Day 8

Today is our second day at sea and again a beautiful day with tempetures in the 80’s and not as windy as yesterday.

We stayed out on the deck until 12:30pm when it was time to meet everyone on the back of the ship for lunch.

We sat with everyone for a couple of hours just talking about our lives and different experiences we have had.

It is so fun enjoying a cruise with couples we have met through the casino – all with different backgrounds and locations which are so very, very different but all with a mutual liking and respect for each other.

Jeff Wurst is a major corporate banqurepcy lawyer with an office in Manhattan and a home close to the UN overlooking the river.  Vera was ones a school teacher.

Tim Freeman is a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force who now has a major job with a very important defense contractor.  They live in Virginia and during the week, Tim flies his plane to Huntsville, Alabama for work and back on the weekend.  They also flew their own plane down to Ft Lauderdale to board the ship.

Neither couple has ever lived in the Midwest so it is an interesting group.

We played a session in the casino during the afternoon and Barb and Ed both lost. 

The show tonight was a magician and he was very good at slight of hand.  I have a couple videos of his performance which I will put on the blob at the very end of our trip.

Tonight, we were guest of the casino at a specialty restaurant called “The Poarch” It is located outside on the top deck and it is mainly a seafood restaurant.   While it is outside, there is glass to keep the wind out.  We had a wonderful meal there.

After dinner we all went to the casino where Barb and Ed both won.

Tomorrow we dock in Cartagena, Columbia and have fun day planned.

It is hot here with the sun almost directly overhead as we are getting close to the equator.

Nite-Nite

                                                                Going out for the afternoon

                                                  Canapies are delivered to our rom each day

                                                            Going out for the evening

                                                        Our group at the black jack table

Day 7

We are on our fist sea day and it is almost cloudless outside.

We spend about 2 ½ hours on the deck in the sun until lunch.

Lunch was with our friends and then afterwards we sat on the back deck talking and catching up.

We then went back on the deck and in the sun for a couple of hours before cleaning up and joining Barb and Tim for an afternoon session in the casino where Barb did not play and Ed won.

Since we had seen the production show in the theater and it wasn’t that good, we played a session in the casino with Barb & Tim and Ed lost

Then it was to the Blu dining room where our dinner was very good.

Then finally we had our last stop in the casino starting at 10:00pm where Barb lost and Ed lost.  We have had two days of terrible cards – hopefully tomorrow will start a better streak!!

Tomorrow is another sea day and probably we will do the same thing we did today and will enjoy every minute of it!!

Nite – on our way to South America and the port town of Cartagena, Columbia

                                                 Time to go out for dinner and the evening

                                                               Ed's salad from Blu

Day 6

 We awoke to find ourselves in Nassau and since we have been to Nassau a number of times including twice recently, we choose to stay on the ship and work on our tan.

After a couple of hours in the sun, it was time for lunch.  We met Barb & Tim and Vera & Jeff on the back of the ship for a couple of hours of eating and catching up. 

It had been since New Years 2020 that we had cruised with Jeff and Vera, just before Barb was in the hospital in Aruba.

After lunch we can back to the cabin and relaxed before getting ready for the evening, which first included music in the Grand Foyer.

After relaxing and walking around the ship, we went to the show for the evening with our 4 friends.

The show was a singer named Amanda Cole who was very good singing a tribute to Whitney Houston.

After the show, we went to Aqua with Barb and Tim for dinner. 

As Jeff and Vera did not upgrade to Aqua, they ate in the main dining room.  We plan to eat in Aqua the next two nights then join Jeff and Vera in their dining room for dinner. 

After that we went to the casino.  It was wonderful having 5 at the black jack tables – our own private game.

For the evening at the casino, Barb lost and Ed also lost. 

Tomorrow is our first of two consecutive sea days.

Nite - Nite

                                                            A ship saling next to us and docking

                                                            Going out for the evening

                    

Day 5

After a quick trip to the airport and then an Uber ride to the terminal we met our friends outside the boarding area at 10:00am.  Soon afterwards we were allowed in and went through security and the “wellness” check-in areas.  Both went smoothly and we had a short wait until we were allowed to board the ship.

The Celebrity Silhouette is one of the larger ships in the Celebrity fleet, but not the largest.  Its capacity is 2,886 and we are sailing with only 1,200 on board.  Masks had not been required for our New Years cruise, then they were required as the virus spread and last week, the mask restrictions were taken off for all guests.  The crew still are required to wear their masks.

As is tradition, we met Barb and Tim on the back of the ship for lunch and catching up.  It is always fun to cruise with them.

Later we went to a casino meet ‘n greet to meet our casino host.  She was a dealer several years ago on our cruise from Dubai to Singapore and is very nice.

The casino manager was the assistant manger on that cruise also.  It is always nice to see people we have sailed with before in the casino.

We then unpacked and got ready for dinner. 

We are in a class called Aqua so there is a small intimate dining room just for the guests in that cabin class.  The next cabin class above Aqua is the suites class and they also have a private dining room, separate from ours.  At a minimum the suites cost a couple of thousand dollars each.    For this cruise, the top suites are about $12,000 and they are full!!

We usually go to the theater production first and then a late dinner; however, there was only 1 show tonight and that was at 9pm so we went to dinner at 7:15.

Dinner was excellent and then we went to the show where a comedian preformed who was outstanding – one of the best we have seen

After the show we went to the casino for our first session where Barb didn’t plan and Ed lost a little.

At about 10:30pm, all of a sudden, we were surprised by our friends from New York, Jeff and Vera who had booked this cruise sometime ago and didn’t tell us – what a great surprise.  Also, that gave us 5 at the table for blackjack.

