Chateau Lake Louise Day 2

Today we went to the official kickoff for the Ski for Heart event at 10 am. We all gathered by the boathouse at Lake Louise. It was good to have Daryl Janz back as the official MC for the event. This is the 23rd year he has acted as the MC.

As we do every year, we crossed country skied the lake loop. The first two Kilometres are on the lake skiing away from the chateau and the last two are back through the trees in rolling terrain. JG and P have really improved their cross country skiing over the years and we completed the loop in one hour 10 minutes. It was so much fun to have the Acquroff's to ski with too!

J did the usual second loop with Norm for more exercise! The kids and Sarah and I went back to the boathouse for some amazing hot chocolate! It was fabulous with real whipped cream, chocolate shavings and marshmallows to top it off!

We then headed back to our rooms and ate lunch. We used the kettle to add boiling water to instant noodles along with other classic lunch staples - pita bread, red pepper dip, turkey bites and baby carrots.

After lunch, J and I and Norm and Sarah set off to ski the Fairview loop - an intermediate trail about 9 km in length. Always lovely to do this loop through the trees! I was feeling a bit low on energy as we were doing some of the elevation gain! All four kids went tobogganing by the chateau while we skied. When they came back to the room they were dripping with wet snow pants and coats!

J and I had time to stretch and shower before we went down to the Ski for Heart reception at 4 pm. Nice to see some familiar faces in the room. One family we have seen for at least the past 10 years was in attendance. Sadly Jan's dad had passed away from a massive stroke he suffered on Christmas Eve this year. They are returning to the Ski For Heart with a renewed sense of purpose to fundraise. The man who has been the top fundraiser for at least the past 16 years, raised $26,000 and counting this year!

On a side note, the chateau provided some wonderful appetizers at today's reception including a mushroom curry soup in a shot glass and bacon wrapped scallops! We were really pleased to see the Heart & Stroke Foundation went back to basics this year and promoted families being active in the great outdoors - not Wii gaming systems and yoga classes.

We then gathered our kids and joined the Acquroff's in the Poppy Brasserie for dinner. The meal was tasty, expensive and made more affordable in that they took more than 30 minutes to bring the kids dessert, so we were not charged for dessert!

J went out for a moonlight snowshoe, Norm went for a skate, the kids are exploring the hotel and Sarah and I returned to the quiet of our rooms. Kids have just returned from exploring, J, from snowshoeing and I am wrapping up my blog!

Photo 1: Chateau Lake Louise from on the lake!

Photo 2: JG & P on the lake!

Photo 3: The group in the trees on the Lake Loop!

Photo 4: J and I on Moraine Lake Road on the Fairview Loop trail!

Lake Louise

Here we are back at Chateau Lake Louise for the annual Ski For Heart. Our family loves this weekend! I first started participating in this Heart and Stroke fundraiser in 1989. We started coming out here as a family in 1997. Since then we have only missed participating in this wonderful winter weekend getaway maybe 3 times.

We ask friends and family to sponsor us by making a donation to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. This is the link to our personal fundraising page.

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1040607&supId=344592333

We always arrive Friday and go for a skate after supper. We are thrilled to have our good friends join us this year as they have for many years in the past decade.

Photo 1: JG and P posing by the Lakeview Lounge ready for a skate.

Photo 2: The group posing by the ice castle on the famous Lake Louise!

Photo 3: JG, P & G on the ice!

Disembarkation - Day 23

Our dream vacation is done! We pulled in to Ft Lauderdale at 6:30 am today. Many other ships were pulling in too. The Ruby Princess was already docked at Pier 2 so we were assigned Pier 21. I can see a Celebrity ship and Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas as we wait in the Crooner's Bar in comfortable seats before we disembark at 10:30. I have learned the Allure and the Oasis are definitively the biggest ships on the seas today. (Not the Independence of the Seas as I previously thought!)

We had breakfast with Tom and Sherrie from Petawawa, Ontario. We always learn so much from others who have cruised more than us. Princess has a Captain's Circle program. We have been classified with blue cruise cards - that means first time Princess travellers. After one cruise you are classified as gold. After 5 cruises or 50 days of cruising, you become platinum. After 15 cruises, you become elite.

More perks come along with each category. Once you hit platinum, like Tom and Sherrie after this cruise, you get free Internet minutes (250 free minutes for this 10 day cruise I believe) and other perks. Tom told us you get double credits if you stay in a suite. You also get credits for cruises as short as one or two days and I guess that is a contentious issue for some cruisers!

I would like the free laundry service that comes along with being an elite member!

In about 45 minutes we will assemble in the Michelangelo dining rom and disembark with our group. We will then grab a taxi bound for the airport and hop aboard our flight via Houston home.

My sister has already told me that she bought some bread, milk and juice for us and left them in our fridge. That will be appreciated for breakfast before school tomorrow!

Thanks for following along on my blog. I wrote it entirely on my iPhone and certainly made some mistakes along the way, but it forced me to actually write a diary that I will reflect on and wonder just what I did for 20 days onboard the Emerald Princess!

Never before have I felt so pampered on a vacation! I have added a picture of my hand, reasonably well manicured 3.5 weeks after I got the manicure. If you give up cooking, cleaning and housework for 3 weeks a manicure can last an incredibly long time! Thank you Cesar, Victor and Janice (and so many others) for making this a true vacation for this full time Mom and part time Event Planner!

Photo 1: My hand

Photo 2: Celebrity Silhouette docking next to the Emerald Princess

Princess Cays - Day 22

What a beautiful final day in the Caribbean! Lovely warm air temperature (31 C I believe) and blue sky as far as the eye could see. Because we had been to Princess Cays on the last cruise, we knew what to expect and how light to pack our day bag!

After breakfast we went back to our staterooms to pack. We needed to keep out clothes for today at the beach, tonight at dinner and tomorrow for the flight home. Luggage is to be put out in the hallway before dinner tonight to prepare for disembarkation tomorrow morning.

We caught a tender over to Princess Cays about 10:30 in the morning. We all snorkelled before lunch.  JG & P decided they wanted to return to the ship so we saw them safely get on board a tender to return to the ship. J & I found a different snorkelling area at the far end of the beach. I left J and went to the main swimming area of the beach to snorkel at the end of the dock. Because many people feed the fish there, I saw a selection of larger fish.

I went to the buffet lunch at 1:40 and learned the buffet lunch on the island is served from 11:30 -1:30. Last time we were under norovirus restrictions so the staff had to serve our food in the buffet lines. Consequently there were long line ups and they kept the food stations open until the last tender departed.

I decided to go out of the gated area and shop at the local craft market. I bought a bracelet and a Bahamas Tshirt - both very traditional souvenirs!

J and I returned to the ship before 2:30 - the last tender was to be at 3:15. We went to our final trivia today with Lexi and the unthinkable happened - we scored a perfect 20! What a great way to end our trip! We were tied with 3 other teams for top spot so they asked a tiebreaker question. Do you know how many miles of blood vessels are in the human body? A shocking 62,000! We didn't guess the closest number (without going over, like on the Price Is Right!) so we didn't technically win but we felt the game was fun!

We had a lovely last supper with Cesar and Victor and said farewell. J and I went to an unremarkable closing show with an illusionist and comedian. I successfully printed our boarding passes in only 13 minutes tonight! And it seems I didn't have to pay for luggage on our return trip - hooray! ( I wonder if my travel agent from Coop Travel pulled some strings to make that happen?)

It has been a wonderful Caribbean cruise - I will be very sad to say goodbye.

Photo 1: Mileage sign

Photo 2: My final view as our tender pulled away from our last stop on this cruise.

Photo 3: J, JG P on Princess Cays

Sea Day - Day 21

Our final day at sea! I love sea days - there is always so much to do! In the morning J and I went to a culinary demonstration in the princess Theatre where Chef Giuseppe made a pesto pasta dish, scallops and tiramisu. We then got to walk through the kitchen (because, hooray, they lifted the norovirus code red)!
It was impressively clean and stainless throughout! Do you know they use 6,000 eggs on this ship every single day? Where do they store thousands of eggs for a 10 day cruise? Mind boggling!

We went to lunch in the dining room but I just visited while everybody else ate; I was still full from my omelette at breakfast. I caught the 12:45 line dancing class. Then I hung out by the pool and saw the men's sexy leg contest.
Lots of fun and laughter!

We then had the scrap ship builder's competition which we proudly had an entry. Proud that is, until it couldn't balance the cargo load of six cans of pop and sank like the Titanic. The winner had this tyrannosaur of ships! The family of 10 that won, is seated next to us in the Da Vinci dining room and has Cesar as their waiter too. Defeated, the kids returned to their room and I went for a swim! It was a fun project just the same!

I found P relaxing in the kids room and asked if he wanted to Ho decorate a cookie in the Piazza, where they has some kids activities going on. He was up like a
flash and by my side. After assembling a sad looking gingerbread man and star, we stopped at the International Cafe. I had a couple of salads and P had the delicious chocolate pudding.

We reassembled as a family in Club Fusion for 4:30 trivia. Questions with Heidi were tough again and the winning team only had 15 out of 20 ( we received 12 so I guess that was respectable enough!)

At supper, our Head Waiter, Rui, provided us with an update on the woman taken off by ambulance in St Thomas. Evidently she had a heart attack on the ship and is now doing fine in the hospital. She is only in her 50's and was travelling with an extended family onboard. That is good news.

I kept hoping to cross paths with my blog mentor, J, onboard this cruise and just never seemed to run into her like I did routinely on our first cruise. I left a sticky note on her stateroom door to catch up with her. Of course, because I left the note, J and I did coincidentally meet up with her and her husband, G today while at the Princess Theatre tonight for the upbeat performance by the Emerald Singers and Dancers of "I got the Music!". She (the woman who taught me everything I know about writing a blog!) has been suffering from what the doctor believes is an infected tooth. She is scheduled to see a dentist in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday as they are in transit passengers and will be staying on the ship for a few more months! So many complications with medical issues when not on terre firme! I do hope she gets the issue resolved in one dentist visit!

Tomorrow is our last stop, Princess Cays, so we will savour this last day of sun!

Photo 1: The Tyrannosaur of ships that won!

Photo 2: Our ship entry

Photo 3: One of the food carvings on display in the kitchen !

St Thomas Evening

Upon returning to the ship I raced to have a shower and grab some lunch so I could turn around a shop in St Thomas. Many people shop for jewellery here - I was on the hunt for linen!

I grabbed a communal cab downtown and each person paid $4.
I saw the boardwalk I could have walked, was only 1.6 km.

I went straight to Mr. Tablecloth on Main Street and found a few good choices for my dining room table. I made a point of bypassing all the jewellery stores! J later told me he looked at tanzanite rings because I had said I liked the stone; the choices ranged from $3300 to $4400 and that wasn't going to happen in our house !

We worked on our scrap heap challenge ship to compete in the Neptune Pool tomorrow. The goal is to build a boat out of scraps that will float at least 6 beer successfully! Flotation we have covered, the beauty of the boat might be improved upon.

After dinner the Captain made an announcement that there was a medical emergency on board and we needed to return to St. Thomas. That isn't good news for somebody.

We are currently dockside with an ambulance standing by with lights flashing. The Captain just paged Charles Cook from Aloha 211 to proceed to the medical centre immediately. As J said, the spouse is probably back in room packing all their belongings for departure. Total time looking out our balcony as we pulled up to the dock until the ambulance pulled away was 13 minutes. A second ambulance has now arrived. We'll say a little prayer tonight for somebody's vacation who ended on such a somber note.

Photo 1: Ambulance moving close to the ship.

St Thomas Day 20

Our dream vacation is coming to an end with our second visit to St Thomas. After today we have one more day at sea and Princess Cays as the final port before Fort Lauderdale to disembark.

