Carnival Valor September 2012 Cruise

Last month I went on my second cruise on the Carnival Valor with my mother. Overall it was a great getaway, full of relaxation!

Carnival Valor tenderd in Grand Cayman

It’s a good ship, nicely laid out, especially if your cabin is midship (like our cabin was).  It was a 6-night cruise from Miami stopping in Key West, Grand Cayman and Montego Bay.  Instead of doing a detailed recap of the cruise, I figured that it would be better to just list my top 3 favorite moments of the cruise.

1. Montego Bay – this is our second time at Montego Bay – we went years ago on an all-inclusive vacation and it was awesome.  My mother was itching to go back and poof there we were.  We did an excursion through the cruise ship since I just didn’t want to be harassed getting off the ship.  Even the vendors by the pier were aggressive, so I just didn’t even look around.  I went straight to my tour bus and then straight to beach.  We were whisked to a beach club and were greeted with an open bar and buffet lunch + 3 hours of beaching and fun games.  Definitely one of the best beach excursions I’ve done through a cruise line.  Much worth it!

My mother posing on beach in Montego Bay

2. People watching on formal night – I am not a big fan of formal night.  If I was on a special occasion cruise maybe I would get excited about it but I really like to cruise to relax and feeling like I should dress up more than once on a 6 day cruise is quite annoying.  On the second formal night, my mother and I boycotted the activities and instead sat near the casino bar at the promenade deck – the Latin band was playing there that night and we sat and sipped drinks while we listened to music and watched as ppl walked from the dining room to the theatre. We were amazed by the variety of outfits.  It was definitely great people watching.

3. Sleeping like there’s no tomorrow.  I realized on this cruise that the oceanview/balcony cabins that I’ve been sailing on in the past may have been overrated (and of course overpriced).  We booked a last minute deal that was of course for an inside cabin.  Out of 10 cruises that I’ve taken, this was my 4^th in an inside cabin. I usually do inside cabins on short cruises with my friends and this was the longest that I’ve cruised in an inside cabin.  I must say that I slept like a baby, with no light coming through the room from anywhere.  Before I wouldn’t even consider an inside cabin on long cruises 5+ nights but now I will need to run the numbers for both to determine whether the price differential is significant. I’d rather have the extra cash to spend in the casino!

My mother and I came back from the cruise feeling very relaxed and ready to get back to work and real life!

My Cruise Challenge

I’ve been crazy busy at work and I decided earlier this month that I just needed to get away.  I wanted to go somewhere that I could gamble and go to the sauna and just completely unwind!  As my hubby has a travel agency, I looked for deals and found a 6 night cruise for $299 pp!  The catch is that I needed to bring a “senior” with me to get that rate so I am bringing my mother!  She needs to get away too so its quite perfect!  The flights were cheap too, $200 roundtrip pp and I had a credit with JetBlue so it was an even sweeter deal!

I’ve mentioned before that while I love cruising, I do tend to over indulge while I am onboard.  Unlimited food, most of it being very yummy, alcohol all around me, yeah, I definitely go overboard (figuratively!).  Usually when I get off the ship it takes me a week or so to sort through the caloric and financial mess that I create while sailing.  I really can’t afford to go nuts on this cruise – financially or weight wise.  I’ve set a budget and I really trying to “plan” my cruise so that I can stay under control.  While I was away at my birthday wellness retreat, I learned a lot about the value of planning your days – you fail to plan, you plan to fail right?  I admit that planning my cruise takes a little bit of the fun away from it since I love to cruise due to its hassle free nature of this type of vacation.  But given how important it is for me to stay on track on this cruise, I am making it a priority.  Below are my preliminary thoughts on how I can stay on track onboard:

1.       Limit my alcohol intake.  I drink a lot on cruises.  Cocktails during the day while I relax, wine at dinner and then more wine/cocktails at the casino.  Not good for the wallet or the waistline.  I decided to buy a drink coupon book ahead of time.  The book comes with 4 coupons so I will be having 4 drinks.  On a six day cruise I can usually have 4 drinks in one day… I need to pick my drinks and times wisely!  Maybe at the casino?

2.       Drink more water.  It’s very easy for me to get dehydrated, especially on a cruise.  Like most ppl I confuse thirst and hunger so I think it’s important for me to stay hydrated onboard.  I ordered a case of water that will be delivered to my cabin on the first day of the cruise.  It comes with 12 bottles so I will get my mother to drink 1.5 liters of water a day as well.  Sometimes I get thirsty while in my cabin and I get too lazy to go get water. No more excuses!

3.       Exercise every day!  This one I think will be the hardest but I think that limiting my alcohol intake will help me get to the gym in the AM.  With all of the craziness at work I haven’t really been keeping up with my workouts.  Being away from all of the craziness, I really will have no excuse for not working out. I just need to get my ass out of bed and hit the treadmill or elliptical!

4.       Eat breakfast early! This ties to my last thought in that I will make sure that I order for room service to be delivered every morning early so that I could eat a light breakfast and head to the gym.  All I need is yogurt, fruit and coffee!!  I can then join my mother for eggs and toast when I get back.

5.       Eat a salad before lunch/dinner entrees.  Buffets anywhere are brutal.  So much food, so many options, its just overload.  I will start with with a garden salad and then get a plate look for a table.  I will then go get a plate of food or order something yummy.  I might not eat the whole entrée but I will still enjoy the meal!

6.       Dessert… this one is a killer.  I have a sweet tooth, I love cake, ahhh!  And Carnival has these amazing chocolate chip cookies, I remember that on one cruise I ate a plate of cookies for dinner – it was quite yummy.  My only realistic commitment on this one is that I will only have dessert at dinner.

