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We just got back from a trip to Puerto Rico—where we stayed at El San Juan Hotel & Casino—for a Dow Jones Integrated Solutions/Dow Jones Online sales meeting. Since dad works at DJIS and mom works at DJO (when she’s back from maternity leave) and both were in attendance at the meeting, Colin tagged along. The meetings went very well, but we only took pictures of the “fun” stuff…

The main thing we did, of course, was go to the pool. Colin hadn’t ever been in a pool (or anywhere it was warm outside for that matter!), so it was quite an experience for him. I think he liked it, but mom and dad did push it a little by dunking him in the water as you can see in this video:

Mommy didn’t end up spending that much time in the water so it was mostly daddy and Colin. We had lots of fun—but it was too bad it wasn’t a heated pool. I think Colin got cold before he got sick of being in the water. Afterwards, we chilled out (heated up?) in a towel and then sat around contemplating what we thought of the whole experience. I don’t know why, but I just love that last picture of him.

Colin also got to meet some of the folks that mommy (Penny from London) and daddy (Andrea from NYC) work with. He was a huge hit at the sales meeting with everyone from the publisher of The Wall Street Journal to randoms at the resort commenting on his size (huge!), his smile (so cute!), his demeanor (happy!), etc…. We did decide that our theory about people who know daddy thinking he looks like me and people who know mommy thinking he looks like Deb is no longer valid. Now we just think people say whatever pops into their head, because we had people saying all kinds of things about who he looked like—besides, he just looks like a baby.

I think she looks great. Not the statue—my wife!

Deb’s dad Carl and Judie were in town over the Labor Day holiday and we had lots of fun running poor, pregnant Debra all over the city (and environs)…

We learned all about what is legal to dump into the water (and how far out to see you have to be to do it) while we took the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue. We left from Liberty State Park on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, which we’d recommend to anyone visiting the islands because the lines—even on a holiday weekend—were next to nothing!

We thought the Ellis Island park was really well done. I was only sad to learn that we didn’t have any relatives (that dad could think of on a rushed call from the island itself) that came through there to look up in the archives!

Aside from the the trip over to the Statue and Ellis, I think all we did was eat: Bar Americain, the Bridge Cafe (where I first met Carl, before Debra and I were officially even dating), some restaurant in Little Italy with lots of wine and pasta, and even the Cosmic Cafe across the street, yummy yummy yummy. We also saw a performance of the Blue Man Group (where Deb got to hold the Toblerone). Oh right! We were cultural, too. We went to the American Museum of Natural History.

We had a great time. The next time we get out of town visitors we’re puttin’ ‘em to work! (Sorry, mom.)

Yesterday Debra and I went to Atlantic City.

It’s no Las Vegas.

The cruise we took was actually a bit on the short side—we only had two ports-of-call. The first port we stopped in was Key West where we mostly shopped but also spent a bit of time at the Hemingway House. The second port was Grand Cayman which sounds very exotic, but was my least favorite of the two. We did have a good time snorkeling and swimming with the stingrays, though!

No matter where we went, though, it was clear we were in travel-marketer paradises with no shortage of cheesy tourist-trap statues… Deb is seen here with a famous denizen of Grand Cayman (yes I will refrain from unseemly jokes about what the sign says) and I’m pictured in Key West at the restaurant where we had lunch, Crabby Dick’s (please note two things about this picture: the look on my face and the mermaid over my right shoulder).

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We walked from the pier down Duval Street to the (1) Hemingway House, shopping all the way. We took a ($11!) tour of the house given by a very knowledgable docent who told us a lot about Hemingway’s time in the house. For instance, even though Hemingway only lived in Key West for 9 years, over 70% of his life’s work was completed here, (2) in the room pictured above. His house—though more than a half mile inland—was located next to a (3) lighthouse. Given his propensity for the bottle, his friends often joked with him that he bought the house so he could find his way home after last call.

