celebritycruises – Page 3 – Scribbles and Snapshots

Australia – Day 2

December 27, 2023December 27, 2023Posted in Australia/New Zealand, UncategorizedTagged Australia, celebritycruises, Sydney, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Sydney Opera House1 Comment

We both woke up well rested – I think we slept over 9.5 hours! One of things that I love most about my job, is working for a global company. I have not one, but two gals that have lived in Sydney in the past! It’s always fun to a hear a local’s recommendations of things to do – and places to eat at.

Caroline had recommended a fun brunch spot, The Grounds at Alexandria. They are known for going all out with their decorations – and having excellent food. I had snagged one of the last reservations for when we were in town. It was kind of off in the middle of nowhere, but it was well worth it.

They transform their property into a Christmas wonderland. We had a lot of fun walking around – even in the rain!

Impossible to get a picture without a crowd in the background

The one spot we could get without anyone being in the background!

After we had brunch, we made our way to the Sydney opera house. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, right?

We had booked an hour long tour and lunch. Our tour guide was incredible, and he said we might get lucky and someone might be rehearsing while we were on our tour.

We learned a lot about the history – like – it was funded from funds from a state lottery. It only cost $102 million, just about $95 million over budget! They didn’t have to raise taxes in order to build it and it took over 14 years to build.

The original architect didn’t get to see it completed – and there had been a lot of drama surrounding that. Unfortunately, politics got in the way and they weren’t willing to pay him. That meant someone else had to take over, and they weren’t sure on what the vision of the interior should be.

The lobby of one of the two near identical theaters

To go into the theater, you had to go around to the back side, which has a view of the harbor.

Everything was crafted intentionally – all made with wood to enhance the sound of the opera singers

All this to say, it. Is. STUNNING. Designed to mirror the sailboats in the Sydney harbor, and they actually call it a sculpture.

Nick was able to sneak us into a rehearsal for the Circus 1903 production. We even got to see the acrobat practice. So cool! We couldn’t take any pictures because he made us promise if we got to see a rehearsal that we wouldn’t.

After the tour, we made our way back to the hotel to finish packing up before getting on the cruise ship. Our hotel was so close to the cruise ship port, that we decided to walk. And a bonus for us – it had finally stopped raining!

Our initial itinerary had us cruising up to Newcastle, but a change in the plan had us dock in Sydney for one more night. We had hoped we could go back in to see the full production of Circus 1903, but we found out too late that we COULD get back on the ship that night.

We were sad that we couldn’t see a production, but we agreed that just means we will have to come back to see a show sometime in the future.

We opted out of formal dining the first night and just did more casual snack food so we could get unpacked in our stateroom. This was our first time with the infinite veranda option. On our other two cruises, we had a balcony. The veranda differs slightly – it’s basically an extension of your room. I would almost call it a sunroom.

Our window wouldn’t open when we first got in, our attendant had shared that the captain may have locked everyone’s. So we weren’t too concerned at that time.

When we cruised in Alaska, we had the funniest Cruise Director, Giuseppe. We had hoped he would be here for this cruise – and he is! That already set the tone for our trip.

Accommodations: Celebrity Edge – Infinite Veranda

Up Next:

Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb
Sail away

Hello from the Land Down Under!

December 25, 2023December 25, 2023Posted in UncategorizedTagged Australia, celebritycruises, Sydney, Sydney Harbor Bridge, Sydney Opera HouseLeave a comment

Merry Christmas to those of you joining us from the United States!

Monday evening (December 18th) we took off from LAX on a direct flight to Sydney with United Airlines. We knew it was going to be a long flight, scheduled at 15.5 hours. Our longest flight had been SFO to Delhi back in 2019 at 16 hours.

We had brought books, downloaded shows, and had a lot of options available through United’s in-flight entertainment. I don’t sleep well on planes, and these seats somehow felt smaller than our last few international flights. This flight was no exception – and it made time crawl by. Throw in a bit of turbulence – and we were even more grateful once we had landed!

We landed around 9:00 AM on Wednesday, December 20th. It had been super warm the days leading up to our arrival, but naturally, once we arrived there had been a cold front and it was raining. We were so excited to have made it to Australia – the rain didn’t bother us much anyway.

We made our way to our hotel and crossed our fingers that we would have the option for early check in. Our prayers were answered, and I laid down to take a quick nap. Unfortunately for Andy, he had some end of year payroll to run and he got to work on that while I slept.

View from our hotel room – this was a bustling harbor! Lots of ferries going back and forth

We had booked the Sydney bridge climb months ago – the company takes you to the top of the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge. They go rain or shine – but the last thing we wanted to do was climb in pouring rain. We called and paid a small fee to have it switched over to Friday.