Today we joined the ship's excursion to kayak, hike and snorkel at Cas Cay Mangrove Lagoon, St James & Compass Pt marine Reserve & Wildlife Sanctuary.

We began by taking an open air jeep to our sanctuary. Jason, Wes, Lauralee and Zulu guided our group of 25 from the ship. JG and I climbed into a double sit on top style kayak. We paddled for about 40 minutes and learned about the mangrove tree. It sacrifices one yellow leaf where it directs all the salt so the tree can survive in brackish water.

Upon arriving at the sanctuary we went on land and had hermit crab races. We then walked out to the Caribbean Sea where we had some great photo opportunities on the rocks. After walking back to the kayaks we donned our masks and snorkels. No fins though, the guides didn't want us damaging the protected zone as we were snorkelling in about 3 feet of water.

We saw sand divers, spotted eagle ray, parrot fish, trumpet fish, barracuda, sea urchin and more! It was neat to see the roots of the mangrove tree up close too.

I then partnered up with P for the paddle back. Glad that most of the rain fell while on the shuttle to the start so we were warm for the kayak, hike and snorkel!

Photo 1: P in kayak

Photo 2: JG in kayak

St Kitts - Day 19

We pulled into port quite late, but as scheduled, at 10 am. What was interesting about pulling into St Kitts was that for once the starboard aide of the ship really had some action. We pulled in alongside the Royal Caribbean ship "Independence of the Seas". I understand the sister ship, the "Oasis of the Seas" is supposed to be the largest cruise ship currently in operation.

St. Kitts and Nevis are beautiful islands with some French language and lots of British history. Today's Excursion was My Islandtours by Javin. There were a total of 12 of us on his tour.

Our main form of transportation was an open air jeep with a roof covering. We toured past sites in town then stopped at an abandoned cotton mill.

We hiked on the very scenic black rocks. Most people take pictures of the rocks - we hiked ON them! (Hiking not recommended without a guide!). We stopped at a field of sugar cane where Chad cut down a two canes - one for the group and one for our family for a tip! We were to have stopped longer, but we were running out of time and we really wanted a sugar cane!

We then went on a hike into the rainforest, where, appropriately, it was raining! In the Gahut Cayon, we scrambled over rocks and saw bamboo that grows 12 - 24" each DAY! At the end of our hike we had a snack of coconut bread (yum!), raisin pastry or a scone along with some mango juice.

We then travelled to the southeast peninsula - where it is developed for tourists. Here we had a beautiful vista where you can see the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Caribbean Sea on the other. Stunning view with the island of Nevis in the background.

We stopped at Whitehouse Bay to snorkel. This has clearly been a rustic tour (our choice) as there were no amenities in sight to change into bathing suits. Good thing we are practiced at camping in the great outdoors! With having to get contact lenses in too, I was the last to enter the water. And that is all i did. Enter. Then scramble out. The waves were so fierce they knocked me off my feet and slammed me into the closest rocks. I quickly decided I needed some expert guidance to help me determine how best to enter the water and the experts were all 100 metres off shore already in the water. So I sat on the dock of sorts and saw the whole snorkelling group turn around to return. As the first snorkellers returned, I learned visibility was so poor they couldn't see the wreck below.

So we all piled into the van in our wet swimwear and drove for a few minutes to Cockelshell Beach. I quickly found a lounge chair under some shade and the kids swam out to large trampolines in the water. Trampolines are hard enough to climb onto with a ladder. These trampolines did not have ladders so it took a lot of core work to clamber up on them! J went for a snorkel and spotted two rays and some interesting starfish. The very last treat of the tour was to eat some sugar cane that had been cut earlier in the day.

At the end of the day when talking about what we thought of his tour, J summarized it well in that we did a whole variety of activities without doing one activity long enough to truly appreciate the experience. I would have cut out the abandoned cotton mill and hiked into the rainforest further. The black rocks were probably my favourite.

