The Fall-Back Caribbean Cruise

On Saturday, August 22, we flew from DFW to Orlando, the closest airport to Port Canaveral.

Where Do We Put the Car?

Since we were hoping to be gone for several months again, we had a logistical issue to address:  What do we do with our car now that we have no home in the DFW area?  It didn’t make sense to leave the car at Brandon’s since his home is an hour and a half away from the airport.  Can you imagine the cost of the Uber for that trip? Brandon couldn’t take us because he was out of town for work.  Really it didn’t make sense to leave the car at Brandon’s, not only because of the proximity to the airport but because we would have had to park it outside uncovered and it seemed like a big ask for Brandon to do that. 

We found a parking garage through neighbors.com for long-term storage of the car.  It is a parking garage in Los Colinas for some condos.  It is covered, being a garage and all, and the entrance is controlled by a gate so not just anyone can gain entrance.  It is $92 a month all in and it will be a reasonable Uber/Lyft ride to pick it up when we get back.

These are the things you don’t think about having to work through when you travel the majority of the time.

We dropped the car off Friday afternoon, after we delivered Brandon’s dog to Blaise’s ex-wife’s house in Grapevine.

Last thing we did before heading to the hotel was disconnect the battery on the car in hopes we could reconnect it upon our return and have the car start right up without having to buy a new battery.  Again.

Logistics handled.

Travel Day

After a while of doing this, travel days can be the absolute worst but this one was smooth.  No early morning flight this time.  I have grown to hate those flights that leave before the sun comes up.  If I can avoid them I do but sometimes the cost differential is to too much.  I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars more for a later flight.  I’ll spend some extra but not much.

The flight left at 2:30 PM so it was a leisurely morning with some time in the CapitalOne Lounge before the flight.

Travel Tip - CapitalOne Venture X Credit Card

If you travel a great deal, I highly recommend the CapitalOne VentureX credit card which not only includes access to their lounges but access to all Priority Pass lounges around the world.

One caveat - earlier this year, CapitalOne got rid of lounge access for authorized card users in addition to the card holder.  They had way to many people in the lounges making it hard to get in so that was their solution. Since the VentureX card is in Blaise’s name and I just have a card under his account, my lounge access went away, however, for $125 a year, I can maintain my access.  Because we travel so much and it makes travel days so much better, we pay the $125 a year.

Why is this a big deal?  First, I think overall, it saves us money since we go to the lounges we avail ourselves of the free food and drink.  Also, in most lounges, the alcohol is free, which helps when you have a long flight.  The seating is more comfortable in the lounges than at the gates.  There is always free wifi.  Quite often they have showers so if you have a long layover, you can freshen up.  Less common are sleep/quiet areas.

While the annual fee for the VentureX card is $395, that is more than covered for us by the benefits provided including cashing in miles for flights multiple times a year.  On our anniversary of having the card, we get $300 in travel credit to use if we book flights, hotels, or anything else through their app/website.  We frequently book flights through them even though we still use Google Flights quite a bit.

VentureX also gives us 10,000 bonus miles on our card-holder anniversary every year.

Other useful benefits include:

• 10X miles if we book hotels and rental cars through them.
• 5X miles if we book flights and vacation rentals through them.
• 2X miles on all other purchases.
• You can set a "watch" on a flight route you are interested in and they will notify you when the price is the lowest and when you should buy.  If you buy at the time they recommend and the price drops lower in the 10 days after the purchase, they give you a travel credit for the difference.  You don’t have to keep an eye on it and request it, they just do it and notify you.  We have benefited from this multiple times.
• They will also cover the fees for TSA PreCheck/Global Entry, including renewal.  You just charge it and they will automatically credit your account.
• Hertz President’s Circle elite car rental status.
• No foreign transaction fees which is a big deal when traveling internationally.
• Cell Phone Protection of up to $800 against theft or damage.
• Rental car insurance.
• Trip cancellation/delay coverage.

Hello Orlando!

We arrived in Orlando and stayed at the Hyatt Regency onsite at the airport before taking a shuttle to the cruise terminal the next morning.  One of the oddest rooms we have stayed in.  The room had a balcony that you were forbidden to go out of because it overlooked one of the security lines in the airport.

The view from our Orlando hotel room at the airport

This was the first time we have been in Orlando since we took the kids to Disney World when they were little.

The Cruise

We had never sailed on Princess so this was a good one to test the waters (excuse the pun) with an unknown product since the cruise is in the Caribbean with most of the stops at places we had already been.  We had heard great things about Princess and that it is comparable to Celebrity Cruises, the cruise line we have primarily cruised on for years.  We disagree.  But more about that later.

The cruise left at 3:30 PM on Sunday, August 22 out of Port Canaveral, the busiest cruise port in the world.  The shuttle ride from the hotel to the cruise port was approximately 45 minutes from the Orlando airport.  On the days we were there, the cruise port didn’t seem any busier than Fort Lauderdale, a port we have left from numerous times.

What was interesting was it appeared the locals lined up to watch the cruise ships sail out.  They would park their cars or back up their pickups to water.  Some even had tent covers set up to shade them from the sun, nearly like they were tailgating.

The Ports

Our first week, before returning to Port Canaveral at the halfway point of the cruise, included stops at Grand Turk, Amber Cover (Dominican Republic), and San Juan (Puerto Rico).

