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My Carnival Liberty Vacation 2022

And now Week 4 of my 7-week series on my 8-day fun-filled vacation on the Carnival Liberty out of Miami Florida.

Back in 2019 when I was thinking about booking my next Carnival cruise after a fun 7-day cruise on the Carnival Glory I knew that I wanted to return to Aruba and Curaçao on my next cruise. The last time I visited new islands for the first time on a cruise was back in October 2012 on the Carnival Valor when I stepped foot on Dominican Republic, Curaçao, and Aruba on 3 successive days. That was an awesome 8-day cruise – seeing and exploring new lands for the first time ever.

When I saw that the Carnival Horizon (a new ship) was sailing from Miami to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao – I was intrigued. Bonaire was the missing link from that October 2012 cruise. I’d be able to conquer all 3 of the ABC Islands if I booked that cruise. Bonaire is a fairly new port-of-call for Carnival (since January 2015), and it appears that they will be sailing there more often – and perhaps to Curaçao less often.

So I booked that Carnival Horizon cruise to the ABC Islands in February 2020 for January 2021 that was ultimately canceled (due to the pandemic). I then rebooked it for exactly a year (52 weeks) later in January 2022. The older Carnival Liberty replaced the Carnival Horizon for several sailings in January (including mine). Despite the downgrade in the ship – I was still excited about this cruise to the 3 small islands down at the south-end of the Caribbean. I would have loved to sail on that much newer cruise ship, but the bigger reason that I booked this cruise was the unique itinerary to all 3 of the ABC Islands on 3 consecutive days in alphabetical order.

So back to my story. It’s Day 5, and the 2ND-half of my cruise has begun.

Fun Fact: I embarked onto the Carnival Liberty shortly after 11 AM on Saturday January 08TH 2022, and I disembarked shortly after 8 AM on Sunday January 16TH 2022. That’s 189 hours. Half of that is 94½ hours. That would place the exact halfway point of my cruise shortly after 9:30 AM on Wednesday January 12TH 2022 – Bonaire morning !

The Carnival Liberty was the only cruise ship in port that entire day. We had the entire island to ourselves – and the 20,000+ permanent residents of the island.

We arrived in mysterious Bonaire early on that Wednesday morning just after 7 AM ship’s time (Miami Florida) / 8 AM local time. I didn’t have a shore excursion until 12:30 PM, so I had plenty of time to relax on the ship, and to take some nice photos of the island from the top decks.

The port, capital, largest city, and population center is Kralendijk. It’s on the upper-southwest coast of the island that measures about 24 miles from northwest to southeast. It’s about 3 to 5 miles wide at all points. It has a mountain range on its north side with peaks of up to nearly 800 feet above sea level. Bonaire kinda-sorta looks like a distorted Florida geographically that’s been elongated in its panhandle and squished a bit in its peninsula. The mountain range extends from “Pensacola” to “Jacksonville”, and Kralendijk is right along the “Big Bend” area.

I took a nearly 4-hour bus tour of the island (via a Carnival-sponsored shore excursion). I think it was the most popular tour. Our bus driver and tour guide were 2 older Dutch gentlemen with a weird and wacky sense of humor who often derided each other in a somewhat loving way. They were very protective of their somewhat primitive island, and they want it to stay that way and not become another congested Aruba or Curaçao. They did appreciate us (as tourists). They seemed very bitter that (in their general words) the Netherlands gives all of the money to Curaçao to distribute evenly between themselves, Aruba, and Bonaire; yet, Bonaire gets very little of that allocated funding – just a tiny percentage of it. Perhaps some of their comments out loud should not have been so, as they did a bit of political commentating rather than presenting their beautiful island to us.

Nevertheless I enjoyed the tour of the island from the salt flats of the southeast to the mountains of the northwest. I hope to see it again in the future !

I took almost 50 photos of the island. I’ve selected six of the best to present here:

Next #TravelThursday – it’s on to Curaçao.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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My Carnival Liberty Vacation 2022

And now Week 3 of my 7-week series on my 8-day fun-filled vacation on the Carnival Liberty out of Miami Florida.

It’s Day 4 of my cruise, and we arrive in beautiful Aruba early on a Tuesday morning just before 8 AM ship’s time (Miami Florida) / 9 AM local time. I didn’t have a shore excursion until 1 PM, so I had plenty of time to relax on the ship, and to also walk into the downtown area (just off the pier) to take some pictures and do some souvenir shopping.

