Road Trip (SC, GA, FL) to a Cruise! And why we choose to cruise!

Chef Dan and his Foodie Wife (me) have just returned from a wonderful, warming, 4 week vacation, 2 weeks of which were spent on the Celebrity Eclipse http://www.celebritycruises.com in the Caribbean, and the other 2 weeks on a road trip to and from Florida, and in the next several posts I will share links to the great adventures we had, including spear-fishing, snorkeling with turtles and manatees, tasting rums and learning to cook Antiguan food, and riding Trikes and ATVs, hopefully inspiring and encouraging you to check them out and put them on your YOLO List! One of the things I'm often asked is why we like to cruise, as a lot of people seem to think cruising is for "old" or "fuddy-duddy" people, and that we're not the "cruise type"! As this was our fourth (and so far best) cruise, I want to start this post with why we really love cruising. I booked our first cruise 4 years ago when we had a last-minute opportunity to get away in the middle of winter, and a cruise was the cheapest warm-weather holiday I could find with no notice! Forewarned by friends in the travel industry, we took a cheapie, discounted inside cabin and went off fully prepared to be disappointed... and were totally surprised to find that we loved it! We went ATVing in Cozumel, Mexico, learned to JetSki in Labadee, Haiti, rode horses in the ocean off Jamaica, played games in the ship's arcade, saw some great shows, indulged in the salon, spa, and Cigar Bar, found the food to be surprisingly excellent, enjoyed the towel animals(!), dressed in gowns and tuxes and reminded each other how good we could look, danced and romanced... and booked our next cruise almost immediately upon returning!
This is our second cruise with Celebrity http://www.celebritycruises.com and it was THE best! We enjoyed a 2-week cruise on the Eclipse, stopping at 8 southern Caribbean ports (St. Thomas, St. Lucia, St. Martin, Barbados, Antigua, Grenada, Aruba, and Curacao), with 5 (wonderful) relaxing days at sea to enjoy our balcony and many of the great things the ship had to offer, including breakfast on our stateroom's balcony each morning and wine at sunset, the truly excellent and inventive cuisine at Qsine, live jazz and wine on the lawn (yes, a lawn, with real grass!), the ice-covered Martini Bar and Molecular Bar, proffering a yummy assortment of inventive cocktails, the enomatic wine bar, where you can self-service taste dozens of wines from all over the world and enjoy wine and port tastings, whisky tastings in Michael's Pub with an excellent Irish bartender, absolutely Great spa treatments and acupuncture (which keeps hubs totally out of pain), and some great entertainment, including a terrific, talent-filled Le Cirque-style show with amazing Polish acrobats and dancers flying from the ceiling... and some fabulous towel animals, too! The service was great, and frankly, as all the ships are beautiful, service is what makes a cruise great! (RCCL's service, on the other hand, hit rock-bottom (racist, ugly, mean, dangerous) on our last cruise with them 2 years ago, and as a result we'll never Ever cruise with them again). Celebrity is owned by RCCL, but it is Light years ahead of what RCCL deteriorated into. I think that one of the reasons Celebrity's service is so great is that the vast majority of their cruisers Are older- and yes, some of them have walkers or canes or wheelchairs- and they need good service. We're Boomers: I'm 53 and Chef Dan is 66, and we're still "adrenaline junkies"  love "active" excursions like ATVing and spearfishing, but we Very much appreciate good service and enjoy things like whisky tastings, jazz on the lawn, fine cuisine, shows, spa treatments, and just chilling on our balcony naked with a good book and a glass of wine! :-) So our verdict is that cruising is a Great way for folks of all ages to have a fabulous holiday, and there are some GREAT deals out there! THE best deals I've been able to find anywhere (with great perks like on-board credits and pre-paid gratuities) are the "flash sales" from CruCon www.crucon.com and I subscribe to them religiously! (Hint: book a "guaranteed balcony" for the best deal! You may get what they call a "partially obstructed view", which means the lifeboats are directly beneath your balcony, but it is FINE! And trust me: once you have a balcony you will NEVER book an inside cabin again- the balcony MAKES the cruise!) Once you've booked your cruise, a fun thing to do is sign up for the "Roll Call" board for your cruise on Cruise Critic www.cruisecritic.com and "meet" your fellow shipmates; you can exchange information and gather groups for excursions, plan meet-and-greet parties, read recent reviews of the ship you'll be sailing on, check out excursion ideas on the site's boards for your ports of call, and share the happy anticipation! (I think 1/4 of the fun of a trip is in the planning, and another 1/4 is in the blogging and looking at all the photos!) Thanks to the Cruise Critic Boards, "Googling", and www.TripAdvisor.com Forums, I found unique excursions for each of our 8 ports. I booked all but one of our excursions independently of the cruise line, as in the past we were disappointed with many cruise line excursions, finding them way too crowded to be any fun. Many newbie cruisers are scared to book excursions independently for fear of being late and missing the boat, but if a company has 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor and Cruise Critic you can rest assured that they WILL see that you get back to the ship on time!

