We had two choices for flights today – one left at 6am and arrived in San Juan at 1:30 and the other didn’t get us in until 5:00-6:00. The later choice made it challenging to have dinner plans at a decent hour (and the rest of the gang took a flight that had them in town by 2:30) so we sucked it up booked the early one. Shock, shock I know. The weeks leading up to the cruise were a bit off, which seemed to have a domino effect on everything. I had planned to make a trip to our cabin in Gatlinburg to disassemble and put away Christmas decorations with friends the second week of January. That felt like plenty of time to buffer getting ready for the cruise in between. Well, it snowed. Correction, we actually had blizzard conditions – the day we were scheduled to leave. Needless to say, we didn’t leave. It was so cold even after the snow ended that it hung around for days and the roads didn’t have a chance to melt. So we pushed it to the following week. The Saturday before we’re planning to leave on Monday I started with a sore throat that turned into bronchitis by Monday night. Wonderful. At this point we’re less than two weeks away from flying out for the cruise. In the end, we did leave for the cabin on Tuesday and returned Saturday. I had muddled through but was physically done and needed to focus all my energy on getting well. Therefore, all the other things I normally would’ve done to prepare for the trip ahead of time just didn’t happen. Bob’s 60th birthday was Wednesday so I met him for lunch and we had plans for dinner with the family at Blue. It was a wonderful day and we really appreciated everyone coming out all the way across town to celebrate with us.

By this point, my clock is tick tocking pretty loudly. I stripped the bed sheets and threw them in the washer and headed out the door for last minute errands and to meet my sisters for Stitch and Bitch (we switched our day from the normal Friday to Thursday so we could all be together – they’re the best!). That afternoon I had to get everything moving into high gear. It seemed I had a mess everywhere but didn’t feel I was completing anything! Then I had to leave before 5 to go meet Bob for dinner since there was nothing in the house to fix. Both of us were floundering this year getting our stuff packed. I hate that feeling. I’d much prefer being days ahead and having time to remember what I initially forgot. Anyway, by about 10pm we were pretty much packed. About 6 hours before we had to leave. The alarm went off at 3:30 and neither one of us got anymore than 3-1/2 to 4 hours sleep. Gonna be a long day.

Thankfully, our flights were pretty uneventful except for some turbulence from Baltimore to San Juan. We arrived on time and our bags were waiting for us! Yah!! The humidity hit us like a wall. This is what we left and what we landed to:

But we’ll take it. First order of business now was getting a taxi to the hotel. Oh wow …. check out the taxi line …


Surprisingly it only took about 15 minutes! I guess they’ve done this before. While waiting in line, the lady behind me said her husband was making a call with her phone because he left his in the bowl at security at Philadelphia airport. They were getting their son to go pick it up for him but had to send them an email authorizing him to pick it up. The wife couldn’t understand why that even mattered since he had the same name, Joseph Gallow.  You can dress me up. But you really can’t take me anywhere. You know I had to turn around and asked if I heard right, that his name was Joseph Gallow. He confirmed and I chuckled. He asked why I laughed. So I said are you sure it’s not Jerry Gallow? The wife looked at me and said, “Actually it’s Callow, with a C! That’s my favorite movie!” LOL “Me too!!’ It was just one of those moments but a pretty cool connection with a stranger. Another 15 minutes and we’re at our hotel. The clerk wanted to know if a room with two queens facing the ocean was okay. Um, yeah we think that will work. Ha.


Rough life but somebody’s gotta live it. That 3:30 alarm had taken its toll so we hunkered down to chill, read some and nap before meeting the rest of the gang for our dinner reservations at 7 at Casita Miramar – our favorite spot down here. I’m sitting here journaling listening to the waves crash underneath us. It’s so relaxing. I’m gonna enjoy my morning coffee out on the deck too.

Anyway, we met downstairs to catch a taxi over to the restaurant. I hadn’t met Jesse (DE & Sarah’s son) or Jeff (DE’s brother) before, so we got our intros behind us and started the rest of the evening!! We were quickly seated and the first thing that came out was their specialty sangria. Mmmmmm mmmmmmm mmmmmmm. We ordered a pitcher of the passionfruit sangria and a pitcher of the wild cherry sangria. Both are amazing but I think I prefer the passionfruit. We got a few appetizers – all of which were yummy. Several of us ordered their half stuffed avocado. Bob’s and Jesse’s I think were stuffed with Mahi mahi and mine was with crab meat. They were amazing. They came with beans and rice that were really good too. We’re all stuffed to the gills and they bring us their little after dinner drink (sample size) to help digestion. Well it certainly couldn’t hurt.



Back at the hotel we took a walk around the deck area just to see how beautiful it is. Planning to go have my coffee our there in the morning. I have the door open now and the crashing waves are putting me to sleep.

Tomorrow will be pretty laid back. Looking forward to getting on the ship and exploring. We haven’t been on this one before – it’s Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas. It’s quite a bit bigger than the ships we’re used to. The one holds 3000 passengers. The Summit holds about 1800, so it’s significantly bigger. Anyway, done for now so ta ta! Until tomorrow!!