Those of you who know Hemingway may know that he was a cat freak. The Hemingway House still has over 50 cats living on-site, each of them named after a famous musician, actor, artist, etc. We met a bunch of cats, including the aptly named Charlie Chaplin. The interesting thing about these cats is that they are all descendants of Hemingway’s original cats, and all have six toes. That sixth toe acts as an opposable thumb and does allow them to grasp things in a way normal cats cannot.

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Out next stop was Grand Cayman. I expected amazing things from this little island, but I guess it really is all about the banking. It still looked a little beat up from Hurricane Ivan back whenever that was. (4 and 5) We did have a great time snorkeling at the barrier reef around the island. (6) Debra even got up close and personal with a stingray—she held it and even gave it the traditional kiss for 7 years of good luck. (Our Jamaican guide put it differently, “Aren’t you jealous, mon? She just kissed a man with two winkies!”) Deb had the foresight to buy an underwater camera which is what we used to take these photos, I think it did a pretty good job, for a disposable, of capturing some of the magic of the (7) reef we were exploring.

In any event, this posting and the two from yesterday pretty much sum up our trip. It was a lot of fun—and I’m sure I missed some stories that Deb can share in another posting or in the comments field. And if any of you see us in person, we can bore you with the 8 dozen other photos we have of the trip!

Deb and I booked our cruise a while back, which is somewhat uncharacteristic of our typical seat-of-the-pants travel planning, so we had both been looking forward to it for a while now. But the short story is: we loved it!

We spent 5 nights on the Empress of the Seas traveling from Ft. Lauderdale to Key West to Grand Cayman before returning back to Ft. Lauderdale. We took a couple of shots of the Empress, which always seemed gi-normous and quite nice—even after we found out it was the smallest and the oldest ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet.

The first thing we did when we got on the boat was to head straight for our (1) stateroom (sounds so fancy) (though as you can see below it was not so terribly fancy) (I felt a bit like steerage class and looked to see how they would lock us in if the boat struck an iceberg). It was if they were reading my mind, though—they had a mandatory safety drill immediately prior to setting sail the first afternoon. (2) Deb and (3) I book looked pretty suave in our (state-of-the-art, I might add) lifejackets.

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Food was a huge (!!!) part of the cruise. I have to admit, though, that there weren’t as many buffets as I thought there would be; this is not to say there wasn’t lots of food and that we didn’t stuff ourselves silly, but it wasn’t quite what I was picturing. We really ate at two different places—the more fomal Carmen Dining Room (where we had all of our dinners and several lunches) and the casual (4) Windjammer Cafe on the pool deck (which did have some buffets, but our eating habits didn’t always coincide with the buffets having the widest selection of foods—but there was always lots of fruit to keep me happy). At dinner we were seated at a table with 3 other couples, all of whom were great. Ironically (though perhaps not surprisingly), there was a OB/GYN doctor sitting at our table who was ecstatic to have a pregnant woman at her table (“I can’t get away from work no matter where I go!”). We also had a teacher and two chefs. It was a cool table, and I liked the continuity of eating with the same people each evening.

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One of the evenings (mornings, actually, since it started at midnight) the kitchen crew hosted the Gala Buffet. This was an interesting spectacle (and I feel comfortable calling it that since the buffet was open from 11:30p-12:00a for photographing only before it opened for an hour for folks to actually eat). In any event, the staff had spent something like 300 man hours preparing the “gala” spread which included everything from chocolate dipped strawberries to bread baked into specific shapes to (5) monkeys made out of citrus fruit to floral arrangements made out of cut radishes to (6) watermelon aquarium scenes to (7) a rock band made out of lemons and chicken (with a carrot/cucumber guitar).

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We had four full days on the boat. Two of the days were spent in port, one at Key West and one at Grand Cayman. We spent the other two days, the “At Sea” days, just relaxing. It was wonderful. The (8) pool was shockingly small, and really one of the only disappointments of the cruise from my perspective, but it did have plenty of deck space on which to enjoy the sun and a bar serving delicious (virgin) Strawberry Daquiris. We spent part of the time playing (9) blackjack with our friends (and tablemates) (she’s the doctor) Holly and Paul—we even entered a blackjack tournament and did well enough to both be on the (10) leaderboard at the same time! Deb and I even took some time out one not-so-busy afternoon to play a game we brought from home, (11) Skip-bo!