The port is Oranjestad. Also at the port was a small Church of Scientology cruise ship – and an old familiar friend from a decade ago – the Norwegian Epic (now based out of San Juan Puerto Rico). I sailed on two 7-day cruises on the Epic 13 months apart in December 2011 and January 2013. The first cruise was a lot of fun during the 7 days leading-up to Christmas Eve. The second cruise was not as much fun with various maintenance issues with my cabin and poor customer service. I haven’t sailed on #NCL since, and I don’t plan to anytime soon. But it was cool to see the Epic docked at the port. I wish her and her passengers many happy sailings !

Oranjestad is located on the upper south coast of Aruba. It’s the capital and largest city of Aruba with a 2010 population of over 28,000. Accounting for small growth since then it may be a little over 30,000 today. Aruba itself has a population of between 110,000 and 120,000, so a little over 25% of the nation’s population live within the capital. Aruba is a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It’s located less than 20 miles north of Venezuela and the top of the South American continent. It’s about 20 miles wide from northwest to southeast, and it’s always less than 6 miles from north coast to south coast.

I took an organized bus tour of the island for 4+ hours. I was last on the island in October 2012 (via another Carnival cruise). I did a similar tour back then. Looking back at my photos from 2012 we visited many of the same places on this tour. It was a fun tour that covered the western two-thirds of the island. Our bus driver / tour guide was very knowledgeable, and he had a fun sense of humor.

I took almost 50 photos of the island. I’ve selected six of the best to present here:

Next #TravelThursday – it’s on to Bonaire.

All rights reserved (c) 2022 Christopher M. Day, CountUp

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My November Vacation 2021 Road-Trip

#TravelThursday continues now with Part 4 of my 7-part blog series on my recent 18-day road-trip between South Florida and North Texas.

Last week I left-off on Day 6 in Dallas Texas when I visited the beautiful 66-acre Dallas Arboretum And Botanical Garden. Next time I drive to North Texas I hope to spend another half (or full) day there to see everything. On this visit they were all decorated for Christmas – which was a lot of fun, and it put me into the spirit of the season. I’d like to visit during another time of the year when they are holiday decoration-free. I took 40 photos of my trek around the park. I’ll be posting and captioning most of them onto my Flickr site early in 2022.

Days 7 and 8 were spent hanging out with my family (brother, sister-in-law, and 2 nieces). Day 8 – Thursday November 18TH 2021 – was actually supposed to be another mini-road-trip for me. I had planned to visit the nearby Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary, Historic Downtown McKinney (self-guided walking tour), Collin County History Museum, and lunch at the Cadillac Pizza Pub. None of that happened. It was a full-day of fun planned well in advance, and it’s all deferred to my next road-trip to North Texas in a couple of years. (My next road-trip there may be my inaugural post-retirement road-trip.)

So let’s hit Day 9 – Friday November 19TH 2021. This was an action-packed day of fun on my own. It was a cold morning to get started. I headed east to the small town of Nevada. (It’s pronounced “na-VAY-da”.) My first stop was an old roadside diner that’s very popular with the locals – Watkins Country Cafe. I walked-in, and every table was full. Two guys at a table saw me standing and waiting, and they quickly finished-up and gave me their table. (That’s small-town friendliness right there.)

After my Breakfast there I proceeded a couple of miles away to the Military Heritage Collection Of North Texas. It’s a military museum that’s operated entirely by volunteers and funded solely by donations. (There is no admission.) I posted a 5-star review on Tripadvisor. This museum visit was the biggest surprise of my road-trip. This is the type of place that I would volunteer at if I lived in the local area.

From the military museum I proceeded over to the “Dallas” museum – as in the “Dallas” TV series – the Southfork Ranch. This was my 2ND visit. My 1ST visit was perhaps a dozen years earlier with my brother, but I don’t remember much of it. On this visit I took the guided tour – which starts as a tram tour behind the gift shop and museum. It continues as a walking tour inside the mansion (both floors). After that the tour is over, but you are free to roam the grounds of the ranch and walk inside many of the buildings within the compound. You can really spend a good half-day there checking it all out.

I became an unlikely fan of the “Dallas” TV series over in England of all places – over 8 years after its U.S. debut. Me and a couple of my military dorm buddies gathered each week to watch (and be mesmerized by) the latest episode that was being shown on the BBC. I ended-up watching the series until its 1991 ending after 14 seasons, and I also simultaneously caught-up on the reruns of the show from 1978 to 1986. I think I watched every single episode ever made, and I also watched the 40 episodes of the 2012 to 2014 reboot.