This was our first time at Grand Turk. We rented a golf cart which was a great option.  For a little over $100 we had the golf cart for the day and were able to explore the whole island which is not difficult since it is 1 ½ miles wide and 7 ½ miles long.  We found a great beach to hang out at for a few hours away from the crowds.  I’m not sure why most did not make their way to that beach.  It was absolutely beautiful with soft white sand and clear water.  Most people went to the beach near the cruise ship.

The very quiet beach on Grand Turk

We did not get off the ship in Amber Cove.  We have been to the Dominican Republic several times and it is not our favorite place so we skipped it this time.

We did get off the ship in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  The cruise ship docked right in Old Town so it was lovely to walk around.  We did not do a tour or excursion since we had been there several times before.  We walked to the old fort and looked around and then wandered the streets of Old Town.

The Sunday following the Sunday we got on the ship (August 22), we arrived back at Port Canaveral so most passengers could end their cruise and so others could get on.  If I remember correctly, there were only about 120 of us out of the over 3,000 who stayed on the ship.

The great thing about this is I found out there was a Space X launch that morning when most were getting ready to disembark.  We made our way to the top deck on the ship with about a hundred others to watch the launch and the return of the boosters.  Never did I ever think I would get to see a space launch in my life, but there I was.  And frankly, it was the coolest part of the cruise.

The second week of the cruise saw us returning to Amber Cover and Grand Turk with new stops  to Princess’ private island and Nassau (Bahamas).  We did not get off the ship at the private island.  We did get off the ship in Amber Cove and were reminded why the Dominican Republic (DR) is not our favorite place.  When you travel frequently, you get used to people wanting to sell you things and give you tours.  They have to make a living and when your island derives the majority of its income from tourism and cruise ships, you have to expect people are going to try to sell you things.  What I don’t like is not taking “No, thank you” as the answer.  In our experience they are extremely pushy in the DR, asking you 10 different ways and then following you as you walk away.  And not for a few steps - following you for a long long way.

Contrast that with Grand Turk where we rented a golf cart again and returned to our quiet beach for a few hours.  Of course they try to sell you something in Grand Turk, but they would only ask once and move on.  Oftentimes after you say “no thank you,” you would get back a “have a nice day” or “enjoy your time here.”

We do everything we can to be polite and kind when the sales pitch comes.  I am sure they have mouths to feed and lights to keep on. I wonder how effective the hard sale is when they do that?  For us, in the DR, after about 45 minutes, we had enough and just turned around and went back to the ship.  We just wanted to walk around, maybe stop for a bite to eat and have a drink to support the local economy.  We don’t really buy souvenirs anymore since we are homeless, as Blaise puts it.  So instead of getting something from us, they got nothing because we were so frustrated.

Overall, I think we might be done with the Caribbean cruises.  There are only two or three places in the Caribbean we have not yet visited.

Princess Cruises Analysis

If you don’t care about our analysis of Princess, just skip this.

Also, I don’t want this to be a big bitch fest but I want to be honest about our experience.

The bottom line, it is very unlikely we will do another Princess Cruise.  There were a couple things we liked better than Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Azamara but the downsides far outweigh these.

I’ll start with what we liked better then move on to what was good and ending with what we did not like.

What Was Better Than The Rest

• They had the most comfortable cruise ship bed we have slept in.
• The musicians around the ship were overall better than the other cruise lines.
• The chairs on their balcony were better than most cruise ships for their regular balcony cabins.
• Embarkation was the easiest we’ve experienced since we had the medallion mailed to us prior to the cruise.
• The oatmeal raisin cookies are the best at sea, Blaise says.  He loves oatmeal raisin cookies and I just don’t get them.  Why raisins in a cookie?

What Was Good But Not The Best (Comparable to other cruise lines)

• The main dining room staff was attentive.
• Our cabin attendant was outstanding.  I’m not sure we have ever had a bad attendant on any ship.
• I like that they have two daily cabin services.  This is on par with Celebrity and Azamara but Royal Caribbean only offers one cleaning daily.

What Was Bad

• We were very disappointed in the food.  Our first night on the ship, the meal in the main dining room was the worst meal we have had at sea, ever.  My appetizer was just OK but the entree was horrible!  It was braised short ribs and it was so very fatty.  I had a couple of bites of the meat that I could find and that was it.  While all other nights the service in the main dining room was great, the first night it was a shocker that the waitstaff did not ask if something was wrong with the entree since I barely touched it.  On any other cruise ship we have been on, that question would have been asked and has been asked when one of us was too full to finish a plate.  The dessert I ordered was supposedly a chocolate souffle.  Absolutely zero flavor.  This may be the first time I quit eating a dessert because it just wasn’t worth the calories.  Why would I continue to eat something that had no flavor?  It didn’t taste bad; it just had no taste.  The meal was so bad, we did not return to the main dining room the second night.  Having to wait 20 minutes to be seated when we had a reservation did not help. We went back the third night after a lengthy discussion about never returning and just eating in the buffet.  But since we weren’t enthused with the buffet at breakfast or lunch, we decided to give the main dining room another go. I am glad we did because the food did get better.  Not fantastic, but better. And we never had another long wait to be seated.
• The buffet was not that great for breakfast nor for lunch.  It was repetitive and really just average at best.
• The burgers on the ship were the worst we have had at sea.
• At one point, Blaise heard an employee cussing out another employee in Spanish.  I guess he thought someone wouldn’t understand him because he wasn’t speaking English.

Comparison of Celebrity and Princess

We have been told by several people that Princess is on par with Celebrity.  We did not find this to be the case.

First there were many more kids on this ship than we have ever seen Celebrity.  I have nothing against children, it is just when you are older and your kids are grown, it is a nicer vacation when you are not dodging children.  Every night, there were kids running up and down the halls and they weren’t running on their tippy toes either.  I think their feet were made of lead.

As mentioned before, the food was nowhere near great.  Don’t get me wrong, we did have some decent meals on the cruise but overall, the food was average.

While the service was good, Celebrity always seems to take service to the next level always trying to anticipate your needs. For example, on Celebrity, the first night or two in the main dining room, they take note of what you drink and have it ready for you all other nights.

I know it is a little thing but all the public restrooms on Celebrity have actual hand towels for drying your hands but Princess only had paper towels.  Celebrity is more environmentally conscience in this regard.

Bottom line, we prefer Celebrity over Princess and will likely never cruise Princess again.  We even prefer Royal Caribbean over Princess.  Maybe it was a one-off bad cruise ship but because we have great status on Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Azamara, we will stick with them.  Royal Caribbean has a better product than Princess for sure.

I know I sound a little gripey or bitchy.  I appreciate and am so very thankful I get to do the things I do.  The cruise was not bad; it just wasn’t great.  And shouldn’t a cruise be great?

On Last Thing About Princess

They really LOVE The Love Boat theme song.  Every time we left a port or the Captain came on loud speaker for his daily update, they played the first few bars of The Love Boat theme.  This was not something produced or polished in any way.  It sounded like someone’s middle schooler practicing the french horn.  Can someone who cruises Princess tell me if this is the case on every Princess ship?

What's Next

We disembarked the Caribbean Princess on Sunday September 26 and headed to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for at most two months.  The next blog will cover our time thus far in Mexico and a little about what is next on our agenda.

Our Time At Home and Plans Gone Awry

 We arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia on the Azamara Pursuit at the end of our “epic slow travel trip” (as we called it in our TripIt app that keeps all of our trip information organized) on June 1.  This ended our first slow-travel trip and it WAS epic.

I am not sure how interesting any of the non-traveling time really is but I can’t not be thorough and not write about it.  But this is how we live.  This covers our time at home and planning for the beginning of our next adventure.

Texas or Oklahoma?

By the time we reached this point, I was ready to get back to Texas, even though we no longer had a home there.  Blaise likes to tell people we are homeless.  We still have the home in Oklahoma which is still inhabitable as far as I’m concerned. It took a bit to convince Blaise of the in-habitability level of the home.  No electricity, water, septic, plumbing or air conditioning.  He kept saying we were going to squat there as we worked on it.  I kept saying “Ami is not squatting until the aforementioned issues are addressed.”

Our original intent was to work on the Oklahoma home deficiencies while back in the states (since it is still not finished and livable), but yeah, that never happened. It was nice to just hang out for a while doing a bit of nothing.

Getting Back to Our Neck of the Woods (wherever that is now)

We did not spend any time  in Vancouver since we have been there several times before so we immediately flew to Fargo, North Dakota, by way of Denver, to visit friends for a week.  It was a lovely week with great weather and even better company. We then headed back to Texas on June 8.  We stayed for several days in a hotel in the HEB area before heading to a cabin in Oklahoma near our home there with the intent of hiring some folks to do some work on it.

Having No House

Our first order of business once in Texas was to get our car from our old house in Southlake.  We sold our house to family members. The agreement before we left on the trip in September of last year was that they would buy our house once they sold their house.  We gave our son, Brandon, the Power of Attorney to sell the house to them once they sold their house if we were not around.  They were finally able to sell their house the first part of May so as of May, we are no longer Southlake or Tarrant County residents.

This last part is sad for me.  I have been a Tarrant County resident since 1989, making my home in Fort Worth, then Euless, then landing in Southlake in 1997 when Blaise and I built our house while engaged. I love Tarrant County, its people, and working in Fort Worth was absolutely the best!

I think what is special about selling to family is that it stays in the family.  It was our home for nearly 29 years.  It is where we built our family and lived our lives together.  It was our happy place. It is where our love for each other grew to titanium level.  Life isn’t filled with all rainbows and sunshine.  This is where we lived through some dark times as well as the happy times and those happy times far outweigh the bad things life threw at us.  But what makes it special is we did all of it together, supporting each other in this house that I love.

By agreement and their graciousness, our car stayed at the house until we could retrieve it when we got back. So we rented a car and the day after our return, we headed to not-our-house-anymore to pick up our car which wasn’t as easy as just driving off with it.  After 8 months, it needed a new battery.  Unfortunately, we also had our ‘68 Camaro still there because the garage that was to do some work on it kept giving our son the runaround. So we had to take care of that too.

We spent 4-5 days taking care of those things and a few other logistics as well as visiting with friends.

I was a bit concerned that I would get very emotional going to the house for the first time and seeing other people’s things at “my” home.  Surprisingly, I was not.  But I also did not go inside.  We still have not been in the house - we could just not make things work to visit before we left again.

Off to Oklahoma

After that, we headed to a cabin in Oklahoma near our house there so we could work on it.  We did a lot of talking about it and getting names of people to do the work, but the effort did not come to fruition.  We just flat didn’t do it.

Off to Josephine, Texas

After being there for a few weeks, we were invited to our son’s new home in Josephine, Texas.  Some people have asked me why we didn’t just stay there from the get go.  It’s that fine line you walk when you have adult children. We did not want to presume we were just going to come home to Texas and stay at his house without an invitation from him.  And even then, we didn’t want him to think we were taking advantage of his hospitality and free digs.  I am sure we could have asked him to stay there and he would have willingly and happily said “yes.”  But neither of us wanted him to feel obligated to say yes.

