Exploring Miami and Sailing the Seas: Our Unforgettable Virgin Voyages Adventure

Arrival in Miami

View from Plane

Carrie and I went on our first Virgin Voyages cruise back in 2023, and we liked it so much that we signed up for a second cruise while we were still on the ship. We went on our second cruise from March 28 through April 2. It was another wonderful time, and we're already thinking about our next cruise on Virgin. We started this trip by spending two days in Miami before departing. We really like Miami and wanted to spend time there before leaving on our trip.

Hotel Pool View for Afternoon

We flew down early on the morning of Wednesday, March 26. We had a low-key first day, spending the day at the hotel pool, which was amazing, and then had a casual meal for dinner before making our way back to the hotel. We ate at some good spots this day, including Las Olas Cafe, which serves Latin-style food. It was so good that we went back again the next day to get coffee.

Exploring Miami Beach The next day found us in Miami Beach for breakfast at Cortado Cafe and Coffee House, where we ate breakfast, read, and I did some brief work. It's a popular spot for breakfast or coffee. We enjoyed our time on the corner watching people, and the food was great!

We were close to an Apple Store, as Carrie needed to stop by for an issue she was having with her Apple Pencil. After the Apple Store, we walked along the shops before deciding to grab a quick bite and drink at Oh! Mexico, where we had an appetizer and drinks. Actually, we had one appetizer and three drinks. It was an expensive bill for just an app and drinks, but it was good. It's a good spot to sit on the patio and people-watch while we snacked and drank.

Dining in Miami

Las Olas Cafe We ate at some good spots this day, including Las Olas Cafe, which serves Latin-style food. It was so good that we went back again the next day to get coffee.

Cortado Cafe and Coffee House The next day found us in Miami Beach for breakfast at Cortado Cafe and Coffee House, where we ate breakfast, read, and I did some brief work. It's a popular spot for breakfast or coffee. We enjoyed our time on the corner watching people, and the food was great!

Oh! Mexico After the Apple Store, we walked along the shops before deciding to grab a quick bite and drink at Oh! Mexico, where we had an appetizer and drinks. Actually, we had one appetizer and three drinks. It was an expensive bill for just an app and drinks, but it was good. It's a good spot to sit on the patio and people-watch while we snacked and drank.

Stone Crab from Stiltsville

Stiltsville Fish Bar Thursday night, we made reservations at a spot I selected called Stiltsville Fish Bar. We were drawn to this location due to their menu. I was interested in trying stone crab, which I had never had before and had never heard of until we were checking places to eat in Miami Beach. Stone crab is special to the Florida area, and it was good. We only had one as they are expensive, but it was worth the visit. We looked through other places to eat but decided on Stiltsville Fish Bar because of other items on their menu. Excellent!

Other items we had from Stiltsville Fish Bar...

Crab Cake from Stiltsville Fish Bar

 

Fish for Dinner From Stiltsville

Crab Cakes from Stiltsville

Key Lime Pie from Stiltsville

 

Following dinner, we headed to a nearby brewery where we could have some drinks while I watched the Washburn Ichabods on ESPN+ in the Final Four of the NCAA D2 basketball tournament. It was a good spot to watch the game on my phone while having some good drinks. Unfortunately, the Ichabods ran into a good team that went on to win the NCAA D2 championship.

Boarding the Virgin Voyages Cruise

Top Deck and Ready to Deport

Priority Boarding and Perks Friday morning found us headed to port to board the Virgin Voyages cruise line. Carrie and I were so excited to be on vacation and headed to our second cruise with Virgin Voyages. For this cruise, Carrie and I decided to sign up for more events than we did on the first trip. I’m glad we did, as we signed up for a painting class (more on this later), a spin class, morning meditation, and we went to both ports where we had originally thought we would remain on the ship. Again, I’m glad we signed up for more things, and for the most part, we stuck to the areas we signed up for.

The process of getting aboard was easy as we had priority boarding, which included a "Splash of Romance" that got us some Champagne along with some other perks we enjoyed. Virgin added some new options that could be ordered before leaving port, which included a bucket of beers, a bucket of Moscow Mules, and I also ordered premium WiFi so I could watch the basketball games I was hoping would take place on Saturday. The new additions of being able to have buckets of drinks waiting for us when leaving port were great!

Dining on the Ship

Pink Agave One thing I do not like about the Virgin Voyages app is that after the cruise ends, I cannot go into the app to see what we did or details about what we ordered. Everything ends except the home button on the app. However, I think I can remember the places we ate and call those out here.

Pink Agave is my favorite of the places we ate. This was our second time eating at Pink Agave, as the restaurants are similar between ships. Pink Agave has good drinks, the food is outstanding, and the wait staff is on point with recommendations, answering questions, and being attentive to our needs while we eat.

Seafood Dinner at The Wake

The Wake The Wake is another favorite on the trip. We went here twice, once for breakfast and then for dinner. It’s at the rear of the ship with large windows that look out over the ocean as we leave a wake in the water.

Razzle Dazzle Razzle Dazzle is another good place to eat on the ship. We went here our first night and had a good meal along with drinks.

Extra Virgin Our least favorite spot on the ship, both this voyage and our first voyage in 2023, is Extra Virgin. It’s an Italian place to eat aboard, and just like our first voyage, our experience lacked at Extra Virgin. The waiter took a while to greet us, get our drinks, and seemed burdened by our questions. We had the same experience on our first voyage too with Extra Virgin, where the food was alright, but the attention to detail or being there to answer our questions was lacking.

The Galley We did eat a few times in The Galley. It’s always a spot that is open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snacks, and we stopped by there most days while aboard. We liked to check their daily special to see what was available and found some good things to eat in The Galley.

The Pizza Place Finally, not mentioning The Pizza Place would be remiss. Another place that is open throughout the day and late into the night, we stopped by to get pizza a few times, which was very good.

Activities on the Cruise

Carrie on Left, Mine on Right

Painting & Boozy Bevvies We signed up for Painting & Boozy Bevvies, which I will admit, I was a little anxious about doing. We had a great time. Champagne was being served, and they walked us through painting with watercolors. Truthfully, I was surprised how well mine turned out, where I can actually see the sun reflecting off the water. We sat at a fun table with other sailors and had good conversation.

Spin Class The spin class I attended was a lot of fun. The class totally kicked my butt, but it was worth it and made me feel good to work out while enjoying food, drinks, and snacks throughout the day while aboard. The class was packed, and I only did one spin class, but I would sign up for classes on our next trip.

Port Stops

Selfie at Pool in Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic As I mentioned earlier, we did make it into both of the two ports where we stopped. At the Dominican Republic port, we stayed at the resort pool off the ship and had a wonderful day. We found a nice spot with some shade to spend the day and enjoy the pool. There was a lazy river too, which we did, but we ended up getting out about halfway through as it was a long experience.

Bahamas Port

Bahamas: Virgin Voyages Beach Club at Bimini The other port we stopped at was in the Bahamas at the Virgin Voyages Beach Club at Bimini. This was our second time at Bimini. This time, though, we got there early around 9 am and had a great spot in front of the beach. It was an enjoyable day spent at the beach, and again we enjoyed good drinks, delicious food, as well as reading and snoozing. Wonderful day spent at the beach.

Departure and Final Thoughts

Leaving the Ship The last day aboard the ship was Wednesday, April 2. It was a sad day as we were leaving the ship and our vacation was ending. The process to exit the ship was the easiest it has ever been on any ship. We were off the ship and headed to the airport within thirty minutes. The fun had only started, though, as our flights were changed because of weather. We ended up not getting home until Thursday, with our Wednesday night flight being canceled.

Selfie in front of Virgin Voyages Ship

Looking Forward to the Next Cruise We had a great time on our trip and thoroughly enjoy Virgin Voyages. We are not sure when we will be sailing again, but we do want to go again on Virgin Voyages.

See all photos from our trip on Flickr.

My Flickr Year 2023 in Review and Background on My Flickr Account Through the Years

The majority of pictures posted on my site come from my Flickr page where I upload all of my pictures. I have been a paid member of Flickr since 2007. I have almost 10,000 photos on my Flickr account and trying to take more and more pictures each year. I often go back and look at past years through Flickr to remember what we did during a specific period of time. Of course I also often go back in my blog to review a trip or what we did during a specific week. 

For 2023, my most viewed picture was from a sunset I took one morning from Washburn University campus as I was walking into work. I entered the picture in a Your Best Shot 2023 group to try and win. I did not win, but it was fun having visitors view and comment on the picture. In the Flickr group, there were over 11,400 members with over 9,000 photos ranging from a variety of photographs. It was the second year I had joined a group for "Your Best Shot" and had fun reviewing all of the member posts with their "Best Shot" for the year.

The picture of the sunset had over 775 views since it was posted on November 3, 2023. The majority of the views coming from being part of the Your Best Shot 2023 group. Overall, I had almost 12,000 views for all of my pictures.

My goal for 2024 is to not only post more pictures to Flickr, but be more active on interacting in groups, other members pictures, and the big one which I have found helps to get views is to include tags on photos. A tag is similar to a hashtag on a tweet but does not necessarily need the typical "#" for a hashtag. Those do show up, but most of my tags are simply "Sunset", "Dog", "basketball", etc. Gives another way for others to search and possibly have whatever was posted show up in their search. I also try to put a title and description on all pictures that I upload. Again, I find that this helps when looking through stats to see how people found a picture.

Brief background into the site that stores pictures I post to this blog that I wanted to share. Hopefully in 2024 I will post more pictures and have more interactions with visitors to my Flickr photos.

Trip to Palm Springs, CA November 30 - December 4 Update... Note, we had a great time!

Mountains and Palm Trees

I did not have a chance to write up our trip to Palm Springs, California after we got back. We went to Palm Springs, CA November 30 - December 4. We met Javier and Corrie in Palm Springs. We got together a few weeks ahead of our trip to pick a place to go. We wanted to go some place that none of us had been before. This took a few messages back and forth and discussions before we finally landed on Palm Springs, California. Palm Springs did not disappoint! We had a great time! It was beautiful and we ate at some good places as well as had drinks at some good spots too.

Breakfast at Farm in Palm Springs

For breakfast the first day, we went to Farm in Palm Springs. A breakfast spot that was amazing. The set up of Farm was cool with indoor and outdoor sitting. The drinks were amazing! The Bloody Mary here was so good, I could have had a few of those. Breakfast was simple and delicious with some really good fried potatoes.

We wanted to get an early start to the day as we had plans to visit Joshua Tree National Park, do some bar hopping, and then have dinner at a fancy place that night. A lot planned for our first full day in Palm Springs, California.

Tree Behind Joshua Tree

During the day, we drove out to Joshua Tree National Park to look around. Beautiful to see it and yes it was a bit chilly. We saw people climbing the rocks and on top of the high cliffs which was cool, but mainly, we enjoyed looking at the mountains against the sky with Joshua Trees mixed in and around the area. I am so glad that we decided to go out this day instead of waiting until the weekend to get out to see the sights.

Early evening found us at The Parker Palm Springs for drinks. We took an Uber to start our evening with drinks before heading to dinner. It was a cool spot where we later learned that movie stars would frequent for an after party for an event that takes place each year in Palm Springs. We only had drinks here and a lot of laughs. It was a fun spot and glad we were able to make it there before our evening of dinner.

Group Picture at Bar Cecil

That night, we had reservations at Bar Cecil that Carrie had found and got up early a month earlier to get reservations. As I mentioned, Carrie had to get up early a month prior to get reservations. She had read some place that reservations were hard to get and they opened a month in advance, so she got up early one morning in October to get our reservations. I am so glad she did! We had a great time!

Palm Springs reminded me a lot of Albuquerque, NM that we have visited a number of times for vacation. The mountains, look of the homes in the area, and the weather made me think of Albuquerque. In the evening, it would get rather chilly and we especially felt the cold when we traveled up the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which took us to the top of a mountain to overlook Palm Springs. We had drinks at the top of the mountain while looking at the views before heading out to see the rest of Palm Springs.

