I have just returned from sailing on the beautiful new Sun Princess! This ship offers several different entertainment venues and a lot of dining options! The new Dome area offers a relaxing area to lounge during the day and transforms in the evening with a stage for spectacular shows! This ship can offer a little bit for everyone!

Our 10-day Grand Mediterranean Cruise took us to many new (to us) ports of call: Florence/Pisa, Genoa, Marseille, Barcelona, Mallorca, Cartagena, Gibraltar.

Each port offered something a little different with so much history and great food to experience.

We started and ended our trip in Rome. This city should be on your "must visit list". Rome is very easy to walk around, and their underground systems makes getting from one end of the city to the other quick and simple.

The most beautiful Country, I don't think I've seen so many shades of Green! Royal Irish Tours offers amazing service and Knowledge and truly made the trip a once in a lifetime experience!

We sailed with Royal Caribbean again in April 2019.  This time we chose Freedom of the Seas from San Juan

We flew in the night prior and stayed at the Best Western Plus Condado Palm Inn.  This hotel is a budget hotel, not fancy but it a perfect location.  It was about 15mins from the airport and 7 mins to the cruise pier.  The rooms were clean but a little older.  There were a lot of restaurants and drug stores in close walking distance.  The hotel is about 2 blocks to a lovely beach.

 The Southern Caribbean Cruise was 7 days with stops in Curacao, Aruba, St. Kitts & St. Thomas. 

The Freedom of the seas offers many activities, from : fitness classes, full gym and spa.  Along with flowrider, rock wall, ice skating rink.  Wonderful kids program and many different seminars with wide range of topics.

There are plenty of food options, and if you have any dietary needs that can easily be looked after! 

Independence of the Seas-

We sailed from Southampton, England, We took a private car service from London to Southampton this was about 1hr 45min highway driving.

I was a little concerned to be at sea for 8 days, but it was so relaxing and the weather was perfect.  We travelled in late October so the weather in London was a little chilly and we wore pants/sweaters for the first few days of the cruise.  By Day 4 we were back into shorts and t-shirts.

With so many days at sea the cruise line keeps a jam packed itinerary with a lot of fun activities and food! :)

Our transatlantic cruise started in Southampton, we sailed 8 days across the Atlantic into the Caribbean and then did stops : St. Maarten, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico and Labadee-Haiti.  For a total for 14 days.

We love cruises and this cruise was top of our list!  so relaxing and it was breath taking to be in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!

Everyone should try this!

The Hampton By Hilton London Gatwick Airport Hotel is located right in the Gatwick airport.

The WestJet Check-in counter is located at the entrance to the hotel, which was very convenient!

The hotel had wonderful friendly staff, that helped answer all our "tourist questions".

The rooms are small and very clean.  I was surprised how quiet the rooms were for being located in the airport. 

They also offered free wi-fi and free breakfast.

With the hotel located in the airport it was easy to access the train to go into the heart of London.

I stayed at Sunscape Puerto Plata in April 2017.  The resort has 585 rooms consisting of 6 large 3story buildings that offer the standard hotel rooms.  They also offer 6 smaller buildings for the upgraded Sun Club, either family or adult only sections.  We upgraded to the adult only Sun Club rooms and found this worth the money.  The rooms are set away from the main pool and nightly entertainment areas, so we found our room to be very quiet. The food is fabulous!  The main buffet offered plenty of choices for meals through out the day and the 4 a la cartes were just as good. There is one large main pool where much of the standard activities take place and just outside the main lobby is a 2nd good size quieter pool.  For Sun Club members there is an Adult only pool, and also a family pool.  However both pools are very small and good for a quick refreshing dip to cool off. The Beach is lovely and great for walking.  There is a section on the beach for Sun Club.  There are beach merchants that do walk up and down the beach and do approach you. I would recommend this resort to the budget conscious traveller that wants a nice beach and good food and would highly recommend the Sun Club upgrade!

I am a huge lover of Royal Caribbean, and the Anthem of the Seas is one of the reasons why I keep going back!

This is a MUST see cruise ship!  The only way I can describe it is ; state of the art,  from a lounge that cost millions of dollars to build with dancing tv screens to floors and ceilings opening and rising stages.. absolute amazing.  They have built this ship so you feel comfortable to just relax in every space. Usually when we cruise we get a balcony cabin, but for this trip, because we were leaving from NYC in December we thought we'd try an inside cabin with virtual balcony, this was amazing.  This balcony was a huge TV screen and projected the current pictures being filmed from the bridge..so you never feel like you're missing anything.. great fun! My greatest pleasure was watching the Bionic Bar!  These 2 mechanical arms mixed drinks to order...simply amazing to see! This ship can keep you busy from the time you get up to the time you drag yourself back to the cabin.  The Anthem offers a Waive-rider, rock wall, a huge seaPlex with bumper cars and roller skating and circus school.  The SeaPlex also offers an Xbox gaming room , air hockey and ping pong tables. The North Star offers a ride that extends high above the ship and give you an amazing view with great photo ops.  But what's new and exciting is the Ripcord by IFly, this is a skydiving simulator and is a must try for everyone! My husband and I decided to try some specialty restaurants, Jamie Oliver's Italian was fabulous, wonderful options and they would bring you everything on the menu if you wanted, there was no way you could leave hungry! By far the best experience is Wonderland.  This restaurant is magical and the theme is based on Alice in Wonderland, and your experience starts with an invisible menu!  Every course is a magical experience and you just don't want it to end! We have done many cruises but this is the 1st ship I would return to without question!  If you love to cruise this ship is a MUST to experience!

We have visited NYC many times, with this trip we decided to stay in Newark as we were just stopping over for a couple of days before our cruise.  We flew into Newark airport and took a complementary shuttle to the Best Western Plus Robert Treat Hotel.  This hotel is not fancy but clean, safe and offers a complimentary breakfast.  The hotel is walking distance to many restaurants & shopping, Penn Station and Prudential Center. NHL game night at the Prudential Center is so much fun!  The center is surrounded by many restaurants and bars that are very lively both before and after the game!! The train from Penn Station Newark to Penn Station NYC is only about 20 mins and so easy to get around. This trip to NYC we walked from 9/11 memorial, Wall Street, down to ferry terminal to do Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island tour. Our next stop was Chinatown (of course we can't go to NYC without a stop here   We found all of these sights are easy to see on foot as they are all in relatively the same end of NYC.  We took the Subway to Time Square as it would be a fair hike. It's so easy to get around the city and there is so much to see… that's why we have to keep going back!

I stayed at the Ocean Vista Azul in December 2016.  The resort is relatively small with only 470 rooms and the main lobby over looks a cliff with a beautiful infinity pool.  The main hotel has 7 buildings that surround the large main pool.  The A la Carte restaurants and entertainment areas are also located in this area.  The Lobby and Privilege rooms over look ocean on a cliff so it's a bit of an up hill climb to get to the lobby and also the beach is about a 5-8 min walk.  The main beach is shared with adjacent resort and is a small cove beach with the beautiful sand Cuba is famous for.  the 2nd beach is smaller and used for their watersports. This beach is full of coral and not nearly as nice.  The resort is planning to do some work to the beach to upgrade it. I found the food to be typical Cuban food, while the staff were wonderful. Very friendly and going out of their way to help you enjoy your stay. If you like the small resorts and don't mind a walk to the beach this is a lovely choice.