Man… We needed a vacation!!! So we took a cruise…

After nearly seven full years on the road, what did we decide we needed? A Carribean Vacation!!! We booked a cruise after finding a screaming deal offered by a discount cruise travel agency. With the ultra cheap package which included all tips, we also received a  $150 dollar onboard credit to spend on anything we wanted!. Even more amazing was a last minute swell offer to upgrade from our guaranteed inside cabin to a balcony ocean view cabin. Sweet!!!

Sunday, January 7th rolled around and we drove the approximately 2 hours from our park over to Fort Lauderdale. We secured parking at Park and Fly and were astonished when we pulled into the parking lot to see a large band of monkeys feeding on the side of the road. These “wild” monkeys reside in the wooded area adjacent to the parking lot.It sure was a cool way to start our trip.

We unloaded our bags and took the shuttle over the Holland American pier to our ship, the Holland America Eurodam. Boarding was delayed slightly but was relatively painless and before we knew it we were aboard the ship eating a nice lunch in the main dining room. The first day at sea was  pretty rough with many cruisers feeling a bit ill due to the rocking ship. I have never had an issue with sea sickness and Sharon used the prescription patches so she also suffered no ill effects.

The ship stopped at four ports; Grand Turk, Sint Martin, San Juan Puerto Rico and Half Moon Cay. We had been to San Juan and Sint Martin before but were amazed at the devastation from Hurricane Irma. We felt sad for those whose lives were disrupted by this viscous storm. However, the spirit of the people in each of the parts was strong and positive. We could definitely see progress being made one nail at a time.

We did a little snorkeling in Grand Turk seeing a few fish but at Half Moon Cay we saw some coral and many brightly colored fish. We also really enjoyed our walkabouts in the other three ports. San Juan’s Old Town appears to be well on its way to recovery even though most of the rest of the island is still suffering from the havoc created by Irma. We did our best to spread a little of our wealth around at each port to assist a little in their recovery. These ports heavily depend on tourism and it was plain to see they took extra effort to ensure the ports were ready to receive ships. At nearly every port we saw two to three other ships docked so hopefully this season will be a big boost to their economies.

It has been 7 years since we have cruised and some things have changed! There was no big sail away band or party and no more elaborate fruit or ice carvings.  However the TVs in the rooms had many more offerings of movies, news channels and ESPN.  Because of the improved TV and of course our awesome balcony, we spent a little more time in the room than we had on past cruises.  One beautiful sunny day we were fully entertained watching a Ganet bird diving into the waves for fish.  The flying fish shimmered in the sunlight while soaring out of harms way. We also enjoyed the views from the balcony at each port so it in itself was really one of the highlights of the trip!

After seven nights we returned to Fort Lauderdale Florida and disembarked without any issue. We loved our seven night hiatus from our normal RV lifestyle coming back energized to continue our repairs and modifications as planned for this long winter stay.  The trip was fun but it was nice to see our beautiful ten year old home on wheels...

NOTE: We are now in our winter home until March 1st in Bonita Springs Florida at Imperial Bonita Estates RV park and Coop.

The end of our last vacation…

11/6/2010 and 11/7/2010 – Another two days at sea before we are done with our cruise. Above is a picture of our best sunset of the cruise… and below is our best sunrise as we entered the Sydney Harbor.

11/8/2010 Sydney

I got up early since we arrived in Sydney at 6:30 AM and then we had breakfast before we were suppose to leave the ship. We booked a tour off the ship to Manly Beach.  Since our flight didn’t leave until 3:25 PM this seemed like a great idea. We were happy to hear that we weren’t on Qantas since they were grounding all their A380’s due to the engine failure on one of their planes. We were so glad we had booked United and one of their 747’s.

The tour to Manly Beach was a nice guided bus tour and the tour guide was very nice and informative as he pointed out many things along the tour like the jacaranda trees that were in magnificent full purple bloom (Remember in the southern hemisphere it is spring time and not fall).

The bus took us to an overlook of Sydney harbor before taking us over to Manly Beach where the sunlit skies made the waves a brilliant blue as they were rolling onto shore.  Shelley Beach was visible off in the distance. We had about 1.5 hours to just hang out in Manly on our own so we went for a walk along the beach and walked around the town of Manly.