To see all pictures from our trip, please use the viewer below to browser our pictures. Note, there a lot of selfies and silly pictures as we had a blast! The full album can be viewed on Flickr at https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjB5Zwg

As you can see from our pictures and description, we had an excellent time. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, we plan to do this on an annual basis where we pick a location where none of us have been. We recognize this will become a tough task as it took us a while to land on Palm Springs that none of us had been to before, but it is a good challenge and I look forward to see where we go next year when we make the trip to the unknown.

Until next time, I hope you have wonderful travels and are able to visit some place new each year.

I Bought My First Drone and Learning How to Fly

Drone Photo of our House

What did I do on Prime Day 2023? Well, I finally got myself a drone. Certainly not high end but I think it will work out well for me. It arrived on Friday afternoon and I was so excited to start using it that I tried it Friday evening but in the house. Yes, it was raining when it arrived, so I tried it in the house first. I have no idea what I am doing, so I flew it into the TV, the couch, etc., and quickly decided I better do this outside.

I purchased the NEHEME NH525 Foldable Frones with 1080P HD Camera which was selling on Prime Day for half price. I got it for about $50. It is labeled as beginner or for kids. Well, I might be both of those categories as I am having fun with it on Saturday morning. It comes with a joystick or I can use my phone to fly. I have tried both and have much better control it seems with the joystick. However, I am unable to take pictures, or video, with the remote for some reason. It was working fine when I tested it Friday night, but nothing today. So, I can only take pictures using my phone and the app.

More Drone Test Pics of our House

The drone does scare Oliver who is not sure what is happening. I am sure it did not help that I was flying it in the house, crashing into the couch or the TV, so he is not sure what to think about it. For a little device, it does make a good amount of noise.

I would like to take it out to an open field where I can use it as our backyard is not the best. Yes, I did get the B4UFLY app to check if I can fly in our neighborhood and I was happy to see that I can fly without restrictions. I do still need to register the drone through the FAA, but I have not looked at that process at this point. I am hoping I can get the joystick to take pictures with the one button click or I need to learn how to fly with my phone.

The plan is to take the drone on camping trips to take pictures of our camp site, us while we are camping, or of other interesting sites while we are camping. Of course between now and our next camping trip (probably in the fall), I need to train and test flying. 

Drone Picture Front of House

The drone came with two batteries which allows for about 10 - 12 minutes of flying time for each battery. Not bad and overall I think the pictures look pretty good. I did take a test video while flying in the front but it is very shaky. Possibly some of it to do with my inexperience of flying but also the drone is constantly repositioning or correcting even when I am not doing the controls which makes for a jumpy video. I think with this low end drone, I will primarily be taking pictures.

I am sure you know this means there will be more pictures and more posts with the new drone. Hopefully as I get better flying, and taking pictures, these will improve and I will be ready to take pictures of our next camping site when we go in the fall.

Until next time, have a great weekend and I look forward to sharing my drone journey over the coming months.

Weekend of Grilling Went Very Well While Carrie Was Out of Town

Carrie was going to be out of town to visit our friend Corrie in Houston June 8 - 13, so I planned to do a lot of grilling while she was away. I started preparing the menu before she left and had most everything picked out prior to her departure. Although, I had to make some changes as some of the items I wanted were not available at the local grocery store (i.e. mahi-mahi), but made an adjustment and I think overall, it was a successful time grilling. 

The first night, I did a simple pork tenderloin on the grill. I did not get any pictures of the night, but the picture to the left was my basic set up for the other nights I grilled. I decided on a pork tenderloin as it would give leftovers for dinner Thursday and lunch Friday. I did corn on the cob on the grill along with the pork. It turned out really well. Using the Meater and it was cooked to a perfect temperature. It did last me through Friday lunch, so it worked out as planned. I decided on this as I wanted to workout Thursday night after I got off of work and did not want to worry about cooking or going late around the grill. Oliver and I spent time outside even though I was not grilling listening to music and drinking some good beer.

I got off of work at noon on Friday and started running errands getting ready for cooking Friday night. I stopped by Blind Tiger to pick up some growlers of beer, went to the grocery store, and then to Herman’s Meat Market to pick up a porterhouse bone-in steak along with a twice baked potato. Nothing fancy, but simple and done on the grill for the porterhouse. Put the potato in the oven and let it go for about 40 minutes before putting the steak on the grill. I also started some mushrooms on the stove to sauté to go along with the steak and of course I opened a bottle of wine to add to the mushrooms. I then also had the rest of the bottle while I ate and relaxed for the evening.  

The goal for all of the planned cooking for the weekend involved wanting to use the Meater to see how well it worked. Maybe perfect how I use it so I can impress Carrie the next time I cook. Once again, the Meater worked great on the steak alerting me to take it off from the grill, letting it rest, and knowing when it was the perfect time to start eating. Not the greatest picture, but it sure tasted good. I picked up the onion and peppers at the store that afternoon. The pepper was too hot for me to eat. I had a few bites and could not taste a thing, so I kept it until the leftovers on Saturday for lunch to go with the leftover steak. It was still too much for me. Very hot! I was very happy with how everything turned out.

Saturday was a busy day for me while Carrie was a way. I had a lot planned for the day around the house and to cook. I mowed the lawn, trimmed, and got the exterior looking good. I had errands to run for cooking that night which included picking up swordfish and I wanted to clean up to get it ready for Carrie returning on Monday night. I also wanted to try a recipe for a rum cake on the Big Green Egg. My first time trying it and Carrie and I had talked about it, but had not tried it. I figured it was the perfect time to give it a try. The recipe which I found on the BGE web site (here) was pretty easy. I could not find the correct pan, so I found one that would work. It took about 50 minutes for it to finish cooking so that a toothpick inserted came out clean. I let it cool and started cooking dinner for the night.

When I was at the store earlier in the day to get the swordfish and other items, while I was at the seafood counter, the HyVee associate suggested as I was grabbing the swordfish from her that I should get some Australian Jumbo Shrimp they had in their cooler. I almost did not get any as I was leaving and I am so glad that I did. they were delicious! Huge pieces of shrimp that I ended up eating by dipping in butter. They tasted just like lobster. So good! 

The swordfish I got two of them so I could have one for Sunday at lunch. This was only my second attempt at swordfish. I did a simple oil over them to coat, salt, and pepper which then went on the grill. My first bite tasted very fishy of the swordfish. I used the Meater to monitor the swordfish which did a good job, but I think I will try a different recipe for swordfish in the future. The rest of it was very good. Leftovers on Sunday, it was much better too. When I told Carrie about it, she thought it might have been the difference between the kind of meat in the swordfish which might be right. I will try them again as it was delicious once I got past the initial bite.

Sunday I changed my plans from doing mahi-mahi (which I could not find at the store) to doing a pork shoulder. I wanted something that was going to take a while to cook. I put it on the grill a little later than I had planned. The total amount of time it took to start to finish for the pork shoulder was about six hours. I once again used the Meater to monitor the cook. While it cooked, I tried to do some limb cleanup in our backyard, but the weather was a little odd on Sunday with what appeared to be a large storm heading our direction. As it turned out, the storm split right around Topeka and we did not even get any drops. I had two ears of corn on the cob that I had left over from the Wednesday night cook. I bought some buns at the store along with Joe’s BBQ sauce. Pulled the pork once it was done and had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches. I wanted enough to have leftovers on Monday and for Carrie to have some when she got home Monday night or Tuesday.

I was pleased with all of the cooks. I did keep some of the rum cake for Carrie to have when she returned and she had some BBQ too. I think we finally finished off the rum cake on Tuesday. I was happy with everything I cooked. I was proud that I was able to cook everything for my meal on the grill for Saturday even though the swordfish turned me off a little on the first bite, I thought it was good and I would try it again.

I will do the pork should again as well as the rum cake. Steak on the grill is a given. So, I cannot wait to grill again and hopefully it will be soon. Carrie thought it was funny how excited I was that she was going to be out of town when I started planning all of my nights of cooking. I think it was a successful time of cooking and hanging out with my boy, Oliver. 

Until next time, have a great week!