One huge difference between this cruise and our last trip to the Caribbean is the lack of anyone under about 50, let alone anyone under 21. Our trip out of Puerto Rico in 2011 was brimming with kids and families. We finally spotted a child when we were eating our wonderful dinner after our first full day aboard. She was out on the deck but she was an actual child. We have subsequently spotted two more small children but no teenagers. I guess they’re all in school. It certainly makes for more calm around the pool and buffet areas!

-T

How can I not write about our first meal on board? It was delicious. We were both exhausted, but some things are so important that they cannot be shirked.

I had a wonderful lobster and scallop pate followed by cream of porcini soup. My main course was a wonderful slab (no, that’s not what they called in on the menu) of prime rib with horseradish and a baked potato. Mike had barramundai picata, which was a type of fish we have never had. It was all very delicious.

-T

We slept the sleep of the dead, but eventually woke up feeling a heck of a lot better.  A major project today was locating all the restaurants on board and reading their menus.  It looks like we are going to treat ourselves to an upgrade to the Italian restaurant tonight, Sabatinis, so Tami can have the “Lobster Three Ways”, lobster being one of her all time favorite foods.  Tami also attended an astronomy lecture, while I played speed soduko.  Let’s just say I was not speedy.

-M

Disneyland lines

We managed to hit the cruise terminal along with the majority of the other passengers, so we experienced the full delight of snaking through winding Disneyland-style lines to make our way to the ship. The line started outside the building and when we finally made it into the building we were delighted with our progress. Being Seattleites, we were of course already wilting from the sun and the 75̊ weather. As we made our way into the large warehouse room full of snaking lines, we could feel the anticipation that soon we would be on the ship. We finally made our way to the front of the line, passed through the security screening, and on through the curtain… to another large warehouse of cruisers in lines that wound all over the room.

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Lunch at the Airport

It was quite a production getting ourselves to Florida to embark on our ship, the Emerald Princess. We left the house on foot at 7 pm on Wednesday night and walked up to the bus stop, hauling our heavily laden bags. Caught the bus downtown and transferred to the light rail in Westlake, which took us to SeaTac. At least at that hour, security was a breeze! We took the red-eye through Detroit to Fort Lauderdale and then caught the bus to the cruise terminal. We left dark, wet grey Seattle skies with distant thunder and landed in Florida to bright sunshine and 75̊ weather. Yes!

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As we research our various stops, we have started figuring out what we will most likely do in each port. When we get to France, we plan to take a bus from Le Havre to a nearby fishing town, Honfleur, that looks like a much more interesting place to spend the day. This recently led to the realization that I may actually have to use some of the French that I learned way back in high school. Sacré bleu!
As I mentally tried to at least run through the numbers from 1 to 100, useful for discussing everything from prices to bus routes to bus schedules, I realized that there are a few critical brain cells that are either missing or seriously malfunctioning. I need to do some intense refreshing of my basic vocabulary, so I am looking forward to running through some French with Keenan this weekend. I just have to make sure he does not try to sneak in some Swedish instead!

-TL

Not related to the trip, but a great 1-0 Sounders victory this afternoon over the Colorado Rockies!  The guy who broke Zakuani’s leg two seasons ago got booed every time he touched the ball.  Seattle will remember that for a very long time.

With the trip just a week and a half off, it is starting to feel close.  Today we talked about our biggest goals for our stops in Great Britain.  We agreed on some good fish and chips, a traditional pub, and searching a bookstore for some new British authors.

For France, the goal is a really good croissant.

Tami also says for ANYWHERE, if we can find a soccer game it would be perfect, but if not, at least a good soccer jersey would be great.  A Reykjavik team jersey would be pretty awesome!

MF

One of our stops on our upcoming cruise is in Falmouth, England, which is in Cornwall. I have always wanted to see that part of England and never have, even when we lived in England. I learned this morning that there’s a new sense of urgency for us to get there as soon as possible, and I sure hope we’re in time. I just read articles in the Seattle Times and The New York Times that the ruling Conservative party in Britain is proposing to expand the 20% VAT to pasties, sausage rolls, and meat pies in the new budget. I’m gobsmacked! The tax goes into effect immediately after a “comment period”. Let’s hope there are lots of comments. This is being called “pasty-gate” in Britain and is very controversial. I just want to eat a reasonably-priced Cornish Pasty when we get there.

TL

Tired of work. The nest is empty. Mom continues to decline, just like our house. We need to get away.

Where do two restless foodies with more wanderlust than money go? Jump on the cheap discounted cruise offer that came across our kitchen table last summer! When you sign up for a trip like this it always seems so far off in the distant future, but here we are, four weeks exactly from our sailing date.

Sailing across the Atlantic on a cruise ship has always been one of those romantic dreams that Tami has entertained, perhaps inspired by the endless stream of British murder mysteries that she voraciously consumes.

In April we depart on a cruise that takes us from Fort Lauderdale across the Atlantic to several ports in Europe. We then tack on a few days in Copenhagen and finish with a few days in Reykjavik, taking advantage of IcelandAir’s policy to offer free layovers. We plan to post periodic updates on both our planning and the trip itself. This is my test drive of how to do this– just wait until you see what comes once we get the hang of this!

TL

Here we go. Mike just set us up with a new website to share some of our travel adventures and he let me drive first! Of course I usually do the driving and Mike navigates, so why change now?

Mike just said that WordPress allows “someone like me” to make a website! I’m not going to dwell on what “someone like me” means exactly, but I will just say that this is fun and we are going to impose our trip shenanigans on unsuspecting friends and relatives via this website. So hold on tight and join us on our travels if you dare. First up: our transatlantic voyage (Viennese waltz plays in background).

TL