Spring Travel

Gosh, there has been a lot of time “in between” blog posts. It’s been since early May when I last posted on this blog. My blog friend Carole Carter wrote about “Quilting and Blogging” this past week and I am always amazed that she can keep up with posting 3 times a week with her busy life. She inspired me to get on with it! I’ve been writing blog posts since 2013, and have 474 wonderful people who follow my blog. Heaven knows why they stick around, especially this year, with only 10 blog posts (including this one!). In my busiest blogging year (2016) I wrote 82 posts. So, let me “get on with it” as they say~!!~

May was an interesting Month. The weekend after Mother’s day, the Hubby and I flew to Florida and went on a 7 day cruise onboard the Caribbean Princess. I booked the cruise because it went to San Juan Puerto Rico and I could get an AFT WAKE VIEW balcony cabin. This was my 22nd cruise with Princess, and my favorite cabin of all times.

Lately when I have cruised, I have starting posting “cabin tours” on You Tube, and I did that for this cabin as well. Hubby and I spent a lot of time just sitting and enjoying the views. Be sure to “like & subscribe” if you enjoyed the video and help my You Tube channel grow a bit.

We did lots of eating ……

Steak and Lobster at the Crowne Grill the first night

and a bit of drinking

Chocolate martini and rum & coke – First drinks on the cruise

and spent time on the beach

Princess Cay in the Bahamas

and wandering around the ports,

San Juan Puerto Rico

and of course, a little time at the pool too.

My hubby is ambivalent about cruising, but knows how much I enjoy it, so he does his best to keep up with me, and plays along, pretending to have fun. He’s not a fan of heat and humidity, so he had to do a lot of “playing along” on this trip. It was mid-May and HOT HOT HOT and humid. But that pool, and the wake view helped a lot. I was pleasantly surprised he would hang out all day, in a lounger by the pool, but then again, we were in the shade, and there was a great breeze. Besides…you could order food and drinks and they delivered right to your lounge chairs.

When you are in the cabin, you could order on the app on the television as well. There are lots of choices for included food, and no extra charge for delivery. You can see the “status’ of the order on the screen as well, while you wait on delivery. In all it is very efficient.

Ahh…room service

With our great balcony, it was easy to avoid feeling crowded when the pool decks were busy.

Enjoying the aft balcony C753 Caribbean Princess

Man do I love to cruise. This was the very “pretty” side of cruising.

In all fairness, I have to talk about the “not so fun” part of travel right now. We were flying out of BWI (Baltimore International) on a direct flight, non stop to Fort Lauderdale. Our 2 hour 39 minute flight was to arrive at 1105 pm. We got to our hotel about 1:30 am. Our flight was an 1 1/2 hours late leaving, and watched out the window as the sole baggage handler loaded all the bags for the flight, in the rain. Our flight was full, and I was stunned that there was just one ground handler for the baggage. As you watch the news in June, this problem became more and more evident for travelers. I felt sorry for the guy, and a bit frustrated as well.

I was ever so grateful that MOST of my packing cubes were vinyl. Those ones with the mesh bags were tucked in between others, and not a lot was damp. I did “unpack” the cubes from the suitcases at the hotel, and leave our suitcases open and standing upright in hopes of drying them out. In the morning, the cubes went back in, and when we boarded the ship, the luggage came fairly quickly. We unpacked, and again, stood our suitcases upright and unzipped to air and thoroughly dry. We were glad of our early boarding time and quick luggage handling at the cruise port.

Another side of the “not so fun” part of travel is apparent in food service facilities in the airports. We had a lot of time on our hands leaving Ft Lauderdale, and had an early dinner in a restaurant in the airport. We were eating about 4 pm, and I felt so sorry for our waitress who was clearly over stressed. When she dropped things in a big way, twice, I seriously thought she was going to just walk off the job. She hung in there, with no help with the cleanup. After our meal and departure, I went back to the restaurant to speak to the manager. I wanted the manager to know that in spite of being over worked, the waitress was amazing, and kept a smile on her face. I was distressed that the other employees didn’t help her the second time she dropped something, and the food & plates sat on the floor for about 15 minutes. (The people for the order got mad and stormed out). The waitress, expecting help for the cleanup never got any help, and she was running drinks and meals to others. When she finally got a moment she cleaned up the floor, on her hands and knees. It dismayed me to see that she had no back up or help when she was clearly over worked. Of course, the manager was thinking I wanted my meal discounted or something, and I explained, that no, I didn’t. What I wanted of the manager was to take a hard look at her crew and maybe come out of the back and be aware of what was happening. It was clear that she was totally unaware. This is just one small example of good people, working hard, yet overlooked by supervisors and managers. We never saw the manager during the hour that we were in the restaurant.

Lastly, the worst part of travel is being packed in like sardines on flights. Both of our flights were full, but I guess we are lucky to have had seats, and no cancellations. We were unlucky in that a couple of days after the flight home my hubby tested positive for C-19, and then towards the end of the week, I did too. We are fairly confident that we did not get C-19 on the ship, as we avoided the elevators, and big crowds, eating dinner as a couple, not at a large table, and not going to venues that were crowded. Thanks to our vaccinations, and our doctor being willing to prescribe PAXLOVID, neither of us were much more than annoyed with cold symptoms. Of course, being stuck at home meant the suitcases got unpacked and the laundry got done quickly following the trip, and before long we were out and about busy again.

Summer is fully on here in Delaware. Sunday’s mean the grandkids and their parents are here for swimming and dinner. This is my favorite time of year. Not a lot happening in the sewing room, but next post I will have a couple of small projects to share.

What are your summer travel plans? If you are flying, I wish you luck. Things are a real mess at the moment.

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