The Last Day of My Cruise

The Carnival Breeze at Carnival Port

The Carnival Breeze at Cozumel Port

I am siting on my balcony, cool breeze in my hair, looking at the vast and lovely ocean, with moody clouds in the distance (possibly the far outreaches of the Hurricane Matthew system?) but since it is the last day of my cruise, I really should be inside my cabin packing. And figuring out debarkation. And all sorts of other useful end-of-my-vacation things. But no, I’d rather sit here and enjoy my last cruising day, and leave everything to do in a mad panic later.

This has been a fantastic cruise! I really have had a marvelous time on the Carnival Breeze. I’ll be blogging about each day of the cruise, both sea and port days, and I have lots of images to share as well as reviews of the ship, excursions, food, and much more. But today, my last day on the ocean, I have to go back to gazing off my balcony into the distance. Plenty of time to catch everyone up when I am back home staring instead out of my office window.  If you want more information and you just can’t wait, I’ve been posting images on  The Tiny Travelholic on Instagram during the cruise. And for cruisers on an Eastern Caribbean cruise today, I’ve got an extra thought for you as I lift my glass–stay safe, stay out of Matthew’s way, and may most of your cruise continue uninterrupted (if a little changed, especially if you were heading to Jamaica).

 

Beautiful Cozumel

Shot with DXO ONE Camera Processed with Snapseed.

Passion Island, Cozumel. Shot with DXO ONE Camera Processed with Snapseed.

I am in Cozumel, and I am happy.  For those of you who have been to Cozumel, I could stop there, and you would have visions of beautiful beaches, lovely weather, and tequila. Lots of tequila.  But since some of you may not have been here yet, I will tell you a bit about our wonderful stop at the Port of Cozumel today.

Today I spent the day taking a power boat along the lovely shores of Cozumel to a place called Passion Island. There, Mr. Travelholic and I walked on a pristine white sand beach, sat and laid down in hammocks right in the warm, turquoise ocean (pictured above), and basically did the most scenic, restful nothing you could imagine.

I’m back in my Stateroom now, but have to run because I’m heading outside to watch the runners.  You, know, the cruisers who drink too much and then have to make a mad dash for the boat before we sail away. I like to cheer them on. In any event I’ll have much more about my wonderful excursion to Passion Island, Cozumel, and yesterday my first day fat sea later this week.

Boarding Day on the Carnival Breeze

View from the Carnival Breeze at Galveston Port Sail Away

Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas at Galveston Port, seen from the Carnival Breeze after boarding.

As our fabulous cruise director Mike has said, cruising is all about Food, Friends and Fun (I knew I liked Mike When he appeared in a suit made entirely out of Union Jacks last night), and my first day aboard the Carnival Breeze did not disappoint at all.

Let me back track to the morning of boarding the boat so I can catch everyone up. We (“we” on this cruise generally refers to Mr. Travelholic and myself, and often also to our theater friends Tamra, Rhonda, Darrin and Bill who are cruising with us) opened up our eyes at the Four Points Sheraton in Galveston. Although the hotel disappointed the night before (non-working WiFi) it was hard to stay cranky when opening our eyes up to the waves and water right outside our window.  We skipped breakfast at the hotel (eating right before you get on a cruise ship seems redundant) tried the free hotel coffee (blah) and packed into our taxi for the boat at 10:00 AM.

Two tips when boarding Carnival at Galveston. You get to pick your boarding window, so pick an early one if you are like my group and can’t wait to get going, and order your taxi the night before since thousands of people will all be heading to probably more than one boat the morning of your cruise (Liberty of the Seas was also leaving Galveston yesterday).

Our hotel was very close to the port and we made it by 10:15 (boarding window 10 to 10:30). We love Carnival’s new staggered boarding procedure…there were no lines at all, and we so breezed right through the boarding process. The Continue reading →

My Galveston, Texas Cruise Port Experience

Storm clouds over Galveston, Texas as seen from our room at the Four Points Sheraton

Storm clouds over Galveston, Texas as seen from our room at the Four Points Sheraton on the morning of our Carnival, Breeze cruise

Our cruise week has gotten off to a good start. Our flight to Houston was on time, and pleasant enough (bonus points for United Economy Plus and the electric outlets at the seats, but we had a particularly grouchy flight crew that snapped at my friend for no good reason).  Houston (IAH) airport is huge. I mean, really huge. We had an enormous walk from the gate to our baggage claim (several moving walkways and past endless gates). We stopped for a Starbucks on the way, an even with all that, our luggage was just coming off the carousel as we got there; perfect timing really.  Getting our rental car was a cinch (shuttle to a big rent-a-car center). We tried Dollar for the first, and probably our last time. Although the initially quoted car rate was inexpensive, they nickeled and dimed until it didn’t seem so cheap after all, and when we inquired about a slightly larger car because we had 4 people and lots of luggage they quoted us a price that would have tripled the rental rate. This has not been my experience with either Avis or Hertz, my two go-to companies for car rental. Continue reading →

On My Way To Galveston, Texas

Galveston Pleasure Pier the night before our cruise

Galveston Pleasure Pier the night before our cruise

I’m quite literally on my way since I’m typing this on my iPad, on a United flight heading to Houston. I’m blogging off line though because United wanted $9.99 for two hours of WiFi, which I refuse to pay. I’d pay $2 an hour or even $2.99 an hour (as I’ve been able to do on some flights) but $5 an hour? Nope, I’ll pass on the WiFi and type off-line and read on my lovely, lightweight Kindle Paperwhite instead. Blog shall be posted from hotel WiFi.