We raced back to the ship by 5:15 (all aboard call was for 5:30) to the sounds of the Royal Caribbean ship "Independence of the Seas" playing very loud party music. It was echoing off the two ships side by side. I told J, now there is a reason not to take a Royal Caribbean cruise! That volume of music would drive me crazy for 20 days! It was fun to be so close to the other ship and really study it. From our stateroom balcony you could clearly see their balcony rooms. There Lido deck was lined with people singing and waving. For interest sake, I ran up to our lido deck to view from that angle. You could hear there cruise director making comments over the loudspeaker like "Hey Princess, what time does your skating rink open? Wait, that's right, you don't have a skating rink!"

So RC is a cruise line known for its amenities on the ship. They have a Flo Rider-which is something like a wave simulator and a bit of a water park on their ships. We contemplated taking an RC cruise but because they are such big ships they can't get into many ports and they tend to offer 7 day cruises, not 10 day trips.

With all the excitement of comparing ships, I was 10 minutes late for dinner. Cesar, our waiter from Mexico, told us he worked for RC for a year and in his opinion RC didn't treat crew as well as princess does. On RC, crew are expected to buy their flight to the the port to begin their contract. Princess flies their crew to wherever they begin work. It was interesting to hear his perspective.

After dinner, we headed right upstairs to MUTS to watch the 2012 version of Total Recall with Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale. I declined the offer of pizza, milk and cookies bit couldn't resist a small bag of popcorn!

Tomorrow, we are in St Thomas as we are coming near the end of our glorious cruise!

Photo 1: Our Family on black rocks

Photo 2: RC Independence of the Seas on the left and Emerald Princess on the right.

Photo 3: R & P with the Atlantic on the left and the Caribbean on the right.

Photo 4: R & P playing at Cockelshell Beach! (Which I later learned had free WiFi in the restaurant!

Barbados - Day 18

Calabaza Cruises provided our catamaran excursion today in Barbados. What a beautiful boat! And so clean too! Calabaza books a maximum of 12 guests on their boat so we were well cared for by owner Gina, Captain Danny and First Mate Chad.

Despite going to bed early last night, the kids were groggy when we woke them up at 8 am today. P made up for that by having a little snooze on the boat!

Our weather was fairly overcast with a bit of rain today, so not ideal for snorkelling and certainly not any too warm either! We wore bathing suits under rasher sun shirts and board shorts so once we got wet with the first splash at the front of the boat, I was a bit chilled throughout the morning.

We sailed north from Bridgetown on the west side of the island. We went past a very high end resort called Sandy Lane. It is where Tiger Woods got married and the least expensive room costs $3,000 per night.

We enjoyed some banana bread, then lox and cream cheese on a bun for snacks. After about an hour of sailing we got to our first snorkel stop where we saw lots of Green Turtles. Chad had some raw fish to feed them so it wasn't hard to attract a number of turtles.

After about half an hour of snorkelling, we packed up and sailed for another five minutes to our second snorkel stop. This time there was less to see in comparison to Bonaire but we did see a lot of Sargeant majors.

A traditional Caribbean lunch was served on the boat after our second snorkel. We had about 30 minutes to swim after lunch before we started heading back to the ship. This is when the sun finally broke through the clouds and I started to warm up (choosing to dry on the boat rather than swim).

After the sail back to the ship J and I and one other couple decided to walk to the ship rather than take the taxi. The kids didn't want to walk! We found a lovely painting for sale as we made our way back to the ship. It will cost about six times the purchase price to get it framed but it will be a nice keepsake!

The walk back was 20 to 30 minutes - we had just 25 minutes to spare before the all aboard call. I tried to use free WiFi for a few minutes in the terminal and J bought a Caribbean map to plot out our route as a keepsake.

Once back on board the ship we showered and changed. Trivia proved to be challenging again. Even with the use of an atlas we couldn't correctly answer which country shares a border with China and North Korea ( the answer is Russia for all interested parties!)

After dinner we retreated to our stateroom to build our scrap ship for the contest. As J says, the technical stuff is now done, just cosmetic stuff remains!

Photo 1: JG and P at the front of the boat

Photo 2: P enjoying a snooze!