Chef Dan and I started our vacation with a 4-night "foodie road trip" from Landgraff, WV to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I broke the trip into 4-5 hour driving segments, knowing that we like to stop along the way to see and do things, and that for us it's Never the 4 or 5 hours www.mapquest.com says it is, but we Still didn't have enough time to stop and see all the things we wanted to along the way! Our first stop was Spartanburg, SC where stayed at the lovely The Inn on Main in a beautiful room with a soaking tub for two :-) The charming, helpful Inn-Keepers, Susan and Wayne, have truly created a beautiful place, and this is definitely "the" place to stay in Spartanburg! We were recommended to the inn by Elkhorn Inn guests who've become good friends, and who were the reason we decided to stop in Spartanburg! 

We had a wonderful evening of wine at the Carriage House Wine Bar , followed by a delicious dinner, with our Spartanburg friends!

Our next stop was Savannah, GA, where we stayed at the historic Marshall House (which has a great wine and cheese evening for guests!), and had a wonderful dinner at The Olde Pink House so Chef Dan could "deconstruct" (figure out how to make) their fab "Southern Sushi" that we'd had on a previous stay in Savannah! We'd heard the Marshall House was haunted, and specifically requested a room where we might experience something, but no luck! ;-)

We got to do a little target practice...

I must say that I found the AR-15 to be feather-light and really easy to control, and I liked it a lot. I have to pat myself on the back for being able to to site and compensate properly in short order after all these years! Girly-girl can still make a "nice grouping"! :-)

We had a yummy lunch of fried oysters at one of our fave places: Skipper's Fish Camp on the water in Darien, GA! We couldn't believe we actually found it again! They have a lovely deck with a great view, a turtle pond, and charming service, and we always look forward to stopping there. We got to spend a bit of time at Fort King George Museum, too; Darien is definitely a place we want to come back to and spend a couple of days! There's a hotel next to the restaurant right on the water, there's a wine dinner cruise, and Ft. King George- so much to fun to be had!

We spent the night in St. Augustine, FL, one of our favorite places, staying again at the Bayfront Marin House so we could enjoy a lovely room with a soaking tub and breakfast on the veranda overlooking the water!

We had a truly delish Spanish tapas and wine dinner at our favorite St. Augustine restaurant The Tasting Room...

and anotherfun evening of live music and drinks at Tradewinds, our totally fave, happily smokey dive bar!

In the morning, before getting on the road, we stocked up on the tropical fruit wines we love (Grapefruit, Banana, Key Lime, Mango, Orange/Chocolate, etc...) at Vino Del Grotto Winery, doing a morning wine tasting to get our daily requirement of fruits and veggies! :-) We truly look forward to this all winter long!

We again spent our pre-cruise night at the Hilton Ft. Lauderdale Marina (on our Hilton Honors Points! We are loyal for a reason!), which we ESPECIALLY love for their smoking rooms with balconies overlooking the intercoastal waterway, really nice service, and the ability to park our car there for the duration of our cruise for only $10/night!
We treated ourselves to a wonderful dinner of venison and other delectables at the "farm-to-table" gourmet restaurant Market 17 across the street. We found it last year, and spent all year hoping to return!

And then, (after I had packed on 20 pounds in 4 days...) we were off on our cruise!

Next post: Cruising the Southern Caribbean!

Elisse & Dan's Excellent Adventure! Part One: Savannah

We just got back! Refreshed, re-energized, and ready for the 8th season at the Elkhorn Inn!

It all happened rather suddenly: we found a wonderful Inn-&-Puppy-&-Kitty-sitter who could take care of the Inn for 2 weeks in Feb. (Saint Terry), & so Elisse (me) began Tweeting franticallywith @CaribbeanJim from http://www.cheapcaribbean.com/, & the next thing you know we'd booked a Royal Caribbean cruise! Take note: Dan & I NEVER- and I do mean NEVER- considered ourself  "cruisers". My idea of a fun a cruise is a week (or 6) on a US Coast Guard Cutter doing paintings for the USCG art collection, and Dan, who's US Army Ret., has worked on too many Army & other ships to count- plus a couple of sailboats & other amphib vehicles- but for him it wan't much fun, & "going to sea" had lost its allure... I, on the other hand, Do love being at sea; In addition to my time as an Official USCG Artist on the USCGC Penobscot Bay, Sturgeon Bay & other cutters, I'd spent 2 1/2 months on the Visevica, a Yugolinia freight ship transporting paper pulp, back in 1978 (when there was a Yugolslavia...) and loved it. I also took a week-long "cruise" from Venice to Haifa in 1975 (on a student ticket in an el-cheapo 6-berth cabin), but I spent the week sleeping in a life boat as my cabin mates were eating beans out of a tin in the room all week, & my white jacket wound up speckled with black burn holes as the ship's smokestack was right above the tiny swimming pool! To Dan & I, "cruising" implied all sorts of things that didn't appeal: mediocre food, party-hearty singles on a drunken hook-up spree, paunchy, high-rolling casino-habitues, or fat, old people in white shoes & polyester Leisure Wear getting their photos snapped doing stupid stuff while laden down with shopping bags full of silly trinkets...

OK, we were wrong.

Or we've become the people we used to make fun of. :-D

But either way WE HAD A TOTAL BLAST, and I haven't seen Dan smile like this since we were in Vietnam iin 2008! Crusing is as far from reality as you can get and still be on Planet Earth, and I TOTALLY recommend it! When the going gets tough, the tough get a fabulous discount cruise on http://www.cheapcaribbean.com/! LOL

Seriously, http://www.cheapcaribbean.com/ gives GREAT customer service. I spent 8 hours on the phone with them & nearly drove them nuts with my insistance on a holiday where we could smoke and not be made to feel like criminals, and they truly knocked themselves out to accommodate us. I was just about to book a Windham Resort stay in Puerto Rico, where we have a LOT of friends, when I learned that PR has enacted a stupid law that made their resorts totally non-smoking, so that bit the dust. We WILL NOT spend our money to be made to feel like criminals or second-class citizens. Period. Got it, travel guys, government wonks, & CBOs? We've paid our dues & we smoke & drink & eat what we fish & shoot, and we'll take our hard-earned money & go elsewhere- and send our friends & coworkers elsewhere, too. THE Reason Royal Caribbean got our business- we had No idea which cruise line to choose- was that they make smokers welcome. Note that if a cruise line tells its highrollers they can't have a cigar with their $25/shot single malt, they can kiss that business goodbye. Also note that the smoking bars on the ship were the ONLY ones that were full of people, night after night- standing room only! When we ventured into the ship's non-smoking disco, cute as it was, we found it TOTALLY empty! Did we stay, order drinks, spend money? No, of course not. Are you getting it yet, guys, or are you still going to play judgemental, hypocritical games & puritanically try to convert the heathens?
Note that the Elkhorn Inn's guest rooms are all non-smoking, but that we do make smokers (who have turned out to be over 60% of our guests, by the way- many pretending they don't smoke at first...) welcome on our covered front porch and balcony. And we have a fireplace- and it smokes. The lovely, cozy smell of burning logs in the fireplace that our guests rave about is SMOKE. The fabulous aroma of Chef Dan's herb-crusted smoked lambchops, smoked duck, and spice-rubbed smoked ribs that make everyone drool in anticipation for 4 hours is SMOKE.
Also note that EVERYWHERE we went on this trip, including Savannah, GA, New Smyrnah Beach, FL, & St. Augustine, FL- all places heavily dependant on tourism- the ONLY clubs, bars, restaurants, and cafes doing a booming business- actually, any business at ALL- were the SMOKING ones. ALL the other non-smoking wine bars, restaurants, cafes, and clubs- no matter how adorable or chi-chi or special-were closed up by 9p.m. or before, as they were EMPTY. Ditto in Columbus, OH, Charleston, WV, Wichita, KS, and San Diego, CA, where were were last spring. While we eat in non-smoking restarants for lack of choice, we no longer linger for another glass of wine or coffee- in other words we spend a LOT less than we used to. We watched bar after bar go out of business in NYC after the no-smoking law came into effect, while reading lies in the papers about how "great" business was as a result of it! Make me stand in the street  to smoke, and come back to find my purse or coat stolen, my drink gone, and my chair taken, and I PROMISE you that my money & I won't be back. We've paid our dues & work damn hard for a living. Make us feel like a bad people and we'll take our money someplace else.
In our opinion the fanatical anti-smoking obsession is a malicious distraction being used to get people to focus on issues of NO importance and thus ignore those that truly matter to the future of our country- namely our imploding economy, imbalance of trade, lack of jobs, skyrocketing unemployment, & terrorism. We focus on sheer and utter nonsense- smoking, sexual politics, women's uteruses, gay marriage, fur, transfats, and other such idiocy- at our peril. I vividly remember (with nausea) the hypocritical & often nasty "non-smoking" fanatics, whining incessantly about the smoke in NYC restaurants, who'd I'd then run into in the evening puffing away in smoky neighbood bars- or find passed out in the toilet from a little too much blow. Dan was hilariously lectured by one of his Army officers in Vietnam on how "smoking will kill you!" And, for the record: my 87 year old smoking mother has not only outlived all her non-smoking friends and most of her doctors, she's in the Senior Olympics for golf and bowling. Put That in your pipe and smoke it!
And always remember that alcohol kills FAR more people than cigs- but Prohibition was such a dismal failure- making criminals out of most of the country before it was repealed- that it isn't likely to be repeated. There was just WAY too much money in it for it to remain illegal... In other words, kids: Get a Life. Of your own. And quit trying to change other people's. Ditto for religious fanatics. Deal with the REAL stuff, kids!

