Over the next few days we will spend a lot of time relaxing.  Shawna will get a couple of massages
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We will go to a very nice Mariner Society “Thank You” lunch.

I will go to several AI presentations on creating music, images, and the dangers of AI.

We will see a show by an Opera singer, so Shawna got her opera fix on this cruise.

Lots of great music in all the venues.

We will go to the Tamarind for dinner a second time. 

One day the Lido pool was surrounded by towel animals.

On our last sea day, we had a storm and hail.

We had several dressy nights on the crossing and some special food presentations.

They make it hard to not gain weight.

Next, we head to the fort.  As you can imagine everything is green, growing and lots of flowers. 

History warning:
This fort was built in 1795 primarily by convicts and slaves with some skilled stonemasons.  Death by disease and being worked to death were common.

This fort was where the British military set sail to attack on Washington, D. C. and Baltimore during the War of 1812. During the battle one of the ships had a prisoner, Francis Scott Key, who penned the words to Star-Spangled Banner, after seeing the American flag still flying above Fort McHenry after a heavy bombardment.

The fort and port were used by the British military during WWII.  In the 1980s, the fort was turned over to the Museum of National Museum of Bermuda for tourism. The museum restored the Commissioner's House built in 1795 to hold displays along with several other buildings.

NMB's 50th Birthday Bash - National Museum of Bermuda

As part of the fort, a cave originally an ordinance magazine but converted to a prison.  Hundreds of convicts were sent to work.  Many died side by side with slaves worked to death or by disease.  They had some examples of the carvings prisoners made while here.

We walked around the fort.  Some of the WWII cannons were still mounted.

The museum buildings had lots to see.   Bermuda was largely unknown to the general public and visitors were rare. Mark Twain visited in 1867 and wrote about how the islands were so idyllic.  From that point forward visitors flooded to the islands.  Two cruise ships the Queen of Bermuda and Monarch of Bermuda started arriving here in 1938.  Trips were very popular with the rich and famous.  Many movie stars made the trip.  As soon as airflights could safely reach the island, many people started visiting regularly.

Time for a drink and something to eat.  The "Frog and Onion" is a very interesting pub.
The name comes from the two people who started the pub.  The French man or frog and the Bermudian as the Onion.  Much of the atmosphere in the pub are based on the original use of the building.  It was built in 1853 as a Cooperage or workshop to repair barrels, casks and kegs.  The food and drinks were great.

After buying and mailing post cards to family, we walked back to the ship.

We had a wonderful meal at the tamarind.

We are very well fed on the ship.

As we moved through the channel to the open ocean the ship came to a complete stop.  The captain informed the passengers that a member of the crew was very ill and would be transported to shore.  After about an hour, we headed to Europe.

Bermuda Triangle but no UFOs at least that we saw.
Quiet seas and warm breezes with sunny days.  Perfect!

Up at 6:30 am grabbing breakfast.   Shawna has a facial this morning. I will stop off at the gym and walk the promenade.   I'm trying to keep up my steps with eating all this good food.

We have an AI expert onboard to give presentations.  He is very good and even does live AI demonstrations.  A mix of how AI can be used and can be dangerous.  Of course, he had AI generate a short video of crazy things happening around our ship.

Shawna had a seaweed massage and after that we had a very nice brunch.

We signed up for a wine tasting.  It was good but I was a bit tipsy afterward.  I think I need to skip those and let Shawna enjoy those.

It was time for a nap before the "Mariner" get together with the captain. The rewards program on the Holland ships is call the Mariner status and after a lot of cruises we have earned 4-star status.  The main thing we get is free laundry service.  Woo-hoo!  Well, it is great to send out a bag of laundry and have it all come back perfect for free.

We did get a pretty sunset tonight.

Up at 6am. Our bags are taken by staff to the ship at 8am so no wasting time. Breakfast is ready for us down on floor 3 and we head down to our bus to the ship soon after.

We have an inside cabin. When doing ocean crossings, all you see is water. It is rare that we are in our room except to sleep, change clothes, etc. Saving on the inside cabin gives more money to other things.

Up at 4:45am and took the shuttle to the airport.  Checking the bags and going through security was easy.  The flight from Pensacola to Nashville was uneventful.  We have 4 hours in Nashville airport before the flight to Fort Lauderdale.  Boring!

The flight to Fort Lauderdale was delayed but the pilot was able to make up most of the time in the air. It was a pretty noisy flight, and we were glad to have noise canceling headphones.  That may have been due to flying a bit faster than normal.

At the airport in Fort Lauderdale, we found the Holland representative at the baggage claim and were taken to a large van for transport to the hotel.  Weird building.  It is 26 floors tall.  The bottom two are businesses but that was not the weird part.  The top floors are split between two different hotels.  The lower floors from 3 to 12 are the Element Hotel and the top floors are the Durey, a 5-star hotel.  On the 26 floor is the Sparrow a very expensive restaurant.  We looked at the menu and they had a $3500 bottle of wine in the list.  Instead, we walked two blocks down the street to a very nice pizza shop.

The pizza was great, and we were able to look out at the sidewalks to people watch. Almost everyone was walking dogs. Very expensive cars were passing.  I mean the 100s of thousands of dollar kind.  Bentlys, Jags, BMW…  Not the low price ones but the really pricy ones. 

Back to the hotel and our suite.  No really the room is three times the size of our RV.  Even the bathroom is huge with a walk-in shower.  Full kitchen with an apartment fridge, induction cooktop, pans, … everything.   Two huge TV’s, one in the sitting/kitchen area and one in the bedroom with a full king bed.

We were up earlier than planned but the excitement of the trip made that difficult.  Our thought was that we could be ready to pull out of the campground by noon or earlier if we were lucky.  In the end, we were out by 10am and dropping off the 5th wheel at 10:30am.

We got quick lunch.  Dropping off luggage at the hotel, then going to Mom and Dad’s to visit.  

Saying Goodbye to family before our 10-week epic vacation was difficult.

We have been planning for this upcoming trip for quite a while.  For years, we have thought it would be nice to take a “Made it to 65” epic trip.  Well, this is the one we decided on and will take.

The last few days have been interesting. With this being such a long trip, packing has taken a lot of planning.  Weight and size of the suitcases has us making some hard decisions. If we have to buy replacements, we will have access to stores in the UK and Ireland so it is not really a problem.

Quite a bit of time was spent just looking over our drugs and supplements.  Some of them were not allowed or need a prescription in the UK and the EU.  After some research and organizing, we ended up with a relatively large bag.

Packing, Repacking, Repacking again… Repeat at least 6 times.  By the end, we had one smaller checked bag for each of us, a carry on, and a backpack as our personal item.  After weighing and reorganizing, we were satisfied.

Some of the planning went into the 5th wheel being stored for the trip. What we could do in advance and what needed to be done before dropping it off.  

This trip is wild.  We will visit 8 countries, travel over 15,000 miles, using three cruise ships, a ferry, trains, buses, the underground, and our feet. We will be walking everywhere to see all the amazing ruins, castles, forts, museums, cliffs and pubs.

After visiting with family for several weeks, we head farther south and to the East coast of Florida for a family wedding.

We head down a day early to enjoy a day on the beach in New Smyrna.  The motel we booked is old, really old.  It is possible that the building is older than we are but renovated multiple times. 

The motel has a nice cafe/bar overlooking the Atlantic.

They have some nice choices for dinner and some interesting mixed drinks available.

We got going early to see the sunrise, walk the beach, and find someplace for breakfast.

We checked out and visited the nearby park for a walk.