Starliters was a lot of fun....and now Curacao and the end of the cruise.

We went to the Starliters show last night. Cruising was its theme!  It was very well done, and we really enjoyed seeing our friends up there.  It's is SO MUCH WORK, and I give them all a lot of credit for putting in so much time and effort.  This was the second year that I did not do it, and I won't be doing it next year either due to the seven cruises in 2017 that are already booked.  In fact, at this point I have only done Starliters two times ever, 2012 and 2014.  Guess I shouldn't consider myself part of that group any more.

I walked about half an hour yesterday around the Glendora Pond.  We saw three people and three dogs that we knew, so that was fun chatting.  Also we saw two big gators moving very quickly through the water for fairly long distances.  One went into the rushes along the shore and one climbed up on the bank for a sunny nap.  Great viewing!  Twice around the pond is about a mile and a half and we did it in about 30-40 minutes, although that included the time to chat.  I felt pretty good about that. My back didn't even start to hurt until the very last little bit.

I ate only 1340 calories yesterday and logged it all in.  I am rewarded this morning with another pound and a half off, down to 276 even.  Yay!

Today is super busy.  We have a 2 hour rehearsal from 10 to noon at the Cove.  It's a tech rehearsal for the Cove Singers recital next Sunday afternoon.  Then we will run into Publix for a few things, head home for a quick lunch and a change of clothes, go back to the Cove to pick up Susan and Jonathan and drive up to Dr. Phillips High School for the Maccabeats Concert.  I bought 10 tickets, although there are now 12 of us going in three cars.  We made a dinner reservation for the 12 of us at 6:15 at Bravo Cucina Italiana, not far from the high school.  I just hope the big Italian dinner out does not undo my success.  I will be the driver, so no drinking.  That helps.  If I stick to no appetizer and no dessert, I might be okay, but the appetizers look so good....Sigh.

So today will conclude the cruise.  We went to Curacao and then had two sea days home.  Enjoy!

Docked in Curacao

That's the tallest building on Curacao.  They have a floating bridge that moves out of the way to let ships into the very protected harbor. Our ship was too big to go into the harbor, so we are on an outside dock.  

Flamingos fly over to Curacao from Bonaire, 35 miles away, to eat shrimp in these little ponds that used to be for harvesting salt.  They actually have their nests on Bonaire and feed in Curacao.  Interesting.

Our first stop was the Hato Caves.

Manzanilla tress were everywhere and are poisonous, so they are well marked.

There were 49 uneven, steep, stone steps UP into the cave.  I declined to do that, so Mark took the camera and went on ahead.  Here is a view from the top of the steps.

The cave is just one big room.  Runaway slaves used to hide in there.

View of our ship as we drove to our next stop.

We drove over the very high, very big Queen Julianna bridge going over the harbor entrance. It provided the perfect view of the classic look of Willemstad.

Good view of the floating bridge closed.  People can then walk from one side of the city to the other.  When the bridge is open, people take the free ferry.

Next we went to the Blue Curacao liquor factory.  The name Curacao is a country, so it could not be copyrighted.  Instead, they copyrighted the shape of the bottle.  All the colors taste the same, orange.

The product was established by a Jewish man, so he made sure it always had kosher certification.

Back over the bridge again with a view into the protected harbor.

The Curacao National Museum was our final stop.

They have a carillon, and our tour guide, Michaela, demonstrated it for us.

The bells for the carillon are on the outside of the building.

At the dock on our way back in to the ship.

Curacao seemed really, really LONG as we sailed away.  It was in view for over an hour or more.

A Billy Joel impersonator gave a great concert that night.

After the Billy Joel show, Mark and I went to listen to the pianist in the Ensemble Lounge.  His fiancée was sitting at our table and took this picture of the two of us.

On the sea days, we always went to the morning lectures.  First was Cathy Ace, the mystery writer, and then was a cooking demonstration.

Listening to our audiobook with some coffee in the buffet area.

After lunch I had a choir rehearsal!  Mark came to take a few pictures.

As always, in the late afternoon, we enjoyed the solarium indoor pool and the Persian Gardens.  Mark is relaxing in the aromatherapy room here. No one was ever in there but us.

It was our second elegant chic night.  I'm enjoying a Sidecar with my  Captain's Club Coupon.

Mark is having his Dewar's on the rocks.

Tonight's show was a big production show called Topper.  We liked it a lot. Here is a shot of my choir director, Rachel.  She is a great singer and actress and a lovely person, too.

After the show, we found these big chairs in the Martini Bar.  We took turns sitting in them only because they were very big and high enough off the ground that we can get in and out easily.  So many chairs on this ship were so low to the ground that Mark had to pull me out of them!

