Vacation Blog Part VI: Catching up on two incredible days

So here we have it, it's Tuesday and we are headed to the Grand Floridian Hotel. We are expecting this to be the highlight of a trip filled with highlights.

We arrive well before normal check-in time as our plan is to spend the day at one of the pools before our much-anticipated dinner at Victoria & Albert's. We are greeted by a gentlemen who takes us up to the concierge level and does all the check-in arrangements on an Ipad while we sit and relax. He gives us our MagicBands, which will act as our room key and we can also charge everything we buy at any Disney property directly to the credit card on file just by tapping the band; and not just for the duration of our stay in the hotel - for the duration of our trip here. Our Fastpasses are saved here too, so this is basically the only thing we really need to take into the parks. What a great system.

OK but here is one system that is NOT great; they will text you when your room is ready. Seems simple, right? Problem is it just never works. Not here, not at the Grand Californian.... it just doesn't work for Canadian numbers even though they swear it should. Anyway, no huge deal, since I'm aware it's not going to work I just check in every once in a while to see if our room is ready. It doesn't really matter much since we are going to the pool.

And what a pool. Lots of comfortable chairs, a huge pool, huge hot tub (I'm going to try to resist going on a rant about the temperature of the hot tub though...because it is filled with toddlers, and if a hot tub is a comfortable temperature for toddlers, it's not hot enough!!), and a restaurant/bar. Everything you need for a lovely day at the pool.

Tracey loves the sun, and I do not. Generally an hour at a pool is about all I can stand. Today is an exception though, it's just so damn nice and the weather is as close to perfect as it could be. Literally not a cloud in the sky. Hot but not humid, and the pool is the perfect temperature. Tracey is in Heaven.

3:00 PM - It's check-in time so our room is pretty likely ready, so I head to the front desk to find out. Yes it is ready, the cast member tells me as he seems to get very excited to tell me where our room is. I paid for a small upgrade; for a view. Nothing much, there were lots of more expensive rooms. He goes on to tell me we have a very special view and our room is in a "secret" hallway. We are on the 2nd floor but you can't get there from the 2nd floor, you have to go up to 3 and take a hidden hallway down to another elevator to get to our room. The bellman gets our bags and while he is showing me to the room, tells me that this is how they get VIP's in and out of the building without being seen. LOL. In fact, it turns out that there is a certain SNL-Sarah Palin impersonator in the hotel right now. We didn't run into her.

We get the bags into the room and I can't believe the view. Here it is.

So yeah, that's Cinderella's castle in the background.

I go back to the pool to tell Tracey about the view and she is giddy. We are going to be able to watch the fireworks from our room after dinner tonight.

4:30 PM - Up in the room and "The Process (TM)" is well underway for dinner. I realize that I left most of my suit hanging in the back seat of the car like a moron. I have to call down and get someone to go to my car, which is in valet, and get it for me.

There seems to be ONE problem with this day, and it's that I seem to be getting a cold. You may remember I mentioned that I started the vacation with a cold; well, that one wasn't even totally gone yet. Can you even GET a cold on top of a cold?? Is it like stacking wilds on a slot machine in Vegas?!?!?

Thankfully we had some nose spray that I can use to keep my sinuses clear so that I can enjoy the food and wine at dinner. Hopefully things don't get any worse.

6:00 PM - We arrive at Victoria & Albert's. Stunning as we remember it is. We have "upgraded" this time from the regular dining room to the Queen Victoria room, which contains only 4 tables. We have two waiters designated for us all evening. It's quite an experience as we knew it would be.

I will do a full food/wine post on everything we enjoyed here later but for now, just a few pics from the evening:

And just one more:

That's the butter. The BUTTER, made into the shape of a chef's hat. Those are the kinds of details this restaurant goes into.

10:00 PM - Four hours after dinner began we are back in the room just in time to see the start of the fireworks show. We have the perfect view. We are too far away to hear the audio accompanying it of course (the park is all the way across a huge lake), but it's still a nice treat.

Tracey (who I may have to start referring to as a mermaid given how much time she spends in the water) is off to another long bath in the huge jet tub we have and I am exhausted and going to bed. I'm out like a light before she is done her bath.

Tomorrow: more Grand Floridian fun, and the Magic Kingdom.

