. . . with Joe & Elaine as they travel the USA and the World.
We leave tomorrow (Saturday) morning for our cruise. We’ll fly Air Canada (first time) to Toronto and change planes for the short flight on to Montreal. No direct or non-stops from Phoenix to Montreal. We don’t arrive in Montreal until midnight, so the first post on the trip will probably be Sunday night. We board the Marina on Monday, sailing late at night up the St Lawrence River to our first stop at Trois-Rivières.
Fore the record, the crowds on both Derby and Oaks days were records. The joint was packed. Sunday brunch at the Bristol with Judy was as delicious as ever. The drive back to Indy was uneventful. The flight home on Southwest was chock-a-block full but on-time. Dinner was from Wendy’s. Here are a few pictures that Dee texted to us Sunday morning – (click to enlarge):
Derby Day at Churchill Downs was glorious. The weather was perfect. We had winners. We had a great time with friends. My Derby horse ran great, but just not great enough. Firing Line looked like a winner at the 16th pole but American Pharaoh was too good. I had an $18 winner in the second race and a $49 winner in the fourth. Plus a couple more winners who paid $7 or so. Therefore, my long Derby/Oaks day losing streak has officially ended. We made back all we had lost the previous three days and then some.
Tom Brady and Gronk and a bunch of Patriots were at the game but didn’t stop by our box to say hello. The nerve!
After the Derby dinner was take out from McDonald’s as we were both exhausted. We ate it in the room and then zonked out. This morning we have early brunch (10:00 am) with our friend Judy at the Bristol Bar and Grill and then head to Indianapolis for our return flight to PHX.
Pictures tell the story (click them to enlarge):
Weather has been great! Gambling has been awful. Oaks Day yesterday was a gambling disaster. I am getting used to it and I am at peace with it. Another try today. I am due.
Dinner Wednesday night at Brasserie Provence with Eddie and Dee and Brooke was memorable. Great food! Elaine didn’t feel well Thursday night so she skipped sinner at Ruth’s Chris with Karen, John, and Lee. She missed a good meal. Fortunately she was back at the top of her game for Oaks Day. We had delicious barbecued tenderloin of beef sandwiches at the track compliments of Dee. Today she is bringing shrimp and avocado wraps.
A few pics (click to enlarge):
Aside from having to get up at 4:30 am for our 7:30 flight, Tuesday was a good travel day:
Flight: Southwest 1880 non-stop to Louisville – on time, empty middle seat
Car: Easy no-counter pickup from Alamo – Buick Enclave SUV – almost new and very big!
Drive: I-65 to Louisville – 130 minutes – some traffic due to construction
We checked in at our usual Louisville hotel, the Marriott Springhill Suites at 4:30. At about 6:00 we headed for Shenanigan’s Irish Grille for dinner. Our friend, Eddie, the owner was there to greet us. We enjoyed hamburgers and fries while sitting outside. I opted for pints of Guinness. Elaine had Pinot Noir. Eddie ate with us, and we recounted old times and new Louisville news.
The best news is the weather forecast in oft rainy Louisville: slight chance of showers today and tomorrow, but gloriously rain-free on Oaks and Derby Days. We will be off to the track today and then have our dinner tonight with Eddie, Dee, and Brooke.
Until tomorrow!
On Tuesday, April 28th, we will be up at dawn for a 7:30 flight from Phoenix Sky Harbor to Indianapolis International Airport on Southwest. “Why Indianapolis”, you ask? Louisville Airport is a zoo during Derby week, especially on Sunday after the Derby when we will be flying home again. So we normally fly somewhere reasonably close and then drive on in. We used to go to Nashville. But Indianapolis is actually a little closer to Louisville. It’s about a two hour drive. And most importantly, Southwest has non-stops to and from Indianapolis. Changing planes en-route is not on my “like-to-do” list. Indianapolis Airport is a pleasant little place (as airports go), and the car rental pickup is right at the terminal — no buses to and from off-site rental centers.
As usual, I rented our car through Costco and booked it way back in October. But, as always, I keep checking the Costco site for better deals. Costco offers rates on Avis, Budget, Alamo, and Enterprise. In checking this week I found there was a much better deal on Alamo. I upgraded my original reservation from an economy SUV to an intermediate SUV and added in a GPS. The new rate from Costco/Alamo was $100 cheaper than the old Costco/Avis rate. I used to avoid Alamo (for no special reason except liking to deal with Hertz and Avis). But we had a very good experience with Alamo last year in Florida, so they are now on my “OK” list.
