Category: Traveling

As I mentioned in my previous post about Puerto de la Cruz, there’s a plethora of activities in walking distance of the Apartamentos Casablanca. We arrived on a Thursday, exhausted after a sleepless night on an overnight flight to Madrid with a nap on the shorter flight to Tenerife North, grabbed a takeout pizza at the on-site restaurant, and settled in for more napping. When it became clear that Cassandra was taking a longer nap, I wandered the nearby area, discovering some touristy shops, restaurants, and a small grocery store, all within a couple blocks of the hotel. We did a similar wander later, picking one of the nearby restaurants as our dinner spot, and scoping out potential breakfast items at the grocery store.

While there were a number of items on our potential plans, we only booked one ahead of time: a Teide by Night tour that involved driving to the nearby national park – named for its prominent (dormant!) volcano, Teide, including dinner and stargazing. The overcast day had me a bit concerned until I realized we were driving through and then above the clouds.

Before that late afternoon and evening excursion, scheduled for our first full day to preempt my inevitable shift back to being a morning person, we wandered up the nearby Agatha Christie stairs, peeking into some tourist shops and a scenic view of the coastline before finding lunch. We enjoyed an amazing sunset and an even more amazing view of the stars – above the cloud cover – in an area with minimal light pollution.

The next day involved walking to the nearby botanical gardens, lingering there for an extended period in lovely weather, then wandering back a slightly different route, which allowed us to discover a larger grocery store. Our plan for Sunday was to seek out a craft market that was advertised in the lobby, and while it turned out to be quite small, our return wanderings took us through the Taoro Garden, a public park with a several distinct areas including a sunken garden, playgrounds, dog park, and ponds… and, luckily for us, a restaurant.

Having taken the time to adjust to the time zone, Monday was an all-day adventure at Loro Parque, starting by catching their free train (tram, really) in Puerto de la Cruz and arriving just after opening. We stayed the entire day, catching the last train back after seeing almost every part of the zoo. The following day, we caught a bus to nearby Icod to visit the “Drago de Icod” – a tree that’s estimated to be between 800 and 1000 years old, a nearby butterfly house, and a banana museum that details the introduction of bananas to the Canary Islands and the resulting industry. That was the only day we really used our raincoats.

Wednesday turned into our big walking day – over 7 miles – starting a couple blocks away at the Orchid Garden, then wandering down towards the coastline for the Fishing Museum (which was primarily about fishing and other seaworthy vessels), the Archaeological Museum, and generally admiring the coastline and variety of shops. The next day, our last full day on the island, we headed up the Agatha Christie stairs again and kept going along a scenic path that gave us some great views of the city and the ocean. As with other areas in town, we found public gardens and a delightful restaurant before returning to pack and rest before a long travel day home.

Continuing our adventures from sitting through a timeshare talk in January, we explored the available locations from the RCI resort directory for an 8-day/7-night stay and decided to visit Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. And by “we,” I mean that Cassandra did all of the research and I booked the flights. Yay for a live-in travel planner! (The Margaritaville cruise we took in March was also a reward for attending the talk. If you’re counting, that’s 3 nights in Virginia, a 2-night cruise, and 7 nights in Tenerife in exchange for our attendance.)

Having selected the Canary Islands as our destination, and narrowed it down to Tenerife (the largest of the Canary Islands), selecting which of the available resorts to stay at was probably the easy part – Club Casablanca (as named on the RCI website) or Apartamentos Casablanca (as noted on local signage) is in easy walking or transit distance of many attractions on the north end of the island, including Loro Parque, a world-famous zoo.

We had an amazing time at the Apartamentos Casablanca, from the smooth check-in process through our departure a week later. No, I take that back, it began when I e-mailed about extending our stay by arriving one day earlier, asking for pricing. We received a reply within a day, and the cost of the extra night was less than the airfare savings that prompted the request. Every staff member was friendly, and everyone whose responsibilities included regular interactions with guests was at least bilingual – probably more, given that signage around town was usually in English, Spanish, and German, with some restaurants featuring additional (usually European) languages.