Vacation Blog VI: Post Wrestlemania Hangover of sorts......and the world's worst golf

8:14 AM - Not a legitimate hangover or anything, but why am I up so damn early? I probably didn't get to sleep until around 2 AM. Oh I long for the days before my sleep-in mojo left me so abruptly.

I suspect about 75% of you just said something to the effect of "he just got off an amazing one week Caribbean cruise and now he's in Disneyworld, and he's complaining about only getting 6 hours sleep? What an asshole".

Fair point.

I head out to our patio to sit and enjoy the morning while Tracey sleeps. As I mentioned previously, we back right onto the golf course, so in the hour or so I am sitting out there I get to witness the worst golf in the history of mankind. Seriously, some of these people must think that because they are staying at a resort with a golf course that they are contractually required to play. Most of them look like they have never played in their lives. I cannot think of any other rational explanation.

One old guy duffs the ball to within about 30 feet of me and then proceeds to hit it 6 more inches (at which point his obviously very helpful cart-mate says "Five!"). He then hits it again and again (SIX! SEVEN!) and again until he finally makes some contact and deposits it right into the lake. It was honestly hard not to laugh out loud.

In the time I spent out there I must have seen, no exaggeration, 40 balls plunked into the lake. And it's a very small lake. And it's not that close to the green; in other words, it's really not even in play. But these chowderheads have ALL found a way to put it in play.

Old Bertha walks up to her pretty pink ball, sitting in the middle of the fairway and has so much confidence she is going to put it into the water that she takes her special pink ball and changes it out for a white one.

And old Bertha was right. Ker-plunk.

First time in my life I ever considered re-selling lost golf balls as a legitimate career.

TWO more balls into the lake in the time it took me to type that last sentence. Tracey just got up and came out here to join me and has seen three balls into the water in the 2 minutes she's been out here. Unreal.

Maybe they don't understand how the game is supposed to work?? The ball goes in the hole, not into the lake, dumbass.

Very people-friendly wildlife out here as well. Squirrels are all over the place. You know, cousin Eddie used to eat these things until he found out they were high in cholesterol.

Also some beautiful birds hanging around and a wild rabbit came closer to me than I've ever seen before. Rabbits are usually so skittish around people.

Ker-plunk. Again.

Two squirrels seem to be actually playing with each other, I've never seen that before. Or maybe they are fighting.

Oh hang on, they are doing something completely different. Oh Jesus. That was disturbing.

Lady just walked up and put the ball OVER the water, and literally yelled "woo-hoo!!!!!". You would think they were trying to hit the ball over Lake Ontario. It's about 11 yards wide at it's widest point. At it's narrowest point, I could jump over it.

11:00 AM - Tracey made some wonderful bacon and eggs for breakfast and we decided to relax for a little while and then hit the pool for some unscheduled and unsanctioned pool time. Tracey approves.

I also approve because Bitchy Bear, Snippy Bear, Grouchy Bear and Grumpy Bear are all allergic to water. And to pool complexes.

We head over to the nearest pool complex, which is about a 4 minute walk from our villa. It's one of the smaller areas in the resort but it's still gorgeous. This resort is really terrific.

2:00 PM - Back from the pool and getting ready to head to Epcot. We have 3 Fastpasses booked again today and dinner reservations at their nice Italian restaurant. We haven't eaten there before but I've heard excellent things.

The big happenings at Epcot is the re-imagining of the Maelstrom ride in the Norway pavilion into a Frozen ride. I'm sure it will be awesome but we are missing the grand opening by about three weeks. Damn.

2:45 PM - We have discovered quite a loophole into paying for parking at Epcot; we park at the Fantasia Mini-Golf area (free parking), and walk about 1/4 mile to the Swan and Dolphin resorts which has a boat that goes to the Boardwalk and then to Epcot. Bam. Zero dollars for parking at Epcot, AND, more importantly, a very lovely boat ride.

Our first Fastpass for the day is at the Epcot Character Greeting spot, where we think we are going to get pictures with some very rare characters, Baymax from Big Hero 6, and Joy and Sadness from Inside Out. Turns out that I misunderstood though, and there is no Fastpass for those particular pictures, but our Fastpass gets us into pics with Minnie, Mickey and Goofy. We'll have to go back at our next opportunity and get the other pics.