I called this my Big Girl Chair.

Our last sea day started with breakfast in the Tuscan Grille for the Captain's Club breakfast and then a walk  on the outside promenade deck.  The weather was perfect.

Then as always we went to lectures.  This was Cathy Ace's final lecture.

Our final time listening to our audiobook.  This time we brought coffee down from the buffet and enjoyed our balcony.

The production cast gave a matinee show of Broadway material.  This girl is singing "Popular" from Wicked.

Rachel and Nikola sang a duet from Rent.

Michael sang "Music of the Night" from Phantom of the Opera.

Orlando and Ganna, our main dining servers, posed for us with Harold and Liese from Toronto on the last night.

After dinner our little choir sang their four songs on the steps of the  Grand Foyer.  After one last show in the theater, we went back to the cabin and got our luggage put out to prepare to leave tomorrow.

Waiting in the Tuscan Grille with Captain's Club members to be called off the ship and drive home.  It was a wonderful cruise.

Back in control

Weight gain and weight loss are always astounding to me.  Sometimes one off day will add several pounds while one good day can drop them.  Other times an entire week of perfect eating behavior will result in no loss whatsoever.  I have gained and lost hundreds of pounds in my 65 years, so I know this from my own experience.

Yesterday I had a perfect day. I logged everything in, ate all my meals at home, exercised, and lost three pounds.  This morning I weighed 277.5, which is pretty good.  Not actually good, but it's all relative.  I'm happy to hit that this morning.  My plan is to keep this up and get out of the 270s ASAP.  When I was doing so well back in 2009, I tried to take it in groups of ten pounds, so getting out of the 270s is significant.  Then I can work on the 260s, etc.

Today I will also be eating all my meals at home.  Right after writing this blog entry, I will be logging in all my food for the day in the Lose It! app on my phone.  Even though Mark and I decided not to go to shut today in favor of staying home and catching up on the several weeks of TV shows we are behind on, we will definitely go out and take a 20-30 minute walk at some point today.  Then tonight we will go to the Starliters performance at the Ballroom.  This is the second year in a row that I did not participate, and I won't be doing it next year either because January through March, when they rehearse, is also prime cruising season!

Now back to the cruise.  Our next stop after our overnight on Barbados, we had a sea day and then we went to Aruba and Curacao, two out of the three of the ABC islands off the coast of Venezuela.  Maybe some day we will get to Bonaire and have been to all three.

Today's pictures are of the sea day after Barbados and then Aruba.  We are almost done.  Just three moe days of the cruise are left, so tomorrow's blog will be the last entry of pictures.

Gorgeous ocean views from our balcony.  We really loved this extra deep, extra shady balcony.  We had absolutely perfect weather the entire fourteen days, and most of the time the sea was perfectly wonderful!

We noticed today that the doors to the Future Cruise desk on this ship were Mickey heads!  Our sea day involved lectures, a choir rehearsal, listening to our audio book, a matinee show, time in the indoor pool and Persian Gardens, lots of drinking, an evening show, and lots of food!  Typical day at sea for us!

The next morning we set foot on Aruba for the first time ever.

We chose this crazy open air bus excursion.

We all had a maraca and were instructed to play it along with the loud music the driver/tour guide played, especially when we passed people on the street.  It was remarkably fun.

Aruba is flat, dry, and dusty with a strong wind blowing all the time.  This is an aloe farm with a divi divi tree on the property.  Aruba has a factory right next to this called the Aruba Aloe Balm.  We did not stop or go inside, but that might be something we would do on a future trip.

Our first stop was at a church up on one of the highest spots,which wasn't very high.  The wind was blowing the dust all the time, so we had to be careful not to get it I'm our eyes.  There are cacti everywhere, which they use as roofing material and fences because they don't have big trees to use that for.

The little church is behind me. The original is gone, but they used the original doors and windows when they rebuilt it. Most people sit on the benches outside.  It doesn't rain very often on Aruba, so I guess that's rarely a problem.  

Our second stop was their lighthouse, which is currently undergoing restoration.

Me in front of our crazy bus.

View from the lighthouse area.

Our last stop was on Palm Beach, one of the longest and nicest beach areas in Aruba.  Our part was by a Holiday Inn and called Moomba Beach.  We got a chair and a coupon to buy a drink for $5.  If you wanted an umbrella, it cost more, so we didn't get it. Mark didn't even buy his drink.  Some of our previous beach excursions included a free umbrella and a free drink, so this one wasn't as nice.  This is the view from my chair.