And then it was time to go to the airport and fly away… as you can tell by the photo above, but we will remember the good times and not the end… because there is no end for us yet…

Isle of Lifou -Loyalty Islands

11/5/2010 Ile Lifou -Loyalty Islands

Well today was to be our last island stop and after Vanuatu I was looking for a more scenic non-commercialized stop… and Lifou was just what the doctor ordered. This was going to be the first ever stop for the Rhapsody of the Seas at Lifou and it was going to be the largest cruise ship to ever visit the island. Thus we had to tender once again so we were off the ship around 7:30 am and on to Lifou. This was going to be a shorter day today as the all aboard was for 3:30 pm before our last two days at sea.

Our plans here were to spend the day at Luecila Beach which was right near where we tendered to and was just beautiful. Not a thing commercial at all… just island people carrying out their island lives.  We had heard about a good snorkeling spot just down the road from the beach so we walked about 15 minutes from the beach up the road to the place we heard that was good for snorkeling… man were they wrong… it wasn’t good snorkeling it was GREAT for snorkeling.

If you were to visit here you will need some reef shoes as the shoreline is mostly broken coral and rough on the feet. There was a small dock with a fairly poorly designed ladder going down to the waters edge.  At the edge was a smooth bottom that was in shallow water which was great for putting on our fins. Then you could gradually swim out in the clear aquamarine waters…

The snorkeling here was the best we have ever experienced in our lives!  The water was perfectly clear and it felt as if we were swimming in an aquarium.  The diversity of corals and fishes was bountiful.  The corals were gigantic and pristine. We saw many bizarre and unknown fishes here of all sizes and shapes.  We also saw numerous different colored clown fish swimming amongst the anemones as well as the giant deep see clams (some as large as 2-3 feet across). There was even one species of fish that swam around in the taller corals and would defend them by swimming aggressively at you to scare you away… which was quite humorous.  My favorite as a fish with green dots on his side and what appeared to be gold eyebrows and they would come right up to your mask and just look directly at you… really cool!

We snorkeled here for hours and to top it off there was a Lifou native lady selling cold drinks out of a cooler so we had a couple of “number ones” after snorkeling… The number ones were more than eight dollars at Isle of Pines but here we could get four for that same amount… what a life… life is good!

Port Vila, Vanuatu

11/3/2010 – Just another relaxing day at sea...

Tuesday 11/4/2010 Port Vila, Vanuatu

This was the one port I was most looking most forward to but to be honest it was the most disappointing port we had on this entire cruise, despite its beauty. Port Vila is located around a magnificent natural harbor offering stunning views of Iririki and Ifira islands. It is Vanuatu's international gateway and remains the only town on the island. Vila is a pretty dirty town. and is a bit polluted even though the corals and tropical fish can be seen in the water.

We left the ship at 8:00 am again and found a taxi to give us an island tour. The taxi was quite expensive and more than 3 times what I expected based upon my internet research (but shared it with another couple). Nonetheless we hired a taxi and took off for our first stop cascade falls.  This was supposed to be a nice falls in a bit  of a wooded scenic area.  We were confronted with a booth that said to see the falls it would cost 35 dollars for the two of us… OUCH!  We decided that $35 to see a water fall was a bit too steep since we will be seeing oodles of waterfalls in the states when we start full timing.

So our cabbie suggested an overlook of the bay instead… and guess what… to visit the overlook also cost us money.  It seemed everything we were going to do on this island was going to include a fee so we were talking with the guy who charged us a fee to visit his overlook and when we told him we thought all the fees were excessive to simple see the beauty of their island especially when other islands don’t charge excessively to see theirs. He then asked where we were going next and we told him we heard hideaway island was nice and had good snorkeling.  He said that it would be $20 per person to get on the island and suggested a beach resort that his cousin worked at that would let us use there facilities and snorkel for free as long as we bought beverages or food from them… so off we went to a small Beach Resort name Tara Beach. On the way I took a picture of a popo tree (we call it papaya).

What  a score this was…  Although the resort didn’t have great amenities and it wasn’t much of a beach but it did have some fine snorkeling and was very peaceful.  To top it off the cousin, Christina, adopted us when she found out we came there based upon her cousin’s recommendation.

We practically had the place to ourselves and we spent some Vatu (local currency) on some cold beers and some real good fish and chips and Christina even charged us less than the stated menu prices.  Thank goodness for this spot as otherwise Villa, Vanuatu would have left a bad taste in our mouths.

On the way back we stopped briefly in the town of Villa to check out the duty free shopping… not much to speak of… the town is not that interesting and the shopping (other than booze) was not that much cheaper than in the US.  I did however find a bottle shop to buy a few more tuskers for the road… and had time to pose in front of my favorite Vanuatu beverage…

Lautoka Fiji

Sunday 11/2/2010 Lautoka

We docked and were allowed off the ship at Lautoka, Fiji at 8:00 am. Lautoka is situated on the western side of the big island Viti Levu, opposite of Suva. Vita Levu is the largest island in Fiji, and approximately 250 km from Suva, the capital. Not real far but considering the roads in Fiji it would take a while to get there. We had a welcoming party of Fijians dressed tradition garb and holding "CALI’s" or war clubs. These people were once cannibals so we weren’t sure if this was a greeting or a question of “Guess who is coming to dinner” :)

Lautoka is surrounded with the blue Pacific Ocean on the western side and green gold sugar cane together with pine trees on the other sides. We had no real plans for this stop so we got off the ship at 8:00 am and found a tour booth that had a tour to Bounty Island the sister island of Treasure Island. They said the snorkeling was great and the beach was white… sounded great to us so we booked it.

We took a 20 minute bus ride to the boat dock where we caught a motor boat for another 20 minute ride over to Bounty Island. Now this place had it all… crystal clear blue waters, large areas of reef, white sand beaches, and a nice bar on site… this is the life.

From Bounty Island you could see treasure island off in the distance. We snorkeled here for several hours before they fed us a grilled lunch that included maji maji, beef, lamb, chicken and sausage along with the complimentary sides of salads, rice, and vegetables.  To top it off they had cut freshly picked bananas and papayas and man were they absolutely delicious.

After lunch we snorkeled a bit more since the water clarity and diversity of sea life was spectacular.  After tiring we then went to the bar and consumed a few Fiji Bitters and Fiji Gold beverages before heading back to the ship… another excellent outing in Fiji…

Suva Fiji

10/31/2010 – Another day at Sea

Friday 11/1/2010 Suva, Fiji

We docked in Suva and were allowed to leave the ship at 8:00 am.  Suva is the pulsing heart of the South Pacific and also Fiji's main port. This waterfront district provides the hub for much of Suva’s activity with high-rise office buildings, colonial buildings with second-story verandas, parks and government buildings.

We got off the ship and walked through an area called the Triangle. Then we crossed Nubukalou Creek a rather dirty creek but then we crossed Cumming Street and passed by the Suva Market where local goods and produce are sold. Here we passed a band that was parading down a side street.  We thought it may be in celebration of Fiji’s 40th birthday of independence. Sharon found a dentist’s sign for 50 dollar false teeth… wow!

We passed Sukuna Park named for Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, founding father of independent Fiji. Next we came upon Old Town Hall and then passed the Suva City Library and eventually we stopped walking when we hit the first of the Government Buildings adjacent to a large open field called Albert Park.

Then after returning back to where we started we went and hired a local taxi for an island tour and to find a snorkel spot.  We ended up at the Black Pearl Resort which was on the beach and had a very nice beachfront with huts, bars, a restaurant and loungers where we sat looking over the ocean.  Although we didn’t find a good snorkel spot here we did find a slice of paradise and stayed for most of the rest of our time on shore. Nice relaxing spot with nice cold Fiji Gold beers… man life is tough…

On the return trip we stopped at an overlook where I took a few photos of the harbor like the first photo of this blog.  Then we stopped at a rain forest resort for a cold drink and a rest. This was a beautiful resort (and it was raining) so we sat in the restaurant overlooking a small lake.  We saw an innovative use of plastic bottles in the small lake nearby. There was a small boat made entirely our of the plastic soda bottles…. how clever! We also saw a lone Fijian fisherman on the far side of the lake fishing in the rain in the rainforest. His yellow slicker contrasting against the greenery of the rain forest made for an interesting shot…