The cruise also had some shows and other entertainment opportunities. We watched a cheesy Broadway-wanna-be show which was pretty enjoyable. The cruise director (a real position, not just one in the Love Boat television show) hosted a very funny rip-off of the Newlywed Game with three couples who were on the cruise. We also attended an art auction at which they were selling some relatively pricey works (a Rembrandt in the $17k+ range, as I recall). Before you go thinking we’re getting all snotty on you, please know we went (I went) for the free champagne.

The “towel animals” were one of the fun parts of each evening. When we would get back from dinner, the stateroom attendant had folded some of our clean towels into various animals. My favorite was the elephant, though I think the monkey wins for creativity.

I’ll write about the shore excursions tomorrow…

On the last day of our cruise, we had some—unscheduled—excitement courtesy of oppressive social and political conditions in Cuba.

Debra and I were enjoying the late afternoon (me at the blackjack tables and Debra relaxing in the cabin) when the captain came over the loudspeaker informing us that the ship was turning around since we had spotted a boat of Cuban refugees headed towards the United States. The Empress had immediately reported the sighting—per U.S. law—and been asked by the Coast Guard to stay in sight of the boat so when they arrived, they would know where to find it. This meant two things: everyone rushed to the top deck to try to catch a glimpse of the unfolding drama and we were going to be late into port the following morning.

Both Deb and I searched the web to find articles about the situation, but only came up with this link from a South Florida NBC television affiliate.

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We never got closer than a mile or two, so the photos aren’t the best given I was taking them with my little Canon digital camera. But photo (1) shows the crew members trying to re-locate the boat after we turned around and got back in the vicinity of where it had been originally sighted, (2) is the closest shot I got of the Coast Guard boat as it passed our bow on its way to the refugees and (3) shows the little dinghy deployed by the Coast Guard making actual contact. (By this time, we were already resuming our trip back to Ft. Lauderdale, so we didn’t see if they actually brought everyone on board the Coast Guard ship or how it was all “resolved.”)

The last we heard of it was when the captain came back on the loudspeaker informing us the Coast Guard had “thanked” us and were unwilling to share more information given the “sensitive” nature of the situation…

We actually talked about it at dinner that night with our table mates and had somewhat similar reactions to our fellow passengers’ reactions as we listened to the conversations among those on the top deck watching. I thought it was fascinating—and an interesting object lesson—how people’s professed politics (“don’t let any damn illegals in the country—they’re taking our jobs and costing us money!”) don’t always play out when faced with a “real life” situation. The general sentiment seemed to be of sadness for the Cubans who were so close to getting to the U.S. and were now apparently going to be sent back. Ask many of those same people a week before the cruise what their feelings about illegal aliens were and you would likely have sparked some vitriolic comments about keeping “them” out. But when you put them in a situation where the humanity is unavoidable, it appears more (morally?) challenging to be as absolute on the topic. Interesting.

Well, tomorrow, or I suppose in 4 minutes or so, today we will be headed to Florida for our very first cruise!

We are really looking forward to this new experience and can’t wait to tell you all when we get back next Thursday.

Wish us luck and nice weather!

…and head to the Caribbean!

That’s right, after talking about it forever, Debra and I are finally going to go and spend some time on a boat. Some overnight time on a boat. A big boat.

We’re going to do just a quick little 5-day cruise at the end of June in the “Western” Caribbean (so named by the cruise industry, no doubt) leaving from Ft. Lauderdale and making stops at Key West and Grand Cayman on the Empress of the Seas. I’ve not spent any time in the Caribbean so I’m looking forward to. Of course not as much as I am looking forward to gorging on all things edible. And free room service!

(Please don’t point out we’ve paid for it with the price of the cruise ticket—I’m living the dream!)

Anyway, the cruise map: