St. Thomas

Hello everyone! Just sifting through my emails and was surprised to see a "blast from the past" from a family member who just recently returned from a Carribbean cruise. On our honeymoon a number of years ago, we were lucky enough to visit St. Thomas, USVI. While we were there, we ate at a restaurant called "The Greenhouse". It was a fun restaurant/bar with a live band and awesome food. So what did I see in my email today, but a photo of that restaurant!

When we visited, they used to have a dish called "Greenhouse Scampi". It was simply awesome! It doesn't appear to be on the menu any longer, but if you are able to visit, please ask them about it and let me know if they still can make it.

So if you want little taste of the tropics, I've put a link to their website in my links list.

Have fun on vacation!

Cruise Calendars

Ever wonder where your favorite cruise ship is headed next? Or maybe you know of family or friends that are lucky enough to be away on a cruise and you just wanted to check out their ports of call?

Well, there's a site out there that helps you do all that and more. It's called CruisCal.com. This site has links to many cruise lines and individual ships, as well as calendars for each. You can view the schedule by ship or by port of call.

They also have links to a number of webcams, so you can even watch the ship pull out of port! (And, of course, wish you were on it too!). I checked it out yesterday, and it worked very well. I just followed the links to the appropriate webcam based on the port I was interested in and the webcam came right up. I was able to zoom in pretty close too, even though it was a hazy day.

Here is a sample of one of the ships headed for the channel in Miami:



Quite a few of the ships also have "bridge cams", so you can either see the ocean when they are at sea or even the port when they are docked.

Here is a view from the Coral Princess bridgecam, currently in Cozumel:

Check out the Cruise Cal link in my links section and have fun!

Tiki-Fest 2007

For my first post actually talking about vacation, and not just talking about talking about vacation, I thought I'd tell you about a really cool event: Tiki-Fest 2007!

Steve Seifert (aka Tikiman) is hosting this event at Walt Disney World in Florida in late July 2007. There will be a dinner, as well as other activities, at Epcot's Living Seas Salon. If you're interested in attending, the details can be found in my link list under "Tikiman's Links.

Tikiman also has a very comprehensive overview of Disney's Polynesian Resort, covering the history of the resort, descriptions of the accomodations, amenities, reviews, and lots of other great information. I love this site! See the Polynesian Resort link, under "Tikiman's Links" to visit.

And if any of you are able to make it down there, please post a comment and let us know how your vacation went!

Aloha!

Welcome to the Ready For Vacation blog!

How many times have you used the words "I am so ready for vacation!" ?

I know I have, more times than I can count. So, I decided to start a new blog to share some of my web search finds and ramblings with other like-minded people. I'll be posting links, pictures, and plain old discussions about anything vacation related.

Posts could be about fishing reports from North Carolina, surf conditions in Hawaii, favorite restaurants at Walt Disney World, or even steel pan music. Basically whatever I come across is fair game, as long as it has to do with vacationing in some way.

So, check back soon and join in on the fun!