Day 3

The main entrance at the hardware store

You can’t believe how hot the sun was again today - 85 degrees and total sunshine.   Both of us tan very easily and again today, we could only stay out on the beach for a couple of hours.

By 1:00 am we were cleaned up and on our way to a neat market towards the center of the city. The market is called La Plaza Del Mercado De Santruce and by day it is a commercial area with the main building being the town’s major fruit and vegetable market. Then at night, the market shuts down and the bars open up with lots of music.

We spent a couple of hours there and I think we found only a couple of people who spoke English. It was fun ordering lunch that then afterwards buying what we would call a fruit smoothie from a stand that we communicated by pointing.


Lunch

Then we walked back to the hotel, rested and then out to a local restaurant.

Next it was the casino where Barb did well and Ed didn’t but we had lots of fun.

Live music in the lounge finished our evening and it was back up to the room to finish packing because tomorrow we board the ship.

Puerto Rico and the Marriott are great places to visit and stay at and we really enjoyed our time here. Our casino host Jose was again very special. The people are really friendly and very hospitable. All in all a great stay.

Tomorrow – the ship!!



After lunch drink of ?



Day 2



A cruise ship entering port - as seen from our balcony

We awoke to find the sky totally blue and the air hot. We sat on the beach in 85 degree, perfect weather until Noon and then felt that we had enough sun so we came in, changed and went into Old San Juan.

We saw a restaurant reviewed on the Travel Channel called Café Mallorca and so we had our cab driver take us there. They are only open for breakfast and lunch and we had tried to go there in January but they were closed before we got there.

I think that we were the only customers from outside San Juan who were there. We ordered their special, a Mallorca sandwich. It consisted of thin sweet bread grilled with ham and cheese and sprinkled with powered sugar – that’s right, powered sugar. What a sandwich!!

Barb eating a Mallorca sandwchi

After lunch, we took a walking tour to the “best” local craft stores. It was fun walking the same streets that we have been on before but finding stores that we had never noticed.
Then it was time to go back to the hotel and have dinner in the Executive Lounge again. The free food is not out in the evening on Friday and Saturdays so we will find a local restaurant to go to tomorrow.

Then it was on to the casino where we played the rest of the evening. Barb was down a little and Ed broke even – so the night was fun.

We are tired from a full day of relaxation so night for tonight to all.

The pool and beach from our balcony

Spring 2011 – Day 1



On the west balcony

After seeing our Grandson Jacob play his last high school basketball game for this year, we had a few hours sleep and then it was up and out in the dark to the airport for our flight to Porto Rico.

The flights were uneventful and we landed in San Juan about 45 minutes ahead of schedule.  It was 87 degrees out under clear skies when we arrived - how can it get any better??

A quick cab ride and we were at the hotel, checked right in and took the elevator to the 19th floor to get to our room.

As you can see from the picture, the room is a corner room overlooking the ocean to the north and Old San Juan to the west – what a view. It is the same room that we have had the last three times.

Inside our room

One balcony is about 30’ long and the other balcony is about 15’ long. After unpacking, we headed to the Executive Lounge for snacks that turned out to be our dinner. This lounge is one of the best of any Marriott and we filled up on a variety of food.

Then it was off to the beach for a walk along the ocean. About a mile away is another Marriott so we walked through it, stopped at their casino and then headed back by the street to our hotel.



Dinner on the balcony of the Executive Lounge

We changed clothes and went down to the casino to meet our host, Jose and set up our line of credit. Jose is really, really nice and after chatting we played for just a little while.

We headed back to the room early to get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow the real vacation of sun and fun begins.

Night from San Juan 







The view from our balcony



Our Spring 2011 Trip

The map of the trip

Tomorrow morning we head to the airport to catch a 6:30 am flight to San Juan.  Then we have 3 nights to once again enjoy the sights, sounds and sun of San Juan.  We are staying at the Marriott on the beach and we are looking forward to seeing old friends in the casino.

Then it is on to the Celebrity Summit on Saturday for a 7 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise from March 5, 2011 to March 12, 2011

Here is our itinerary:

Departs: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Sat, Mar 5 San Juan, Puerto Rico Depart 8:30 PM

Sun, Mar 6 St. Croix, U.S.V.I. Docked Arrive 8:00 AM Depart 5:30 PM

Mon, Mar 7 Basseterre, St. Kitts Docked Arrive 8:00 AM Depart 5:00 PM

Tue, Mar 8 Roseau, Dominica Docked Arrive 8:00 AM Depart 5:00 PM

Wed, Mar 9 St. George's, Grenada Docked Arrive 8:00 AM Depart 5:00 PM

Thu, Mar 10 Scarborough, Tobago Docked Arrive 8:00 AM Depart 5:00 PM

Fri, Mar 11 At Sea

Sat, Mar 12 San Juan, Puerto Rico Arrive 6:00 AM

We leave San Juan at 5:30pm on Air Tran on Saturday afternoon and will arrive home at 11:41pm

Chicago – February, 2011 - Barb's Birthday Present Weekend



Part of our room

This was our trip to celebrate Barb’s birthday and we picked the first weekend in a long time that the weather was at least manageable. There was still a lot of snow, but at least the temperature was not below freezing.
We started Friday with lunch in the suburbs with our friends Dale and Judy Hammersmith at a California Pizza Kitchen and spent a couple of hours with them catching up on each others lives.