It actually worked out well for all three of us.  Brandon is an insurance adjuster who is deployed at all kinds of locations across the country for 10 days at a time.  His schedule is 10 days out and 4 days home.  We stayed at his home from late June until we left on our cruise on August 21.  The great part of this was when he was gone, we got to dogsit his dog.  We are huge dog lovers and always welcome the opportunity to care for dogs and give them some love since our lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to having a dog of our own.

Brandon’s dog’s name is Zena.  She is a Staffordshire bull terrier (pit bull family) approximately 20 months old.  She is the sweetest and funniest dog!  We have not had much interaction with these types of dogs but if Zena is any indication, they are amazingly loving and gentle dogs.  We fell in love.

Zena, Warrior Canine!

We were also able to help Brandon get some things done at his house since he only has 4 days every 2 weeks to work on things.  He moved into the house in May and there were some things that needed to be done that he just couldn’t do with the little bit of time he is there every month.  

Blaise even had a little house project.  About a week after Brandon moved into his newly built house, Zena decided separation anxiety was too much for her during a trial free range and no kennel time while Brandon ran an errand.  She chewed off about a third of the trim around the door leading into the garage.  Oops! Blaise only thought he was done with house projects when we sold our house!

Puebla, Mexico is a No Go

By the first part of our time back in the U.S., we had already booked a trip to Mexico.  The original plan was to spend a month in Puebla, Mexico and then head to Playa del Carmen for a month. We had a lovely AirBnB booked in Puebla and had just booked our flight there for the end of July when we got notice from the AirBnB host that they were renovating the place we were renting and the renovations would not be complete by the time we were to arrive.  They then requested we cancel our stay in their AirBnB.

The big problem with this is that they did this within a month of the start of our stay.  Now we can’t cancel the reservation without losing 100% of the cost of the stay.  That is the AirBnB policy.  You can cancel and get a 100% refund so long as it is canceled a month or more before your stay.  We told them this and went back and forth with them and told them they had to cancel us or we would not get our money back.  They tried to get us to stay at a different apartment they had in a different location but it was not an area we wanted to be in. After several days of their not canceling and ignoring our message, we had to get AirBnB involved who eventually canceled our reservation and refunded our money.

This still left us in a bit of a pickle.  Now what?  We had just purchased our flight to Puebla and now we didn’t have a place to stay.  And I was so excited about Puebla!  Home of mole’ sauce.  Such a disappointment. We looked at AirBnBs and in booking.com (and elsewhere) but simply could not find anything that worked.  It was either way more than what we wanted to spend or not located in the area we wanted.

We knew we had to be in Playa del Carmen at the end of September and possibly for the month of October.

Why Go to Mexico?

Before I move on to what our solution ended up being, I should mention why we need to be in Playa del Carmen during that period.  It is not something we have told many people about.  Several years ago, when things in Mexico were much more appealing to us, we decided we would pursue residency in Mexico.  Were we going to live in Mexico?  Maybe?  The thought process was, it is always good to have options.  Things in the U.S. have been wonky for a while and we wanted to have options.  Right now, we are not as interested in spending time in Mexico as we once were but we are in the middle of a process in which we have invested a great deal of time and money so we need to see it through.

Several years ago, when we decided to do this, we gathered many documents, got our marriage license and birth certificates apostilled (translated to Spanish and certified by our government).  We headed to a Mexico consulate in Detroit (it is the place we were able to get an appointment) to gain approval for permanent residency in Mexico.  I have distilled this process into a couple of sentences, but it was months-worth of work. Once we got to the consulate in Detroit, they looked at our financial documents and agreed to give us the opportunity to travel to Mexico to finalize residency.

The glitch was because Blaise was already retired, they gave him the opportunity for permanent residency but because I was still working, I could only get temporary residency with the option to change it to permanent residency after 4 years.

That is why we have to be in Playa del Carmen - so I can gain my permanent residency card.  My temporary residency expires October 25 and I have 30 days prior to that expiration to change it to permanent.  We are doing it in Playa del Carmen because that is where we gained Blaise’s permanent and my temporary years ago using a facilitator.  We are using the same facilitator since she has all of the historical information on our process.

Now What?

Back to how we solved our no-place-to-stay-in-Puebla problem.  Blaise’s original solution was to not go to Puebla at all, change our flight to go to Cancun and stay in Playa del Carmen for three months. Not really the solution that appealed to me.  First because Playa del Carmen is not my favorite place in the world these days.  They have that whole sargassum (an algae that washes up on the shore - in huge amounts right now) problem rendering the beaches not as appealing.  They have taken measures to make it better but it is still not the greatest.  Add to that, you are walking on the surface of the sun so ugh.

So we started looking at other options.  What could we do that doesn’t mean we are in Playa del Carmen for three months.  First we could have stayed at Brandon’s for a couple more months but we talked about it and didn’t want Brandon to feel as though we were taking advantage of him.  We could have gone back to Oklahoma and worked on the house up there but it was hard to find a decent place to stay and we were unsure how much we could get done in 2 months.

Then we started to look at our go-to fallback - Is there a cruise we could go on?  I found a 2-week Princess cruise out of Port Canaveral.  It was really two back-to-back 7-night cruises but they were sold as one 14-night cruise with a trip back to Port Canaveral in the middle.  After finding that, it all just fell into place.  We would stay at Brandon’s for one more month, hop on the cruise, and then head to Playa del Carmen for two months.

In Conclusion

We really enjoyed our stay at Brandon’s house.  He has done a wonderful job of decorating and making his house a home.  It is the most at-home I have felt since we left last September, with our friends’ home in North Dakota being a close second.