From Indy, we will drive to Louisville and should be at the hotel by about 3:45 pm. We will have a nice dinner somewhere and go to bed early (jet lag and all)!
Wednesday and Thursday are most likely track days, but if the weather sucks we will find other things to do. Friday is Oaks Day at the track and Saturday is Derby Day. Those are rain or shine days.
Wednesday night we will have dinner as usual with our friends Edward and Dee and Brooke. Another friend, Judy, will not join us this year as she is having dinner with other friends (the nerve!) that night on the Belle of Louisville for the Great Steamboat Race, a signature Derby Festival event. Fun! We just saw Edward and Dee this past February when we were in Louisville for their much anticipated and long overdue wedding. It was a GREAT wedding!
Thursday night we will have dinner with our dear friends Lee and John Lutes and their daughter Karen. Lee and John used to sit with us in our box at the Derby.
Friday and Saturday nights will be quiet and alone. We will both be exhausted after long days at the track – the first race on Oaks and Derby Days is at 10:30 am and we will be at Churchill Downs by about 9:15 am. Hopefully this year we will cash some tickets. Over the years I have done exceptionally well at Churchill, but I have not cashed a ticket on Oaks or Derby day since 2012. That’s a long drought for a gambler.
Stay tuned to this station for updates as I have time to do them.
Well, finally, I am winding up the blog for this trip. For those who thought we might have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle, rest easy; we were not. We had a sea day after Bermuda and then stopped in Nassau in the Bahamas for a day.
Nassau may be fine if you are going to a resort (like Atlantis) or to play golf, but the downtown area is boring and crowded. Cheap tee shirt shops, expensive jewelry stores, and LOTS of people (there were five cruise ships docked including one behemoth from NCL. The Straw Market, an indoor marketplace crammed with local vendors selling everything imaginable, was mildly interesting but too crowded to be enjoyable. We walked the town for an hour and headed back to the ship to relax and start packing.
We landed in Miami on time and were off the ship at 8:20. We declined Oceania’s ludicrously expensive transfers to Miami Airport (where we were picking up a car). Oceania wanted $59 per person for the bus transport. We took a cab for $24. I used Alamo for the first time ever since they offered the best rate (through Costco) for a small SUV, supposedly a Hyundai Santa Fe. The lines were very long at Alamo at the airport, but they had auto check-in terminals. We used them and we headed to the car in five minutes. As were we exiting the Alamo area, the clerk was checking our rental agreement and said she could not let us go as the car was not properly checked in previously. She called a customer service rep over who apologized and quickly brought us a new car. It was a Cadillac Escalade, and the upgrade was free for the inconvenience of their mistake. I was impressed with Alamo customer service.
We drove to Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale where we wanted to have lunch at Pelican Landing at the Hyatt. It is outdoors on the roof of a small building with a great view of the harbor, and previously we have enjoyed great burgers here. It wasn’t crowded at all, and we were seated promptly and given menus. Then we were promptly ignored. Other people came, were seated, and got drinks. Wait staff was standing around. After 20 minutes we got up and left. We called our friends (John & Lino) who were already in town and staying at our hotel, and they agreed to meet us at the hotel and join us for lunch. Sue and Larry arrived later that day from their new home near Naples, FL.
We drove to the Beachside Village Resort (BVR) in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, a small town just north of Fort Lauderdale Beach. We like it because it is not dominated by high rise hotels like much of Fort Lauderdale. This was our first time at this resort since our old standby place is now out of business and awaiting renovation. Well, BVR is wonderful. It is run by old Boston folks. Totally refurbished, the rooms are delightful. It’s a two story affair with two pools. The customer service is outstanding. On Sunday we we were planning on watching the Packers-Patriots game in one of the rooms, but Elaine cajoled the owner to set up an outside area where the six of us (and another couple) could watch the game. We all brought snacks, and the owner opened up an unoccupied suite next to us so we could use the bathroom, fridge, etc. without having to go back to our individual rooms. Great fun (except for the game result).
Two incidents of note:
We all decided to go to Gulfstream on Sunday to watch some live thoroughbred action. We checked the paper, and post time was 12:35. It wasn’t crowded at all, and at 12:30 there wasn’t a sign of a horse. What’s up with that? I went into the simulcast room and checked the monitors. Aha! They were racing at Gulfstream West (formerly known as Calder Race Course). So no live thoroughbreds for us! We stayed in the simulcast center for five races and then headed back to the hotel.
We had a totally fun three days at BVR with lots of laughing about the good old days in Boston. Great lunches and dinners. On Tuesday we checked out, drove to the airport, and flew home (nonstop on US Air).