I drove an additional 47 miles on that Friday, so that’s 1,451 miles in 9 days of driving to North Texas and while there.

And that’s where I’ll end Part 4 of this 7-part blog series. I’ll continue with my road-trip adventures and experiences next #TravelThursday. I’ll fast-forward a full week to Day 16 – and the start of my long road-trip back home to South Florida.

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

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My November Vacation 2021 Road-Trip

#TravelThursday continues now with Part 3 of my 7-part blog series on my recent 18-day road-trip between South Florida and North Texas.

At the crack of dawn of Day 3 of my road-trip I was back on the road again – across the 4,205-foot-long Natchez-Vidalia Bridge high atop (125 feet above) the mighty Mississippi River below. When I crossed the bridge I was the only one, so there was not the usual stress involved in doing so like at the various other river crossings. (I’m scared of heights, so I get nervous driving on tall bridges. It’s exasperated by tailgaters.)

It was a clear, crisp, and cold Saturday morning in the upper-30s and lower-40s in the Louisiana “low country” near the river. It was my coldest morning in a long time. Luckily it was in the mid-to-upper-60s in my car with the heater on low.

I continued west-southwestward to Alexandria Louisiana where I left behind the old U.S. highway system and network of back roads, and I rejoined America’s Interstate highways via I-49. I took that northwestward up to Shreveport – Louisiana’s 3RD-largest city. About 400,000 residents live in its metro area. Louisiana State University (#LSU) has a large campus in Shreveport, and it’s also the home of the 22,000+ acre Barksdale Air Force Base.

I picked-up I-20 westward out of Shreveport, and I took that to Longview Texas – where I stopped for a Texas BBQ Lunch (which was not very good at all – think “gas station food”). I also left behind the Interstates, opting instead for U.S. 80, U.S. 69, and a series of state and local roads en route to my family’s house in the northeastern suburbs of Dallas.

I arrived at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s house right at 2 PM on Saturday November 13TH 2021. I drove 376 miles on this final leg, so that’s 1,357 miles in 3 days of driving to North Texas.

I had planned to visit a small church on the outskirts of my family’s neighborhood (less than a mile away from their house). I had previously (in the weeks prior) done a lot of research on churches (of all sizes) within the local area. I looked at about a dozen churches online. I eventually had it narrowed down to 3 churches, and then 2 churches, and then a single church. The church I finally selected (over the other 2) started its service at 10:45 AM on Sunday.

I ended-up not attending a church service. Family comes first, and immediate family comes before church family. My brother planned a family Lunch together to celebrate our Mom’s birthday, so we did that on my first Sunday there. We enjoyed a fun Lunch at a Japanese restaurant where you order off the menu, and then the cook arrives a few minutes later, gathers-up all of the ingredients, and then cooks your meal on the large hibachi grill right in front of you while putting on a show. It was a lot of fun, and the food was pretty good too.

2 days later (on Tuesday November 16TH 2021) on an unusually warm day in the 70s (approaching 80°F) I went on a short road-trip (within the road-trip) on my own. It was also planned well in advance. After a hot and delicious Breakfast at a historic downtown district diner I ventured about 20 miles southwestward into the city limits of Dallas.

I visited the 66-acre Dallas Arboretum And Botanical Garden. I’ve wanted to visit this place for a few years now, and now I’ve done so. I didn’t get to see all 66 acres of it, but I got to see a vast majority of it during my 3-hour visit. I know I say this often: I could’ve spent all day there. I actually bought my timed-admission and parking fee online the day before. (I think you have to do it that way. I’m not sure that you can just show-up whenever you feel like it and pay to get in during this post-COVID environment.) I took 40 photos of my trek through the arboretum. Most of them will make it onto my Flickr site, but here’s 4 of the best right here:

About 6 miles away was the George W. Bush Presidential Library And Museum at Southern Methodist University (#SMU), and that’s where I spent a couple of hours that afternoon. I had never been to a Presidential Library before. It was very educational, informative, and interesting. I’d like to visit other Presidential libraries around the country.

I drove an additional 47 miles on that Tuesday, so that’s 1,404 miles in 6 days of driving to North Texas and while there.

And that’s where I’ll end Part 3 of this 7-part blog series. I’ll continue with my road-trip adventures and experiences next #TravelThursday. I’ll tell you about a few places that I did not visit on that first Thursday in North Texas. (Again – family comes first.) And then I’ll tell you all about two places that I did visit the next day on that first Friday.

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries