Day Three: Day at Sea

We sure were enjoying our warm weather. We spent the day on the balcony and by the pool. It was not a hard thing to do!!We sailed by Cuba most of the day. It was a surprise to see how long/big it was and how close it was to the USA.
Our cabin steward kept us entertained with towel animals! He even put more candies in the animals throughout the week. It was fun to come back to the room and see what he created.
We had a complimentary bottle of wine delivered to our room from our travel agent; Robert, our steward, decided the wine glasses needed to be showcased! I could get used to the pampering, I tell you!

Sailing all day.......

The first morning after sailing all night was a surprise. We discovered sunrise is around 7am, not the 5:30am we had experienced in Oregon! I guess that's because we were getting closer to the equator. It was a bit strange to wake up at 6am (no, we didn't sleep in much!) and find it was still quite dark.
The sunrise of our first full day of cruising.....we would cruise for 2 full days before we would reach Aruba.
It was interesting to find out that the Love Boat series was originated on a Princess cruise ship. So here is the signature dessert....you can have every night....and it's called.......drum roll, please....you guessed it.......The Love Boat!
Our first night's dinner was a formal dinner. Tux for Greg and long dress for me!

Sailing Away

Finally, back to blogging about our cruise! The time to sail from Ft. Lauderdale did arrive and we found ourselves appreciating the views and warm weather! The harbor area is just beautiful.
Yes, the water really is this blue! Especially on such clear, sunny days.
Do we look happy?
A final look back at the United States. It would be 14 more days until we would see our country again.

We interrupt these vacations postings for....

Shingles (n.): 1. A thin, oblong piece of material, such as wood or slate, that is overlapped to cover a roof or sides of house or building 2. An extremely painful condition, caused by a reinflamation of the herpes zostra virus (aka chicken pox) that involves inflammation of the sensory nerves.

Sure wish I was dealing with the first definition and not the second! Unfortunately, I hadn't realized what the back pain was from so the medication they can give isn't effective once it's been 72 hours since the initial symptoms.

Oh well....once I can get comfortable sitting at the computer, I will resume our cruise pictorial. Until then.........

Sea Princess

And we are off to the ship! We weren't able to take pictures from the pier - security reasons and so we settled for pictures from the ship.
Our luggage is somewhere in the piles of what was being loaded. It took forklifts and over 4 hours to load the luggage. With 1900 people on board and most likely 2 bags/person, it was a busy place! They delivered our luggage to our room before dinner!
For whatever reason the only picture of our balcony stateroom we took was the door!!! How funny is that! (The bathroom -very tiny - is the door on the right)
On the outside decks.....no swimsuits yet to put on to enjoy that pool!
The big screen TV - we actually sat out under the stars and watched movies at night. They served pizza, cookies, and popcorn!

Off to Florida!

Our vacation journey started with a trip from Portland to LA to Ft. Lauderdale. We had uneventful flights and lots of laughter. Not to mention trying to sleep! I think I was the only one awake on the entire plane - just can't get comfortable on those tiny seats! We arrived in Florida at 6am and it was already 75 degrees - we were ready for the sun!
This is all the luggage from the six of us traveling together! No shortage of clothing here!

LA airport - pretty cool terminal but not many places to get good food. We ate in shifts and Greg and I tried out a place that wasn't too bad if you like airport food.
This was the view from our room. We had the entire day to play on the beach and just relax -----we were loving that orb in the sky!
My first time in the Atlantic Ocean - literally! It was so warm!
Greg decided sitting on the deck was the way to relax.
Greg's brother (without the shirt) joined us. We hadn't seen him in several years so it was good to catch up. I couldn't help but remind him he looked more like his brother every day.....gray hair included!!! (Being the younger brother, he didn't much appreciate the comments about being older!)
Can you say rain!!??? What's up with that! We had left that stuff in Oregon, yea right! But it didn't stop us from enjoying the pool Rain and 90 degrees....that's my kind of weather!
Tradition has it you have to take pictures of the palm trees! A Florida icon, for sure.

Cruisin'.....

Picture courtesy of the web

We have had an exciting vacation cruising through the Panama Canal. We went a little camera crazy and I'm busy sorting, organizing, culling and generally enjoying over 1,000 pictures. It will be fun to post....better get back to organizing!