Next trip of note: Louisville in February for the wedding of our friends Edward and Dee. Then back to Louisville in early May for the Derby. And in late May we are off to Montreal for a cruise from Montreal to London (Southampton) on Oceania’s Marina, the twin sister of Riviera. Until then we are on diets!!
We sailed into the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda early Tuesday morning and will depart shortly at 4:00 PM on Wednesday. This post will summarize our stay in Bermuda. Tomorrow is a sea day before arriving in Nassau (Bahamas) on Friday. I will post again from there.
We’ve never been to Bermuda. That’s odd in that it is less than two hours by air from Boston. But we never made it here, so we were looking forward to it. From the King’s Dock at the Royal Naval Shipyard, we took the commuter ferry to Hamilton on Tuesday for a short walkabout before boarding a bus to take us to St. George at the far end of the island. St. George is a delightful town. We saw all the important sites, the most impressive of which was St. Peter’s, Their Majesties Chappell (sic). We had a wonderful lunch where we shared conch fritters for an appetizer. Yum. Elaine had a grouper sandwich and I had fish and chips. Finally we bussed back to Hamilton, did a little shopping, and ferried back to the ship. I’ll let the photos show the beauty of the St. George:
On Wednesday it was back to Hamilton again to see more of it. We visited the very picturesque old Perot Post Office, the Anglican Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, and Fort Hamilton. Then we wandered back to the sea front for pints of Harp in Flanagan’s Irish Pub. Then it was the ferry back to the Royal Naval Dockyard for lunch on the ship, a shower, and a nap.
Click on Pics for larger version in a new window/tab
Here’s a final picture from Tenerife as we now sail westward toward Bermuda. The tag art in Spain is very good. Here’s an example:
Thursday – Sea Day 1
There was a lot of ocean rock and roll as we slept, and it continued into the morning as we headed westward across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands (Tenerife) to Bermuda. Weather was a mixture of sun, clouds, rain, and especially wind. The swells were quite high and walking was a bit difficult at times. We gained an hour between mainland Spain and the Canaries, and we gained another hour last night. It’s 6:15 AM right now, and Elaine is off to the gym. It’s a very well equipped gym with all the machines that we are used to at 24-Hour Fitness. I’ll be heading up there at about 7:30 for my 40 minute treadmill experience. Then it will be breakfast in the Terrace Café.
There is table tennis, bridge, shuffleboard, and croquet all day with tournaments schedules at various times. I generally stay away from the Casino, but I thought about entering the blackjack tournament this afternoon. Unfortunately that conflicted with a lecture on “The Depths of the Atlantic, the First Adventures of the Europeans with the Atlantic Ocean”. I solved the dilemma by skipping both and taking a nap. Elaine attended the lecture and a cooking discussion by Oceania’s senior executive chef from France. We both opted out of the Scarf Tying demonstration. Oceania also has a test kitchen where they have presentations and cooking classes. We missed the 5:30 lecture, “Royal Banquets, State Occasions, and Other Near Disasters” – conflicts with cocktail hour. We skipped the Friends of Bill W. meeting as well as we were busy drinking.
Lunch was in the Terrace Café: I had an eclectic mixture of pizza, calamari rings, and spring rolls. The choices are endless. And everything is good. First time Oceania cruisers all comment on how good the food is compared to other cruise lines. (Thanks, Jacques Pepin, Oceania’s culinary advisor and planner.)
Dinner tonight was in the specialty restaurant, Red Ginger, which serves Asian style food:
Appetizers
Elaine: Crispy Giner Calamari (cilantro, garlic chips, shallots, & sweet chili sauce)
Joe: Tuna Tataki (seared tuna filet, shiso, sesame crust, & wasabi cream
Soup/Salad
Elaine: Spicy Duck & Watermelon Salad (crispy duck, watermelon, cashews, mint, basil, & sweet fish sauce)
Joe: Tom Kha Gai soup (lemongrass, coconut milk & chicken)
Mains
Elaine: Claypot Caramelized Chicken (with caramel sauce, chilies & fresh ginger)
Joe: Crispy Duck Asian Style (with raspberry sauce, snow peas, and coconut)
Dessert:
Elaine: Steamed Ginger Cake with Apple Cardamom Ice Cream
Joe: Bounty Cake with Coconut, Chocolate Chips, & Vanilla Bean
Friday – Sea Day 2
The weather was similar to yesterday but as we progressed westward, the swells began to decrease and it got noticeably warmer.
The highlight of the day was being invited by Peter Langley, the pilot I mentioned previously, and his travel mate, Jack, to cocktails in their stateroom at 7:00 PM. There was another couple from California invited as well. We had a grand time discussing the adventures of Peter and Jack over their colorful careers. The other couple had reservations in a specialty restaurant, so we accompanied Peter and Jack to dinner in the Main Dining Room. We four were the last to leave the place. (As an aside, my rack of lamb was delicious and cooked perfectly rare.) I also drank too much.
Saturday – Sea Day 3
As we arose, me with a hangover, the swells had decreased to a minimal level and we pushed on westward in calm seas. The mighty Atlantic was almost like a lake. And it turned out to be a beautiful sunny and warm day.
We did our gym thing and had breakfast. Then we did ship stuff, had cocktails, enjoyed lunch on the open deck, took naps, read, and generally enjoyed life. We have seen one ship in three days, a freighter. No sign of land, of course.
Dinner tonight was in the specialty restaurant, Polo Grill, the ship steak house. Elaine had a great foie gras en croute appetizer while I enjoyed an excellent shrimp cocktail. We both had salads, Caesar for me with extra anchovies. Then Elaine had a nice filet mignon and I had a beautiful rib-eye. Desserts: key lime pie and crème brulee.
Sunday – Sea Day 4
It was cloudy when we got up and the swells were up again. Some people won’t be happy. We, however, don’t mind and even enjoy rough seas. We are both lucky in that we never get seasick. It was a gym free day today.
Today was Country Fair day on Riviera. All of the departments (housekeeping, bar staff, galley, casino, waiters, etc) have booths on the main deck with various games that passengers play to win raffle tickets. After the 45-minute fair, numbers are called out to award prizes like bottles of wine, casino chips, massages, and so on. We won lots of raffle tickets but, of course, no prizes. At 4:00 we were invited to Scottie and Mickey’s stateroom for champagne. They brought a case of their favorite bubbly on board in Barcelona. Oceania allows you to bring your own alcohol so long as it is consumed in your cabin. We have done that in the past, but on this trip we bought the unlimited booze package – all the liquor and wine you can consume. We’ve been getting our money’s worth! Dinner was in the Main Dining Room.
Monday – Sea Day 6
Swells down, temperatures up. A beautiful sunny day. We lolled about, attending the Q&A with the Captain and Chief Engineer in the morning. Pina coladas (as usual) at noon. We each did a load of wash in the self service guest laundry.
In the afternoon I decided to enter the blackjack tournament in the casino. There were ten entrants, $35 buy-in. Five players at each of two tables playing ten hands with $100 worth of house chips. Top three moved on to the final table. I was out of it until the final hand when I bet my remaining $50, hit, and ended up in a tie for third. We played three hands to break the tie, and I won and moved on to the final table. Six people, twelve hands, $100 in house chips each to start. I went up and down but had a shot going into the last hand. I bet $40, got a six and a five, doubled down and got a ten for 21. I won the hand but only managed second place. The payout was $180 to first and $120 to second, so I ended up winning $85, the $120 less my buy-in fee. Not bad. I can’t remember the last time I played Blackjack.
After the usual cocktails and canapés at 5:30, we had dinner in our third specialty restaurant, Toscana. It was lovely. I’m sparing you the details.
As I post this we are docked at the Royal Naval Shipyard (King’s Dock) in Bermuda. The whole shipyard is wired for very reasonably priced high speed internet. We are here all day today (Tuesday) and tonight before embarking late on Wednesday afternoon for Nassau. Hopefully I will get a post in tomorrow (Wednesday) before we leave port. Then we have our last sea day before reaching Nassau. We are winding down.
OH, and go Pats. Crushed a good Indy team in their house much to the chagrin of most of our Louisville friends (although Dee is actually a Patriot fan). And crushed Detroit who ain’t half bad. The Pack is next. We will be watching from Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.
Last minute news flash: today we had a late lunch on board and met Peter, a pilot born in Shanghai who now lives in Spain. He is 90 years old and looks 75. He flew in the RAF and was pilot for the queen. Then he became a commercial pilot and was the pilot on the World Airlines DC-10 that ran off the ice-slicked runway at Logan in Boston in 1982. Remember that, Boston people? I do. I think only two lives were lost.
