Tuesday, March 30, 2010

corretion for double entry

Mar 29 late PM
When I checked the TuftsTravels site I found that the unfinished Mar 24 blog was published twice and in double spacing somehow. I guess the wonky WiFi at Remada held it or something, who knows. Anyway I have deleted both those & the expanded Mar 24 to Mar 29 with the cruise added on is in it's place.
Mar 30 early AM
Clear blue sky & sunny so looks like a good day shaping up.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Mar 24 to Mar 29 - the cruise, before and after

Mar 24, The Florida adventure continues
Down to the "welcome centre" to find out that the shuttle to presentation had left at 8:00. Sheila had specifically phoned them & was told to be at the Welcome Centre by 9:00 to go.
she thinks the woman she talked to assumed we had a car & could get to the presentation on our own. OK, so now the next tour is tomorrow, and the shuttle doesn't return until the afternoon so we have to check out, take our luggage with us & then we have to find a bus or cab to make our own way back into town,(the tour is about 13 miles west of downtown), to connect with the commuter train to West Palm Beach for the cruise ship boarding 1-3PM dragging suitcases all the way.
I am not pleased!

So, on with the day. We phone bus info & get times to get a bus from the Remada Inn location to the Jungle Queen boat tour of Fort Lauderdale's waterways & summer cottages of the rich & very rich. We bought $2.50 all day bus passes. The bus ride took a while & ran down the west side of Fort Lauderdale, we were the only Caucasians on a fairly full bus and it took about a hour to get to the boat dock on the Atlantic beach side. We discovered they keep the bus AC turned on even when they don't need it. Sheila said it was like spending an hour in a refrigerator wearing a light top & Capri pants!

The boat tour was well worth it.I took video & pictures of the summer cottages along the many waterways. They also said that you could go from here to New Jersey without ever going into the open ocean, also you could go south to the Florida Keys as well. The "cottages" were spectacular in size & location. Many were worth multi millions and they are all just vacation homes for people like the original owner of Wastech,his net now worth over 1 billion, also the Firestone family vacation home, owners of Radio shack, Oscar Mayer, Budweiser etc., etc. We saw a house once owned by Gloria Vanderbilt, Johnny Weisemuller, (tarzan in the old movies and an Olympic champion swimmer), Lee Majors place, (million dollar man), a house used by Al Capone as a speakeasy, & other houses owned by big auto dealership owners & CEOs. I'll try to attach some pictures. We stopped at an island for a break for nibbles and a crocodile handling demo. They can close their jaws with a very loud "WHAP". It was a 3 hour tour with lots of info and lots to see.

After that, we caught another bus to try to find the "Downtowner Pub" we had passed on the river tour. It offers cheap happy hour drinks, 2 for 1 appetizers and is the hangout of Jimmy Buffet when he is in town. We found it & Sheila had a couple of very strong vodka & cran/orange drinks for 2.75 each, she had to ask for extra mixer for each one. Finally away to more buses with the same passenger complexion as before. All really friendly people. A couple of times they overheard Sheila wondering about something & chimed in with an answer or help finding something. They are difficult to understand tho, with their southern/Creole accents, soft voices & fast speech! The bus drivers were all great in helping us find our destinations. Well, to bed early as we have to pack up everything and get up early to be down in the lobby with all our luggage for the "tour" shuttle leaving at 8. Apparently we will get breakfast out of it & we have lots of ammo to fire at them regarding their incompetent promoters and all the trouble & rigmarole we have had to put up with. I doubt I will have WiFi on board at least not without a considerable cost, (the onboard internet was 5o cents a min), so it may be a while till next blog, that is if I can get this one sent as the hotel WiFi keeps dropping out. This Ramada is a dump!

Mar 25, getting to the ship
Well, I don't have room to keep going with the next problems in detail. Here is the, hopefully, short version. After being continually assured that there was a complimentary shuttle waiting to take us to our cruise ship in West Palm Beach,(so no need to rush through our presentation) we were told that "yes", there was a shuttle, but "No" it wasn't complimentary. By now our plan to cab a short distance to a mall then bus to the Tri-Rail station & train to West Palm Beach had run out of time. We had to pay $90.00 for a shuttle car to the cruise ship up the hwy at 70 mph+ to make the ship barely an hour before sailing. At which point we hadn't had lunch & all the restaurants were closing for the afternoon till supper. No food available for an hour, 0h the horror, the horror!!!. Not only did we miss lunch, but we missed most of the party leading up to "sail away"!!
Mar 25 to 28, on board our 2 cruises
The cruise was fine, it's only a 1,000 pass.ship so--less of everything we have had on previous cruises. We booked a shore excision snorkeling trip in Bahamian water only to have it canceled due to high wave activity. At the end of the first cruise the ship was good in that they let us leave our big suitcases (2) on board so we walk off with shoulder bags went through Customs, (a breeze), out the front door & back in to check in and board again. Our new cabin was in the exact same position on the opposite side of the ship from the first so we had a large window looking out the other side. For the second cruise we booked the snorkeling with a day, (incl. lunch buffet) at a resort called "Our Lucaya"--a multi acre 5 star resort. The snorkeling was canceled again, due to high winds, so we went to the beach to swim. We had lounge chairs on the sand so were quite comfortable. The water, I must report, was not as warm as the Caribbean, Tahiti, or Australia - in Queensland, but once in, it was fine. It was a nice day.

I have not been covering much ground in the last couple of days as just before the cruise, both my calf muscles were really sore & stiff, we don't know exactly why but are guessing it was due to wearing my sandals for a lot of the walking around in Fort Lauderdale and they have no good heel, arch or foot support.

Tomorrow we disembark, make our way about 5 miles to the Tri-Rail station by cab for about an 1 1/2 hour ride to Ft Lauderdale & then about a 4 mile cab to the Red Carpet Inn, our motel for the next two nights before flying back to California. I hope my next line tomorrow will be: ....an uneventful trip, arrived OK.

Mon Mar 29 disembarkation & down to Fort Lauderdale
Uneventful trip, arrived OK: off ship, took cab to train, train to Fort Lauderdale, bus to Red Carpet Inn, checked in for 2 nights, all OK so far. Good WiFi connection & restaurant on site, bus stop a cpl hundred feet away.

On board

With the Captain, entrance to the View Lounge. The nights special is 2 for 1 drinks. They also have the right idea, you buy one drink for $7, keep the plastic glass & get refills for $4. I even found a good drink - coffee, ice cream & chocolate for $4 or 2 for $4 at Meet the Captain night.

Exiting West Palm Beach harbour, a narrow passage with this neat beach


At dock, West Palm Beach looking towards downtown


Here we are, just off the ship

While I sat with my sore calf muscles Sheila whooped it up on the View Lounge dance floor. This video was taken with Sheila's new camera, hand held by me so it is a bit unsteady at times.

At the resort, Grand Bahamas Island

Sheila in one of the curved pools winding through the resort
Me, admiring the pools clear, cool, water
At the lunch buffet restaurant, neat decore
Sheila in another resort pool, right on the beach, swim up bar on the right
Sheila in the water at the resort beach

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

to Florida Mar 23

On route to Florida - Mar 23 - Blogging to you from 34,000

feet. We are about 2 hours out of Phoenix headed east. Our

day started OK, we got away from GVP, got the RV stored OK,

& off down the hwy to the airport. Arrived, parked, got

shuttle to US Airways terminal, we were next at the check in

line & to the gate with about an hour to flight time. They

announced that due to a full aircraft they would do courtesy

checked baggage to help eliminate carry-ons so we did our

2nd checked bag, (1st one was $25.00), and started to board

at 12:10 for our 12:40 departure. Then the pilot came on to

say they had discovered a very small cut or nick in one of

the tires & needed to have it checked out by a maintenance

mechanic. Well after numerous announcements that all would

be ready in "minutes" we finally pulled out of the gate at

1:35 & took off @ 1:45. Our connection in Phoenix is supposed

to take off at 3:00. We land at 2:40 but there is no one to

man the exit ramp gate to move it to the plane, off finally

at 3:00 at gate 13, walked 15 feet to gate 14 to the line

already boarding our flight to Fort Lauderdale. It pulled

away from the gate at 3:15 and we were down the runway &

wheels up by 3:30. We didn't get to obtain any food at the

airport as was the plan so we had to buy on board. We were

back in row 25 and they started serving from the front &

were out of Sheila & my selections by the time they got

here. Second choice had to do. They do provide free pop &

coffee still. Note to Adeline, your laptop works fine at

34,000 feet. We arrived Fort Lauderdale with a bang,

literally, it was a hard landing, just a big bang though, no

problems. Touchdown at 7:05 our time 10:05 local time. Took

a cab to the "bargain" hotel we were offered at a low rate

if we listen to their presentation, the special rate they

offered was $49.00 total for two nights. They didn't

mention the $15.00 a night room tax and the fact that it was

a $45.00 cab ride from the airport. The regular rate on this

Remada Inn is $125.00 a night, incl tax, so it is about half

price, (we pay out $124.00). The Red Carpet Inn we booked

for the 2 nights for our return trip is $146.00 for the 2

nights total and is about a $5.00 cab fare from the airport,

and we don't have to waste time listening to some time share

sales pitch. At least this Remada has WiFi so I am posting

this tonight. More to follow sooner or later.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Mar 19 - 22

March 19-22

Friday nights play, "The Love List" turned out to be great. We liked it probably the best of the 3 we've seen.

Sat after VB Sheila went out shopping again and when she returned I finally got to go on the roof to do the caulking for the minor water leak that developed. I'm pretty sure I found & resealed the spot. It was at the top left rear courner. I have also added sealer to both rear courners top to bottom & around the rear window. I put a lot of sealing goop in & around the top courner, so now we wait for a rain storm & find out if I got all the spots. We BBQ'd supper & ate outside in the nice weather. It has often been warm enough to eat outside but until DST kicked in it always was getting dark too early. We are off to the dance with Rockin' Rhonda. We were late getting there & it's a good thing we had seats saved by Gerry & Sheila as it was jambed full. Rhonda's group comprises a fantastic keyboard player, drummer, bass guitar & Rhonda plays guitar. They had the dance floor full doing the twist and good ol' rock & roll as well as several line dance numbers.

Sun after VB we went out to the KFC buffet for lunch. For $7.79 (seniors price) you have a choice of 3 kinds of chicken, grilled, original & crispy plus a lasagna, another pasta dish, vegetables, mashed potatoes with 2 kinds of gravy, salad stuff & dessert of apple cobbler, vanilla pudding, various fruits, canned & fresh it also included your drink from the self serve fountain. After that we drove down to Temecula Old Town where the Blue Grass festival was on. They had groups playing on the streets plus a main stage set up which had chairs on grass so we sat there, all free. They also had groups playing in the theatre - A/C & with nice seats. Sheila saw one group advertised that she wanted to see so she paid $5.00 to go in. She talked me into joining her later & I did but I thought the outdoor free groups were just as good as the indoor ones. We found Gerry & Sheila at the free stage. We got there about 3PM & after it all ended at 6PM we all went back to the Souplantation for a late supper.

It's Monday, our last VB day, we said good by, see you next year to everyone. Neva, a 6 month resident took several people's emails so she could keep people updated on happenings here. Next is packing to head out early Tues to store the RV & drive to the airport. We will take the laptop so if I find WiFi I may be able to post to the blog before we return, if not I will be able to add stuff for a massive trip report blog upon return. I played in the Monday crib tourny while Sheila packed & watched dancing with the stars. I won top prise again but due to only 8 people there I only won $3, (of which $1 was entrance fee), once I won $6.00. It's now 11PM & Sheila is almost finished packing, she didn't want me to pack as she dosen't like they way I pack. It's taken a lot of practice to reach this point!!!!

Friday, March 19, 2010

March 17 - 19

Mar 17 - 19

Today, Wed. March 17, we went to a Best Buy to get Sheila a new camera like the one Michael has that she can use easier & not take blurry pictures all the time. While she was looking at cameras I wandered around looking at small TV's suitable for the RV and the wall mount type brackets to see how they worked. Then I saw a large TV, over 40 inches, maybe 50, and the picture was not all that clear. Then I saw some glasses beside an easy chair & the sign - 3D TV!!!!!!! I sat down, put the glasses on & it was unbelievable, 3D just like in the movies. The film was that animated one about the girl that gets super powers & they lock her away with 3 other "monsters" - a blob, a cockroach, (I think), & a kind of prehistoric fish lizard thing, it also had a giant caterpiller or something. I forgot the title, Ken & I saw it together. Anyway the 3D effect was very, very good. I talked to the salesperson and he said they just got them in a few months ago so I'll bet the Canadian Best Buy may not have even heard of them. You do need a special TV, blue ray player, the 3D glasses, which are hard wired to something, and a blu ray 3D movie disc. The TV was on at around $2600.00 and they said the glasses are $140 a pair, plus there's your blu ray player. Still, for around $3,000 or so you can watch 3D movies on your TV.
By the time we had got away from GVP & down to the Best Buy in Murrietta and bought the camera it was supper time so we just had to go back to the Souplantation for another nummy meal. I'm not sure if it was a plot by Sheila to get taken out for supper but fortunatly it worked. It was hot today,80F, (28C), we used the A/C driving down & back.
Oh, & the camera Sheila did buy is an Olympus stylus tough 6020, it is apparantly waterproof to 16 feet, shock proof if dropped from 5 feet, dust proof, has 14 mega pixles, & it says HD movie for the video part.

Thursday arrived hot & sunny again. After our VB regular noon finish a few of us played VB for another 45 mins before retiring to the hot tub & then lunch. We have our storage for the RV booked for a week (8 days) at a local mobil home park for only $20.00 and Sheila went off to pay them, get the storage gate combo & do a little shopping. We BBQ'd supper and I went off to Mex Trains but Sheila said she was tired & had emails to read & deal with. I returned from Mex Trains to find her & the car gone. She wasn't too tired to go shopping again!

Fri I took the camera to test it at VB & then to see if I could download pictures to the Laptop. I didn't buy a memory card as we have one in our old camera, one in my phone & one in the picture viewer, something must fit!. The phone card fit into an adapter & I could put it into the camera. I have no idea how many pictures it will hold but as I actually figured out how to download to the computer we can use it & download every day or so. My next problem is that the instruction manual is in the internal memory of the camera & a message comes on screen to hook it to a PC, which I did but nothing happened & I have no idea how to access the instructions. Maybe have to go back to Best Buy to find out how.
Tonight we (me & Sheila, Gerri & Sheila) are going to the dinner show of "The Love List" comedy play. We've seen 2 other plays by the same group and enjoyed them both. More on the play next post.