Five days in Florida

After our western Caribbean cruise, we had another 5 days in Florida before flying home. We spent most of this time on the west coast of Florida, staying with Nathan's grandparents - Levi and Ruth - in a town called Venice (3 hours north-west of Miami). Venice's claim to fame is that it is the shark tooth capital of the world!

Ruth and Levi (many thanks!)

One day we drove half an hour north to the town of Sarasota, FL. We went shopping, ate cupcakes, admired the scenic beaches, and hunted down a Costco to buy some mangoes that we thought might be nearly as good as Australia's Bowen mangoes (they weren't though). Sarasota looked like a great town for a family vacation... lots of kid-friendly attractions and a laid-back beach vibe. We'll have to return someday!

The only photo we took in Sarasota was of this fantastic piece of work...

Another day, Finley and I went to the beach in Venice while Ben had his first experience with the American health system (don't worry, he's fine)...

The most interesting thing we did during our stay in Venice was go to the Myakka River State Park and take a narrated tour on the world's largest airboat to see some alligators. We saw lots! Did you know that you can tell how many feet long an alligator is by judging how many inches from its snout to its eyes?

Myakka River State Park

The airboat

Our tour guide and airboat captain

Gators!

Yikes

Keeping an eye on the tourists

The day before our flight back to Seattle, we drove back to Miami in our rental car and stayed overnight at the same motel we'd used before our cruise.

The next day, we passed the time before our flight by relaxing in a quiet park near the airport.

Then, it was two flights back to Seattle (again via Charlotte, NC), and a 3 hour drive back to Canada (via Trader Joe's and Wee Ones Reruns in Bellingham, of course).

In his own seat for the first time as the plane wasn't full

From my window seat, I saw another plane overtake us in the distance!

It was a fun and relaxing holiday!

Caribbean cruise, Post 1: Carnival Conquest

January and February were very busy months for us. Not only was Ben working about 60 hours per week as a big deadline approached at work... but we also moved house in early February! (We're still in the same city and really enjoying our new place.)

Thus, by the time March rolled around, we decided we needed another holiday. :D Two weeks in advance, we booked a last minute Caribbean cruise deal for March 9th to 16th, sailing from Miami, Florida.

We flew out of Seattle, so the evening before our flight we crossed the border and drove the 3 hours to Seattle, stopping in Bellingham for dinner at our fave place: La Fiamma Wood Fire Pizza. This was Finley's first time there. We already knew we loved this restaurant, but it turned out to be great for kids too. In addition to being able to watch the cooks making the pizzas (including tossing the bases into the air), kids are given a lump of uncooked pizza dough to play with (and/or eat). Play-dough, literally!

That night we stayed at a motel we had used on a previous trip. It's far from fancy, but it's near Seattle Airport and they offer a good value accommodation plus week-long car parking deal. On Saturday, we took the motel shuttle bus to the airport, spent the day flying to Miami (Florida) via Charlotte (North Carolina), and arrived late that night at our motel in Miami.

The next day, May 9th, we took the motel's shuttle bus to the Port of Miami and boarded our ship: the Carnival Conquest. It was our first cruise with Carnival (although our third cruise overall), and we did their 7 Day Western Caribbean itinerary. Our four ports of call were: Grand Cayman (Cayman Islands), Cozumel (Mexico), Belize (Belize), and Mahogany Bay (Isla Roatan, Honduras).

Here's our stateroom, buried deep in the belly of the ship (as most bargain price last minute staterooms tend to be!)...

The view of Miami from the ship before we set sail...

I'll do a separate post for each of the four ports of call, so the rest of this post will just be about life on board the Conquest. There aren't too many photos as there were only two sea days, and having a toddler with us meant that we took it pretty easy rather than throwing ourselves into all the activities and entertainment. We watched two or three of the family-friendly stand-up comedians, but that was it. It wasn't until the last night that I was even out of our room after 8pm, and that was only because I couldn't let the cruise end without doing a midnight dash to the 24-hour pizza parlour on the pool deck!

Dinner time was the highlight of each day for all of us. The food was fantastic! One thing we really enjoyed was their "didja" category on each night's menu; i.e. a "did you ever..." opportunity to try something unusual. We tried snails, frogs' legs, alligator, etc! And since we were paying the full adult price for Finley on this cruise (no discount is given for kids, but since we got a last minute deal it still worked out pretty fair in total), we had no qualms about ordering him a full three course dinner if we couldn't decide on only two menu items per course for ourselves. Hahaha!