The resort buildings essentially filled a city block, enclosing the restaurant, patio, and pool area. (The outside-facing ground floor had businesses around half the block.) The pool photo I shared above was the only one I could take in nice weather without people; there were almost always people at the pool when it was open, even if the weather was a bit chilly by my standards on several days. (Yes, low 60s is chilly for the pool. Yes, I checked my temperature blanket spreadsheet to see what the highs were while we were there.) There’s a game room (pool, air hockey, ping pong, an arcade game, and a play area for younger kids) and laundry room (coin-operated – the front desk will make change) open through late evening hours.

Our apartment had a balcony facing the street, which meant we could see the ocean and hear the nightly live music from the hotel across the street. The restaurant at our hotel also featured nightly live music, which we mostly heard in passing as we headed to our room, though we made a point of attending a flamenco performance one evening. We had a small kitchen, so ate breakfast in the apartment most days, usually eating lunch and dinner elsewhere – there were plenty of good options in walking distance. (That’s a later post!)

We would be delighted to stay at the Apartamentos Casablanca if we’re in Puerto de la Cruz again. That said, there are areas to explore in the northeast and south sides of the islands as well, and points of interest on the other islands. Hopefully we’ll have future opportunities for adventures in the Canary Islands.

We recently flew to Florida for a short vacation, spending a couple nights in Palm Beach and a couple more on a cruise ship, Margaritaville at Sea’s Paradise. It was refreshing to step away from the early spring weather in Illinois weather for a few days, digging out shorts and sandals that sit unused for half the year in our climate.

The layout and size of the Paradise was similar to the Alaska cruise from last summer, which made orienting ourselves on the ship fairly simple. We had an inside cabin again, and as luck would have it, it was at the end of a hall and the three cabins around it were being renovated… no neighbors!

Given the name of the cruise line, there was no real surprise at the extensive Jimmy Buffett music, vibe, and decorations to the ship and its events. One of the drink packages (not sure which one, as I didn’t buy into it) had blender-shaped cups! There were parrots outlined on our sheets, painted on some of the ship’s walls, and a parrot on a directional sign near one of the pools, among many others.

The theme just about made up for the terrible website interface, lack of an app, and what felt like imperfect communication efforts – largely due to the poor website and no app. (The contrast was stark given last summer’s Alaska cruise.) The shore excursion information in particular was barren, including enough information to entice a purchase (with a 10% discount for booking ahead), but missing key details such as the departure time – we had to stop at the Shore Excursions desk after boarding to get that. Alternately, it would presumably have been on the tickets delivered to our room’s mailbox with the daily newsletter around bedtime… except our guided sea kayaking excursion (and a couple other options) were cancelled due to high winds. More annoying, from my perspective, was the lack of disembarkation information on the website; it made selecting our return flight difficult since we didn’t know what time we’d be getting off the ship. In fact, we didn’t receive that information until around bedtime on the second night. (Yes, we probably could have asked at the Information Desk. But we shouldn’t have to, it’s as important as the embarkation details.)

That said, the overall experience was good. The food and entertainment were top notch, particularly the live show we attended on the second night, which was a non-stop 45-minute musical tour of the Carribean. While my nighttime photos weren’t great, the clear sky and visible constellations were a lovely experience. And our alternate to the cancelled kayaking turned out to be a relaxing day at a delightful location. If we land on another Margaritaville cruise in the future, I would lean towards their longer cruises (4 or 10 nights) instead of hopping down to Florida for the two-night cruise.

We traveled to Virginia last week, originally intending to stay for three nights. For flight time convenience, we flew into Richmond and out of Norfolk, with a plan of staying in Williamsburg and exploring the area. Research into the area showed that public transportation wasn’t going to be an option, so I rented a car through Costco.

The Williamsburg area feels fairly tourist-oriented, with a plethora of hotels and resorts. While the Colonial Williamsburg is eminently walkable (as was our gated resort), the area from our resort to nearby restaurants was not – the lack of sidewalks combined with poorly lit roads meant driving to get dinner even if it was within our definition of walking distance. To be fair, that lack of ambient light meant we had fabulous views of the night sky.

