We had beautiful weather for the drive down to Florida. We passed (and were passed) by many electric lineman truck, National Guard vehicles, and trucks hauling commercial size generators and freestanding ATM machines. All thanks to hurricane Ian.
And it was WINDY (video)!!
We spent the night at the Port Canaveral Radisson, we had booked a stay ‘n cruise package which included parking. Nice hotel, friendly staff, and if we had needed/wanted, there was a restaurant on the premises. Being “frugal”, we opted for McD’s across the street. The only downside was the wait for the shuttle – again, thanks to Hurricane Ian. There were SEVEN cruise ships in the port and the shuttles were swamped. We eventually got to the ship and boarded quickly. We dropped our luggage in our room, doing carry-on only for the first time EVER was so nice! We’ll be practicing this more and more as we prep for our Europe trip.
Needless to say, Guy’s Burgers was our first stop…
I got to break out my Murder Tumbler (which I absolutely love).
From there on, most days were similar. We discovered a GREAT band and went to the atrium to listen to them every night. We were sort of ‘adopted’ by the lead singer, Ama Jane – who is from Scotland. While they played a lot of 80s & 90s music, they did good with some 60s & 70s as well. Turns out the lead guitarist, Jeremías Bonifacio, is a friend of our friend, Federico Gironelli, who we met 5+ years ago when he was playing with the band Six Appeal. They both live in Argentina as well as the drummer for the band, German Bobb. The keyboard player was Carlos and I think the bass player’s name was David. LOL! They rocked!!!
Jeremias, German, Alfred, Amanda, David (missing Carlos)
Here’s fun video of some audience involvement – Walk Like an Egyptian.
And another video with audience involvement – Jump!
I took too many short videos of the band to show or link. I hope you will take a look at the SmugMug album and watch some of them. We will be staying in touch with the members and truly hope to cruise with them again! But here are two favorites from our last night…
Amanda says goodbye – I will miss her!
Amanda showing her goofy side! I know Stu misses her, too.
Stu got off at a couple of ports, but I concentrated on writing during the day and enjoying the music at night. You can see all our photos in our SmugMug album. Here are a few favorites.
Sunset as we left Bimini
Someone took pity on Stu and captured his photo in Bimini with the Carnival Freedom behind him.
Halloween was the theme and the costumes were great!
Click to see an video of an adorable junior-sized Michael Jackson
Click to see a video of the 1001 Dalmations (only part of the crew that was dressed).
Stu managed to catch a video of what we think was a Peregrine Falcon, they are known to frequent the areas around the Bahamas. He sat on our balcony for about ten minutes!
My Sherlock Duck and Murder Mug kept me company as I wrote – always from the same spot on Deck 10.
Our cruise director (CD) was James Love and he was an absolute hoot! He’s been added to our top three CD list. We hope to cruise with him again. You can see a several funny videos of him during music trivia in our SmugMug album.
So now it’s back to chores and daily routines. The #2doods are home, laundry is almost done, this is my second blog post, emails are caught up, newsletter is prepped for tomorrow…phew! No wonder I’m tired.
