I asked the driver if he was going to the marina and he said yes, so we got on. It took about 5 minutes for them to fill up the rest of the boat since this one was much larger than the boat we had taken this morning, and then they left.  A few minutes into the ride, I noticed we were very far out into the middle of the bay and not aiming for the marina.  He ended up docking all the way at the opposite end of the beach from our lounge chairs!  It was really annoying that he gave us wrong information, but it didn’t really matter because I wanted to take a walk along the boardwalk anyway, so we just did it now instead of later in the day (and we only had to walk in 1 direction in the heat, so maybe it was a win after all!).  

This was the larger water taxi we used for this leg of the trip

Nice views of the beach from the water taxi pier

I did notice signs down that way offering chairs/umbrellas/beer deals for $20 total, but it wouldn’t be worth it for us to walk that far from where the original water taxi dropped us off.  Plus, now that it was 1:30pm, it was possible that the prices were lower than they were at 9am since you wouldn’t have as much time to enjoy your lounger.

More construction, but it is all contained to the boundaries of the building and did not disrupt people walking on the boardwalk

When we arrived back at our lounge chairs, our belongings were still waiting for us, right where we left them.  The beach was definitely more crowded now and lots of people were swimming in the water.  I am not sure if it is always like this, or if the water was rougher today with all of the wind, but there was a strong current and small waves as the water reached the shoreline.  We watched as many people got knocked over by the waves.  They would be out in the water but facing the beach to talk to someone on the sand, so the waves snuck up behind them and knocked them down.  I guess it would have been nice for their friends/family to warn them the wave was coming! Haha  

We relaxed on our loungers for the next hour and a half, and at 3:30pm, we packed up and walked back to the water taxi dock.  It was nice being so close to the ship all day, and being able to stay at the beach a little longer than if we had a further distance to travel back to the ship. I don’t normally stay out until 1 hour before all aboard time, but we figured we were safe, knowing that we could always walk back to the ship in 20 minutes if a water taxi never showed up.  There was nothing to worry about though, as the water taxi arrived 5 minutes after we got to the dock.  There was a big line of people waiting to get on, but there were enough seats for everyone, with space to spare.  Those taxis are bigger than they appear!  We walked the 10 minutes or so back to the Eclipse and got onboard by 4pm.

Not quite ready to end our day, we went straight upstairs to the Sunset Bar for a few drinks and to watch the sail away. We found 2 open seats right at the railing, so we had a beautiful view to relax and look out over the port and the bay.  

Amazingly, DH was able to get a signal from the wifi back at the beach while we were sitting out there!  I’m really not sure how that was possible considering we weren’t THAT close, and I was not as lucky and couldn’t get my phone to connect, but he took advantage and checked his social media one last time.

The flag was blowing in the breeze.  Kind of cool that we could see the ocean out in the distance beyond the cruise port and the town.  I also love that the walkways in the cruise village look like a giant checkerboard.  It is hard to notice that when you are on ground level, but very obvious when looking down from the top deck of the ship!

Not many people on their aft balconies right now

We didn’t notice any pier runners, but it was kind of hard to know for sure because we were docked next to the Freedom of the Seas and they had a later all aboard time than us.

A little after 5pm, we saw the crew bringing in the lines, and then we felt the ship start to drift away from the pier.  The views from up here were so wonderful, and we knew we would spend quite a few sail always at the Sunset Bar.

Until next time, St. Maarten!

Freedom of the Seas is still tied up at the pier for another hour or so

I never noticed this before, but they must bring in the flag after leaving port each evening, and then put it back out the next morning after docking.

Peek-a-boo!  I see you!  I’m not sure I understand the appeal of an aft balcony on the S-class ships when the sloped angle gives them very little privacy (and likely very limited shade when the sun is overhead!) I get that people love to watch the wake, but personally, I prefer shade and privacy when I'm on my balcony!

One last photo…

It was now around 5:30pm, so we ran back to the cabin for some quick showers and to get ready for the evening.  The sunset views from our cabin were stunning!

We also had a very clear view of Saba in the distance

We went down to the Martini Bar for a quick drink before dinner.  I ordered the Candied Apple Martini, made with Grey Goose Vodka, apple schnapps, pomegranate juice, and butterscotch schnapps, but I think they added too much butterscotch.

I’m not sure what DH ordered (likely a gin martini) but he managed to knock over his glass and it broke!  

We let the bartenders know right away, but I guess they were too busy with the pre-dinner rush because it took them a surprisingly long time to come clean it up.  We weren’t in a rush per se, but there was broken glass on the table and we thought they would have been eager to clean it up before someone got hurt. When someone did come over, he was extremely thorough and even checked to make sure there wasn’t any glass in the stack of clean glasses that had just come out of the dishwasher and was sitting right on the other side of the counter.  Luckily, it was all clear (pun intended) and the glass broke in fairly large pieces so it was easy to clean up!

We hung around at the Martini Bar long enough to catch some flair, then headed off to take our nightly pre-dinner photo.