I will talk about the cruise in the next blog.  See you then!

End of One Adventure, Beginning of a New Adventure

We were back in the states for nearly three months and then last week, headed out for another long journey. I took a few-months break from blogging but now I am back at it.

Before I get to the current trip, let me wrap up the last bit of our last trip.

Cruise Tokyo to Whittier, Alaska

We took the Azamara Pursuit from Tokyo to Whittier Alaska and then stayed on for their next cruise through Alaska to Vancouver.  We left Tokyo, May 9th. It was an amazing leg of the trip. We had one stop in Japan - Aomori - before hitting the high seas for about a week of sea days and setting foot on land again in Kodiak, Alaska.

Aomori is a beautiful town in Japan known for its apples.  The ship picked up a bunch of apples and we had the most delicious apple pie for dessert that evening.

We spent our time in Kodiak looking for some cooler-weather clothing since we had none coming from southeast Asia. I spent more than I ever had on a coat/jacket - some expensive brand I had never heard of whose name escapes me right now.  I chose it because it was warm enough for below-zero weather but light enough to easily pack, even better than a puffer coat.  I have it with me now for when we hit colder weather later this year on this trip.  I did, however, balance that pricey purchase with some jeans from the local Wal-Mart.  Until that day, I had never purchased jeans from Wal-Mart but they fit well and it really was the only place in town to get jeans long enough to work for me.

Us in Kodiak after a day of walking and shopping.  Wal-Mart was a long walk.

Adding the Follow-On Cruise

About a month before we were to set sail from Tokyo to Whittier, Alaska, we decided to purchase the follow-on cruise that went from Whittier, Alaska to Vancouver, Canada.  I was finally going to get my Alaska cruise!

And so we went from Kodiak to Whittier where some passengers disembarked while others embarked and where we had to change cabins.  We went from an inside cabin to a balcony. I swore I would never do another inside cabin since the very first cruise we took with the kids where we had inside cabins and I hated it.  We chose the inside cable for several reasons and I was willing to try again since for most of the journey, there was little to see but sea.  I did learn that I still hate the light deprivation but didn’t mind it so much that under the right circumstances I wouldn’t do it again. But it will not be the default.

Taking Immunity Levels Seriously

This cruise is the time in our travels where we decided that daily immunity boosting while traveling is a must.  The last two or three months before we hopped on that cruise, we had started to do so on and off.  “On” mostly before, during, and after plane travel.   “Off” once we had been in a place for a while.  I did like the little immunity shots (think shots in a bar, not shots at the hospital) they sell in convenience stores in Japan.  They sell them like 5-hour energy is sold in the U.S.  They were tasty and seemed to work. This method worked for us - we didn’t get sick for the last three months of that 8-month trip whereas the first five months we were plagued with various maladies, including the flu for me.

On the way from Japan to Whittier for those many days at sea, we noticed people hacking all over the place, including a person in the cabin next to us.  We think it was the wife.  She coughed the whole time we were in that cabin. We later met them at dinner one night.  We called her husband disheveled Santa, for reasons obvious if you had seen him. They were from Australia as were the majority of the 600+ people on the ship.  U.S. folks were in the minority on this one.

People were coughing all over the place.  We overheard one man tell someone his wife was feeling so bad, they were administering IV fluids to her in their cabin because she was too weak to go to the infirmary.

Sooo, one of the things we made sure to purchase at Wal-Mart in Kodiak was a big bottle of Airbourne, which we have been taking ever since and not getting sick.  We have found that every country has their version of immunity boosts and we will avail ourselves of them at each location from now on.

Twenty-Nine Years of Marriage

We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on May 17.  They have a couple of specialty restaurants on the ship and we choose the steakhouse for the celebration dinner.  It was a fantastic meal!  I had the best lobster bisque I have ever tasted at that meal.  The steak, the sides, the dessert - all of it perfect.  It was so good, we returned to it on the Alaska leg of the back-to-back cruises.

Santas Abound

One last thing to mention before I talk about the Alaska part of the cruise is the number of “Santas” on the ship. After dubbing the cabin neighbor disheveled Santa, we noticed there were many men who fit the Santa description.  Lots of jolly white-bearded men of varying sizes.  Not sure why.  It was an older crowd, as is expected on Azamara cruises, but why so many white beards?

Alaska Leg of Cruise

Cabin Change

Changing cabins in Whittier on May 21 was an interesting but easy process.  We had to pack up all of our loose things from the drawers and around the cabin, but they moved all of our hanging clothes along with the packed sundries for us. We left the old cabin and a couple hours later, our stuff was waiting for us in our new balcony cabin with our clothes neatly hanging in the closet.  It was a very smooth process. I noticed that I had forgotten to pack a phone charger so I called the new cabin steward and she said she was right outside our door with the charger in hand. How’s that for service!

Where Did We Go in Alaska?

Lots of great stops on the Alaska cruise: Valdiz, Haines, Icy Strait Point, Sitka, Ketchikan, Nanaimo, and Victoria, before stopping in Vancouver on June 1.  Nanaimo and Victoria are both on Vancouver Island, Canada.  We also had a day cruising near the Hubbard glacier which if you have never had the opportunity to do, you should absolutely do so if you get the chance. What an amazing cruise!  I did post pictures of each place as we took the trip but will post a couple here as a reminder of the beauty.

Hubbard Glacier

The scenery surrounding Hubbard Glacier is just as stunning!

I know I have said it before but Alaska is the Rome of natural beauty.  In Rome you can walk and everywhere you turn is either some magnificent structure or some kind of reminder of all its incredible history.  With Alaska, everywhere you turn is a breathtaking view.  You can never forget as you walk along that there is a view behind you just as stunning as the one in front of you, if not more.

I am not sure I could select a favorite Alaska stop.  Each was special for a different reason.  I think Icy Strait Point was our least favorite though. The whole place was clearly built for cruise ships.  It was still beautiful but extremely commercialized.  Great for kids however.  I would actually skip that stop next time. 

Fish and Chips Tour

Before we got to Alaska, we decided to do a fish and chips tour where we ordered fish and chips at every stop to see who had the best.  We limited this to the Alaska stops only but ended up getting fish and chips in Victoria and they turned out to be the best we had on the trip.  When we took a Spain intensive cruise, I did a sangria tour trying to figure out who had the best Sangria. (Blaise doesn’t really drink so that one was just me).

We tried to get a picture of the outside of each fish and chips location, but I forgot to take the picture in Ketchikan. Maybe I forgot because it was our least favorite.  Then as we were making our stops, we realized it was harder to rank them than we thought it would be because the tastiness of the fish and the tastiness of the chips were not always equivalent at each location.  They were all good.  I think Ketchikan is the only place we probably would not order them again.

The rankings are as follows:

1. Haines - The Bamboo Room

   

2. Sitka - Sitka Burger and Crab Shack

   

3. Icy Strait Point  - The Cookhouse Restaurant (but these fries were the best of all five)

   

4. Valdez - The Fat Mermaid

   

5. Ketchikan - Timber and Tide (dry fish but the fries were up there with Icy Strait Point)

Our History with Azamara

This was the first time since the pandemic that we took a cruise on Azamara. I think that was in 2019 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Lisbon Portugal.

We took it then not just because we wanted to try Azamara and because we loved the itinerary but also because they were part of the Royal Caribbean group along with Celebrity.  At the time, they were offering to give us Celebrity loyalty points for Azamara cruises so we took it.  We were concerned that Azamara ships are so much smaller than what we are used to (2,000+ verses about 700 on Azamara) that we wouldn’t enjoy it.  Turns out we did.  So much so, we booked one for April 2020 from Dubai to Athens, hitting one of our bucket list places - Petra.  Well, we all know what happened in March of 2020.  Thus our cruise was canceled.  We were so disappointed.

Then Royal Caribbean sold Azamara during the pandemic and that was that.  But we enjoyed the product so much, we decided to try it again this time. We were not disappointed.  We had heard the quality of everything had diminished since leaving Royal Caribbean.  We did not experience that.

What is Azamara Like?

First, there is no casino.  So if you cruise to gamble this is not the cruise for you.

The guests are older and well-traveled, many having gone all-in on Azamara, cruising them exclusively for many years.  Some of the guests even knew crew members from past cruises and were greeted with hugs and inquiries about family from both sides.  I am OK not having that degree of familiarity with the crew but it was nice to see.

The cost of the cruise is inclusive of alcoholic beverages including wine, specialty coffee, and gratuities so you don’t have people always asking you for your card every time you turn around.  It was an upcharge if you wanted premium alcohol.

While the service is top-notch, even better than Celebrity, it is a casual environment.  Daytime is just like any other cruise ship we have been on. They have no formal nights or varying levels of dress for the evenings.  You just have to wear pants and a collared shirt for men and a dress/skirt/pants with a nice top for women to the main dining room and specialty restaurants.  This level of dress works very well for the way we are currently traveling - months at a time with just a carry-on and a personal item.  They do have a white night event one night on each cruise, but if you don’t wear white, nobody says anything.

Also included in the price of the cruise, if it’s not a transoceanic cruise, is what they call an Azamazing Evening.  This is an event off the cruise ship where they transport every guest to the event location and provide drinks, heavy snacks, and entertainment.  Ours was a campy log sport event.  They even brought blankets for people when the sun went down and the chill set in. Since our last cruise with them was a transatlantic, we did not experience the Azamazing Evening.  It was a lovely night.

I did discover that on the Azamara cruise that stops in Ephesus Turkey, their Azamazing Evening is a symphony concert in the ancient amphitheater in Ephesus.  I now have to do that cruise just for that experience!

The Azamara cruises are more expensive than others but if you hunt, you can find some good deals on them if price is an issue.  We always hunt for deals.

Now I am to the point to say why I told you the history with Azamara.  Apparently, when Azamara was sold by Royal Caribbean, Azamara copied ALL of our Celebrity loyalty points.  We are on the second to the highest tier for Celebrity and get lots of perks for that and that is why it is usually our go-to cruise line.

We did not know Azamara copied our loyalty points until we booked the Alaska part of the last cruise.  This is important because the Alaska cruise took us to their second to the highest loyalty tier and that gave us 6 FREE nights on a cruise so long as we book that cruise within a year of reaching that tier.  What a great bonus!  We have already booked that cruise.  It goes from Fort Lauderdale to London leaving June 10 next year with several stops up the east coast of the U.S. and Canada along with a couple stops in Ireland.   As my mother-in-law would say if she were still with us - What a treat!

Wrapping it Up

As always, I remain so thankful to be able to live this life, see all the sites, experience all the things, and visit all the places.  I’ve been thinking about that a great deal lately as we have just passed the tenth anniversary of my sister’s death.  She said at one point while she was sick that she knew she would never get to travel so she would have to visit places through my eyes.  I’ve never forgotten that and maybe that is a small part of why I blog and post so many pictures. Maybe someone else gets to see things they can’t see in person for whatever reason. Her death is also a major reason we retired early and are traveling like we are. You hear it all the time - we are not guaranteed tomorrow. We are also not guaranteed good health tomorrow. We can do everything we can to stay healthy and mobile but you have no idea what the future brings.

Until next time…

Being Tourists in Seoul

We  were only in Seoul, South Korea for two weeks.  Not enough time, we decided.  South Korea is one of the places on this trip that we hope to return to.

Among some other things, we hit the highlights in Seoul and a bit outside of Seoul:  the palace, a tour of the DMZ, and the Seoul Tower.  And I don’t want to forget Blaise’s bucket-list location - the Kukkiwon.  Sure, there were many other things we could have seen there, but we only had two weeks and our slow travel style of mixing general living in a place like locals (to the extent foreigners can) and doing the touristy things, (a way of travel which is now firmly entrenched) did not lend itself to running around and seeing everything.  I get this is not a way of travel everyone would want to embrace, but it is really working for us.  I do not like to feel exhausted from rushing around and seeing everything in just a few days.  Does this mean we will miss seeing things from time to time traveling this way? Yes.  But I will trade that every time for the experience of spending time immersed in the culture.

The highlight of our time in Seoul for me was the visit to the DMZ.  For Blaise, it was the Kukkiwon, although he admits the DMZ was really interesting.  Thank God I can finally spell Kukkiwon without looking it up every time!

The DMZ

This was particularly interesting to me because last year (I think it was last year, maybe the year before), I read the book, Star of the North, by D.B. John.  I highly recommend this book.  It is one of the best books I have read in a really long time.  A big thank you to Jeff for the recommendation.  It involved someone from North Korea, South Korea, and the CIA.  This book sparked my interest in what life in North Korea must be like, so very isolated from the rest of the world and controlled by the government.

Overview

The DMZ (demilitarized zone) is the buffer zone between South and North Korea.  It has been in place since the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953.  What I did not really understand until I went on the tour is that South and North Korea are technically still at war to this day.  I never thought about it that way, but I am sure I have known that.

The DMZ is 2 ½ miles (4 kilometers) wide and 155 miles (250 kilometers) long and intersects the 38th parallel.  It is a de facto border and is one of, if not the, most heavily fortified areas in the world.

This is a map our tour guide provided us showing the structure of the DMZ. The Military Demarcation Line is the actual border between the two countries.  The Civil Controlled Line is not quite the DMZ but still controlled heavily by the South Korean military. (Map credit to our tour guide, K)

Overall, the area has an eerie silence to it, even with a bunch of tourists there.

We were on a bus and the soldiers had to come onto the bus and check every single passport before we entered the area and when we exited at the end of the visit.

Unfortunately, we could not take pictures of North Korea and nearly everything we saw in the DMZ.  We were told at each place where we could take pictures.  Some of the pictures posted here were provided by our tour guide, K.

We almost did not take this tour because we can no longer go to the Joint Security Area (JSA) which allows you to step in the room and across the desk so you can actually stand in North Korea.  You have not been able to do that since 2023 when relations between North and South became even more strained than they were or when someone from South Korea went on a tour and actually defected to North Korea.  I can’t remember which one that was but after each of those situations, things got buttoned down in the DMZ.  Blaise did not want to go once he heard we could not stand in North Korea, but I really wanted to go so I am glad I convinced him to go.

Recent Tensions

In 2023, tensions between South and North Korea intensified when South Korea elected a president who took a harder stance with respect to North Korea.  In retaliation, North Korea increased their missile testing and launched a new spy satellite.  South Korea responded to that by holding the largest joint military drills in years with the U.S.

North Korea would also send over trash balloons which were quite literally balloons that would float across the DMZ into South Korea carrying trash.  In response to that, South Korea would play KPop, on extremely loud loudspeakers, across the DMZ into North Korea.

As a result, even though South Korea allows tourist visits to the DMZ, they greatly reduced what these tourists can and cannot do.

Two highlights of this trip were the Dora Observatory and the walking in the third infiltration tunnel all the way to the demarcation line (the border between the two countries).

Dora Observatory

The Dora Observatory is a place within the DMZ on the top of a hill where they have high-powered telescopes to look into North Korea. Again, absolutely NO pictures.  Our tour guide, K, sent us (via WhatsApp) many pictures from that location from many years ago when taking pictures were allowed.  Those are what you see here; not anything Blaise or I took.  Unfortunately for us, rain was on the way so our ability to see any details in North Korea, even with the telescopes, was very limited and eventually non-existent within a matter of minutes of our time there.

This is a picture of a post in North Korea using one of the telescopes from years ago from the Observatory.  (Photo credit to our tour guide, K)

This is the Kaesong Industrial Complex located in North Korea just north of the DMZ.  This was a symbol of economic cooperation between the two countries where both South and North Koreans worked. It was operational from 2004, until 2026 when tensions between the two countries became too much to continue the venture.  (This is another photo from years ago provided by our tour guide K.) 

Another photo from the Observatory taken years ago and provided by our tour guide, K.

The second, and probably most interesting, highlight of this visit was walking through the third infiltration tunnel.

Before I get into what that was like, here’s a little background, which I find fascinating. Remember, the Armistice creating the DMZ was signed back in 1953.

There were three “Tunnels of Aggression” found in the 1970’s: 1st Tunnel in 1974, 2nd Tunnel in 1975, and 3rd Tunnel in 1978.  It is the third tunnel that we walked and is the closest of the four to Seoul (about 27 miles from Seoul).  The 4th Tunnel was discovered in 1990!