Formal night

Formal night

Formal night

Towel animals are always fun...

We found that the ship had hardly any options for children under 2... they aren't allowed in the swimming pools if not toilet trained, are too young for all of the kids' club activities, can only visit the kids' club with parental supervision for 2 hours in the morning (when Finley was still asleep anyway, due to the time zone change!), and there wasn't even a playroom anywhere on the ship where parents could watch their kids play. We were a bit disappointed about this - particularly that last point, given Carnival's "family friendly" branding - so I made sure to provide feedback about it when they sent me the post-cruise survey.

Finley, however, still had a great time! He is generally very sociable, so he loved meeting people (and being seriously clucked over) everywhere we went on the ship, and he was well looked after by our three waiters each night at dinner. We also took him to empty lounge areas and long corridors and let him crawl and walk and explore to his heart's content. One night he wasn't tired at bedtime, so Ben accompanied him while he walked a stateroom corridor the entire length of the ship, and up six flights of stairs. That did the trick! :D

To be continued...

USA road trip, Post 5: Oregon coast

On Thursday afternoon, September 19th, we crossed from California into the southern part of Oregon. Driving the Oregon coast had long been a travel goal for Ben and I, and it certainly didn't disappoint! Here are the highlights from the two days we spent exploring the Oregon coast...

Not long after we entered Oregon, I looked out the car window and saw a spectacular sight: the TOP of the clouds! Seeing it from a plane is one thing, but seeing it from a car is quite surreal! The sea of clouds extended as far as we could see into the distance. There was a lot of oohing and ahhing over this incredible sight!

Dad on Cloud 9 ;)

I don't think we were up particularly high - it's just that the bank of cloud was hanging extremely low over the coastline, as you can see in the following photos taken 3 hours later. This awe-inspiring view was my favourite on the whole trip...

And a 20-photo panorama Ben took (click to enlarge)...

On Thursday we had lunch in a small town that seemed to have an inordinate number of pizza joints and gone-out-of-business restaurants along the main thoroughfare. We eventually found a bustling seafood shack at a marina off the main highway, and warmed up with some fish and chips and clam chowder.

On Thursday and Friday nights, we stayed at a beachside motel in Yachats (which I had been calling "Yack-ats", but a laughing local told us was pronounced "Yaw-hots").

On Friday we left Roxy at the motel to do some work, while the rest of us retraced half an hour of the previous evening's drive to explore the town of Florence. We're pretty sure some of the most stunning coastal views were on this portion of the drive that we did three times, but on Thursday it was dark and on Friday it was foggy and raining, so we didn't get to see much of it!

We forgot our camera on the day trip to Florence, but it had a cute little historical district along the river. We had lunch at a British restaurant, wandered in and out of galleries and speciality shops, bought some kites, and finished up with a warm drink before heading back up to Yachats.

On Saturday, we left Yachats and headed north again. We had lunch at the Tillamook Cheese Factory, and then watched from the upstairs viewing room as hundreds of blocks of cheese travelled along the conveyor belts and were packaged up, supervised diligently by the assembly line workers. We read the signs detailing the history of dairy cooperatives and cheese production in the region, and finished up our visit with some cheap and yummy gelato.

Tillamook Cheddar production

Giant blocks of cheese!

"Cheese? No thanks, I'll have a handbag!"

After leaving the factory we continued on to Cannon Beach, seemingly the most famous and oft-recommended spot on the Oregon coast. After we eventually found a spot to park, and wrestled our way through some shoulder-high grass and across a few sand dunes to access a beautiful empty beach, we put one of our new kites to good use. Flying a kite in such a peaceful and picturesque location, while waves rolled in and horses galloped past, was one of the absolute highlights of the trip for me.

From Cannon Beach we headed inland to Beaverton, near Portland, and stayed the night at a hotel there. On Sunday morning we went to a meeting nearby, and that afternoon we drove the rest of the way home.

And that was our 9 day road trip from Las Vegas to Vancouver via the California and Oregon coasts! Hope you enjoyed the drive. :)