Call me crazy but who gets up at 1:30am and drives 5 hours just to hike around and drive back? Only I would do something as spontaneous as that. At 10:00pm Saturday night, I was just lounging around telling myself that I should go on a mini road trip. Since it was already pretty late, I doubt anybody would have wanted to tag along on such short notice. I decided that I would drive up to Mammoth Lakes and visit the Devil's Postpile National Monument. So I went to bed hoping to get a few hours sleep before I ventured [View Full Entry]

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After 5 consecutive days where we were exploring a new port every day, today was our only day at sea. We spent much of the day exploring the parts of the ship that we had yet to explore as well as spending way too much time at the buffet. In between the ship exploration and buffet stops, we were just lounging by the pool and relaxing. Today was the only day during the duration of the cruise where we had sun the entire day. This brought everybody out to the pool. Today we finally found the elusive rock climbing wall [View Full Entry]

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Our final port of call and southern-most stop was in Bridgetown, Barbados. An independent Caribbean island nation, Barbados gained it's independence from Britain but still retains much of it's British charm. This island is best known for it's white sandy beaches, rums, and for being a playground for the wealthy especially along it's western coast. Our excursion that we chose for the day was a coastal cruise in a five-star catamaran with the opportunity to swim and snorkel with sea turtles. Since our excursion didn't begin until 9:30, we took full advantage of the chance to sleep in this morning. [View Full Entry]

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When we awoke this morning, we were docked in Castries, the capital city of St. Lucia. The island is famous for being very verdant and lush as well as for it's famous landmark, The Pitons. We signed up for a full island tour which would last most of the day. Included in this tour was a drive through the rainforest, a stop at a fishing village, a stop at a volcano, a hike to a waterfall, and a stop at the town of Soufriere. The large amount of rainfall the island receives is responsible for the lush vegetation and that [View Full Entry]

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The next port of call on this cruise was the island of Antigua in the capital city of St. John. Antigua, along with the nearby island of Barbuda, make up the independent country of Antigua and Barbuda. Today, we were lucky enough to have a bit of a sleep in as our excursion for the day didn't start until 9am. Initally, our plan was to do the Black Swan Pirate Ship excursion which consisted of a cruise around the harbor in Saint John, a mock pirate ship battle, as well as unlimited drinks at the bar. As cheesy as it [View Full Entry]

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We woke up this morning and we were docked in St. Maarten which is an island where one half belongs to the Dutch and the other half belongs to the French. Therefore, the currency used here is the Euro. Depending on which side you are on, the island is spelled differently. Sint Maarten on the Dutch side and Saint Martin on the French side. We docked in the town of Phillipsburg which is on the Dutch side. The first thing we noticed this morning was that there was another cruise ship docked alongside us. The other ship appeared to be [View Full Entry]

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After spending the entire day in Puerto Rico as a walking zombie, I awoke this morning completely rejuvenated and ready to start exploring. The first port of call on this cruise was Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. I had heard much about the over commercialized nature of the island of St. Thomas. However, I wanted to see a part of the Virgin Islands that was a bit untouched. Prior to the trip, I had done a little research and discovered that the nearby island of St. John's was pretty much untouched by mass tourism. On [View Full Entry]

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Shea and I left a cold and rainy Los Angeles today bound for the sunny Caribbean. For the past few weeks, visions of sipping pina coladas under a palm tree with calypso music playing in the background had been dancing in our heads. We arrived at LAX with plenty enough time to spare. We were well aware of how long it can take to get through the check-in process with American Airlines. Our first flight was a red-eye flight into Fort Lauderdale, FL landing at 5:00am. From there, we had a flight at 6:40am for the 2 1/2 hour flight [View Full Entry]

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This morning Kevin and I left at around 9am for a drive up to Las Vegas to watch the FIBA America Basketball tournament. The weather here at home was going to be a scorching 105 degrees and was probably going to be the same up in Vegas. I still had my little rental car from the recent car accident that I was in so I figured that I would put some miles on this car. Once we passed Barstow, my rental car was struck by a flying piece of tire tread that slammed into my hood. It scared the hell [View Full Entry]

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The final day of the tour has arrived. As with everything in life, all good things must come to an end. Those of us who were staying at this hotel one more night had to remove their things from the room only to be reassigned another room later this afternoon. Thankfully, we were able to store our things in a locked room behind the reception desk until then. After breakfast, we boarded the coach one last time for our drive to visit the Acropolis. Once at the foot of the Acropolis, it was a relatively steady incline to get to [View Full Entry]

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