Catching up! It's been too long, where have I been? Sailing!

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The last trip I shared was my Viking River Cruise along the Danube..... and it was definitely one of my favorites! Since that time, I've taken a few more journeys and life may have just slowed down enough to start to share those experiences! Some of these include a trip in November 2016 when our family sailed on the Norwegian Escape on what was definitely one of our all time favorite vacations! Another highlight was this past December of 2017 when I traveled with a group of friends and family, who were my clients as well, to the Riviera Maya. We had a fantastic time there!  But the next trip I'm going to share is one of the most unique cruises that I've been on yet, sailing with one of my good friends, and fellow travel agent, on the Wind Star! 



Windstar Cruises are sailing yachts and yacht ships with between 148 and 310 passengers. When Lisa and I had the opportunity to sail on one of these ships to learn more about Windstar, how could we resist? And a bonus was that two of the three ports were places I had never been to before! I will definitely be sharing my other travels as well, after this one! But for now.....here we go!

Not only was the ship unique, being a sailing yacht, but the cruise itself was a bit different in that it didn't depart from the more traditional US ports we have come to expect. Typically Caribbean cruises depart from Florida, or sometimes San Juan, Puerto Rico.  This cruise actually was departing from Barbados, and it was ending in Panama! I was pretty happy about that because it gave us an excuse to spend some extra time in those locations. Especially Panama! 

First stop, Barbados! The cruise departed on Saturday, November 25th, just two days after Thanksgiving. It's never a good idea to fly into your departure city the day your cruise leaves. If there are any flight issues, you wouldn't want to miss the ship! So, I wanted to arrive on Friday. That meant leaving bright and early Friday morning for a pretty full day of travel! I arrived in beautiful, sunny Barbados on Friday, November 24, 2017.


I met my driver at the airport and we had a wonderful conversation on the way to the hotel. Lisa and I were staying at the Hilton Barbados for our night before the cruise. This was a lovely hotel, right on the beach. This is the view from our balcony!

It was just about sunset, so we went down to the beach to enjoy the view and take some pictures! Life was pretty good right about now!











After getting our fill of the sunset, we decided to take advantage of the pool and the hot tub at the resort. 



Clearly we stayed for quite some time! After the hot tub we went to the beach themed Barbados buffet dinner, on the beach - which was pretty good.  They had karaoke going on during dinner, and that's always entertaining! There were firepits along the beach. Overall it was a great place to spend the night pre-cruise! 

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