Category: Traveling

We recently flew to Florida for a short vacation, spending a couple nights in Palm Beach and a couple more on a cruise ship, Margaritaville at Sea’s Paradise. It was refreshing to step away from the early spring weather in Illinois weather for a few days, digging out shorts and sandals that sit unused for half the year in our climate.

The layout and size of the Paradise was similar to the Alaska cruise from last summer, which made orienting ourselves on the ship fairly simple. We had an inside cabin again, and as luck would have it, it was at the end of a hall and the three cabins around it were being renovated… no neighbors!

Given the name of the cruise line, there was no real surprise at the extensive Jimmy Buffett music, vibe, and decorations to the ship and its events. One of the drink packages (not sure which one, as I didn’t buy into it) had blender-shaped cups! There were parrots outlined on our sheets, painted on some of the ship’s walls, and a parrot on a directional sign near one of the pools, among many others.

The theme just about made up for the terrible website interface, lack of an app, and what felt like imperfect communication efforts – largely due to the poor website and no app. (The contrast was stark given last summer’s Alaska cruise.) The shore excursion information in particular was barren, including enough information to entice a purchase (with a 10% discount for booking ahead), but missing key details such as the departure time – we had to stop at the Shore Excursions desk after boarding to get that. Alternately, it would presumably have been on the tickets delivered to our room’s mailbox with the daily newsletter around bedtime… except our guided sea kayaking excursion (and a couple other options) were cancelled due to high winds. More annoying, from my perspective, was the lack of disembarkation information on the website; it made selecting our return flight difficult since we didn’t know what time we’d be getting off the ship. In fact, we didn’t receive that information until around bedtime on the second night. (Yes, we probably could have asked at the Information Desk. But we shouldn’t have to, it’s as important as the embarkation details.)

That said, the overall experience was good. The food and entertainment were top notch, particularly the live show we attended on the second night, which was a non-stop 45-minute musical tour of the Carribean. While my nighttime photos weren’t great, the clear sky and visible constellations were a lovely experience. And our alternate to the cancelled kayaking turned out to be a relaxing day at a delightful location. If we land on another Margaritaville cruise in the future, I would lean towards their longer cruises (4 or 10 nights) instead of hopping down to Florida for the two-night cruise.

We traveled to Virginia last week, originally intending to stay for three nights. For flight time convenience, we flew into Richmond and out of Norfolk, with a plan of staying in Williamsburg and exploring the area. Research into the area showed that public transportation wasn’t going to be an option, so I rented a car through Costco.

The Williamsburg area feels fairly tourist-oriented, with a plethora of hotels and resorts. While the Colonial Williamsburg is eminently walkable (as was our gated resort), the area from our resort to nearby restaurants was not – the lack of sidewalks combined with poorly lit roads meant driving to get dinner even if it was within our definition of walking distance. To be fair, that lack of ambient light meant we had fabulous views of the night sky.

After the timeshare talk that inspired our trip (the resort stay was free other than taxes and such), we explored one of the Art Museums in Colonial Williamsburg – despite different names, the museums are attached and you move easily between them. On our way there from the nearby public parking, we had noticed a section of street closed off (through February) for an ice rink. When we left the museum around closing, the ice rink was reasonably full with children who let up a cheer as a light snow started to fall. We finished off the evening with video games at the resort’s arcade – free play for everything – and some time in the indoor pool. (Yes, the outdoor pool and hot tub were open. At 30-some degrees, no, thank you.)

On what would have been our last full day there, I woke up to news of a winter storm heading towards Virginia and an emergency declaration from the governor, recommending anyone who was planning to travel on the Sunday more up their schedule. By a couple hours later, the airline app had updated to offer free changes, so we dropped our plan to explore the historic guided sites and gardens and moved onto our day of departure plan: visiting the Virginia Zoo. (To be clear, we were flying Southwest anyways, where changing flights is fairly easy under normal circumstances.)

There are pros and cons to visiting a zoo in winter… especially somewhere that experiences winter. The primary disadvantage is that many animals, especially those from warmer climates, are off exhibit, and only some of them have indoor viewing areas. On the other hand, other than the Reptile House – an entirely indoor experience for obvious reasons – you can walk through parts of the zoo without crowds. Or really, any other people for large sections, which gives you time to appreciate the animals (and a surprising amount of bamboo) without feeling like you’re monopolizing the space.