4:30 PM - Our early dinner reservations at Tutto Italia, in the Italian Pavilion in the World Showcase part of the park. It's a nice, if not spectacular, restaurant. Tracey's pasta is really good. My chicken dish is OK, but the breast is slightly overcooked. It's a decent meal but below the usual Disney standards. For wine we chose an Italian Chardonnay which is pretty decent.

After dinner we wander through the park taking in the sights. It is their annual International Flower and Garden Festival and the topiaries are quite impressive as they always are. This is our fourth trip to Florida and three of them have been during this Festival.

7:40 PM - After a few more experiences and a lot of walking, we are beat. Yes we are really old. Five hours in a Disney park seems to be just about it for us, especially in the heat. We certainly can't bitch about the weather though, it's gorgeous and not very humid.

Home to the resort to get a good night's sleep, tomorrow is a very big day in a different way from today. Tomorrow we check into the Grand Floridian Hotel, for one night only, and have dinner at Victoria & Albert's.

Vacation Blog VI: Brock Lesnar vs. Mickey Mouse in a Texas Death Match

7:45 AM - There aren't many days this trip where we will be up early, but this is one of them. This is our first Disneyworld trip since they totally rolled out the MyMagic+ program which features the ability to book Fastpasses well in advance, among other benefits. I, of course, booked everything as soon as we could, and today all of our Disney fun is scheduled for the morning.

9:00 AM - We arrive at the Ticket and Transportation hub where we park and hop onto the ferry boat for the short ride to the gates of the Magic Kingdom. It's windy and cold this morning but that won't last long. We have to fight with the usual number of strollers. Parents: if your kid needs a stroller, they are too young for Disney. Just leave them the Hell at home please.

Yeah that's gonna happen.

Anyway, after the ferry ride we have to hop into a HUGE lineup to get through their new advanced security. There are metal detectors somewhere but we didn't see them. The bag search that they've been doing for years has been stepped up to a brand new level. Obviously Disney is smart enough to know that they are a perfect target for those pieces of shit who keep screwing up our world, and they are going to do everything they can to keep their guests safe. I'm fine with a little extra time to get into the park if it's due to extra security.

Loving the new RFID system, We scan our park tickets and are into the park in seconds. Those same park tickets host the details of the Fastpasses that we booked a couple months ago. As we get into the park we head straight to Splash Mountain, where our first Fastpass is already scheduled.

You can book 3 of them per day in advance, and when you have used up those 3 you can go and schedule more for the day pending availability. It's crazy busy today - this will be the busiest park day we experience this trip - so there is no way we will be doing any more than these three rides today, which was always our plan anyway.

After we both get pretty wet on Splash Mountain we head right next door to Big Thunder Mountain. Great ride as always. It was originally scheduled to go down for refurbishment tomorrow so we made sure to get on it today, but they have changed the refurbishment to August so we can get on it again later in the trip if we like.

Next up is Pirates of the Caribbean, which we generally make our first ride of every trip, but this is as close as I could get to make the Fastpasses work. I told Tracey I probably lost 170 "Good Husband" points for the poor scheduling. She says no, more like 270. Sigh.

There is a scene in Pirates that always reminds me of Newman (the cat, not the Seinfeld mailman).... a scene with a drunk pirate laying in the mud with a couple of pigs. We aren't sure why this always reminds me of Newman, I guess it has to do with his piggish pink nose and huge belly. Even though he's been gone for a couple years now, it chokes me up a touch.

Gotta tell you about our lunch. We wandered into Frontierland, not far from the Haunted Mansion, and found a place called Columbia Harbour House. It's a cafeteria-style restaurant with two qualities, one of which is very much Disney, and one notsomuch.

The food is excellent. No surprise.

It's pretty affordable! Not always so Disney-esque.

We actually got three entrees, one of which was a salad featuring chicken and various vegetables in a peppercorn vinaigrette. Fabulous. Tracey had a sandwich which she absolutely loved and I had a shrimp dinner. It came with eleven ELEVEN large butterfly style breaded shrimp, coleslaw and a huge amount of Newman's (the Seinfeld mailman, not the cat) least favorite vegetable, steamed broccoli.

Seinfeld: "Newman, you wouldn't eat broccoli if it was deep fried in chocolate sauce".

This entire lunch was about $32, including two pop. The food was really fantastic and the price is more than reasonable. ELEVEN big shrimp? In some places that would be $32 all by itself.

We head down Main Street and go into a few of the shops and do a little shopping on our way out of the park. We have three more visits to this park during the trip so no need to deal with the crowds today, and we have other plans tonight.

3:00 PM - We get back to the room in time for the Wrestlemania pre-show which should be starting any minute.

Oh for F***s sake. I'm in the Eastern time zone. What an asshole. It doesn't start for hours.

Since we have some time to relax Tracey decides it's time for another 2 hour bath (yes, that jet tub is pretty awesome) while I update the blog and relax waiting for the 2-hour pre-show to start at 5 PM. I'm such a moron I can't believe I forgot about the time change when setting today's itinerary.

The show is in Dallas at Cowboys stadium which seats around 100,000 people. I don't know how many tickets they sold; I can't believe it's close to being sold out (I mean why would anyone buy tickets for a wrestling show that is so far away you might as well be watching ants and cockroaches battle over a piece of popcorn???) but I could be wrong.

.....and it appears I AM wrong, as they announce a new WWE record crowd of over 110K. Seems legit, too as the seats at the top of the arena, which I'm pretty sure aren't even in the same county, look full.

It's the best Wrestlemania in years, top to bottom, save for the Main Event which was pretty lousy and the finish was even worse.

Oh, and here we are, sitting in Orlando, watching the year's big event on a computer screen and IPad when they announce that next year's Wrestlemania is taking place in......

Orlando.

Fuck me gently with a chainsaw.

11:30 PM - The 4.5 hour event (6.5 if you count the pre-show) finally ends and we are off to bed. Our day tomorrow consists of dinner and evening activities at Epcot so we can sleep until we sleep and do whatever we want until the late afternoon.Thanks Christ for that, because we are both really tired after a pretty full day!

Vacation Blog VI: a rental car nightmare that has ended the "perfection" of the trip

5:19 AM - OK I know I took a sleeping pill and got to bed early but I wasn't planning on being up and alert before the sun came up and before we even got into the Port of Miami. What an asshole.

6:00 AM - I can see land, as the Port of Miami is in sight. Disappointing to end this wonderful week on the cruise, but as long as it's over, we might as well get the hell to Orlando and start the next two weeks which we also know will be fabulous.

7:30 AM - Our last breakfast buffet. Oh, the memories. Oh, the bacon. Oh, the heartburn.

8:00 AM - Off the ship and through US customs in a breeze and we're in a cab and on the way to the Intercontinental Hotel where we are picking up our rental car from the Alamo desk in the hotel. The hotel is gorgeous, and right by the Port; it's somewhere we might consider staying the next time we are down here for a cruise.

What we WON'T be doing again is renting a car from Alamo. There is a reason we try to rent from Hertz, they always take excellent care of us. This time, booking through Priceline, Hertz didn't have any convertibles available and we really got a good price on our convertible through Alamo. Only problem? No fucking convertibles.

Alamo knows how to take the reservation, they just don't know how to HOLD the reservation, which is really the most important part of the reservation.

Assclowns.

As if that wasn't enough, the Manager was a total prick and couldn't care less. He offered us an upgrade to a "Premium" car we didn't want but pretty much had to take. His only other offer was to cancel the reservation, in which case we'd have to pay last minute prices with someone else or sprout wings and fly to Orlando. We took the Premium car (at the last minute he did offer to pay for the gas) and started off for Orlando.

3:00 PM - After a fairly pleasant drive, we arrive at Target to do our shopping for provisions we'll need for the next couple weeks. As much as we didn't want this Chevy Impala, it actually is a pretty good car. The only problem with it is the gas mileage but that shouldn't be too big an issue as we should only have to put a few bucks in, hopefully. The car has just about every feature imaginable and drives pretty well for an American car. But I still want my damn convertible. I'm in Florida dammit!

3:45 PM - We arrive at our resort, the Holiday Inn Orange Lake Resort. This is our third time here and we obviously like it to keep coming back. There is a huge lineup at the check in desk but they are so efficient we are checked in and given our keys in just minutes. We arrive at our townhouse which backs right onto the golf course. It's the exact same floor plan that we've had in the past here, which is fantastic. We really are comfortable here.

I get some decent wi-fi finally and upload yesterday's blog. Finally get to check up on the last week of hockey and read some Emails that I had been ignoring.  I see that it is now mathematically assured that no Canadian teams will make the NHL playoffs. That thud you just heard was all the executives at Rogers hurling themselves off the top of a tall building. I bet they are excited as heck thinking about the ratings they will get from a Florida/St. Louis Stanley Cup Final. Dozens of hockey fans will tune in.

My next order of internet business is to tweet Alamo and Priceline and see if either of them is interested in helping me out. To be clear, I'm not blaming Priceline at all, there isn't anything they could have done. Actually I probably should have phoned them from the rental counter, I know that they are big on making sure their clients get what they want but it didn't occur to me at the time.

Alamo did respond to my tweet and ask for more details, which I have provided. We will see what they are willing to do.

7:00 PM - After a nice dinner of chicken and bacon-wrapped asparagus (no we did NOT have enough bacon on the cruise!!!), we are unwinding before beginning the Disney portion of our trip. Tomorrow morning, we are off to the Magic Kingdom! Very exciting.

8:00 PM - If Tracey ever gets out of the jet-tub that she's been in for about 2 hours, I'm going to recommend we go and explore the resort a bit to see what we might have forgotten or what might be new in the 3 years since we've been here, and then get to bed at a reasonable hour. Disney fun begins early tomorrow!!

Tomorrow, the Magic Kingdom and Wrestlemania. Quite a combination.

Vaction Blog VI: I don't know how it gets much better that this

Friday, April 1st

10:00 AM – Up at a reasonable hour and off to breakfast. We are not even in port yet, so we are still not seeing anything but water from our balcony. Breakfast is good as always, what a high quality buffet this is. Really well done.

11:00 AM – Back in the room and now we can see the Bahamas. All we can really see at this point is the port and surrounding areas but man do they ever look nice.

12:50 PM – Off the ship to meet with our tour group. We are whisked away on a boat ride of around 20 minutes where we pass by some of the huge houses owned by some of the richest mega-celebrities imaginable; Beyoncé and Jay-Z (man did he ever out-punt his coverage when he married her), Michael Jordan, and Oprah herself.

Oh, and we also go by Eddie Murphy’s island. Yes, Beverly Hills Cop 1-4 paid for an entire island.

At one point today, a fly lands on my arm. Why would I mention that in my blog? Because we have been gone a week and that is the first insect OF ANY KIND that I have seen. We took all the necessary precautions to avoid the Zika virus and never saw a single mosquito or anything else. Not one. We could have been dancing naked covered in honey and not had to worry about getting Zika.

We arrive at the island where our excursion is happening and it’s gorgeous. Lots of white sand, nice water, and lots of lounge chairs to sit in as well. Our particular excursion doesn’t need any of these things but maybe we’ll have a bit of time to lounge after our event is over.

What is the event I’ve been teasing for a couple days? This.

Best kiss I’ve had in years. Soft and tender, yet wet and fishy. Best of all, I’m told she is single.

So that’s our big event this cruise, a fully interactive experience with Sea Lions. What a bunch of incredible animals. So smart, so friendly, and so magnificent. We are in the water with another Sea Lion named Maggie for 20-25 minutes where she prances around, does a bunch of tricks, and splashes the heck out of Tracey J

After the Sea Lion encounter is done we have about a half hour to enjoy the sun and sand before the boat returns to take us back to our cruise ship. Tracey remarks on the colour of the water, which she calls “the greatest colour on Earth”. I think she’s right. It makes all the other amazing water we’ve seen in the Caribbean look like swamp water.

I can’t describe this colour of blue, except to say that if Paradise were a colour, this is what I’d imagine it to look like.

How could this trip get any better?

5:10 PM - We get back to the ship, now completely intending to come back and take a bigger bite of the Bahamas someday. We have time to shower the sand off of us and then get dressed for our last dinner of the cruise, back at our favorite haunt, the Manhattan Room.

6:00 PM – We get a table right up front for the show, which features the exact same group we saw last time we were here, but they are doing an entirely different set. This time, it’s all 70’s soul. The show is short, only about 20 minutes, but they are really good and it’s nice to hear some live music while we eat. Tracey and I order the exact same appetizer and same entrée tonight, which works out well because both should pair nicely with the wine we brought, the other Pinot Noir from Hartford Court. You may recall I said that the last one (which we opened early in the cruise) was going to get a really high number when I did my wine blog report. Well, honey, this one absolutely blew it away. Not to spoil the review for those of you who also read my wine blog, but something tells me this one might put every wine we’ve ever had to shame. It’s that good. Tracey’s first question of me was “how can we get more of this????”.  Good thing I’ve got a connection or two.

In fact it was so good we asked them to bring us a third wine glass so we could pour a sample to take to the wine bar and let Richard, their wine steward and our newest wine buddy, have a taste. Turns out he doesn’t like Pinot Noir.

 But he liked THIS one!

We bid our farewell to a really good wine steward, and a really nice wine bar, and head back to the room to get ready to disembark tomorrow. We are both devastated to be leaving, which would make sense if our vacation was over….but for chrissake we are on our way to an incredible resort in Orlando for two weeks in our Happy Place! It goes to show how fantastic this week has been that we are actually sad to be going to Disney World! LOL.

I fell in love three times today. Once with that saucy little Sea Lion above. Secondly with the water of the Bahamas. Third with the wine I just mentioned. Three times in one day seems like a little bit piggish to me but I’ll live with it.

8:00 PM – Back to the room where I am writing this blog; not going to be able to upload it until tomorrow as I’ve gone WAYYYYYYYYY over budget in my internet expenses. The only downside to cruising in the middle of nowhere is that internet access is incredible poor and ridiculously expensive. I won’t be back online until we get into our resort tomorrow night. We always set detailed budgets when we go on trips like this to try to keep things in line; that doesn’t usually work out all that well. Luckily for us, we are in a position where our budgets are “let’s try to stick to X”, more that “we can ONLY spend X” on a particular thing. So far this trip, we are pretty much on budget. It helps when your food spend some days is pretty close to 0.

While I’m writing the blog, Tracey is opening up our last bottle of wine; the second bottle of the Hartford Court Chardonnay that we brought. Wine blog readers may remember that I said this was the best white wine I’ve ever tasted when I first reviewed it. So now, tonight, after just tasting the (spoiler) best red wine I’ve ever had, I’m now about to taste another bottle of my 97-point rated white. Boy my life is really rough.

We certainly did a great job of estimating our beverage consumption on this trip. As I mentioned, we are leaving here with 0 bottles of wine, and there is one can of Diet Coke left which I will have with tomorrow’s breakfast. And no bottled water left either. We can actually leave here with one suitcase less than we came with!

Time to pack up most of our stuff and then get to bed, we are going to be walking off the ship early tomorrow and starting the next leg of our journey, the drive from Miami to Orlando.

Vacation Blog VI: The morning after the crying

Thursday, March 31st

9: 00 AM – Oh seriously, 4 hours sleep? No thanks.

10:45 AM – That’s a little better. We are up and headed to the buffet before they pull the breakfast options. I want my damn bacon.

11:30 AM – Back to the room to relax for a while and watch the thunderstorm roll in. I was sitting on the balcony typing the blog when the thunder hit, and it took me about .03 seconds to get my ass of the balcony and back into the room.

No plans for today except a little R&R until our dinner reservations at 5:30. Tonight is Moderno, the Brazilian Steakhouse. We ate here last cruise and really enjoyed it. There is an extra charge for this one, but it’s a flat rate and we paid it a while ago. It’s very different than all the other restaurants as they bring you big hunks of meat at the table and carve them to order.

Nappish Bear has come to say hello today so Tracey lays down to attend to her and I screw around on the computer for a while. We head back to the buffet for a small lunch to tide us over until dinner. When we get back to the room, Tracey heads outside to sit and read. An hour ago our balcony was being pelted by rain and was completely soaked, and now you can hardly tell any rain occurred. The lounge chairs are totally dry.

When we get back to the room reality hits us right in the face as all the disembarkation information has been delivered including our Customs forms. Can’t believe that tomorrow is our last full day on the cruise, it seems like it just began. What a way to end the cruise, though as we have something very special planned for the Bahamas.

5:30 PM – Dinner at Moderna restaurant, the Brazilian steakhouse. Meat, meat and more meat. Chicken legs covered in parmesan, chicken breasts wrapped in bacon, Filet Mignon wrapped in bacon, marinated flank steak, and some kind of high-end Brazilian sirloin, which was described to us as the “best meat there” (and it was). Oh, and one of the best pork sausages I’ve ever tasted and a nicely spiced pork loin. And that’s not even counting the two kinds of lamb because we don’t eat lamb. What a terrific meal, same as the last cruise. This is one we will do over again.

7:00 PM – We head to the Theatre where we have tickets (free of course) to a Broadway-style show called After Midnight. 75 minutes of high energy singing and dancing from the Roarin’ 20’s, in a jazz club known as the Cotton Club with music in the style of Duke Ellington. I’ll tell you, some of these performers were incredibly talented. I’m not sure how many actual performers there were, because, as we all know, all black people look alike.

Oops sorry that is quite politically incorrect of me. Let me try again.

All African-American people look alike.

There, now the political correctness police will be off my case.

(I highly doubt anyone reading this blog doesn't already know that I refuse to be politically correct and I was kidding about that last joke....but if you were offended by it, you might want to go read something else. And buy a sense of humor).

In all seriousness, there were about 30 individual performers if you count the band, and all of them were good and a few of them were great. It’s not really my style of music, but I was certainly never bored. Tracey loved it more than I did.

It makes you think of the magnitude of running a cruise ship like this and the reasons that cruises aren’t all that cheap. Think of the wages of just those 40 people. And then think of the waiters and busboys and room stewards and on and on and on. The logistics of handling a ship of this size, and all the entertainment and food, and scheduling of staff, etc……wow. Glad it’s my job only to sit and enjoy the fruits of their labour. It’s a little bit humbling.

9 PM – We stop and make reservations for dinner tomorrow at the Manhattan Room for 6 PM. This has become our favorite place to eat on this cruise and there is a 70’s tribute show playing as entertainment while we dine. Should be fun.

Back in the room, sitting on the patio typing up this blog entry and wondering how we are so lucky to be here. I cannot get enough of the view of the water against the lights of the ship and the moonlight. Earlier today we marveled at the colour of the water that didn’t seem to be natural. I tried to take a video but it didn’t really do it justice. The water directly behind the ship appeared almost to be a fluorescent baby blue. I know that’s not really possible but that’s what came to mind as we stood on the balcony and watched. Breathtaking.

Tomorrow around Noon we arrive in Nassau, the Bahamas, and if you think we’ve had a good cruise so far, you haven’t heard anything yet.

Vacation Blog VI: Today comes in with a bang and ends with me whimpering

Wednesday, March 30th

8:15 AM – I had a good sleep and am up and ready to attack the day.

Oh, it turns out that today we are in the British Virgin Islands, not the Isle of British Virgins. No Harry Potter-philes anywhere to be seen. Amazing what a difference a tiny bit of grammar can make.

I open the window to get a view of the island of Tortola. It’s beautiful, of course, but not all that much different than St. Thomas. Similar architecture and feel. We have nothing booked for today so I just have to wait for my wife to get up and get going.

She’s up!

And she’s down.

I think I sensed an appearance by Grumpy Bear there for a minute; but maybe it was my imagination. Could have been her lesser cousin, Discombobulated Bear. She can be a real pain until bobulation is achieved.

9:30 AM – The Bear is awakened and finally ready for breakfast. She says she slept well but I have to challenge that, as during the next few hours we get brief appearances from Grumpy Bear, Bitchy Bear, Cranky Bear, Sarcastic Bear, Bewildered Bear, Grouchy Bear, and finally, Happy Folksy Bear. I was almost going to send out for some Park Rangers to handle the wildlife problem.

After breakfast we walk off the ship onto Tortola and walk down the mail street to see the sights. There aren’t really that many of them honestly; eventually we find a little craft market with a bunch of vendors peddling the kinds of things you will find vendors peddling in this kind of place. Touristy crap, basically. But we support the local economy, Tracey gets a pool bag for $10 (haggled down from $12) and I get a super-cool shirt for $20 (haggled down from $20. Wait that doesn’t sound right…..I actually haggled it to $18 but I didn’t have exact change so I just let her keep it. I drive a hard bargain. I sure took advantage of that poor rube. As the saying goes, “There’s a sucker born every minute”).

Speaking of wildlife problems, this island has one of it’s own, these little suckers are EVERYWHERE.

Chickens! Everywhere!

That may explain why a mysterious stranger is trying to buy the island. They are hush hush on his identity, but apparently he goes by “Colonel”.

12:30 PM – Back to the ship after our sightseeing and we head up to the Irish pub for lunch just to shake it up a bit. I have nachos with bacon. BACON. Hmm, I don’t often frequent Irish pubs, is that an Irish thing? Or just a very bizarre thing?

As you can imagine, they were kinda tasty.

After lunch straight to the pool where we are delighted to find two of the best seats in the house. Right into the pool which is damn cold, but who cares……2 seconds after getting out of the pool we are warm again. It’s the Caribbean for goodness sake! After a short rest I leave the Bear behind at the pool in her natural habitat while I go back to the room to shower and relax out of the sun and heat for a little while. We are meeting for a couple games of Trivia around 4:30 and I’m in charge of getting there early to procure good seats and also of bringing the wine. I’m on it!!!

3:25 PM – Tracey returns from the pool as it has started to pour rain! But oh my it’s still so warm out. A beautiful tropical rainstorm, quite different than what we get at home. It’s beautiful. Of course all the stuff I had sitting on the balcony to dry is now considerably wetter than it started, but I guess the rain will stop eventually. This isn’t Vancouver, after all.

4:30 PM – down to the Atrium to relax with a nice bottle of wine and take in a couple of trivia games, the first one being 80’s music trivia. You would think this would be a slam dunk for us, and we did well getting 18/20, but we missed one that EVERONE missed and one that they played for a split second and we mistook for something else.

The one everyone missed was Together Forever by Rick Astley. Why would THAT be so tough, you ask? Because they played some sort of strange extended dance version. Nobody had a clue. The other one we missed was Hurts So Good from John Cougar Mellancamp. Yes, I feel much shame.

Next up was John Hughes movie trivia where they just put a picture of a Hughes movie up on the huge video screen and you just had to name the movie. Many were laughably easy, and some were so obscure I’ve never heard of them. We got 18/25 of those and weren’t even close to winning.

Off to dinner with another bottle of beautiful wine, the 2010 Brunello di Montalcino that we bought at Costco earlier. We went back to the Manhattan Room , the place where we had a great meal on the first night of our cruise. It’s another great meal this time, and if the great food wasn’t enough, we get live entertainment as well! First a Mowtown-themed band and then a piano guy. What a great experience.

After dinner, up to the wine bar to indulge once again, this time into a Washington State Gewurztraminer which was tasty. By the end of this Tracey was getting tired so she headed back to the room to read and relax and I went to play some poker. What a night of poker.

I had no great starting hands all night. In 6+ hours of poker I never saw a hand better than AJ or 88, but I used my skills and people reading ability (combined with my opponent’s horrible play) to absolutely run over the table, being up just over $500 as the night was coming to a close.

Oh, if I had only got up and left. As I was just minutes away from doing so, I pissed it all away by misplaying a hand so badly that I turned a nice win into a small loss. I’m not going to go into details as it’s too upsetting to think about, but it just goes to show how quickly things can turn with one poorly played hand. Focus is so important, and I lost mine for a second and got outplayed by a player who was drunk and stupid. I didn’t get unlucky, really, I just got outplayed by a buffoon. That’s going to hurt for a long time.

4:30 AM – Back to the room to sulk for a while and then finally sleep. In the grand scheme of things, the money I lost (even counting what I should have won) is going to have zero effect on our vacation and zero effect on our lives, but even though I’m going to be able to move on with a great trip tomorrow morning (or later this morning really), I am going to be living with this one hand for years, I’m sure. Such is the life of a poker player.

Tomorrow is a sea day as we head towards the Bahamas. It’s still been a pretty perfect trip save for the above, and I have nobody to blame for THAT but myself.