Cruisin' 09

This is a “living blog” an account of our Caribbean music cruise, Cayamo. You can check out what I said last year, which will probably provide a clue as to why I came back. That is on this Blog somewhere back in the Spring of 2008.


Day One

For some reason, I’ve had a long string of bad luck on flight connections, departures and overall reliability of the air travel industry. The sole exception being my travel agent, DD.

The trip from Halifax to Washington, to Miami was totally uneventful, other than there being a fair amount of wind at both landings. Made the jet feel like a Piper Cub on the way in.

After some cell phone confusion, we were met by the parents of a buddy of mine at Miami International, and whisked away back to our hotel to clean up, and relax.

Later we were picked up by Ron, and taken out to dinner at Versailles, a Cuban restaurant where a lot of Cubans eat. L had Oxtail, I had chicken, and we had some croquettes as appetizers that were not unlike those enjoyed in Holland beside the windmill not all that long ago.

After that, we were taken on an evening of cruising Miami, including South Meach in Miami Beach, up the A1A. Quite the nightlife - a lot like Liverpool on a Friday night, what with all the hot rods and everyone drinking.

We were safely deposited back at our hotel, and slept like the tired little puppies we were.


Day Two

George and Margaret were up and ready to eat early, and we followed in their wake out to the Bayside Market for a breakfast buffet along the harbourfront there. A bit of a shopping/ambling around downtown Miami, with lunch and beers (a Dogfish Head 90 Minute for $5 !!), a date with a snake for Margaret, and we were off to our date with the Norwegian Dawn. Embarkation was amazingly fast - the best you could imagine it ever being. And then the tunes began. Beth Wood in the Atrium, and on into the night.

Our first show of note was our “Twice as Nice” show - the one we picked as the main artist on board we wanted to see twice. Lyle Lovett! His show was great, and his band amazing. The same group as last year.

We are still working out the best dining strategies, but there is no doubt that the food here is as good as any ship. The buffets seem to offer facsimiles of what we are used to. The burgers don’t taste quite the same, the pizza is a bit homemade, and the sauces all semi industrial, with low spice factor. That is, unless they have some food that is native to the cooks - Indonesian, Philippino, Bangladeshi..... Then you can eat very well.

Beer selection on the Norwegian Dawn is good, but lacking in the hops department. I have been living off of Sam Adams Lager. The wine list is excellent, with a few oddly low prices on top end wines ($110 for a bottle of Cos?!?).


Day Three - Getting into the swing

The third day is a Sunday. Up early (for me on a Sunday) and to breakfast at the buffet - thanks to a time change we missed the sit down breakfast opening hours. I had forgotten we were actually heading east, and are now in the same time zone as home.

We did our picture session with Lyle Lovett (yeah, I know, a bit too fan-like for me, but I want it for my Facebook profile - HAH!). Spent most of the afternoon on the pool deck, caught Web Wilder (rockin’ and rollin’), Over the Rhine, and The Indigo Girls with Brandi Carlile. A pretty good afternoon of tunes in the sun, with the occasional bikini ambling by.

Our evening show in the big theatre (it seats over 1000) on board was Indigo Girls. This turned into a huge fest on stage, with Shawn Mullins, Brandi Carlile and her band, Mindy Smith, and one other person whose name I could not make out who co-wrote a song with one of the gurlz all making appearances. This was a great show, made great by the total fun people were having on stage. It spread into the crowd.

Following that it was a formal dinner in the Italian restaurant on board, with a bottle of Barbera and some pretty good pasta and veal scallopine.

Then an evening in the listening lounge, with one hour sets from Darrel Scott (amazing), Joe Ely (great, cool, historic in many ways), and Mindy Smith (um, was she drinking?). Yes, I slept well after all that. In bed by 1:30.