Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance Of The Seas sat anchored at the cruise terminal in Tampa Bay. In just a few hours, the ship would be filled with over 2,000 Gospel music fans for the 45th annual Singing At Sea Cruise; and I couldn’t be happier to leave all the cold temps and snow at home for…
It’s the last day of a cruise, how do you spend your time? Plan every hour down to the minute and pack in as much as you can? Find a chair on deck and relax? I’ve found that the answer varies from cruise to cruise, and this year, I took a more relaxed pace on…
Thursday morning, my alarm went off at an ungodly hour. The only thing that kept me from hitting the snooze button was three excursion tickets to Chichen Itza predominantly displayed on the counter in front of the mirror. Now that was worth getting up for… Unfortunately, the Windjammer wasn’t open at 6:00 am to eat…
There’s something about touring an ancient ruin that can cause your heart to skip a beat. The reality of walking among the same structures that a civilization built with their hands thousands of years ago, wondering what the people who lived there would think if they saw a bus load of tourists walking around their…
Sea days. Some like to sleep in, some like the fact that you don’t have to be anywhere and can just relax, and then some like to use the extra hours on the water to see as much singing as they can. This year, the latter was me. My host group had a private concert…
Tuesday dawned. It was the first full day of my fifth Singing at Sea cruise and I was looking forward to the first port of call on the trip – Key West, Florida. But before we could explore the southernmost point of the U.S., my mom and I went up to the Windjammer and had…
This year, my February cruise took me to the ports of Key West, Florida and Cozumel, Mexico. Our first stop was in Key West, via Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas. We came into port at 11:30 am and were cleared to leave the ship by noon. During the afternoon, we visited the Southernmost Point,…
Tampa, Florida dawned bright and sunny the day I boarded Brilliance Of The Seas for the 2018 Singing At Sea cruise. Though it felt strange to be wearing a sleeveless blouse in February, it felt rather good to be somewhere hot. (When I left home that week, it was 15 degrees.) I’ve been a big…
The murky water below churned as the ms Paradise glided through the dark waves. Along the horizon, the sky and water only had one color. Black. It was just after six o’clock in the morning and I was determined to see that orange ball pop over the horizon on Tuesday. Being early in the week,…
The elevator “dinged,” the doors slid open and my sister and I walked into the bustling lobby of our hotel filled with cruise passengers. Lining the walls and keeping a hand on their carry-on bags, people waited for their shuttle to take them to the cruise terminal. If you go on the Singing at Sea…