Well, shipboard internet truly sucks, especially when not in port. While in Malaga, I managed to upload some photos at an Internet Cafe, but I never got a chance to post them. Now it is Wednesday, and we are approaching Santa Cruz de Tenerife. We should dock at 9:00 AM and leave at 6:00 PM. While ashore I will try to find another internet café and make this post. So here’s the update:
SATURDAY
Saturday in Barcelona was sunny and bright. We had time to kill before boarding Riviera at noon, so we did a walkabout. Theses pictures were taken on that walk:
At noon we checked out of our hotel and took a cab to the designated cruise terminal (there are three in Barcelona). No Oceania ship there! So another cab was required to get us to the right terminal. Boarding was a breeze and after two drinks at the pool bar, our stateroom suite was ready. We left Barcelona at 5:00 PM, passing by other cruise ships docked in town and also saw the sailing ship Windsong under sail as it left Barcelona at the same time we did.
SUNDAY
On Sunday morning we docked in Cartagena at 9:00 AM with sunny skies and warm temperatures. Cartagena is a delightful seaside town famous now for its Roman Theater and Roman Forum. We saw them both in our walk through the downtown area. Some of these archaeological finds have been made as recently as in the last ten years. We took an outside elevator to the castle above the town where we saw peacocks roaming about and beautiful views of the town. After about four hours of walking we went back to the ship for BBQ burgers on deck for lunch.
Sunday night was our splurge night for dinner on Riviera. There are four specialty restaurants that have no extra charge; we are booked into those later in the trip. The ship also has La Reserve which offers a single-seating seven-course meal with different premier wines accompanying each course. There are three tables of eight people at this feast. We made good friends with Scottie and Mickey, a lovely couple from Los Angeles. We will probably share a table with them again. Dinner was fantastic. I won’t list the seven different wines, but here are the courses:
Lobster and Mascarone Pancake with Baby Carrot Emulsion and Rock Chive Cress
Cream of Porcini with Sauteed Duck Foie Gras Bites and Croutons
Pumpkin Ravioli with Crushed Amaretto Biscotti
Bay Scallops and Jamon Iberico “Pata Negra” Ham over Tarbais Bean Cream
72-Hour Slow Braised Short Rib with “Gnocchi au Jus”
A.O.C Brie de Meaux on Toast with Raisin-Onion Compote and Quince Jelly
Raspberry Caramelized Mille Feuille with Madagascan Vanilla Cream
MONDAY
We sailed overnight and docked in Malaga, Spain at 8:00 AM on Monday. When I first got on board on Saturday I discovered in unpacking that my dress pants for shipboard dining were not in my suitcase. Blah! What’s a trip without a crisis? I got by with casual black semi-jeans for two nights, but I needed some good pants. So our first stop in Malaga was a large department store, El Corte Ingles. Sizes are totally different over here, but with the gracious help of a wonderful clerk in the store and Elaine, I found a perfect pair of Hugo Boss gray slacks (which are now easily the most expensive pair of pants that I have ever owned). Pack better next time!!
Then we boarded the HOHO (hop on, hop off) bus for a tour of Malaga. We got off at the huge Gibralfaro Castle for a long walk on the castle walls and then again at the magnificent Malaga Cathedral. For lunch we had authentic seafood paella with shellfish accompanied by delicious Spanish sangria at a nice seaside restaurant. We sat outside under beautiful 70+ degrees sunny skies. We worked off our lunch by walking back to the ship (25 minutes or so).
TUESDAY
Tuesday was a sea day. We lounged about the ship and attended a lecture on Pirates of the Mediterranean. We napped. We read. We sat in the sun. We drank (of course) – the Pina Coladas are excellent. We shared a table for dinner in the Main Dining Room with a woman from Toronto traveling alone and an older couple from Los Angeles.
WEDNESDAY
We are docking in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands on schedule at 9:00 AM. The Canary Islands are part of Spain but located just off the coast of Africa. It looks like our spectacular run of good vacation weather that began in late July might be over. The good spell held from our arrival in London in late July and was steady through all of September throughout England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Wales. And we had perfect weather this trip in London, Paris, Barcelona, and on the first four days of the cruise. Alas, it is raining as we dock and the rain is predicted to be an all day thing. So we will probably have a brief wet look at Santa Cruz and hopefully find a comfortable Internet Café to get this posting done.
Info and pictures from Santa Cruz de Tenerife will be in my next post. That will likely not happen until we reach Bermuda next Tuesday, so patience will be required <smiley face>. Our next five days will be at sea. Hhhmm, the Bermuda Triangle? I’ll try to do a text-only update before then, but the internet on board being what it is, it’s unlikely.
Ciao for now!
UPDATE
We spent the morning walking around in Santa Cruz. We saw Bill Murphy’s relative Jose (see pictures), the San Francsico church, the Fine Arts Museum, the Tenerife National Museum, and various other sites. We had a few drops of rain but nothing serious. Here are some pictures. Be back again next Tuesday from Bermuda!