The beach was full of little shells and some rocks along the shore line, so I was glad I brought my water feet.  Under the water, people said it was very mucky and slimy, but with my water feet on I did not notice that.

And I finally SWAM!  It was March 30, so I decided it was close enough to the end of my restrictions. I didn't get my face wet anyway.  There were no big waves.  The water was gentle, reasonably warm, and clear without fish or seaweed.  Delightful!

This is how Mark spent his two hours on the beach.

Back on deck we took naps on these loungers and did some reading, too.

Our show for tonight was an amazing violinist.

not so good yesterday

I got off the ship on Sunday and felt in complete control over my food for four straight days.  Then yesterday, day five, I lost it.  Food won.  I had a sensible, small breakfast and then went to our buffet meeting.  I made a salad with a hard boiled egg, lots of fresh lo-cal veggies, some shredded cheddar, a little carrot slaw, and about quarter cup of what I thought was tuna salad.  That turned out to be chicken salad, but that's another story!  I also had about 3 ounces of baked fish, about half a cup of macaroni and cheese, and a little bit of cooked carrots.  For dessert I took a scoop of sugar-free chocolate mousse and about one bite each of banana pudding and tapioca pudding.  It didn't seem like such a bad lunch until I tried to estimate the calories later and came up with about 1100.

Hm...it adds up so fast!

Then dinner was fine, one piece of Mark's home-made deep dish pizza, 320 calories, but I had a nice green salad with it that I put way too much grated Parmesan on.  THEN, I got really out of control.  We went to the movie at the ballroom where they give out free popcorn. I should not eat the popcorn  because once it gave me a flare up of diverticulitis and sent me to the ER, and yet I took a container of it and ate it all.  It was so salty that it was ridiculous.  THEN, I went home.  At that point I was out of control and just looking to graze.  I ate two chocolate covered caramels, three double stuff Oreos, and a banana.  At least I did try to log everything in.  With no exercise whatsoever except walking around the grocery store, my calories were in the neighborhood of 2300 and over my allotment by about 700.  Ridiculous.  I know when I'm out of control, but it's so hard to put on the breaks.

My weight this morning was only up half a pound, which I'm hoping is the huge amount of sodium in the day.  If I can get back on track today, I will have a good day. I have already logged in everything I plan to eat for every meal and snack.  It should come to 1331.  Plus there will be weight lifting and a 20 minute walk, burning 126 calories, making me under my allotment today by 408 calories.  Now I just have to be sure I am IN CONTROL and do not stray from the plan.

Now back to the cruise.  After St. Lucia, we had our overnight stop in Barbados.  The first day was Easter Sunday, and most things in Barbados were closed that day, including the Harrison Caves.  That meant our shore excursion for the day had been bumped over to the next day. We did it on Monday, but they had not given us any notice that they did that.  We had purchased it online about five weeks before the cruise, so in our opinion it should not have been allowed to be purchased for that day.  Well, we only noticed the error the evening before because we usually get our shore excursion tickets out the night before to check on the meeting time and place.  That's when we realized that our Harrison's Cave ticket was now on the same day and time as our Beach Excursion, previously purchased for Monday.  Ridiculous!  Why would they give you two for the same day and time???  We were pretty pissed.  So we went to the Shore Excursion desk to try to switch the beach day to Easter Sunday and accept the Cave excursion for Monday.  Well, it was too late to do that now.  So they refunded our money for the beach day and we went to the Caves.  On Easter Sunday, we just stayed on the ship all day and enjoyed its amenities. It was still a pleasant day.

Instead of going on shore on Easter Sunday, we enjoyed the ship.  Mark and I were part of the crowd of THREE in the movie.  We  saw a movie called Suffragette.  Meryl Streep was in it.  Very good film.

Then I read my book on the balcony while Mark took himself on the self-guided art tour with the iPad.  Here is one of the pieces he saw.

That night Rock City was the big production show.

Here's my choir director, Rachel, belting out a song.

On Monday we went on shore.

The Harrison's Caves are unique in that they you can ride through them in a tram.

The spots on my shirt are water dripping down on me as we rode through.

These are the trams that take you into the caves.  It was a very unique cave experience.

After the caves, we went up to a beautiful place that used to be a sugar plantation, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.  There is nothing off Mark's shoulders until you reach Africa, 4,000 miles away.

We shared a shot of Mount Gay rum, which was surprisingly smooth.

Back on the ship, we explored deck 15.  We found this little table and chairs on a landing at the back of the ship between decks 14 and 15, so we sat and enjoyed the view for awhile.

On deck 15 on these Solstice class ships is a genuine lawn.  They actually cut this grass every day.