After the timeshare talk that inspired our trip (the resort stay was free other than taxes and such), we explored one of the Art Museums in Colonial Williamsburg – despite different names, the museums are attached and you move easily between them. On our way there from the nearby public parking, we had noticed a section of street closed off (through February) for an ice rink. When we left the museum around closing, the ice rink was reasonably full with children who let up a cheer as a light snow started to fall. We finished off the evening with video games at the resort’s arcade – free play for everything – and some time in the indoor pool. (Yes, the outdoor pool and hot tub were open. At 30-some degrees, no, thank you.)

On what would have been our last full day there, I woke up to news of a winter storm heading towards Virginia and an emergency declaration from the governor, recommending anyone who was planning to travel on the Sunday more up their schedule. By a couple hours later, the airline app had updated to offer free changes, so we dropped our plan to explore the historic guided sites and gardens and moved onto our day of departure plan: visiting the Virginia Zoo. (To be clear, we were flying Southwest anyways, where changing flights is fairly easy under normal circumstances.)

There are pros and cons to visiting a zoo in winter… especially somewhere that experiences winter. The primary disadvantage is that many animals, especially those from warmer climates, are off exhibit, and only some of them have indoor viewing areas. On the other hand, other than the Reptile House – an entirely indoor experience for obvious reasons – you can walk through parts of the zoo without crowds. Or really, any other people for large sections, which gives you time to appreciate the animals (and a surprising amount of bamboo) without feeling like you’re monopolizing the space.

There’s a lot more we would like to see and do in the Williamsburg area. I suppose we’ll just have to go back at some point.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been traveling a lot. All of the rooms have been nice and the beds comfortable (unlike one bed I slept on during a summer trip), but I do appreciate sleeping in my own bed, competing with my cats for space.

This week rounded off my hectic 5 hotels in 5 weeks travel schedule with a work trip to Philadelphia. Here’s the quick list of where I’ve been:

• Madison, Wisconsin – for Gamehole Con
• San Diego, California – a work trip
• Chicago, Illinois – this was an overnight downtown for work
• Oak Brook, Illinois – for WindyCon (we built a Box Fort)
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – a work trip

Not surprisingly, I am exhausted.

I had the good fortune of traveling to San Diego for work recently, including a sunset cruise on the Bella Luna. This is a case where I’ll let the pictures paint the words (though there are some in the ALT text, of course).

Our Alaska cruise involved a day at sea, three port days, and another two days at sea – including one passing through Glacier Bay National Park – before ending in Whittier, which is near Anchorage. Most of the movement between the ports was done at night, giving us a reasonable amount of daytime in each port for shore excursions if we wanted.

We wanted. In fact, we managed to schedule four excursions across the three ports, without having to feel like we were rushing from one thing to another. In each port, we had some time to explore the area (mostly shopping) near the ship, including finding lunch twice. The photos below are from our shore excursions, grouped by port: Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway.

Ultimate Saxman Experience: Cultural Showcase, Native Crafts & Culinary Tasting

Best of Juneau: Whale Watching, Mendenhall Glacier & Orca Point Lodge Meal (yes, we saw whales, but they don’t show up well on the photos I took)

Kitchen Science Alaska: Garden-to-Table Skagway and Musher’s Camp & Sled Dog Experience

I’ll let the photos do most of the work this week. One key thing to keep in mind about the Vancouver airport is that our flight was delayed by three hours, so we landed shortly after midnight in that time zone – 2am in our home time – on little sleep. Despite that, the airport was distinctive enough that we stopped repeatedly to admire it and take photos. On top of that, when we stumbled into the Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront at wee hours of the morning, they moved us to a port view room with a stunning view.

Yes, we took photos in the Museum of Vancouver, but I feel most of those would require extensive explanations as to the lovely exhibits we visited. The plush are named Menta and Henrique (I’ve been told that the H is sometimes silent).