When we arrived at the hostess stand for the MDR, Cervine told us there would be a short wait for Pinto’s section tonight. Waiting just a few minutes was well worth it for us to be seated with our favorite wait staff, and as an added bonus, we got a window seat!  I love when we get to sit next to the window because the window sill is about 18 inches deep and gives us lots of extra space to spread out.  I can keep my purse and camera there, and we also move the bread basket and butter tray over there when we need more space on our small table for the many appetizers and entrees we like to order.  In theory, the windows should provide a nice view of the ocean or maybe even the sunset, but the windows were always too foggy and dirty to provide a good view, and halfway through our meal it was dark outside anyway.

Tonight’s dinner menu

Duck Terrine

We had a bit of a snafu at dinner tonight.  DH and I each ordered one appetizer and the French Onion Soup.  Perhaps it was because we were not eating in their section last night and they forgot, but Jose did not deliver all of our appetizers at the same time.  This might have been okay, but for whatever reason, he chose to deliver my Duck Terrine at the same time as DH’s soup.  I don’t know if you have ever ordered the French Onion Soup on a Celebrity Cruise (it’s delicious btw!!), but it takes a very long time to eat it.  The melted cheese on top and the bowl they serve it in help to keep the soup piping hot, and it can be a little challenging to cut through the cheese and piece of bread, so it takes a while to finish it.  Had they brought both of our soups at the same time, it would have been fine, but I finished my duck fairly quickly and then DH felt rushed to finish his soup so they could bring out our second round of appetizers.  It wasn’t a huge deal, and certainly not something we wanted to complain about, but it was just not how we like things done. We also thought it was just kind of weird because it would have made more sense to serve the soup course at the same time to both guests at the table.

Right around that time, the room service manager stopped by our table to check on us and ask how our meal was going.  We hesitated to tell him what happened but he could tell something was wrong and he really pressed us to talk to him about it. We really liked Pinto and Jose and we did not want them to get in trouble in any way, but the manager really wanted to hear our thoughts, so we told him what happened.  After we spoke up, there was an immediate change in service, and Pinto and Jose were overly attentive for the rest of the meal.  

French Onion Soup

Turkey Parmesan

Seared Branzino

Slow Braised Lamb Wrapped in Phyllo

Dessert Menu

I was too full to order dessert, but DH ordered the cheese plate.  If any of you have read my Paul Gauguin review, you know about my husband’s love affair with a cheese plate after dinner lol  This wasn’t anything like what they did on Paul Gauguin with a rolling cart brought to our table, but that was probably a good thing for the sake of portion control!  DH was very happy to receive real crackers instead of saltines (and this was proof that there are, in fact, other crackers on the ship besides saltines!!)

After dinner, we walked around the ship for a bit to work off some of the calories, then we made our way to the theater. Tonight’s show was called Rock City and featured the singers, dancers, and aerialists performing songs by The Who, Bon Jovi, Green Day, and many more.  It was more like a rock concert than a show in that it did not have a plot, and of course, we really enjoyed it.  This seemed like Celebrity’s effort to cater to a younger audience, which was okay with me since I like this kind of music, but I am not sure how the older crowd felt about it.

At 10pm, the activities crew was hosting an 80’s themed game up in the Sky Lounge.  The description in the daily schedule was quite vague, but we wanted to check it out. They divided the room into 2 groups based on where you were sitting, and asked for a team leader from each side. We were sitting in the front row so they asked DH to be our leader, and Mike (traveling-2) volunteered for the other team.  The game was name that tune with 80’s songs and you had to know the title and the artist. People from the audience were supposed to run up and tell the team leader the answer and he would then tell it to the host to get the points.  As it turned out, DH and Mike are both quite knowledgeable in 80’s music and they knew almost every answer without any help.  They recognized the songs after only a few notes, so the rest of us in the audience didn’t have time to run up and answer anyway!  Notice the activities staff member standing in the middle? That’s Flory, and he had his hand held out for DH or Mike to tap him when they knew the answer.  You can imagine how poor Flory got stuck in the middle as DH and Mike both rush over to him at the same time!  The poor guy seemed scared to stand there after the first few songs haha

In the end, it was a pretty even match up but I think Mike’s team ended up winning.  I just want to take a moment here to talk about Flory… This event was held on the third night of our cruise, and from this moment on, any time Flory saw us, he made sure to say hi.  When DH first went up onto the dance floor, Flory asked where he lives.  When DH said San  Jose, CA, Flory immediately responded “Go Sharks!”  He is a big hockey fan and apparently knows all the teams, and he was very excited that we live in the city of one of the teams he likes.  If Flory spotted us from across the room, or the buffet, or the pool deck, or anywhere really, he would yell “Go Sharks!”, so it wasn’t just that he was saying hi to a familiar face.  We knew he remembered exactly who we were, which was quite impressive considering how many guests are on the ship and that he interacts with a new set of guests every 2 weeks.  He always had a smile on his face and so much energy in every event that he hosted, and we just thought he was wonderful at his job (and definitely made a point to mention that in our guest satisfaction survey after the cruise!).

Back to Wednesday night… The house band was scheduled to perform poolside at 10:15pm so we went over to check it out, thinking maybe there would be a party vibe on the pool deck.  No such luck! It seemed totally dead and there was hardly anyone out there, so we just went back to the cabin and called it a night.

Step Tracker Daily Total:  12,164 steps; 4.96 miles; 13 flights of stairs

#Celebrity Eclipse Cruise 2018 #celebrityeclipse #CelebrityCruises #vacation #travel #cruise #St Maarten