The Cruise - "Best Of"

In the years ahead when I think back to our 2016 family cruise, what I will remember the most will be the good times hanging at the pool with our unlimited drinks

and the enjoyment that Bruce's cigars brought to everyone.

We had fun buying them in South Beach 

and didn't realize what a hit they would be on the cruise.

Even strangers would approach and want to check out Bruce's cigars. (or maybe they just envied our fun)

Our "beverage package" on the cruise allowed us 15 drinks per day which none of us ever got close to but we all sure had fun trying!   All the ports were very hot and humid so it was hard to leave the pool (and the drinks). I could totally relate to Grandpa not getting off the ship, I sort of felt the same way on this cruise.

When it's hot and humid, your clothes are constantly sticking to you.  You have to literally peel them off to change your clothes.  Your swimsuit is really the only comfortable piece of clothing in this case.  Along with a slushy, cold drink.

It took us several days before we started learning how to properly use this beverage package.  The beverage servers would give us advise, like to ask for a double of the premium brand of alcohol.  This would count as two drinks, but who cares?  My favorite was soon fruit daiquiri's with double Meyer's Rum.  

I also liked the banana daiquiris

and the blue curaçao pina coladas since Curacao was one of our ports.

Bruce liked the Mai Tai's and I also like the Mojitos since we were so close to Cuba.  

They had a featured drink-of-the-day such as a Raspberry Sea Breeze.  How could one resist?  

Sometimes a basic Margarita sounded pretty good, too.

There was a Mexican food bar set up daily so we could have Mexican food whenever we wanted which was the first time I've seen this on a cruise.  I loved making a taco salad.

The food was the healthiest I've seen on a cruise because they served most of the food in small portions.  There were no trays in the Lido Deck buffet.  You had to help yourself to the many small, individual dishes of pre-portioned food.  

There were servers behind the counter who would serve you the hot food so most of it you could not pile on yourself. Even the salad bar had servers fixing your bowl of salad as you instructed them what to put in it.  If you still insisted on overeating on the cruise, it was still possible by taking multiple small dish items.  

We ate in the dining room for most of our meals because Grandpa could not navigate the Lido deck buffet with his cane and try to carry all those small dishes.  Here are some of my "Best Of's":

Spaghetti from the special Italian Restaurant on the ship where we ate one evening.

Pasta always tastes so good when you're traveling.  And I always love the bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

The tiramisu was one of the best desserts of the trip.

My other favorite dessert was the Baked Alaska which I had twice.

One night the chef made rhubarb crisp just for our table because we had missed it the night before when we ate in the Pinnacle Dining Room, another special restaurant.  It happened to be Bruce's sister's favorite dessert so he made one especially for us.

My favorite main dish was the lamb which I had twice.   

And another was the pork chop

the Beef Wellington

and, of coarse, the Surf and Turf.

You will not go hungry on a cruise, as everyone knows.  The food on this cruise was not over the top; no midnight buffet, no over-abundance of desserts (they still had the ice cream bar) and the buffet was pretty civilized with small portions.  I was impressed.  Our ports included  a stop at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas, which was my favorite.

It was a beautiful beach

with perfect water.

We've been there before and will always enjoy going back to enjoy a day at the beach.  Our second stop was Aruba where we were for New Year's Eve cruise 2008.  It was a hot and humid stop.  We walked around town a bit but soon headed back to the ship.

Our third stop was Curacao

where we've been before and really enjoy the quaint, colorful town.  But again, too hot and humid this time to enjoy it much.  I needed to get back to my Blue Curacao drink...

 Our fourth stop was the Panama Canal.

We got up at 5:30 a.m. to watch the ship start going through the locks.  

They opened up several decks at the front of the ship for all of us to watch and had a historian on board explaining everything that we were seeing.

We had been to a couple presentations on the Panama Canal so were well briefed on how it works and the history of it - all which is very fascinating.

On this particular day, it was too hot for me and I did not even get off the ship.  This is truly jungle country. 

You can see a lot from the ship without the worries of mosquitoes or dehydration.  On this cruise, we applied insect repellent liberally when we got off at ports because we were close to areas where there were mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus. 

The canal is a busy place with ships anchored out in the bay waiting to pass through, like a parking lot.

Our final stop was Costa Rica; again, very hot and humid and jungle everywhere.  This is where they filmed Jurassic Park and it looked just like the movie. 

There is no denying that it is a beautiful place.

We took a jungle cruise that reminded me of the ride at Disneyland

or maybe the movie Bridge Over the River Kawaii.

Anyway, it was very primitive and very much like a jungle!

Our guides were exceptional at spotting natural habitat in this jungle.  They really had an eye for seeing the tiniest living creatures like this common Costa Rica reptile called a  Basilisk.  We saw several of these.  

  My favorite was when they spotted a sloth.

We saw a couple others hanging in trees sleeping during the jungle cruise. They are nocturnal animals so will always be sleeping during the day. 

We also saw monkeys high in the trees which was also a thrill.

Bruce saw monkeys in Panama (the port that I stayed on the ship) when he took a "Monkey Tour" with his two sisters.   These monkeys came right up to their boat to be fed and were pretty tame for wild monkeys. 

Back on our jungle cruise we saw some not so lovely creatures like bats

lots of termite nests in the trees

and a poisonous frog.

Costa Rica is a bird watchers paradise since they have more species of birds here than in both the United States and Canada combined.  We saw some herons on our jungle cruise    

including a Tiger Heron perched in a tree.

Away from the jungle cruise, we saw iguanas in Aruba just running around which is common there.

This was a good cruise to go on to see lots of interesting wildlife up close.  It was a good cruise for many reasons, actually.  It will go down in the record books as one of the "Best Of" family cruises that we've been on.  Once again, thank you, Grandpa.