Summer is almost here! We finally started planning our vacation (on a budget, hopefully). In the last couple of years we've been looking for ways to use our credit card rewards and points. SO, I did a little research and came across this great site named MilesTraveler. The site's concept is to provide tips on how to use your miles, rewards and points to travel more for less. One of the most helpful features of the site is the breakdown of the personal vs business credit cards and their respective point/rewards. I recently received the Citi AAdvantage card, so I'm going to use the site and figure out how to pay for our hotel using my AAdvantage miles.

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Sanibel Island, Fl

Sanibel Island - April 2019

Verdict on the Sanibel trip: basically, the west coast is just very different from the east coast. There's not much more to it than that. It's nice and it has a lot of little places to visit, a lot of local restaurants. It has a very beachy feel - you can be in flip flops and a hat, riding your bike all day long. It's relaxing. The beaches are long and quite and have the "good/real" sand that's soft and doesn't burn your feet. HOWEVER, you're not going to be able to get away from the bugs, especially the no-see-um. It's impossible. The island has a huge preserve and it's surrounded by mangroves. Just take the bug spray and you'll be fine. Local restaurants sell natural bug spray and some even have sprays just for the no-see-um, it's a thing out there. Would I go again, yes, but with more bug spray next time :).

Gulfside City Park Beach, Sanibel

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These are links to a few other places that were recommended on TripAdvisor, but I did not have time to visit. We were able to visit The Island Cow restaurant, click on the link for the TripAdvisor review (reviewer: olemal).

J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge  
Doc Ford's Rum Bar & Grille Sanibel Island

Blue Giraffe Restaurant

 

Key West Foodie

My list of favorite EATS in KEY WEST... (restaurant names include links to web pages)

1. Frenchie's Cafe - Best roast beef sandwich
2. Matthessen 4th of July - Best chocolate chip cookies, they also make their own ice cream!!
3. Camille's Restaurant - All around great menu.
4. Blue Heaven - Great breakfast, great place, all around great menu
5. DJ's Clam Shack - BEST lobster roll (sandwich)!!
6. Kermit's Key Lime Shoppe - Key lime pie on a stick covered in chocolate, enough said!

Key Lime pie on a stick

Matthessen's 1/2 pound cookies

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Beautiful Islands of St. Thomas & St. John

St. John is the smallest of the three US Virgin Island and located about four miles east of St. Thomas. The island was settled around AD 300 and currently has a population of about 4,170. Two-thirds of St. John is owned by the National Park and the development is very restricted. The ferry service from St. Thomas to St. Johns runs about every 20 minutes and it's about $12 round trip. 
Definitely visit this beautiful place if you can!

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Carnival Breeze

I'm a little late posting the details from our Carnival cruise this past November. Read on, we had a great time!


The ship

We're regular cruisers, but this was our first time on the newest Carnival ship, the Breeze. With a 3,690 passenger capacity, this ship was clearly huge! This beautiful ship has all of the Carnival 2.0 features plus some pretty great restaurants for alternative dinning.

Our overall experience on the ship, the food, and activities was good. We traveled with a relatively young crowd of friends in our 30s and we all had the same comment at the end of our trip, "this ship had an older crowd". That's not a bad thing, let me explain: on other Carnival ships, which are older, the crowd is younger and the activities are much more fun. The night club is open later and the parties are very interactive. On the Breeze, activities, like deck parties, seemed to be less interactive and short-lived. Don't get me wrong, we had fun, but we all noticed the difference.

The restaurants 
The Breeze has a couple of great restaurants for those who want to venture away from the dinning room. Fahrenheit 555 ($30 p/p, menu) is the ship's steakhouse, Bonsai ($2 - $6 per item, menu) is the sushi restaurant, and Cucina del Capitano ($12 p/p, menu) is the Italian - we tried all three. 

