Up bright and early again today as we have a tour booked with R&R cruising for a day on a catamaran soaking up the rays and snorkeling, this one I'd heard about from "Lakeguy" on Cruise Critic, Lou and his wife Nancy had done this tour last year and were doing it again, that's a good recommendation! Once again we went to the main dining room for breakfast instead of mixing it with the masses at the buffet, this is always a great option as they have yummy...

2nd Port of Call today ... Willemstad, Curaçao. This is a Dutch settlement and very colourful and pretty. We had no set plans for today but had organised to meet Heather and Tim in the Atrium at 8.30 to walk into town. We walked off the ship and walked past a few tour operators waving signs but there was no real hard sell, as we walked along the waterfront we noticed a weird pontoon that we thought was some sort of walkway but didn't think too much of it unt...

Aruba! First port of call. I had booked a tour with Sonny Binns that I saw on Cruise Critic and TripAdvisor because he got really good reviews. There were quite a few others from our roll call doing the same tour so we had organised to meet in the Atrium at 8.30 and somehow Ann managed to get us a VIP escort off the ship so we didn't have to wait in line with everyone else but were escorted down crew stairs straight to the gangplank.... Fat lot of good it did...

The first two days on board are sea days so lots of time to relax. At 10 am on the first day.... Feb 14th... We went up to the Observation Lounge for the Cruise Critic gift exchange, we'd brought an Aussie bag with a whole lot of bits and pieces, stubby holder, key ring, an Australian flag BBQ apron etc, we got Lena's gift, an Arkansas lanyard and mug... Rodd has his new key lanyard now so we will think of Lena and Dan every day as we work! The couple th...

YAY.. It's cruise day! When we woke up it was raining... Raining? Really this is Miami, I thought it was supposed to be sunny in Miami! At least it didn't last too long and we didn't have to leave until 11. First though Heather and Tim need to go down to the "gas" station to pick up an international calling card, Tim and I had sussed them out last night however neither of us really understood the intricacies of the whole $ minute thing so we decided t...