We made our way over to a nearby pub, it was a ton of fun people watching. Lots of people were dressed up in Christmas costumes! We made our way back to the hotel and stopped to take a few pictures.

We were really tired – so we were trying to stay up as late as we could. I think we barely made it until 9:00 PM before we fell asleep.

Accommodations: Four Seasons Sydney – booked with our AMEX hotel credit

Up Next:

Breakfast at Grounds at Alexandria
Sydney Opera House tour
Board our cruise!

St. George’s, Grenada

March 21, 2023March 20, 2023Posted in Caribbean CruiseTagged caribbean, celebritycruisesLeave a comment

March 16, 2023

It was a bit earlier of a start in Grenada, which we didn’t mind all that much since it was our last port. We started at the Spice Garden. Our tour took us on a short loop around the property. Our guide would pick the plants and pass them around for all of us to smell and try to guess the spice.

They had so many different spices and plants there, it was fun to try to guess what it was. She also shared some background on how the plants are then harvested and ready for consumption.

One example was cinnamon – I didn’t know until this tour how it was processed! The shoots are stripped of their bark and the peels are set out to dry in the sun. As this happens, the bark naturally curls into the cinnamon sticks you might be thinking of.

There were other fun things like jackfruit, cacao, and the tallest avocado tree that I’ve ever seen.

After the Spice Garden, we made our way to Grenada’s largest rum distillery. The tour wasn’t that interesting (my opinion), and we couldn’t take pictures inside. It was kind of just really hot and uncomfortable. Maybe it was just our tour guide? The rum was good though!

They did require us to wear these cool hardhats

However, they had 19 different types of rum available to taste. I think we only tried 3 or 4. The rum was really good! So I can see why they are popular. We didn’t buy anything at that time, but we really liked their coconut rum and their mixed rum punch.

From there, we made our way to the beach. Once we got there, we were approached by a few different people trying to rent out their beach chairs. They were charging $5 for a chair – so we got a few chairs with Jill and Mario. Mario had also picked up a few little bottles of rum from the distillery to share while we were there.

This was our last chance to swim in the Caribbean – so I got right into the water. The beach was stunning, no surprise. We only had an hour there before having to head back to the cruise ship.

We were still in our suits so we hit up the pool deck before freshening up for dinner. It was lobster night after all! I think Celebrity Cruises does this on every cruise, but they do one night where you dress up and they serve more expensive dishes – like lamb and lobster.

We went to another show after dinner, called iBroadway. It had a few good songs, but it wasn’t quite like the last cruise we were on where they took more current broadway songs. It was still entertaining, and we love watching shows.

This was our last port of the trip – and the next day would be starting our way back to San Juan before flying home.

Up Next:

-Sea day

Bridgetown, Barbados

March 20, 2023March 19, 2023Posted in Caribbean CruiseTagged caribbean, celebritycruisesLeave a comment

March 15, 2023

We love snorkeling whenever we’re on vacation somewhere tropical. We were heading on an excursion titled “Swim with turtles, shipwrecks, and snorkel” which sounded like all of our favorite things. (Tour company was called Foster and Ince Cruise Services – couldn’t recommend them enough!)

There were two snorkel stops on the trip – and one to swim to a beach. The first stop was a shipwreck. (Emily, if you’re reading this – I’m sorry!) It was INCREDIBLE!

The fish that were swimming there made you feel like you were in Finding Nemo – so bright and colorful! The coral growing off of it were so BIG! I’ve never seen so much marine life in one spot. We didn’t bother taking our phone in a waterproof bag since last time the pictures didn’t turn out. You’ll just have to use your imagination to visualize it!

We had 45 minutes there before we made our way to our next snorkel stop. This is where the sea turtles were! Within 3 minutes, Andy and I had spotted a small one in the distance. And over the next 20 minutes we saw 5-6 more – and two spotted leopard stingrays!

At one point, a turtle almost flopped onto Andy! It was so cool to see! We had to be careful to give them space and not chase them – I think most people in the group were good about giving them room.

One of the stingrays flew right by me! The second one spooked a lot of people – I guess people still have Steve Irwin in the back of their minds?!

Once we got back on the boat we just wanted to relax. Our tour company couldn’t take us to their normal beach because the water was so rough. A lot of people did get in and swim to shore, but it looked like it would be really hard to get back to the boat so we stayed on board.

It was just so beautiful to sit in the sun surrounded by the turquoise colored water. They took us out on a short tour of the shore line and pointed out different landmarks, included one of the guest houses that Rihanna stayed at last. I guess whenever she comes to visit she stays in a guesthouse or a hotel in order to give back to the local economy, which I thought was pretty cool.