The food at Fahrenheit 555 was great. I had the broiled filet Mignon and the broiled lobster tail for my entree and the Chocolate Sampler for dessert. The restaurant is beautiful and is definitely worth going to. Look for onboard dinner specials for this restaurant; we went on the first sailing night and received a free bottle of wine per person (we were 10, that's a lot of wine!)

The sushi at Bonsai was also yummy. The tuna and mango tartare (appetizer), miso soup, and the spicy tuna roll were great. The sushi was very fresh and they had great options.

Cucina del Capitano is the ship's sit-down Italian restaurant. I have to say this was my favorite. We were a party of 10 so the waitress brought us a couple of appetizers for us to try and several side dishes with our entrees. I had the Tiramisu for dessert and it was amazing!!

Overall, we had a great time. We booked some snorkeling shore excursions, took full advantage of the Spa and water slides on-board. Happy cruising :) - Carnival Breeze



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Guiness, Guiness, Guiness!

Around this same time last year we began planning for our trip to Europe. The date that seemed to be an eternity away was finally here and panic set in. March 22, 2013 was a week away and my solution to the panic was, "don't worry, just pack everything without going over 60 lbs".

For those who don't know me, I'm very much a planner and a list maker, but packing for this trip was testing my planning and list making abilities. After taking everything out of my suitcase, three times, I was ready! Our destinations: Ireland, England, and France.

Ireland was a great place and I would love to go back. Everything from the hotel (Clontarf Castle Hotel) to the food and the people were wonderful. Although the weather was cold (okay, maybe it was more than cold; I'm from Florida where 60 degrees requires a turtleneck), we had a great time and were able to visit all of the popular attractions in Dublin and take some day tours.

Clontarf Castle Hotel

Getting around Dublin City was very easy. We purchased a bus pass from the convenience store down the street from our hotel and were able to get around. We read some reviews before going on this trip and were able to get some ideas on what we wanted to see with the time we had. Don't be discouraged by negative on-line reviews, visit every place you can! We were out most nights until late and we always felt very safe. Also, the locals are very nice people and were always more than happy to help us find our way.

Out hotel concierge was able to give us some advise on tours to take and popular attractions. We decided on a tour of the Cliffs of Moher, Kilkenny, Wicklow, and Limerick and had a wonderful time.

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Kidney Walk 2013

The 2013 Kidney Walk Miami is this Sunday, February 24, 2013 at Bayfront Park. 

Join us! Make a donation to raise money to improve the lives of all people affected by chronic kidney disease and to bring awareness for those who are at risk.

Memorial Day 2012 in New York

When I booked this trip I didn't realize that I hadn't been to NY in about 5 years.

Although the weather was mostly rainy, we had a very busy first day planned. After getting our rental we made our way into the city, the traffic was crazy! - I've been to NYC before and this was the first and last time we get a rental. I highly recommend walking and taking the train everywhere, parking is very expensive and you're better off walking most of the day (NYC walking is not for the faint of heart, be prepared to walk a lot if you've never been).

If you can, try to visit some of the museums and shows. We finally got around to visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). The museum price is $25 per ticket and it has 6 floors of beautiful art and sculptures. It's recommended to spend about 3 hours to see the entire museum, but it can be done in about 2 hours. You can also start on the floor that displays the art you want to see (for example, the 5th floor has art by Van Gogh, Chagall, Monet).

Eating termites in strange places

Out of all the islands we visited during our vacation cruise in November, I had the most fun in Belize. Several weeks before our cruise we looked up some excursions and found a great company named Cave-tubing.com. After spending several minutes looking through their website, we knew this was the excursion for us. We sent them an e-mail with our reservation details and within an hour we received a very friendly phone call from Yhony who finalized our reservation.