There’s a lot more we would like to see and do in the Williamsburg area. I suppose we’ll just have to go back at some point.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been traveling a lot. All of the rooms have been nice and the beds comfortable (unlike one bed I slept on during a summer trip), but I do appreciate sleeping in my own bed, competing with my cats for space.

This week rounded off my hectic 5 hotels in 5 weeks travel schedule with a work trip to Philadelphia. Here’s the quick list of where I’ve been:

• Madison, Wisconsin – for Gamehole Con
• San Diego, California – a work trip
• Chicago, Illinois – this was an overnight downtown for work
• Oak Brook, Illinois – for WindyCon (we built a Box Fort)
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – a work trip

Not surprisingly, I am exhausted.

I had the good fortune of traveling to San Diego for work recently, including a sunset cruise on the Bella Luna. This is a case where I’ll let the pictures paint the words (though there are some in the ALT text, of course).

Our Alaska cruise involved a day at sea, three port days, and another two days at sea – including one passing through Glacier Bay National Park – before ending in Whittier, which is near Anchorage. Most of the movement between the ports was done at night, giving us a reasonable amount of daytime in each port for shore excursions if we wanted.

We wanted. In fact, we managed to schedule four excursions across the three ports, without having to feel like we were rushing from one thing to another. In each port, we had some time to explore the area (mostly shopping) near the ship, including finding lunch twice. The photos below are from our shore excursions, grouped by port: Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway.

Ultimate Saxman Experience: Cultural Showcase, Native Crafts & Culinary Tasting

Best of Juneau: Whale Watching, Mendenhall Glacier & Orca Point Lodge Meal (yes, we saw whales, but they don’t show up well on the photos I took)

Kitchen Science Alaska: Garden-to-Table Skagway and Musher’s Camp & Sled Dog Experience

I’ll let the photos do most of the work this week. One key thing to keep in mind about the Vancouver airport is that our flight was delayed by three hours, so we landed shortly after midnight in that time zone – 2am in our home time – on little sleep. Despite that, the airport was distinctive enough that we stopped repeatedly to admire it and take photos. On top of that, when we stumbled into the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront at wee hours of the morning, they moved us to a port view room with a stunning view.

Yes, we took photos in the Museum of Vancouver, but I feel most of those would require extensive explanations as to the lovely exhibits we visited. The plush are named Menta and Henrique (I’ve been told that the H is sometimes silent).

At the end of May, we took a cruise past a small part of Alaska on Holland America. This was our third cruise together, and only our second since the cruise that helped launch this blog. This ship is significantly larger than our last cruise was, with 11 levels and the capacity for almost 2,000 passengers. I’ll have follow-up posts about the amazing excursions we selected and the sights we saw.

If you plan a cruise, there are certainly budgeting items you need to consider. We live nowhere near Alaska, which meant in addition to the cruise price (per passenger) and taxes, we needed to account for flights into one airport (Vancouver, BC) and out of another (Anchorage). (I met a retired couple who realized it was cheaper to stay on the ship for the return journey instead of taking a longer flight home from Anchorage to southern California.)

We opted out of the Have-It-All package, which includes most beverages, Wi-Fi, and “crew appreciation”. Crew Appreciation refers to built-in tips, itemized on a daily basis, which is a nice way to account for the variety of cultures – and different tipping practices – that guests may be coming from. On this cruise, that was $17 per day per passenger, which can add up quickly, so it’s worth doing the calculations to see if the upgraded ticket is offset just by that. The shore excursions can add up pretty quickly too. We added a hotel room for a couple nights before the cruise, partially to offset the risk of flight delays (which turned out to be an excellent plan) and for the opportunity to briefly explore Vancouver.

The photos below are all of, on, or from the ship, showing off our tiny inside cabin, some highlights that stand out (like elevator rugs with the day of the week that get changed daily), and a lovely sunrise photo on the one day when I was up and moving for the 4am sunrise.