We cleaned up for dinner – and made our way to the show, “Unique 3” on the cruise ship. 2/3s of the performers were the ones we met the day before in a boutique. They were really talented – and they each had their own style of music.

After that show we went to karaoke with Jill and Mario, who actually sing (unlike myself and Andy). It was pretty fun to watch/listen and dance when the songs were good. The Glee Club took over though – there were a lot more teenagers on this cruise, so that was the only bummer this time around.

Up Next:

St. George’s, Grenada
Spice Garden, Rum Tasting & Beach

Roseau, Dominica

March 19, 2023Posted in Caribbean CruiseTagged caribbean, celebritycruisesLeave a comment

March 14, 2023

We started the day off hopping on a bus and driving to Titou Gorge. I’ll preface this with – we had an idea of what we were getting into. But when we think of gorges… we think of the Columbia River Gorge – you walk into it. We had to swim into this one!

This one was incredibly famous though! The second Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest was filmed there. Once we are home, we plan on rewatching it. Our tour guides were able to point out specific features in it – and where the main characters “jumped in” (Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley). The water was incredibly refreshing, but once you started swimming you warmed up.

Incredibly hard to take pictures – but you can see the float belt they required us to take in

The gorge swim wasn’t too long – and it ended in a waterfall. It was really incredible.

We hopped back on the bus and made our way to the hot springs. They were really great too – we were able to try out a bunch of different pools and they varied in different levels of hot. What we didn’t see when we were exploring the property was a spot where you could do mud baths. We wish would have seen it, but our time was wrapping up when saw it.

You can see people rinsing off after their mud bath in the river behind us

It was also the full moon party that night – you were encouraged to wear white. So we stopped at a shop to see if we could find something for Andy to wear. We found a small boutique and there were two women in there shopping as well. After we started talking with them, we realized that they were actually singers on the cruise ship, which was pretty cool! We assured them that we would be at their show the next night.

After dinner, we attended a performance called Elysium. It was a classic story about a fight between good and evil. The music was a play on some modern music – think “Everyone wants to rule the world” etc. The stage and costumes were pretty elaborate – so it was entertaining to watch.

After the show we made our way to the full moon party, which was fun a way to end the day.

Jill, Mario, myself, and Andy (with his new pants)

Up Next:

Bridgetown, Barbados
Snorkeling

Philipsburg, St. Maarten

March 18, 2023March 18, 2023Posted in Caribbean CruiseTagged caribbean, celebritycruises1 Comment

March 13, 2023

Cheers to 9 years! We celebrated by doing a sailing excursion. It wasn’t just a casual sailing day trip – this was different! This was the America’s Cup Sailing Regatta. We actually had to work during this excursion, which we were pretty excited about. While we were waiting for our water taxi to take us over to our sailboats, the man taking our tickets also assigned us our positions for the day.

Andy and I were both primary grinders – which they kept making the joke that we wouldn’t need to go to the gym that day. Two captains were selected to lead the different teams – and we were broken into the different teams. One team would get the Stars and Stripes (a race winning boat) and the other team would get True North.

The crew was fantastic – not us – the captain, first mate, etc. They made sure that we all understood our positions and if we felt uncomfortable we could switch. Some of the other positions were main grinders, winch whench, bartender, etc.

Ultimately, there were six of us that were primary grinders – and there were only four cranks. We got to enjoy the first leg of the trip and watch our new friends crank like there was no tomorrow. We were in a little pit – while we weren’t grinding. It was a lot of fun! And it was something we haven’t done before. We’ve sailed, but never were a part of the crew.

It truly was a race. There were a few times that I thought the boats were going to hit – which was pretty terrifying and cool at the same time. I didn’t see this, but Andy had overhead the captain actually yelling at the other boat. Apparently they almost actually hit us – so I guess we weren’t too far off base thinking we were going to die at one point. 😂

The cranks – and one of the many times we came close to the other team

We lost the race. But we’re all winners here. It was a blast. After the race they brought us back to their “museum” basically just a gift shop. We decided it might be fun to walk around a bit before heading back to the ship. We stopped and had lunch. One of the restaurants that we walked past had taken drift wood after both Hurricane Irma/Maria to reconstruct. It’s a good reminder that no matter how beautiful these places are – they can also have extreme weather. Those hurricanes hit in 2017 – I wasn’t blogging then, but we were in Cancun and there were three hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico that September. It was a really rough year for the Caribbean.

After lunch we got back on the ship and got cleaned up. We hung out with Jill and Mario that evening. There was a magic show – and we Mario had some business to wrap up in the casino.

The cruise gave us a little something to celebrate

It was a great anniversary!

Up Next:

Roseau, Dominica
Titou Gorge and hot springs

Puerto Rico or bust!