Then it was downtown to check into a new hotel for us, the Springhill Suites located at 410 North Dearborn, in River North a couple of block north of the Chicago River. We switched to this hotel because we had been dissatisfied with the Courtyard that we had been staying in.

Wow – did we ever make the right decision. Not only was the room much better, the service and breakfast beat out the Courtyard without any question and we had a great stay. They upgraded us to a corner room on the 26th floor so we had wonderful views.

Ready to go out for the night



Friday night we went to see the musical, The Million Dollar Quartet. This is the story of the only day, December 4, 1956, that Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins were ever together in one place. It was a day at Sun Records and it was a fun show.

On Saturday morning, we took a two hour walking tour of the historic downtown to discuss and view the rise of the skyscraper led by a guide from the Chicago Architecture Foundation. It was fun to walk about the downtown and see buildings that we had seen before but had not known their history.



Inside the Rookery

Then it was a quick lunch and a cab ride to the giant Chicago Auto Show where we fell in love with several new cars – will we buy one – probably not, but it was fun to see all of the new models.

For dinner we met Mike and Sue Stypolkowski celebrating their first week of marriage at Bergoffs and spent a couple of hours with them before each headed for shows for the evening.

We went to see the new show Burn The Floor and oh my was it fantastic. This is the type of dancing as seen on “Dancing With The Stars” and wow could those dancers move. We had 3rd row center seats so we could really see the dancers up close. A wonderful show and would see it again when it comes close to Bloomington.

Sunday morning we simply checked out and headed for home to take down most of the Christmas decorations that were still up inside.

All-in-all, a fun weekend to celebrate Barb’s birthday.

Barb’s Christmas Present weekend in Chicago




The view from our room

Ed had given Barb tickets to the Bulls game for Saturday night, January 22 so we made a long weekend of it.

First we met our friends Judy and Dale in Aurora for a long lunch and then headed for downtown Chicago to check into the Michigan Avenue Marriott Courtyard.


As they have in the past, they upgraded us to a corner room and it was on the top floor, floor 24. What a great view of the lake frozen over.



Lunch at Bergoffs

 First we went around the corner to the Apple store and talked to them about a question that Ed had with his new iPad. Then we walked up to Water Tower and the Hot Tix booth but didn’t see anything that we wanted to see that night, so we had a sandwich in Water Tower and headed back to the hotel for an early evening. It was much too cold to walk around Michigan Avenue as we usually do.



Saturday morning we had a 2 ½ hour tour of two city theaters, the Cadilac Palace and the Bank of America, which was the Shubert Theater. What fun it was hearing about the history of these two great theaters.


Barb ready for the Bull's game

Lunch was at the Bergoff's on Adams. This is one of the oldest restaurants in the City of Chicago and a long time favorite of both of us.

Then we took a cab to Holy Name Cathedral to see it and it is very impressive as to how they have restored it after the major fire that they had.

We spent the rest of the day looking at coats for Barb and Ed but found nothing and then it was time to go to the Bulls game.



We drove out to Billy Goat’s Tavern to have their famous Cheese Burgers before heading over to the game.


We got to the game early so it was fun watching everyone warm up. The game should have been a blow-out but Cleveland kept it close in the last quarter before the Bulls got serious and won by about 12 points.

At the game

 We awoke on Sunday morning to a beautiful cold day. But at least the sun was shining and the entire city seemed ready for the Green Bay game, it was too bad they lost.

We met our friends Mike and Sue at the Trump Towers for brunch and spent the next 3 hours eating and catching each other up on our recent cruises. They left Ft. Lauderdale on a cruise ship the same day we arrived on our trip, so it was fun just sitting and talking about things we did. We also talked about their upcoming wedding - what a special day that will be!!

We left the city at 2:30pm and drove home to watch a disappointing football game with the Bears losing to Green Bay. But all-in-all it was a fun weekend in Chicago.

Lunch at Trump Towers

Day 11

Entering port with 4 cruise ships docked ahead of us

We were on the sea when we awoke and it was not very nice but warmed up nicely by 9am.


First we went to the photo department and picked up our pictures from last night. Then it was time to lie out. The weather was wonderful and everyone was waiting for the ship to dock in Nassau, which it did at Noon. As we have been here a number of times we stayed on the ship and ate lunch on the deck.

Finally at 1:30pm we went in and changed to into town. The major thing that we wanted to do was to go to the straw market because it is huge. Of course, Barb bought a purse!!

Then it was back to the ship to pack our luggage to be picked up in the evening.

After a short nap, we went out on the Promenade deck to have our picture taken and watch people.

Dinner was very good but of course a little sad as we have made some great new friends. Hopefully we will meet up with them on a future cruise.

Barb entering the straw market

We skipped the show and went to the casino where Ed had a great run and we left the casino at midnight to get some sleep before the trip tomorrow.

What a fun trip it was and prefect timing to get away after a very busy and wonderful holiday season. We have no idea what the weather is or has been at home because we do not watch TV or read newspapers when we are away – we will find out soon enough.

And everyone who is a part of our lives back home, thanks for taking care of everything for us while we are gone – without you, we could not be gone – we are truly blessed and thankful.

Thanks for following our trip with us – it has been fun.

Barb and Ed

Our final towel figure