At busy day and tomorrow Nassau in the Bahamas.

Nite from the Atlantic Ocean.

                                                   Packed and ready to go to the cruise ship

                                                Barb eating desert - now that's amazing!!

                                                     Time to go out for the evening

    

Day 4

It is Sunday and our last day before boarding the Celebrity Silhouette tomorrow morning.

Again, we slept in a little and then drove about 15min to St Matthew’s Church for mass.  It was a neat little church and the service was nice.  They had a singer who was outstanding.

Then we drove to the town of Weston which is right on the edge of the Everglades where we met our friends from Wisconsin, Pam and Eric Degelau and Jeff and Pam Beier. 

Eric was our sponsor for Corvette Adventures who also sold us our yellow Corvette.   Jeff and Pam were lead drivers at Corvette Adventures where they met each other and become life-long friends.  They now live close together and travel a lot together.  Pam and Jeff are retired and Eric and Renee have a very successful real estate business rehabbing homes prior to their selling them.  We are very blessed to have them as friends.  Another wonderful story of friends finding each other at our event – one of many!!

We had a great meal together at Bone Fish Grill.

After we left the group we went to the largest discount mall in southern Florida, Sawgrass Milles to look for a new wardrobe for Barb.  There are tons of suitcases on the market; however, we did not find a wardrobe for Barb as they are apparently are just not making them.  Time to look on Amazon!!

We came back to the hotel with first stopping at a grocery store to buy Ed some A & W Root Beer to take on the cruise.

Dinner was at a little spot on Sunny Isle Beach that served Peruvian food and dinner was wonderful.  Sorry, we did not take pictures of the food but it was a grilled salmon served Peruvian style, including a salad and plantains.

We were in our room by 8:30pm so that we could pack for the cruise tomorrow.

Night for now – next post from the ship

                                                                Going out for lunch

                                                  Choclate Warming Cake - it was sooo good!!

                                            From the left, Jeff, Pam, Ed, Barb, Renee, Eric

                                               A little hole-in-the-wall with outsanding food

Day 3

 For our second day we also woke up late again and finally headed to the beach at 10am.

It was really windy; however, the sand on the beach is coarse enough that it doesn’t blow around much at all.

We left the beach at 12:20pm and went to a Columbian restaurant where we have eaten before.

For lunch we had a Columbian Shrimp Ceviche and it was very good and served with fried plantains – which are a type of banana.

Then we hurried back to our room to watch the Miami – Syracuse basketball game.  It was an exciting game as was the first meeting between the two teams.  In the end and the very last seconds, Miami pulled out a victory.

For dinner, we are meeting our contact in the casino, Reny at a Peruvian Restaurant called Divino Ceviche which was about 45 minutes away.

Reny just came back yesterday from the initial cruise of the Royal Caribbean ship, the Wonder of the Seas, which is now the largest cruise ship in the world. 

It has a capacity of 5,519 passengers which is more than twice the size of the largest Celebrity ship!!  Way too big for us.

It was a fun evening with good company and some great food.

Also, this afternoon we both took our COVID tests and we were both negative – yea!!

That’s all for tonight.

                                                                Going to the beach - 80 degrees!!

                                                    The Shrimp Ceviche and Fried Plantains

                                

                                                                          Dinner

                                                                    Going out for dinner

                                  Main course - 3 kinds of  Ceviche plus 3 kinds of  sauces and fish

                                                                                                                 

                                                            Reny - our casino contact

                                                        Desert - Passion fruit cake

                                                 Some kind of donuts in an amazing sauce

Spring 2022 – Celebrity Silhouette - Day 1 & 2

 Spring 2022 – Celebrity Silhouette

Day 1 & 2

Inspire of having to get up at 3:45am for a 6:00am flight, it was a good trip to Ft. Lauderdale.

We had 2 hours in Atlanta so we made a 1 ½ stop in the Delta lounge for their breakfast and drinks.

The Flight to Ft Lauderdale was right on time and we then picked up our bags and took the shuttle bus to the Enterprise Rental Center. 

They upgraded us to the large 4-door Nissan and it has been a great car.

The Residence Inn that we are staying in is right next one of the nicest malls in South Florida, Aventura Mall and the hotel said there were some good places for lunch.

We went there and found an amazing outdoor food court which was unlike anything we had seen in a mall before.

There were no fast-food or buffet style restaurants.  All of them were sit-down with different themes like Susi, Greek, Peruvian, etc.  They were a little expensive but very good food and service.

Dinner was at one of our favorite restaurants which is right in the center of the Russian and Jewish areas – the town of Sunny Isle Beach.

In the past we have talked about all of the exotic cars we have seen in this area at anytime of the day or night.  This year it is different.  We saw a lot of fancy SUV’s but virtually none of the high-priced sport cars.  The only thing we could figure is that, because of the war in Ukraine, they are “laying low”!!

We very seldom turn on the tv when we are gone; however, we did watch the University of Illinois squeak another win.

We slept in and finally made it to the beach at 1:00pm after first having lunch. 

We stayed on the beach until 3:30pm and then drove back to the hotel and left for dinner at a Greek restaurant that we like in Surfside.

Then we watched the Bulls play before going to bed.

Night from Florida.

                                                        Becker wants to go with us!!

                                                            Relaxing in the Delta Lounge in Atlanta

                                                            Salmon Tar Tar - it was very good!

                                                                Salmon for dinner

                                                              Day 2 - Going to Haulover beach

                                                    Moroccan Salmon Wrap with Pita Bread

                                         In the parking lot at the beach - appears to be original!!

                                              Branzino at our favorite Greek Restaurant in Surfside

                                                            Moon over Miami Beach

                                                    Tiramisu from a European market