scott

Cruise Day One

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Today we checked out of our hotel in Orlando and headed off to Port Canaveral to get on the the freedom of the seas for our seven day honeymoon cruise! MC drove the hour and change trip to the rental car drop off in Port Canaveral.. It was very busy with a lot of people doing the same thing we did by dropping the rental cars often taking shuttle buses to the crew ships. I always get anxious with long lines and a deadline like getting a boat, but we were really early and the boat didn’t leave for hours so really wasn’t a big deal. In the end we got to the port just around when we had originally planned to.

After our last cruise I had gone online and signed up for Royal Caribbean’s frequent travel program, Crown and anchor. I figured why not. I typically sign up for those frequent flyer and hotel points since I started traveling a lot back in 99. I was glad I did. I was surprised that there was a special line for people that I had only gone just one cruise. I wasn’t complaining, I was just surprised. Because of that we breezed through checking in, there was a short wait for the extra machines and then we were on the boat.

Unlike last year’s cruise when we had actually arrived too early to go straight to our room, this year we were able to bring our stuff right to the room and settle in. This year we did check our luggage so we didn’t have it right away but we packed stuff in our carry-on bags that we might need.

We grabbed lunch at the Windjammer and then did some exploring of the ship.

One of the things we were disappointed that we didn’t do the last cruise since it wasn’t available on a five night cruise was the mystery dinner theater. This year when we booked the cruise we checked and confirmed that there was a mystery dinner. I know it sounds kind of cheesy but we were both excited to give it a try. The dinners only offered once on the cruise and it happened to be the first night we were selling. I went to Portofino’s Italian restaurant where it would be held to sign up for the dinner.

Our cabin was pretty cool. This year I wanted to splurge a little and we got a cabin with a patio. MC would’ve been fine with what we had last year, but I convinced her to upgrade when I cashed in some AMEX points to offset the difference in price. I think we were both happy by that decision. We had a room amidships on deck nine and it was perfect.

As we were settling in MC noticed a cabin down the hall from us that had a big sign and streamers that said they were on their honeymoon. She wondered if it was free. So the guy since I had made it a point to tell the travel agent that we were going on our honeymoon. I am not sure what MC went off to do but when I had some time by myself I went down to the concierge and asked about the sign. it turns out it wasn’t free and they offered a ton of different packages that we could get if we wanted to. MC really seemed excited for one so I wanted to splurge for it. I told them we would be going to dinner after 7 PM and that they should come by after that but before 10 PM to set it all up. The guy I was dealing with seemed kind new because he took a while to figure out how to get the computer to do what we wanted, but eventually he got it all squared away.

I am going to skip ahead till after dinner. MC had a question about some shore excursions so she wanted to go to the concierge. I wanted to Get her down to the room first but she wanted to go to the concierge right away. I was deliberately staying away from the line and the receptionists when MC was going to talk to them, but she called me over when she had a question for me also and it turns out the guy that was helping her with the same guy who helped me earlier in the day. He stupidly asked MC if she found any surprises in our room. He didn’t realize we had not gone back to our room yet. I don’t get it, I would assume someone like that would think not to bring something up. Oh well. So he ruined the surprise, but MC was excited to see what exactly I had done because she wasn’t really sure. After that and sorting out the excursion questions we headed back to the room. MC was extremely excited to see the decorations. I have to admit it turned out pretty cool.

The mystery dinner was also pretty enjoyable. We started off at a bar on the top of the ship where you can overlook the entire pool deck. On the last cruise it was one of our favorite bars to go to because it was a great view and there was live music. Tonight we started off with cocktails with everyone else doing the dinner, and then the performers came out and started the mystery dinner. After that we headed down to the restaurant for the second act and the food.

The meal itself was pretty good. It was multicourse tasting menu. The mystery dinner part of the dinner was fun but semi-predictable. I thought I guessed it right but I didn’t. We sat next to an interesting couple from Canada who we chatted with for a while. Overall it was worth the money. We both had a good time!

Off On Our Honeymoon

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Today MC and I flew to Orlando Florida for our honeymoon. Our cruise is not until tomorrow but we wanted to get to Florida early in case there was bad weather. We took JetBlue from LaGuardia to Orlando and we really didn’t have any issues. The security line was long other than that it was a pretty uneventful flight. I’m not complaining, trust me I’m just stating the facts.

We got a rental car and drove the short distance to our hotel. Since it was the 1st night of our honeymoon I want to stay somewhere nice so we booked a room at the Waldorf Astoria in Orlando. I realize it was actually on the Disney properties. We drove past finds all the walk in the Disney World and got a huge complex of hotels.

We were hoping for room upgrade from AMEX and since it was our honeymoon. Alas that didn’t happen but the room we did get was still pretty fantastic. We did also get chocolate covered strawberries and champagne as a welcome gift. I gotta say AMEX treats us right.

By the time we were ready to eat dinner there was only like one or 2 options. the fancy steakhouse seemed a little too fancy for our tastes that night. We ended up and peacock Alley which is the hotel lounge. I had a drink or two and we had appetizers and hung out for a little while before we went to bed. It was good to just relax after a long day of traveling.

Cake Tasting

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Today M and I took Metro-North up to go to a bakery to taste cakes for our wedding. We were a bit excited, and our experience exceeded our expectations. We decided on a typical round 3 layer wedding cake. It has an off white looking frosting, and there’ll be some ribbon for decoration. The outside is pretty unremarkable, however the inside was awesome. Each layer has 3 layers in it. We went with chocolate fudge and mouse on the 1st letter, then cannoli cream with white cake for the 2nd layer, and then for the 3rd layer we went with more chocolate fudge and mouse. I preferred cheesecake layer over the cannoli but we ended up going with the cannoli. Both tasted great though I’m really excited. I typically do not eat wedding cake, so I’m hoping that my wedding cake will be the 1st that I have a big piece of.

New Refrigerator

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Today we received our new refrigerator. Last week I noticed stuff in our old refrigerator wasn’t really cold.  I kind of knew something was off but it took me a few days to register. After shopping around online M and I settled on basic model from Best Buy. The downside was we had to wait almost a week to get it. The delivery guys finally got here today. I was thankfully able to work from home to receive it. It’s nothing fancy but a huge improvement over we had. It was an expense we wanted especially since we are planning on moving shortly but we couldn’t live without it.

Hulu Plus

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With Netflix annoucning that streaming movies and TV shows will now cost extra I decided to check out alternatives.  I have been skeptical about Hulu plus just because if i am paying for a streaming system I would hope that there is no commercials but with the ability to watch content via a Roku or iPad on Hulu won out and I signed up for a free trial.

Now I am in the middle of my first paid month and I will say I haven’t used it too much but when I have used it I was glad i had the service.  Tivo failed me a few times and just going to an online library was nice.

Having Hulu Plus alone to me was useless since I don’t want to watch stuff on my computer.  At the begining of the month I bought a Roku 2.  The main reason I got one was to use it as a front end to Plex, but Roku offered a Hulu client so I figured why not try it.  Together Hulu with presentation on the TV makes it worth it.

Of course the main reason i bought the Roku was to use it with Plex.  Unfortunately the Plex client for Roku is very basic.  I love the Plex media center but using it on the Roku was not as good as it is on my Mac Mini.  I need to figure out what is wrong with my Mini that the HDMI connection is flakey.

The Trip Home From New Mexico

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Today we had to get up early and make the drive from Santa Fe back to Albuquerque to fly home.  I will take this time to mention we rented a XM Satellite radio for the trip from the rental company since we knew we would be in the middle of nowhere.  Wow, those things suck.  There were times when we didn’t even have any obstruction and it had trouble playing music.  Next time i thin we will be ok with just using music on my iPhone.  The iPhone had a few moments but otherwise it worked pretty well as a GPS.  The problems we had were with the TomTom app having really bad data on POI’s.  Wow it had stuff in there with addresses that were flat out wrong.

Because Santa Fe was so far from the airport and we had to get the rental car back by noon and we didn’t have a flight till 2:30 we got to the airport way too early.  Our luck there was no airport club, wifi or much to do.  We got some more reading in and found a sports bar for lunch.