These tunnels were dug by North Korea from North Korea, under the DMZ, and into South Korea intended for troops to travel through for an attack on Seoul.

It is interesting how they found the tunnels.  According to our tour guide, there was a North Korean defector who was an engineer who worked on the tunnels.  He told South Korea of their existence but couldn’t tell them exactly where they were. To find them, South Korean and U.S. engineering teams drilled narrow vertical holes and filled them with water.  When North Korea used the dynamite to dig the tunnels, it would cause sudden jets of water to shoot up in the air.

Map of the four North Korean infiltration tunnels. (Photo credit to our tour guide, K)

At first, North Korea denied what they were doing and went so far as to paint black on some of the places on the walls of the tunnels to support their lie that they were digging for coal.

Once discovered, they were concreted up so North Korea could not get through.

Again, the 3rd Tunnel is one that we visited.  South Korea built a steep long tunnel to intercept the North Korean tunnel, which allows tourists today to go down into the tunnel dug by North Korea.  Thus, there is a North Korean and South Korean part of the tunnel we visited.  Before we went down the tunnel, we had a brilliant woman on our tour ask why it was called the North Korean tunnel if we were in South Korea. Really? She couldn’t figure that one out?

Before going down the tunnel, we were warned of the steepness of the South Korean part of the tunnel leading to what North Korea had dug out as well as the claustrophobic nature of the tunnel and how low it was at points.  The tour guide also mentioned that someone the week before we were there had a heart attack in the tunnel as a means to assure we understood the steepness of South Korean portion of the tunnel.

We were given hard hats and headed down, despite my asthma and Blaise’s claustrophobia.  If you get to the DMZ don’t you have to experience that tunnel?

It was a long trek but we did it!  The South Korea part of the tunnel was deceptively steep.  It didn’t look particularly steep but when you were going back up, you sure felt it.  And that part of the tunnel was long.  So was the flat North Korean part.  The North Korean part had its own problem.  That height in that half of the tunnel was extremely low. So I had to walk hunched over for nearly all of it, which was almost 435 meters since that is how far the North Koreans had dug into South Korea.  The hardhat saved me.  I hit my head too many times to count on the top of the tunnel.  I thought I was ducking low enough but at times the tunnel was way lower than I thought.  I have to say I was momentarily jealous of the many people short enough to walk through standing straight as a board.

You could see the spots where the dynamite was situated when the North Koreans were building the tunnel and painted black areas to try to dupe people into thinking they were digging for coal.

At the end of the tunnel, at the demarcation line (the literal North Korean border) were three massive concrete barriers to permanently seal the tunnel.  The barrier closest to us had a window so we could see to the next barrier.  There was a light in the space between the barriers and plants were actually growing between the barriers.  I guess because of the light in there?

It took me longer than most to get back up the incline, but I did it.

It was a rough trip but so very much worth the effort!  If you make it to Seoul, I would put this on your “must do” list.

Picture of the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel we walked.  Again, we could not take a picture so this is one provided by our tour guide, K.

We also visited an area just outside the DMZ on the South Korea side (obviously) called the Civil Controlled area. This is called the Freedom Bridge.  This is the bridge South Korean POWs walked across to go home after the Armistice was signed in 1953.  The top of the bridge is fairly newly replaced but the bottom is original.  (I took this picture as this was one of the few areas we were authorized to do so.)

Also in the Civil Controlled area was this relic.  It is a train car that was blown up and shot up with over 1,000 bullet holes. (I took this picture as this was one of the few areas we were authorized to do so.)

The Kukkiwon

This is a place, as a child, Blaise never thought he would get a chance to visit.  Blaise is a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, gaining his first black belt at age 14.  (This is part me bragging about him and part informational, to understand why Blaise wanted to go.) That is why visiting The Kukkiwon was important to Blaise.

The Kukkiwon is the world headquarters for Tae Kwon Don.  It is also the only place in South Korea where black belt tests are performed.

What I learned about the Kukkiwon and Tae Kwon Do with this visit:

In South Korea, they just call it Kukkiwon, not The Kukkiwon.  We still call it The Kukkiwon because that is how Blaise has always said it and because I like it better that way.

Every child in South Korea must learn Tae Kwon Do. It is part of their school curriculum.  They don’t have to get a black belt or anything but it is akin to our gym class.

The Kukkiwon is in the Gangnam district - of the Gangnam Style song by Psy fame.

The actual dojo in The Kukkiwon is smaller than in the pictures that Blaise had seen.  I, personally, thought it was huge.

The Kukkiwon is situated at the top of a hill within a lovely wooded garden area right in the middle of the Gangnam district of Seoul. Being there, you would think it is miles from civilization.

Even after the fascinating trip to the DMZ, Blaise still says this is the highlight of our trip to Seoul for him.  I am thrilled he had the opportunity to see it.

I won’t really talk about the other two big tourist places we visited, the big palace and the Seoul Tower, since I posted about them on Facebook and other than what I said there, there is not much more to say.

Brief Cruise Overview

I will try to post another blog in the next week to talk about the first of our back-to-back cruises, which ends tomorrow.  This is our first back-to-back cruise ever.

The first cruise was 13 nights (with the night of May 14 happening twice due to the International Dateline), from Tokyo to Whittier, Alaska.

The second cruise starts tomorrow and is 11 nights going from Whittier, Alaska to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

More about those in my next blog, focusing on the first cruise.  I will probably write a separate blog for the second cruise.