A not all that funny thing happened on the way to Antarctica The night before Blonde and Alternative Brunette were scheduled to meet with Quark representatives in our Buenos Aires hotel lobby to have our luggage be weighed (second only in humiliation to being weighed ourselves) we got an email that the cruise to Antarctica had been cancelled. The ship had hit an iceberg at … [Read more...]
Luxury and adventures at the Marriott Puerto Vallarta
Why were we in Puerto Vallarta? When Southwest Airlines gave us a choice from their new non-stop resort destinations from Houston, Brunette immediately wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta and the highly-rated Marriott. This instantaneous response came from someone who can spend a year contemplating a pair of shoes (and then be annoyed when they are no longer available in the color … [Read more...]
Why I was so excited about going to Antarctica with Quark Expeditions®
Update: The cruise was cancelled! About 36 hours before we were scheduled to depart I received an email saying the ship had hit an iceberg and the cruise had to be cancelled. My hurried Plan B was a trip to Patagonia with the help of the wonderful people at Swoop Patagonia. I have my reasons - more than 6 of them, actually This is Blonde giving you the scoop in this post. I … [Read more...]
Home Exchange – How do I get started?
Fear of home exchange Blonde is planning to exchange her home in Florida for one somewhere that isn't Florida. Ideally she will be able to spend a month or so on another continent in 2016 and not incur any expenses for her lodging. And no, the plan is not to meet people in bars or bus stations and just sleep around. (Why do we have to talk about the 70s anyway?) However, … [Read more...]
University of Coimbra – Capes, Ribbons, Bats n’at.
The University of Coimbra in Portugal seems to prove the adage "everything old is new again". Capes were just featured on the runways of New York's Fashion Week. Consumers value products free of chemical pesticides. E-book sales are declining as readers return to print. Ribbons are a hot topic on Pinterest. The University of Coimbra never knew capes went out of style. … [Read more...]
The Berlengas Islands – a fun day trip from Lisbon
The Berlengas Islands of Portugal If UNESCO’s server is ever hacked and they lose the records of all of their designated Biosphere Reserves they can call Brunette and she won’t be very far into the alphabet before she says “Berlengas”. If we were going to a desert Brunette would be trying to find a UNESCO oasis where we could snorkel. So when we began planning our trip to … [Read more...]
Out of the mouths of (cruise) babes
First timers on a Viking River cruise On our Viking River cruise on Portugal's River of Gold we were lucky enough to have two friends joining us. (Yes, we actually have friends.) Neither friend had ever taken a river cruise before so we wanted to get their impressions of the Viking River experience. After you’ve done several cruises it’s all too easy to get spoiled and only … [Read more...]
How aging, reckless blondes learn to scuba dive
The thought process behind learning to scuba dive When Blonde and Brunette excitedly planned our visit to the Jean Michel Cousteau Resort in Fiji it was not because we were planning to learn to scuba dive. Although Jacques Cousteau was (more or less) the inventor of scuba we were going there to snorkel. We had 30+ years of wonderful snorkeling experiences and this would be a … [Read more...]
Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort, Fiji
When we were young(er) we watched the documentary TV show The Underseas World of Jacques Cousteau and saw Jacques happily bubbling underwater with his sons and his scuba gear. One of those sons was Jean-Michel who, many years later, founded the Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort Fiji where we were recently thrilled to spend 3 days. We really just went there to have fun and because … [Read more...]
Why travelers should care about Gorilla Glass
Blonde signed up to attend the Women In Travel Summit 2015 in Boston in late March. Boston in March??? The same year it got over 100 inches of snow? Well, I signed up a good 6 months before then and didn’t know there was going to be Snowmageddon. Besides, Boston was my home for 17 years so it seemed like a good idea. And oddly enough, it was! One of the sponsors of the … [Read more...]