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Sunday, April 15, 2018
Love Vaction, Hate the Afterwork
Celebrating our 37th anniversary this year was pretty special. This past month hasn't been easy with the passing of my mom, putting my dad into a memory care facility and my continuing health issues, so we did our very best to enjoy, relax and just go with the flow.
We loved seeing Key West! Despite news reports to the contrary, the artistic port was in very good condition! We took a great Old Town Trolley tour. We haven't been there since our 20th anniversary and knew in the heat and humidity I might not be able to walk too well. Our guide was passionate about his hometown and it showed in his time driving us around.
Costa Maya was very windy. Therefore I was pretty well done by the time we walked the 3/4 mile boardwalk from the ship to the little port side shopping area. We enjoyed browsing, seeing the dolphin area and then when I was totally out of air-we headed back to the ship.
Cozumel is always a good walking port for us! This year, we brought back the find of the century (I suppose I must add that this holds true if you love to bake!). It seems that pure, clear vanilla in a litre bottle is only $10 on this island! Costco was charging $25 for a 16 ounce bottle! I know, this seems like a very odd item to drag back to the states, but I love really good vanilla and Mexican vanilla is just soooo tasty!
Last stop was Grand Cayman. Love walking here, usually. But the day we were there was very warm with 100% humidity and I simply couldn't breathe. Then it started to rain. We did what I was physically capable of, got on the tender and went back to the ship.
The entertainment was amazing, food was great and all the various servers were really enjoying the fact that it was our anniversary. We had a cake stashed everywhere, but never actually ate any of them.
Of course, there were unfortunately a couple of hiccups. Seems the porters who handled our luggage from the time we gave it too them up until we got them 2 hours later were just a tad too rough! This has never happened before and we were none too happy.
Steve's small bag had a broken handle. But thankfully the ship has a full time person who we were told repairs all luggage issues. He did a great job! Even managed to find the missing piece and put it back to its previous status. Thank you Celebrity Silhouette!
I, on the other hand wasn't as lucky. My suitcase had a double Ziploc'd bag that held our sunscreen. (Can you all see what I'm going to be writing next???) Somehow the baggage people managed to toss around my piece to the point where the locked and bagged can emptied itself all over 1/2 my clothes and the bottom of my case.
Stinky!
Again Celebrity was great-they managed to save all but 1 tee shirt. I guess it helps that most of my wardrobe is black, so if the sunscreen did leave stains, no one can see them. My "good" dresses were unharmed in this "attack", so I really lucked out. I really did like that royal blue tee, but it could have been a LOT worse. They gave me ship's credit for it.
As is the norm with our annual getaways, we plan for two years, can hardly wait to set sail and before we know it, we're landing at Sky Harbor and going home.
Adam and the kids picked us up. Got home to very happy fur babies who by all accounts missed us a lot. All 3 hopped into bed that night and firmly attached their front paws to various parts of my body and didn't move until morning!
We had a week's worth of wash to do, I had a doctor's appointment first thing the next morning and had our older grands spending one the nights with us-which is why I'm first getting this blog up on Sunday afternoon!
Hard to believe we've already been back almost a week! Next year, same time, different ship (our 3rd time on the Reflection), but we're trying an 11 night trip. Hopefully by then my health will improve and life will be even better!
We loved seeing Key West! Despite news reports to the contrary, the artistic port was in very good condition! We took a great Old Town Trolley tour. We haven't been there since our 20th anniversary and knew in the heat and humidity I might not be able to walk too well. Our guide was passionate about his hometown and it showed in his time driving us around.
Costa Maya was very windy. Therefore I was pretty well done by the time we walked the 3/4 mile boardwalk from the ship to the little port side shopping area. We enjoyed browsing, seeing the dolphin area and then when I was totally out of air-we headed back to the ship.
Cozumel is always a good walking port for us! This year, we brought back the find of the century (I suppose I must add that this holds true if you love to bake!). It seems that pure, clear vanilla in a litre bottle is only $10 on this island! Costco was charging $25 for a 16 ounce bottle! I know, this seems like a very odd item to drag back to the states, but I love really good vanilla and Mexican vanilla is just soooo tasty!
Last stop was Grand Cayman. Love walking here, usually. But the day we were there was very warm with 100% humidity and I simply couldn't breathe. Then it started to rain. We did what I was physically capable of, got on the tender and went back to the ship.
The entertainment was amazing, food was great and all the various servers were really enjoying the fact that it was our anniversary. We had a cake stashed everywhere, but never actually ate any of them.
Of course, there were unfortunately a couple of hiccups. Seems the porters who handled our luggage from the time we gave it too them up until we got them 2 hours later were just a tad too rough! This has never happened before and we were none too happy.
Steve's small bag had a broken handle. But thankfully the ship has a full time person who we were told repairs all luggage issues. He did a great job! Even managed to find the missing piece and put it back to its previous status. Thank you Celebrity Silhouette!
I, on the other hand wasn't as lucky. My suitcase had a double Ziploc'd bag that held our sunscreen. (Can you all see what I'm going to be writing next???) Somehow the baggage people managed to toss around my piece to the point where the locked and bagged can emptied itself all over 1/2 my clothes and the bottom of my case.
Stinky!
Again Celebrity was great-they managed to save all but 1 tee shirt. I guess it helps that most of my wardrobe is black, so if the sunscreen did leave stains, no one can see them. My "good" dresses were unharmed in this "attack", so I really lucked out. I really did like that royal blue tee, but it could have been a LOT worse. They gave me ship's credit for it.
As is the norm with our annual getaways, we plan for two years, can hardly wait to set sail and before we know it, we're landing at Sky Harbor and going home.
Adam and the kids picked us up. Got home to very happy fur babies who by all accounts missed us a lot. All 3 hopped into bed that night and firmly attached their front paws to various parts of my body and didn't move until morning!
We had a week's worth of wash to do, I had a doctor's appointment first thing the next morning and had our older grands spending one the nights with us-which is why I'm first getting this blog up on Sunday afternoon!
Hard to believe we've already been back almost a week! Next year, same time, different ship (our 3rd time on the Reflection), but we're trying an 11 night trip. Hopefully by then my health will improve and life will be even better!
