New Orleans

This was our first trip to New Orleans. We weren't really sure what to expect, Jenni had been there before hurricane Katrina and really thought it was beautiful. All we knew was, it had some beautiful old homes in the Garden District and the food was good.

Bourbon street was not at all what we expected. It was old and had lots of wrought iron balconies with hanging baskets of flowers. Unfortunately it was Spring break for many colleges so it smelled like something that might come out of either end of your body. To many neon beer signs covering up the beauty in the French Quarter. It was strange that Bourbon St. is where we found one of our favorite restaurants. The Red Fish Grill has great food and atmosphere. We really enjoyed our red fish dinner.

The Garden District is beautiful, southern elegance at it's best. The trolley that goes up St Charles started right in front of our hotel. It cost a whopping $1.25 each way for us to see this wonderful district. Many of the trees have Mardi Gras "throws" hanging from the branches. They look like some kind of weird Christmas tree. I'm glad we saw it, I didn't want Bourbon St. to be the highlight of our visit to New Orleans.




There is lots of history .






The port of New Orleans is actually on the mighty Mississippi River. It winds it way from New Orleans to the Gulf. We where amazed at how busy it was and all the really large ships and barges that travel on it. It took over 4 hours to reach the Gulf.

The Cruise

Last month Jerry and I went on a Caribbean cruise. We really like cruising because you can unpack your suitcase 1 time and see a bunch of places. We have been very fortunate to meet lots of really nice people on all the cruises we have been on.

The NCL Spirit was a nice boat. We found out that it had been owned by Star Cruise line before NCL acquired it. The ship had done mostly Asian cruises. This would explain the many Asian touches in the decor and why the bed and chairs were slighty lower then those on other NCL ships we have been on. This was bad for Jerry but great for Linda.

This cruise was different because we departed from New Orleans and ended the cruise in New York. We had never been to either of these places, so we spend an extra day in both of them.

The ports we visited in the Caribbean were in Guatemala, Belize, Aruba, Curacao, St. Thomas VI and the Dominican Republic. All the port had its own beauty (sometimes the beauty was just a little harder to find) that made for a really wonderful vacation. We were able to do dives in Belize, Aruba and Curacao. The following post will show some of the highlights from each port.