OK – that’s a lot but if I manage to execute all of this, I will be one happy cruiser, inside, outside and in my wallet!

Summer Recap – May to June

The summer pretty much came and went in what seemed like a blink an eye.  For me, the summer was filled with lots of travelling, mostly for work.

I like to think that summer starts around Memorial Day weekend and so I am starting my recap in May.

The week before Memorial Day, hubby and I spent a few days in San Francisco.  Virgin America had a sale one day and we went ahead and booked it.  It was either that or a cruise from NYC bc the airline tickets were insane flying anywhere else!  Hubby really wanted to go since it is one of the skateboarding hot spots so it worked out pretty well.  We stayed at the St. Francis Hotel, which was OK.  Its really just about the location with that hotel, very close to everything we wanted to do and to transportation to take us to fisherman’s wharf and other tourist traps.  The hotel itself was meh but you pay for the location I guess.  Below is a picture of me at the Golden Gate Bridge.

I was honestly more excited about the flight than the destination.  I’ve been to San Francisco before (for work) but had never flown with Virgin.  Through my business travels, I’ve gotten very spoiled and decided that a flight to California was just too long to fly in economy and so at check in, I paid to upgrade to Main Cabin Select.  I don’t remember how much I paid but the upgrade got us extra leg room, one free bag and unlimited food, beverage and entertainment.  I figured I would have to pay to check a bag anyway and I was sure to get hungry on the flight so I might as well get the upgrade .  Totally worth it!  I don’t care what anyone says, that extra leg room makes a big difference!  You don’t feel like someone is laying on top of you!  Flying back I tried to do the same thing but it was sold out before I checked in.  I was really sad about having to fly economy back to NYC and found out that if I called some specified amount of hours before the flight, I could upgrade to first class.  And so I did just that (yup, I am spoiled and crazy).  We flew back on first class, which of course included lots of leg room, unlimited food, beverage, and entertainment, free bags + wider seats.  The food on first class was meh – starter was quinoa salad  and dinner was beans and chicken – we had to ask them to bring us food from economy but it was nice to fly comfortably back to NYC.

A couple of weeks later I took a business trip to Europe.  I spent a few days in Germany (Hamburg and Dusseldorf) and a couple of days in France (Nice and Lyon).  It was a crazy trip, I literally lived out of a suitcase since we were switching cities every day.  It was quite intense and due to scheduling, we had a lot of tight connecting flights, which meant that I had to run a lot.  I realized then for sure how out of shape I am. Before the trip, I would spin 2 times a week so I thought that I must be in some type of shape, no no.  Try running through airport for 8 minutes when you have a flight leaving in 10 minutes, that’s a good fat test.  Germany was uneventful.  Ate good swineaxe and sausage and drank beer.  Flying to Nice was out of this world, so amazingly beautiful.  We stayed right by the beach for one day and it was just so amazing. Below is picture of the beach from my balcony in my hotel room.

I really need to take a cruise that goes to Marsalles and Cannes.  On our train ride from Nice to Lyon, I tried to stay awake until we passed Cannes, it was so beautiful!

The next week, I had another business trip, this time to exotic Dallas, Texas!  This was the first time that I booked a flight and had to pay extra to pick an aisle seat.  I always need the aisle, I drink a lot of water on planes.  I was not pleased.  Seriously, having to pay to check in my bag and then pay for an aisle seat is just robbery. I learn a lot about airlines as I travel for business.  I only have a couple of airlines that I will travel on for leisure.  I don’t price shop much when it comes to flights. I will just decide not to go if the price is too high on the airlines that I want to fly on.  For work is a different story although even there, I now try to book on my favorite airlines whenever possible – like on my trip to Vegas, which will recap in my July to August post!

One Week until 30!

 

Next Thursday is my 30th birthday! Its crazy, I’ve been so busy that if it wasn’t for my “big” trip next week that I’ve been shopping and prepping for, I probably wouldve just forgotten about it.

This week I am in Europe for business meetings in London and Dublin and I am scheduled to fly back home on Friday. I will then have about 48 hours to do laundry and pack for my birthday retreat.

For the milestone birthday, I really wanted to go away. Usually I work during my birthday since its our “busier” season but I refused to do that this year.  I was planning on going on a cruise with my mother since I LOVE to cruise but ultimately I decided that it wasn’t the best idea.  I tend to overindulge myself food and money wise when I am cruising and those are my two “development areas” in life.  After my last cruise (post to come), I came back heavier and with a huge bill.  Instead, I decided to kick off my life in my 30s on a  fitness retreat – yup, 7 days of working out, restricted calories, no caffeine, no alcohol, all by myself.  Pretty drastic and not the way I envisioned ringing in the big 3-0 but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

When I called to make my reservation, I asked whether I could have a piece of cake on my birthday… I mean I do love cake and one small piece of birthday cake won’t hurt right? Yeah, no. But they said that they would put a birthday candle in an orange and sing me happy birthday…

I am excited, nervous and somewhat terrified of what the week will bring.  Thankfully I am too jetlagged and tired to talk myself out of it!

I am back!

I’ve been a bad blogger. There’s been so much going on and I wish I had taken the time to blog about it all. I have some fun adventurous coming up soon that I want to share so I will be blogging!  I turn 30 next week and I have a big trip planned!  Hubby and I also spent some time in San Francisco this past May and I took a cruise with my mom, all things I want to blog about! I’ve been travelling a lot for work and have a few more trips in the works so I’d like to share some of my tips and tricks that I’ve learned from my recent trips! And of course I haven’t done a full debrief about the wedding so I need to make sure to do that soon!  So stay tuned, I promise more posts!