2015 Dec 06 & 07 - First 2 full days on the water going to Aruba

I slept in on Sunday morning while Marsha went to breakfast. I finally got out of the sack about 10:30 and went to breakfast at about 11:30. Marsha went with me and had lunch. As we left the buffet, we noticed the Norwegian Escape cruising along side us. It looked like it was about two miles away, but I'm no judge of distance over water.

After breakfast/lunch we explored the ship a little, then went back to the cabin (stateroom) for a while. At 3:00, we went to happy hour at the Wheelhouse bar. They had "buy one, get one for a dollar" for an actual hour! Back in the room, we were gradually getting ready for dinner when we noticed some kind of land mass through the distant fog. We checked the ship's location on the map on TV and found that we were running along the coast of Cuba. Cool!

After dinner, we went shopping for a cork screw so we can open wine in our room. Now, as I type this, the ship's evening movie is on TV. It's Trainwreck. I'm hearing a whole bunch of profanity and sexual sounds, so I think I'll end this now and pick it up again tomorrow evening -- maybe.

On Monday morning, Marsha went to Zumba class while I showered. After locating the laundry room and checking on some other things, we went up on the Lido deck where the pool is, then walked up one more deck and had a burger and a beer for lunch. The ship was rockin' and rollin' so much that the pool water was sloshing out all over the place.

After an afternoon nap, we went to dinner in the Bayou Cafe. Their menu had a Cajun flair and the food was outstanding! By the time we finished dinner, the theater was packed, so we couldn't attend the early show at 8:15, so we went back to the room for a while, then caught the 9:45 show. John Bressler entertained with his excellent piano playing and his witty comedy routine.

Got to get to bed now. We dock in Aruba at 7:00 in the morning.

2015 Dec 03-05 - First 3 days of the Panama Canal Cruise

We left home around noon on Wednesday, 12/3 and drove to St. Louis to stay overnight at a Holiday Inn Express so we could catch our 6:00am flight to Atlanta. We had prearranged dinner with some friends who, coincidently, were staying down the road and flying out the next morning for Jamaica. After a nice BBQ dinner, we turned in early.

I woke up at 2:30am, so we had no trouble being in the lobby at 3:15 to grab some eats and leave for the airport at 4:00. After boarding the plain, we sat at the gate for about 30 minutes waiting for maintenance to sign off on a glitch in the stall warning that the pilot had already solved. Anyway, we pushed back about 35 minute late for the 70 minute flight to Atlanta.

We landed in Atlanta and proceeded to our gate with plenty of time to spare. We left Atlanta at 10:00 and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale 1 hour and 25 minutes later where we caught the shuttle to the La Quinta Inn. After settling in, we walked about 3/4 mile to Sal's Italian Ristorante where we enjoyed some great pizza along with a couple of beers for an early dinner.

From Sal's we walked to about a mile to BJ's Warehouse where we bought a couple of bottles of wine, the limit we were permitted to carry on the ship without a $15 corking fee. On the ship, we talked to a lady who said their party of four was allowed to bring six bottle onboard without a fee. Go figure!

On Saturday morning, we caught La Quinta's shuttle back to the airport to catch Princess Cruise's shuttle to the ship. We were about three hours early for our embarkation time, but we didn't have anything else to do. We boarded the ship around 1:00 and went to our cabin before eating lunch in the buffet. Our luggage arrived at our room about four hours later, soaking wet. Not too much of the contents were wet, so we were OK.

Walked around the ship. Met John & Terisa from British Columbia while standing in line for dinner. Ate dinner with them before walking around the ship and heading for the room.

Since this is my first post from the ship. I don't know how bad the upload speed will be. Internet access cost's a fortune, so if it's real slow, I'll be limiting my posts until we get home,

2015 Nov 19-22 - Work Weekend at Mark's Lake House, Lake of the Ozarks

This year, the weather was cold and windy with some rain mixed in, but Mark, Mike, Kevin and I still managed to get all of the leaves blown into a pile and do a few other chores. We ended up blowing all the leaves into the lake because it was too windy to start a fire.

Overall, it was the same old thing: Drink beer, take a nap, do some chores, drink beer, watch TV, do some chores, drink beer, hit the taverns, drink some beer. You get the idea. Somewhere in there we ate three slabs of ribs that Kevin donated and plenty of other food, too.

It was a good time.