Blogs from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States, North America

Welcome to our Travel Blog!! Ok, ok…we were supposed to start this a while ago, but better late the never right?!? I'm sure there are a lot of people I'm missing on my email list, so feel free to share this blog to whomever! In addition to that, I've sent this out to everyone on my email list, which means people I may have emailed or recieved emails from randomly probably got this, so you can ignore if you wish and I apologize for the inconvenience. A brief update of events up to this point: So far, we've spent 2 months in Europe and 3 months in French Polynesia, visiting 4 countries, 17 cities and 6 islands. Below are links to the pictures for those trips if you haven't seen them already. Now that this blog ... read more

I went back to Lauderdale by the Sea to try to photograph the aquamarine spotted nudi we had found the previous Sunday. The tide was coming in and it was surgie and about 15 knots from SE. At the beginning of the dive I blew an o-ring and walked to the shop in my wetsuit. That was a pretty good sign right there. I know better than diving there in conditions like that. I tried anyway. I wanted a photo so bad. I found the area where the algae was but It was wiped dry by the current so who knows where the nudis went. :( I only found one yellow blenny with orange face and I dried up my bottle in like 1 hr and a half. And I had to ask a couple ... read more

I went back to get a good portrait shot of the F. Marcussorum that I call “Purpullina” but I couldn’t find it. SK had mention the day before that one of the nudis was full of eggs and they might have laid them on the day that we didn’t dive the bridge. And they did!. I found the pink eggs but I could not find the nudibranchs. I was hoping that someone got a shot. And guess what? Linda did! I found a l dworf frog fish probably a male. Very shy and it did not like his photo taken. I also found a little nudi I haven’t seen before lay eggs from start to end and a funny orange amphipod spin around a hydroid. I wish I had video that day. It was a great ... read more

Landfall in Florida - Sunday – March 11th FYI … the previous Blog Entry has been updated with a few more details from last night- things which occurred after we had posted that entry. Good morning from Port Everglades Florida. The ship was tied up at the pier when we woke up this morning. Practically everything had been packed last night, so we only had to get dressed and head off to breakfast in the Horizon Court. The original disembarkation time was pushed back from 7:10 to the new time of 8:05, so we had a more leisurely process this morning. But after a final breakfast, we picked up our bags from the cabin and went back to the Casino where we had our Life Boat station on the first day. There was a ... read more

Thursday, March 1st FIRST DAY OF OUR VACATION! Today has arrived at last. The bags are finally packed and loaded in the car. We actually have some luggage for the cruise and another bag for our days of driving and also for after the cruise. This means the “cruise bags” can stay packed until we get on the ship and they can just stay in the trunk of the car until we get to Ft Lauderdale. While on the cruise, the other bags can sit in the truck. Once we get back after the cruise, then we can clean and reuse some of the items but will also have some Cardinal shirts for wearing to the ballgames. Anyway, we are finally on the road and have gotten as far as Marietta, Georgia. There was ... read more

And so we are off on another adventure afloat. This year we are embarking on a very different cruise. Since there isn’t a traditional world cruise on Regent this year Cruise Specialists created one for us. We will start by circumnavigating the South American continent on the Mariner. That takes 72 days. We are very excited about all of the new ports, places and people we will be seeing in this part of the world. We have never been to Chile, nor around Cape Horn or the Falklands and are especially looking forward to those ports. Another highlight of this trip is spending a week cruising up the mighty Amazon River. We did honeymoon in Buenos Aires 38 years ago…so that will be a very special visit for us and we will be there on the ... read more

The flight from Panama City arrived at Fort Lauderdale in the early hours coming from inland and not asI had hoped via the coast, passing Miami on the left. In the lobby of the Hollywood airport I checked hostel world and saw that all the hostels were fully booked! i later learned this was most likely due to a beach party that weekend. Not knowing what to do and not wanting to waste valuable 'tanning time', I picked up all my gear and got on a Broward county bus to the beach, as I had done 9 weeks before. I took this bus farther north this time however and got off Galt Ocean Drive where I parked all my gear on the beach, settled in next to a fenced of area where a turtle had chosen ... read more

All the planning and preparation is over, the bags have been packed nearly to bursting, and the only thing left is to have fun and relaxation on the trip. There was only one non-stop flight from St Louis (it arrives in Florida just 30 minutes before the ship sails) so we decided not to risk connections on cruise-day and we came down here a day early. That took the “last minute stress” out of the vacation and we will have plenty of time tomorrow to board the ship. So today started the vacation, but we don't get to the ship until tomorrow. We got to the airport today in plenty of time (thanks to Elizabeth driving us), the flight on Southwest to Florida was a little bumpy as we approach the landing but uneventful, and both ... read more

Airlines, routes, availability, prices of course and I think just the countless possibilities of the combinations of aforementioned factors that contribute to the decision how you're flying to your next destination make me that much interested in this part of travel that I can spend hours surfing the web, looking for the cheapest but also most original and exciting way to fly. Options I had to get to Central America, a route that doesn't see any real low prices due to a lack of competition and low budget flights at least on direct routes, included flying with Condor (Germany) via the Dominican Republic to Panama city (€400+), an AA flight from Brussels, connecting in NY JFK with a TACA flight to El Salvador / Cancun or a number of Air Berlin and other airlines combinations. When ... read more