March 12, 2023Posted in Caribbean Cruise, UncategorizedTagged caribbean, celebritycruises, Puerto Rico1 Comment

Thursday & Friday, March 9-10

We’re setting sail on our second cruise together – and with Celebrity Cruises for our 9 year wedding anniversary. We had found an incredible deal for a 7 night Caribbean cruise last year – and decided that it made sense to head back to the waters of where it all began!

Unfortunately, this cruise doesn’t stop in the Dominican Republic, where we actually got married. It had a really interesting itinerary with a lot of different island stops.

Itinerary as follows:

Tortola, British Virgin Islands
Philipsburg, St. Maarten
Roseau, Dominica
Bridgetown, Barbados
St. George’s Grenada

The cruise starts and ends in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Thursday after work we caught a red eye flight with JetBlue to JFK, New York. There was a small delay, but nothing too significant. We had a good experience and were left wondering why we never fly with them.

JFK is a bustling airport – even for 6:00 AM! We got a quick bite to eat and then we were on our way to San Juan! Puerto Rico has always been really high on my list, but we just haven’t been able to make it there prior to this trip. There’s something about the fact that it’s a USA territory – and that it’s in Caribbean.

Once we landed, we got our bags pretty quickly and requested an Uber. There were plenty of taxis available, so both options are there and seem safe.

Since we only had the one night in Puerto Rico, I had looked up best areas to stay and landed on Old San Juan. It was close to the cruise ship port – and had a lot of history.

We stayed at Sheraton Old Town San Juan. The hotel had a great walkable location – and we were able to check in a little early. We had initially booked a free walking tour at 4:00 PM, but after the red eye and the fact we were starving – we decided to skip it.

We made our way to Barrachina, a famous restaurant in the area known for creating the Pina Colada! There was a 20 minute wait – so we just walked around that area. The colors of San Juan are just so captivating! We got to see a few fun sights and made our way back to the restaurant.

They weren’t joking when they said it’s where the Pina Colada was created

Just one example of the beautiful colors in San Juan

Puerto Rican flag – painted black in 2016 due to the PROMESA act

Once we got seated we ordered our first Pina Coladas of the trip – we did ours with Captain Morgan, but the most popular (at least at the restaurant) were made with Don Q rum.

The menu had a lot of fun options, but I chose to do a more traditional Puerto Rican meal – Mofongo. It is a fried plantain dish – and it was super tasty! You could order it with different proteins – but I went with chicken and it was great!

Chicken Mofongo – and Andy had salmon in the background

We walked around a little bit more – taking in the sights before turning in for the night. We were exhausted, and wanted to be able to do some more sightseeing in the morning before boarding the cruise ship.

Up Next

Our own walking tour of Old San Juan, which included:

Callejon de la Puerta Bandera
Plazuela de la Rogativa
Puerta de San Juan
Castillo San Cristobal
Cayo Caribe (lunch spot)

Alaska Cruise Day 6 – Skagway

November 29, 2022February 27, 2023Posted in AlaskaTagged Alaska, celebritycruises, skagway, whitepass1 Comment

We docked in Skagway early in the morning – we had to take a tender to shore because there had been a landslide in previous years that had damaged the port. The tenders (life boats) actually reminded me of a Star Wars like vehicle. I’ll let you be the judge of that!

Once we made it to shore we were on our way to the historic White Pass Railway. This tour took us along the mountain side. It was really stunning – lots of great views. It took us to the Canadian border where we turned around. It was a great way to see how the gold rush left its mark on Alaska.

Once we got back into Skagway we had a choice – the train could drop us off closer to the downtown area or near where we would take the tender to get back on the ship. My parents decided to head back to the ship, but Andy and I decided to get lunch in town.

We had lunch at The Skagway Brewing Company – the food and service were both great. I even tried their Rhubarbita – which was really tasty. We also found that Skagway was home to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. We didn’t have too much time to explore, but would have liked to if we had more time.

We were also incredibly excited because the entertainment that night was The Boy Band Project. It did not disappoint – the band took us through some of the early boy bands – think Jackson 5! All the way up to my favorite band, Backstreet Boys. It was a ton of fun. They were really interactive and encouraged the crowd to participate in the show and singing. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip!

We had booked another cruise while on the ship – and had won a speciality dining experience from a drawing that we had been entered in. We booked this at the Tuscan Grille. We had to leave the Boy Band Project show a little early to get to our reservation. As soon as we showed up we realized that they had indeed given us one of the best seats in the house. Our waitress was incredible as well and made sure to provide a great experience for us.

What we loved about it was the fact that they offered half-entrees. That way we could try more food. We had already been eating pretty well on this trip, but this was over the top. We were so full by the time we were done with dinner.

Up Next:
At Sea