The Next Adventure

After two days at sea, we stopped at Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. I've done a walking tour of the city during a previous cruise and was disappointed at how "touristy" that was. This time around, I signed up for the El Sonador River Experience which took us into the rainforest in Yasica Arriba. The excursion started by boarding a open air minibus at the cruise terminal, the drive to the river took about an hour during which the guide gave us a short history of the island and the way of life here. Upon arrival at the base of operations, we were given life vests and safety helmets. I changed into my rash guard, running tights (to protect from impact with rocks/branches) and water shoes. I was a little worried about jumping into the river and floating down rapids: breaking a limb would definitely mess up my vacation. We hiked along a trail to where we would get into the water. The areas where we went in were quite safe although the water flowed fast in some sectio...

My cruise buddies and I went on our annual new year cruise, this time departing from Miami on the MSC Divina, Dec 28. I flew to FLL on Dec 25 to stay with Suzie who has a condo in Ft Lauderdale. We have not seen each other since the previous year's cruise (on Virgin) and had a great time catching up with wine and snacks on the balcony. Two days later our two other friends joined us. We had a great Korean hot pot and BBQ dinner before getting an Uber to the Miami cruise terminal on embarkation morning. The drive was stressful as the tunnel to the terminal was closed and traffic was backed up for at least two hours. We could not understand why they would close the tunnel on with so many of the cruise lines departing today. Fortunately, just when our driver was about to turn around and go the long way, the tunnel opened and we got through. After that it was relatively easy to check in and board. This is the first time we cruise on MSC. Unfortunately we were not impressed by the se...