To yet again prove how small a world it is, when we were boarding the plane M saw her friend Cormac settling into his seat for the flight home.  After we were in the air he came over to talk and it turns out he was in New Mexico for a conference.  We had the same connecting flight in Dallas so we all grabbed lunch before taking off back to NY.  We got back to LGA so late that all we did was head home and crash.

This vacation turned out to be just what we needed.  It was restful, fun, and a great trip.  It is hard to compare to our last trip to Europe but it was awesome in its own way!

Sante Fe

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On our last full day of the vacation we spent it in downtown Santa Fe.  We had breakfast at a really good place Cafe Pasqual’s.  From there we walked around Santa Fe Plaza.  MC got some nice silver ear rings.  After that we got our culture on and went to two museum’s.  First up was the Palace of the Governors, and then the new Mexico Museum of Art.  I liked the Palace better since it was a history museum.  it was very interesting to read about the regions history.  MC liked the art museum.

After we got our history on we walked around some more and ended up at a French Pastry Shop for a snack/lunch.  We were going to walk to a chocolate shop but it started raining so we headed back to the car and then drove there.  M got some chocolate but I didn’t see anything i liked.

We spent the afternoon at the hotel pool reading and soaking in the pool.  Even though i think the other two hotels were better this pool was the best pool out of the 3 places we stayed at.

For dinner we had reservations at the Inn of the Anasazi.  For our last night of vacation this was another fantastic restaurant.  M knows how to pick really good places from guide books!

The High Road to/From Taos

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We only planned on spending one night in Taos so we were upset to check out of the awesome hotel we were staying at.  Before we left Taos we wanted to check out the Taos Pueblo.  It is a UNESCO site or something like that.  Any settlement that has been around for 1100 years is cool to me.  We got a tour and walked around a bit.  It was very interesting to see.

From the Pueblo we took off for Santa Fe.  We took what everyone calls the high road to Taos, yet the guide book suggested we do it going from Taos so that is what we did.  It was only about 30-45 minutes longer than the other direction.  We had more breathtaking views of the countryside.  We stopped at some carpet stores that do their own weaving.  It was interesting but M was more into than I was.

We also stopped for a snack at Sugar Nymphs that was recommended by the books and then we had a late lunch at Rancho De Chimayo before heading off to our hotel outside Santa Fe.

For the last leg of our stay we had reservations at the Hilton Buffalo Thunder Resort.  As hotels go it was by far the worst of the 3 hotels we stayed at.  it was OK, but the other two were fantastic.

After we checked in we went to the indoor pool for a while before going into Santa Fe for dinner.  MC got reservations at a Galisteo Bistro in downtown Santa Fe.  The food was ok.  Compared to the great places we had been to this was nothing spectacular.

Taos

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Today was our travel day to Taos.  Originally we were supposed to goto Bandelier National Monument but the concierge at the hotel said it was mostly closed due to fires.  Instead we went to a pueblo near our hotel for a bit and then headed out to Taos.

It was a a pretty decent drive of about an hour and a half.  The views along the way were stunning though.  We stopped a few times to take pictures.

Once in Taos we went to Doc Martin’s restaurant.  No affiliation to the shoe guy.  I was disappointed at that, but it was a nice lunch.  After lunch we spent time in downtown Taos checking out all the shops.  It was fun but we didn’t buy very much.

After downtown we went to our hotel.  We were spending one night at the El Monte Sagrado Living Resort and Spa.  This hotel is fantastic.  It is by far one of the best hotel rooms I have ever been in.  It was huge, we had our own fireplace and just overall really nice.  I still think the room M and I had at the Mandarin Orientel in Las Vegas is still the best I have ever stayed in this is in my top 5, and I have traveled a lot.

We spent the afternoon lounging around the indoor pool and reading.  I have been glad for the downtime to just relax.  I am finishing my Tom Clancy book I started on the cruise last December.

For dinner we stayed at the hotel restaurant.  Again a well reviewed restaurant that did not disappoint.