Since we were going on vacation with family and friends, we chose the cave tubing and ATV jungle tour. Once we arrived at the port of Belize we had a cave-tubing.com staff member waiting for our group, just as promised and as advertised on their website. We were promptly greeted and taken to our bus (air-conditioned and very comfortable) and within 20-30 minutes we were on our way. 

ridding through the jungle

getting ready to start our ride

The first half of our excursion was the ATV jungle ride. Once we were done with the "how to" and instruction session, we were all very excited to start having fun. For this portion of the tour it's best to wear comfortable clothes and shoes as you WILL get mud on your legs, arms, and on your clothes; I wore my bathing suit with shorts, tank top, and sandal type water shoes. You can also bring a towel and a change or clothes (you will have a bathroom to change in).

entrance to the reserve

cave branch outpost

After a 5 mile guided ride through the Belize rainforest, we met back at the outpost where we had a chance to change our clothes and rinse off some of the rainforest mud (it's not too much mud, just enough for fun times and great stories). We were shortly back on the bus and on our way to the Caves Branch Archaeological Reserve to start the cave tubing portion of our tour. Once we arrived at the reserve we were given yellow tubes and were guided through the rainforest. This part of the tour requires some walking (maybe about 2 miles), the guide also showed us some local medicinal trees and plants - this is where I ate termites! The guide showed us a termite nest on a tree, pointed out how you can eat them if you're lost in the jungle, he ate them to show us how it was done, and so did I.

medicinal plants

they taste a little minty

After eating the termites and assuring my family that I wasn't going to die from eating bugs off a tree, we crossed two sections of the river (not deep, maybe ankle or calf high) and finally made it to the caves. The water was very clear, beautiful, and VERY REFRESHING (a.k.a cold). We were given head lights and were guided into the caves - once you get over how "refreshing" the water is the tubing is very fun and relaxing. The headlights help you see inside the caves and the guides are happy to point out different sections of the caves. This jungle and cave tour with Cave-tubing.com was a great experience and a lot of fun.

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river crossing

going into the caves

out of the caves

Day in Cozumel, Mexico

After what seemed like an endless countdown, our much awaited vacation day finally arrived. After packing too many suit cases and family members in the car, we headed to our cruise. 

Carnival Liberty

Ports of call: Cozumel,Mexico; Isla Roatan, Honduras; Belize, and Grand Cayman.

Puerta Maya port

After settling in and having a nice day at sea, we arrived in Cozumel around 7-8:00 AM. The Cozumel port is very nice, has plenty of shopping, and most importantly, there are cabs readily available at all times. After making taxi arrangements and looking at some of the local maps, we reserved two small buses for our 13+ group and decided to go to the beach.



After a short ride we arrived at Mr. Sancho's beach. This beach was recommended by our driver as the nicest public beach in the area where we didn't have to pay a cover or buy minimum drinks. The common area surrounding the beach is very nice. There are places to shop and buy local arts and crafts, a pool with built-in bar, and a small area for horseback riding. The beach also has a restaurant that serves local food as well as drinks. The prices are very reasonable and the food is wonderful.

There's also plenty to do on the beach. There are kayaks and water bicycles for rent and an area with rock climbing floats in the water and trampolines. We had a great time at this beach. Our day was very relaxing, we had great food and would visit again.

local musicians at the port

shopping at the port

pool with built-in bar

shops in common area

horseback riding

kayaks for rent

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On the road again...

I'm back!!!! After just 2 days shy of 5 months, I'm finally back and ready to travel. I'm also happy to report that "the foot", and all it's torn parts, have healed beautifully and we're all ready for our vacation in November (43 days and counting).

Destination: Western Caribbean (Carnival Cruise)
This vacation should be a lot of fun since we've managed to bring along some family and friends and our itinerary also looks great; Mexico, Honduras, and Grand Cayman.
Possible excursions (we haven't made final decisions yet):

Mexico - Mayan Ruins of Tulum (Carnival excursion price is about $90 USD per adult).
Honduras - Dolphin Encounter (Carnival excursion price is about $90 USD per adult).
Belize - Barrier Reef Snorkel (Carnival excursion price is about $50 USD per adult).