And now: back to Elisse & Dan's wonderful holiday!

After Saint Terry arrived @the Inn with his tiny puppies, Stella & Lucky, & got settled in with Kitty, Pittie, & Lab, Dan & I began Packing. Since we were driving to meet the boat & not flying, Boo-Boo could take almost every single pair of shoes she owns, & a Totally stupid amoont of clothes and toiletries, and so she did! :-) We packed our old Jeep tighter than a drum, & armed with http://mapquest.com/ directions & our (almost trustworthy) Garmin GPS, we headed for Savannah just in time to miss the next snowstorm headed for Landgraff, WV :-) Dan'd lived in Savannah, and once entertained the idea of buying a bar there (now J.J. Bonerz, where we stopped for a drink); I'd never been able to spend any time there, and we've talked about going to Savannah for years. I booked us 2 nights at the Olde Harbour Inn on the Savannah River waterfront (which offered a great "Inn-Keeper Special" we could take advantage of) and we took off & thawed out on the road! This winter's been a Doozy, & Dan was in a LOT of pain, the freezing cold exacerbating his arthritis & old war wounds. I swear that the minute we were on the road he was a new man- it was like 10 years fell off his face in an instant, and it was a JOY for me to see! Savannah's an 8 hr. drive from the Elkhorn Inn, and we got there in the evening & checked in to our darling little duplex @the Olde Harbour Inn with its tiny balcony overlooking the waterfront & a romantic, skylight-lit loft bed! The service was excellent, and to be honest, that's the reason we decided to stay there. I called a number of the top B-&-Bs in Savannah, but the lovely gal I spoke with when I called the Olde Harbour Inn won me over: she was SO knowledgable & helpful, and even offered to make us dinner reservations at The Olde Pink House! The night we arrived we went out "exploring" the waterfront, wound up at Bernie's Oyster House on the riverfront so Elisse could start her vacation with oysters on the half-shell, and then wandered over to the Bayou Cafe    for great, fun live music, drinks, & a bit of dancing; our vacation had truly begun!

The next day we took a romantic horse-&-carriage ride around Savannah, & I got to see a lot of the beautiful historic buildings and gardens I'd heard Dan talk about; we had a great driver who truly loves his adopted city & had studied its history, which made it a great experience. We had a fine lunch (yummy crab cakes!) at the Bohemian Hotel's art-filled rooftop restaurant overlooking the harbour, strolled about waterfront Savannah dodging the raindrops, and then took a pedicab (driven by one of Savannah's many art students) to the elegant and historic Olde Pink House Restaurant  on Reynold's Square for a truly delicious "Low Country" gourmet dinner! If you're only going to have one great meal in Savannah, this is the place! The food was excellent, the service stellar, and the 18-century, historic ambience wonderful- I am in LOVE with their gorgeous silver landscape mural wallpaper! We had drinks downstairs in their cozy firplace bar, and then went to FABULOUS Club One, where we had a Great time at their drag show! Club One was Great! The audience included tons of students, as well as gay & straight couples, & the shows were terrific fun; we got to see the performances of the glamourous Destiny and Layla Foxx (who's "so Country she bleeds gravy"). Having been told in the past that with my penchant for strapless mermaid gowns, feathers, sequins, & 6" platform heels I have the fashion sensibility of a drag queen, I never thought I'd be jealous of one (since, you know, I can do it myself...), but this lady was not only SO spectacularly, stunningly, & exquisitely lovely that it wasn't funny, she was NICE!!!! I have photos Dan took of us together, and the only reason I'm not posting them is because I don't look good enough! Seriously, Dan & I had THE best time at Club One; we only wish we had a place like that here in so. WV! (But we're working on it, believe you me!) 

The next morning we had breakfast @ the Olde Harbour Inn & took off for Florida to meet our ship...