El Portal Hotel San Juan

... will take us 3,000 miles across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands- our first port. It will take the ship 5 days to cross the Atlantic. The ship is the nicest we have ever been on and our cabin is great- quite spacious for a cruise ship and we have a nice private balcony. The ship departed at 5pm yesterday. We met several interesting people last night and ...

Dear Blog,

Today, we got up late. It is departure time for some people and embarkation time for others. As for us, we are staying put. We are here for another week having booked a back to back cruise (Southern and Western Caribbean) on Caribbean Princess. :)

This morning, it gave me time to reflect on my first week on board the Caribbean Princess. So far, it has been everything I dreamed of. Visits to exotic islands ...

... People were standing in lines waiting for embarkation. Imagine, there must have been close to 3,000 people at the pier. After three hours of waiting in line, it was our turn. We got our boarding pass and then proceeded towards the cruise ship. Finally, INSIDE THE SHIP! Hourrah! Unfortunately, by that time it was already dark outside. However, luckily for us, it wasn't raining. During all this time, the Princess Cruise ...

... you all the best of luck in 2009.   Later Days,   Dave    PS.  For the boys in LP, you'll never guess where I found my wallet: the cabbie who drove my family to the airport at 4am the day we left for the BVI was the same guy that brought us home from Spice four days earlier, and so I told the story, and as I was walking through Pearson he came after me and handed off the lost wallet.  I'd say my luck is changing for 2009!

... not too impressed with this part. Don't get me wrong, it was nice, just nothing extraordinary. We decided to go for a great (and pricey) lunch where waiters wore traditional clothing. I think the name was Raices and it was in the middle of Old San Juan. The food was served in high wooden cups which was interesting. The Sangria was simply delicioso. Heading back from Old San Juan we were ready to get on the bus to head for our Night Kayaking Trip. The drive was uneventful and ...

... could do that. She was at a gallery opening, and she wanted to tell everyone about us and what we were doing. I wouldn't have had that experience if I'd gone hiking or something like that, which I was really wondering if I'd missed out on. But for me, I interacted with the locals and really made friends with some of them. It's so cool to me that a group of three girls who were just customers in her store that day became the topic of conversation at ...

... and quickly change. Hey, Globetrotters gotta do what they gotta do . . . Kris is determined to get under that waterfall; but once her body touches the cold of the water she has second thoughts. I know she won't be able to live with herself if she doesn't do it, so I encourage her to suck it up and go for it. Easy for me to say, I'm just knee deep in the icy water. But she does it. Then Michael joins her because he can't resist the ...

... the site of La Tiza, with domestic occupations dating from the Early Horizon 200 BC through the Late Intermediate Period AD 1476. Five sectors correspond to the different periods of occupation. New habitation areas were built adjacent to older ones rather than on top of them. The site was settled from east to west so that the oldest evidence of habitation is found in the eastern portion of the site in Sector I and also in lower elevations of Sector II. Excavations in ...

... showed us around to some of the local spots and we talked to them for awhile about how different their voyage was from ours. Yesterday we just relaxed and went to a beach and hung out. Today I went to El Yunque which is a rainforest on the island and then afterwards I spent the afternoon at the beach. So far this trip has been amazing and we're only at the first port, I can only imagine what the rest of the voyage is going to bring.

My first trip with my husband, Alan ... newlyweds with all the time in the world (in this case 1 week because of our crazy ass jobs). Got married the day before and overnighted close to the airport, flew to Puerto Rico in the early morning, clueless as to how to begin (sort of like a marriage .. you just go until you find your way I guess - hoping to never get lost).

Dropped off at the airport and hailed a ...