I am heading to Galveston, Texas (with Mr. Travelholic and theater friends) where tomorrow morning we’ll board the Carnival Breeze for an 8 night cruise to the Western Caribbean!  Technically we could have tried to fly in early tomorrow morning and boarded the boat in the late afternoon, but we didn’t want the stress of possibly missing the boat if there was a plane delay or cancellation. Or massive traffic. Or a meteor strike.   Continue reading →

Packing: The Bane of my Travel Existence

Today is packing day for my Carnival Breeze cruise to the Western Caribbean! I really love travel, but I really hate packing; this is an annoying dichotomy because of course I need to pack for every trip.  I’m not one of those people who pack a week in advance for a trip, but I”m also not one of those people who pack the morning of the plane flight (Mr. Travelholic; I’m looking at you; I wonder if most men pack at the last minute like my husband does?).

Luggage I'm Packing Today

My Delsey and Travel Pro Bags

In any event, I usually like to pack two days out which gives me enough time to make any purchases of last-minute needed items. However, today is not the first day I’ve THOUGHT about packing; there are a few preliminary things I do about a week prior to a  trip:

1. Figure out what size I am for the trip.  My closet has a full wardrobe in sizes 8, 10 and 12 thanks to fluctuations from age, dieting,  medications (prednisone, get back ye devil med) and such. For this trip, 10 it is.

2. Figure out if there are any camera-related or other items I need to order off of Amazon.com, and then order those items via Amazon Prime in time to arrive for the journey.  For this trip I needed a case for my DxO One (I lost my case  on a recent trip) and a couple of SD cards. And I bought a new carry-on that I’ll discuss below.

3. Figure out if I need to do any shopping out of town (which I did for this trip; see my post on my San Francisco trip).

4. Take in any dry cleaning for clothes that I want to pack.

5. Make a list of anything I need to buy locally (good DEET bug spray–don’t want Zika for this trip–and a gentle SPF sunscreen for faces); I usually make a drug store run for such things right before the trip.

So, with all my pre-packing chores done, I’m ready to pack today.  One of the things I’ve learned from years of travel is Continue reading →

A Classic Quick Shopping Trip to San Francisco

Peacock mural, San Francisco

Mural as seen from traffic, San Francisco Tenderloin district

One thing that you do when you live in “the country” is make trips to “the city” for various things that you don’t have in your country locale. So today I’m doing an overnight to San Francisco for shopping and a doctor appointment.

Depending on traffic, we are about 3.5 to 4 hours from downtown San Francisco. We usually stay at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis on Mission, but evidently there is a giant Oracle convention in town and rates were jacked up to $750 a night for a standard room and no rooms on points available (in other words, Marriott is saying unless you are here with the convention, don’t book with us). So, we are trying the JW Marriott Union Square up on Mason. The rates there were also ridiculous ($550 for standard room) but we are using 40,000 points (which is a lot, but I have over 300,000 points so I might as well use them).

Being a frequent visitor to San Francisco, we have always had a “base” hotel where we stay.  For years, it was Campton Place off of Union Square. Everyone from the doormen to the reception knew us by name. Then they changed owners and became Taj Campton Place and it all changed, so we migrated to the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, where the doormen knew us etc…until Borders Books closed down.  This was our favorite spot on a San Francisco shopping trip–giant bookstore, family full of geeks, always left with arm loads of books after browsing to our hearts content. When they closed down
Continue reading →

Some Fantastic Low Airfares Are Available Right Now to Japan from the US

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Garden in Kyoto, Japan (c) 2015 Denise Van Patten

So today I was booking Daughter Travelholic’s and Son Travelholic’s tickets to Japan in November from the East coast of the United States, and I couldn’t believe how cheap the flights were on United, using All Nippon Airways (ANA)! The flights were $533 each way in Economy to Haneda (HND) on ANA.  With taxes and fees the round trips were only $1,200 which is significantly cheaper than usual. These fares count as a super discounted fare so of course no refunds or changes and also no Mileage Plus accrual on the ANA portions, but at those prices, who cares?

Anyway, if you have been thinking about visiting Japan and looking for a low fare, here’s your chance! Japan in the Fall is absolutely gorgeous, and the weather is fantastic too…so much better (for me) than summer, which is so hot. Plus if you are lucky you’ll catch the fall colors (which are legendary around Kyoto).  We are going at the end of November, and the Christmas decorations at the large stores and modern shopping areas are quite fun too, especially if you are crazy about Christmas like me.

Welcome to The Tiny Travelholic!

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View from boat off Lizard Island, Australia, June 2016

Does the world need another travel blog? Probably not. That said, I’m a writer and a travel photographer and this blog has been brewing in my brain for years. I travel. I love travel. I travel a lot, and I have 30 years of travel photography and adventures under my belt, with trips planned all the way to the horizon. So, for me, it’s time to finally share my passion for travel with the world. I hope you’ll come along!