This was certainly not our typical type of trip, but this Caribbean cruise couldn't have come at a better time for us and provided just what we needed....a little break from the realities of life. After all is said and done, our little motto "Life is good" still rings very true.
All in all, we travelled a distance of 4,150km round trip from Port Everglades to Princess Cays, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Grand Turk and back. The waters were calm and the weather absolutely perfect. How blessed we are to have experienced such a fantastic trip! The sheer beauty of the islands and more particularly the beaches we visited is so hard to accurately describe in words. Each stop provided us with an opportunity to experience a true tropical paradise!
I've wanted to travel to St. Maarten and Turks & Caicos for some time now and as an added bonus I also got to see St. Thomas and an island in the Bahamas. Taking in the sun and relaxing on a beach was our ultimate goal and each of the beaches provided this. The fine white sand, clear and turquoise water were perfect and such a beautiful sight! Exploring the islands in the limited time we had gave us a brief experience with the culture, the sights and gave us a sense of whether we might want to return some day for a longer time.
The cruise ship itself was great. It was clean, modern and full of different things to do. The food was all very tasty and there was plenty to go around. A few of my favourite things we did on board was movies under the stars, taking in the shows, and sitting on our balcony reading or just staring out at the open waters.
As we get back to real life, the memories of this trip will last a lifetime. More importantly I got to share this experience with my best friend, Z and that makes it that much more special.
Where we'll end up next is anyone's guess, but these globe trotters won't sit still for long, there's an entire world out there waiting to be explored. Until next time....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
Miami stop
By the time we woke up on Sunday the Ruby Princess was making her final approach in Port Everglades which meant our fabulous cruise was over. We got ourselves ready and head off for a final breakfast in the Da Vinci dining hall. Our disembarkment time was 8:40am and after breakfast we still had some time to kill, so we decided to hit the Princess Links for a quick 9 hole putting game. Disembarking from the ship was smooth sailing...we met in our predetermined spot and right on time they had us in our way. Our luggage was in a large holding area sorted by colour coded tag which represented your disembarkment time. Once luggage was found, it was off to the immigration line up which was very quick. All in all it probably took about 15 minutes to get through all this. Quick taxi ride to the airport to pick up our car rental and off we went to kill some time at Sawgrass Mills shopping centre.
Sawgrass Mills is huge, with over 300 retailers! They have practically every store you can think of under the sun. We heard about it from that Calgarian couple we met on the cruise and thought we'd check it out because we had time to kill before we could check into our hotel. It's a combination of regular retailers and factory outlet stores. We found a few good deals, but with limited space in our suitcases we didn't go too crazy. After lunch at California Pizza, where we had a very yummy Thai salad and pepperoni pizza we drove to Miami to check into our hotel.
We are staying at the very swanky JW Marriott Marquis in the downtown core...again for free, thanks to points!!!! Our room is on the 37th floor with a view of the Biscayne Bay. The room is absolutely amazing with a comfy king bed, extra spacious bathroom that has a TV in the mirror. Never stayed in a hotel as luxurious as this one before. It's supposed to be ranked as one of the top hotels in the U.S. How lucky for us to get to stay here. The hotel has several cool amenities like a virtual bowling alley, a pool table, virtual golf driving range, and a yoga room. We also got turn down service and one evening a pair of slippers were placed on my side of the bed. I've never had slippers provided for at a hotel before, that was a neat treat!
We went for a nice evening walk to check out the surrounding area and found ourselves at the waterfront, walking through Bayfront Park. The area reminded us a little of home. There are luxury hotels and high-rise condo buildings all around with some very expensive yachts moored along the seawall. The promenade was busy with people out enjoying the evening warmth. We found a little shopping area with restaurants and one was playing some latin music and had people dancing. We ended up with take-out from a Mediterranean Grill and brought it back to the hotel to eat later. The food was typical Lebanese food and really good. We had hummus, stuffed grape leaves, tabbouleh, and falafels.
Monday started off as partly cloudy and gave us a chance to sit by the pool for awhile before it started dripping from the sky. It soon opened up to full rain showers so we stayed indoors and enjoyed the hotel for a couple hours. Why not take advantage of this awesome hotel in this case? We went to the gym and spent some time on the treadmill; this time it was much easier being on stable ground. Perhaps Mother Nature was also trying to prepare us for the weather we're likely to experience when back home.
Once the sky cleared up some we ventured out to explore a little. We found a TD Bank not too far from the hotel. We went to a little shopping area called Mary Brickwell village. There wasn't too much interesting there so we decided to hop on the Metromover (a skytrain like system) which takes you around the downtown area for free. It was a neat way to get around and see downtown which consists of a lot of really tall skyscrapers.
In the evening we drove to South Beach for dinner. This trendy area is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. We found parking along the busy Ocean Drive and walked to the very large beach. The water was still quite warm at dusk; it would have been perfect swimming water, clear with a sandy bottom. We found a Peruvian restaurant, Goyo El Pollo, for dinner and enjoyed some traditional Causas Rellena de Pollo (potato and chicken appie) and Lomo Saltado (beef, onion, tomato dish) with rice and french fries, both of which brought back great memories from a previous trip.
Oh yeah, we also enjoyed free breakfast and evening drinks and snacks in the concierge lounge as a benefit of Z's frequent stays at Marriott hotels. What a nice little perk!
View from our hotel room
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sawgrass Mills is huge, with over 300 retailers! They have practically every store you can think of under the sun. We heard about it from that Calgarian couple we met on the cruise and thought we'd check it out because we had time to kill before we could check into our hotel. It's a combination of regular retailers and factory outlet stores. We found a few good deals, but with limited space in our suitcases we didn't go too crazy. After lunch at California Pizza, where we had a very yummy Thai salad and pepperoni pizza we drove to Miami to check into our hotel.
We are staying at the very swanky JW Marriott Marquis in the downtown core...again for free, thanks to points!!!! Our room is on the 37th floor with a view of the Biscayne Bay. The room is absolutely amazing with a comfy king bed, extra spacious bathroom that has a TV in the mirror. Never stayed in a hotel as luxurious as this one before. It's supposed to be ranked as one of the top hotels in the U.S. How lucky for us to get to stay here. The hotel has several cool amenities like a virtual bowling alley, a pool table, virtual golf driving range, and a yoga room. We also got turn down service and one evening a pair of slippers were placed on my side of the bed. I've never had slippers provided for at a hotel before, that was a neat treat!
We went for a nice evening walk to check out the surrounding area and found ourselves at the waterfront, walking through Bayfront Park. The area reminded us a little of home. There are luxury hotels and high-rise condo buildings all around with some very expensive yachts moored along the seawall. The promenade was busy with people out enjoying the evening warmth. We found a little shopping area with restaurants and one was playing some latin music and had people dancing. We ended up with take-out from a Mediterranean Grill and brought it back to the hotel to eat later. The food was typical Lebanese food and really good. We had hummus, stuffed grape leaves, tabbouleh, and falafels.
Monday started off as partly cloudy and gave us a chance to sit by the pool for awhile before it started dripping from the sky. It soon opened up to full rain showers so we stayed indoors and enjoyed the hotel for a couple hours. Why not take advantage of this awesome hotel in this case? We went to the gym and spent some time on the treadmill; this time it was much easier being on stable ground. Perhaps Mother Nature was also trying to prepare us for the weather we're likely to experience when back home.
Once the sky cleared up some we ventured out to explore a little. We found a TD Bank not too far from the hotel. We went to a little shopping area called Mary Brickwell village. There wasn't too much interesting there so we decided to hop on the Metromover (a skytrain like system) which takes you around the downtown area for free. It was a neat way to get around and see downtown which consists of a lot of really tall skyscrapers.
In the evening we drove to South Beach for dinner. This trendy area is popular for its restaurants and nightclubs. We found parking along the busy Ocean Drive and walked to the very large beach. The water was still quite warm at dusk; it would have been perfect swimming water, clear with a sandy bottom. We found a Peruvian restaurant, Goyo El Pollo, for dinner and enjoyed some traditional Causas Rellena de Pollo (potato and chicken appie) and Lomo Saltado (beef, onion, tomato dish) with rice and french fries, both of which brought back great memories from a previous trip.
Oh yeah, we also enjoyed free breakfast and evening drinks and snacks in the concierge lounge as a benefit of Z's frequent stays at Marriott hotels. What a nice little perk!
View from our hotel room
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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