Day 5 Food

Here's the menu:

I love how the fried shrimp is listed as "Fried Shrimps".  Apparently, the menu author isn't a native English speaker. 

 

Josh had the chicken tenders marinated in Thai spices.  In my experience with Thai food, I know that I need to be careful when I order a Thai dish because sometimes, they are crazy spicy.  This dish was in the mid-range of spiciness.  It didn't kill me, but it wasn't Sunday at Grandma's house either.

I ordered the fried shrimps.  They were definitely shrimps.  :-)

I ordered the Duet of Petit Filet Mignon and Short Rib Confit and it was incredible.  I could have done without the red onions completely covering my potato (that was gross) but once I got rid of the onions, the potato was awesome.  I'm pretty sure that Josh ordered the same thing as I did this night.

My dad ordered the vegetarian lasagna.  If you look close, you can see his fingers and understand the true size of this gigantic piece of lasagna.  It looked awesome and everyone who ordered it seemed to like it a lot.

My mom went the very traditional route this evening.  She ordered the turkey dinner.  Normally, she wouldn't eat the items that came with the turkey, especially since the menu didn't say mashed potatoes and gravy anywhere, but she was brave and tried most of the items.
 


For dessert, I got the Chocolate Raspberry and Vanilla Cream Cake (still not the melting cake).

And Josh ordered the apple pie, which was amazing!

Antigua

We had big plans in Antigua.  We were touring with Gordon of www.tourguidegordon.com and it was well worth the wait.  Gordon was actually our guide in our van and he did an amazing job of showing us all about his home.  When we docked in Antigua, the Norwegian Dawn was in port with us.





One of our first stops in Antigua was an old Fort.  There was an adorable puppy at the Fort and it seemed like he didn't really have a home.  We were all to scared to touch him, but he sure was cute!

You can see the puppy walking in front of Josh here:



Antigua wasn't as hilly as some of the other islands that we visited this week, but it had its share of hills.

This is the oldest church on the island.  It was small, but beautiful.

Next, we stopped at Nelson's Dockyard.  This is an area that the British used during their occupation of Antigua.  There are two rows of these pillars and there used to be a boat house on top of the pillars.  Boats could sail into the channel under the boat house and have their sails hoisted into the boat house to be repaired.  Obviously, the boat house is no longer intact, but the pillars are amazing.



They're a lot bigger than they look in photos.



Antigua had some really beautiful scenery.

The house you can see here is Eric Clapton's House.  His Crossroads rehab center is just to the left of the house (out of the picture).





This is a view from above Nelson's Dockyard.  It was amazing to see from this viewpoint.

Through the trees there, is Eric Clapton's first home in Antigua.  He moved to the larger hours because neighbors were building all around him and he wanted to get some seclusion. . . he got it, don't you think?

This is Devil's Bridge.  It's a natural land bridge and it an incredible sight to see.  The ocean is so powerful here, it really makes you put things in perspective.

I bought a yummy pineapple soda at the beach.

Here, we're sailing away from Antigua next to the Norwegian Dawn.

More sail away photos. . .











My Barbados sunburn had made its full appearance by this time.

Day 4 Food

Again, no menu photos.

For starters on day 4, I had the Corn Chowder and the Cream of Broccoli Soup, which were both very good.
 


Josh has the escargot, which he always enjoys.
 
He also had fried oysters.

I don't remember why I don't have photos of both our main courses this night, but I did get a photo of the shrimp dish that we shared in addition to our normal main course.  Neither of us thought it was amazing.

I got an artsy shot of the table since there wasn't anyone sitting across from me this night.

Baked Alaska. . . I love Neapolitan ice cream!

And this was some kind of chocolate cake that Josh ordered.  I don't remember specifics about it.

St. Lucia

Day 4 of the cruise was the best day BY FAR!  I had been looking forward to visiting St. Lucia since I first saw the photos of the Pitons on Google Earth when we first booked the cruise.  I couldn't wait to see those gorgeous mountains come into view backed by the Caribbean Sea.  I knew it would be a moment of the cruise that I would never forget. 

When we were talking about the next day's activities the night before at dinner, Ashleigh mentioned that she and James and her mom would like to go with us if there was room with the tour group.  Luckily, Cosol Tours had extra room for the day and they were all able to come with us.  It was an awesome experience.

The first thing we saw when we started the tour was the Holland America HMS Noordam.  This ship just happens to be the ship that Josh and I are spending our honeymoon on in May.  I knew that it would be in port with us, so I made sure to get some photos of it.  It looks like a nice (but significantly smaller) ship and we're excited to sail on her.

This was one of the first sights that we stopped to photograph.  It's a natural bridge along the shoreline of St. Lucia near the town of Casteries.  It was beautiful!

Our tour guide then took us to a banana plantation along the side of the road.  We were able to sample fresh bananas (which are nothing like you get at the grocery store here in the states).  They were very sweet and tasted amazing.  This is what baby bananas look like.

A banana tree only produces one bunch of bananas in its lifetime.  The tree takes 6 months to grow from planting to producing the bananas.  When the tree produces it's bunch, the bananas are harvested and then the tree is cut down to make room for new trees.  The bags in the photo below replace pesticides.  If the plantation owners cover the bananas with plastic bags, the bugs can not infest the bananas.  It was pretty cool to see.

The cliffs of St. Lucia were pretty amazing.

This random guy was standing along the side of the road waiting for people to stop and pay him to hold his snake.  It was a boa constrictor and we weren't about to open the door of the van.

The views in St. Lucia were gorgeous.
 
Early in the tour, Cosol took us to a private home and had a buffet set up for us.  The food was incredible.  There were fish cakes, coconut bread, banana bread, fried bread and tons of other kinds of food.  This is only one of the tables that he had set up for us.  There was a whole second table for us to sample from and there was plenty of food for us to fill up.  He also had rum punch, local Piton Beer, and water throughout the whole tour.

Here is our first view of the Pitons and it was everything that I expected it to be. . . absolutely breathtaking.



Before we got to the Pitons, we drove into the drive-in volcano.  The smell of sulphur was pretty strong and it was definitely an interesting experience being in the crater of an active volcano.  We were told that if this volcano happened to erupt, the entire area that we had been traveling through that day would be obliterated.



We were also fortunate enough to be able to visit another waterfall.  It was beautiful and Josh even dipped in for a few minutes.  It was pretty cold though, so no one swam long.



As we got closer to the Pitons, I got some better photos.  The beach between the Pitons is only accessible via water taxi because the Jalousie Plantation owns all of the land surrounding the beach.  While beaches in St. Lucia are all public by law, the only way for people who do not happen to be staying at the resort to get to the beach is via water taxi.  Getting to the beach was quite an experience and I will never forget it.  It was one of the most amazing trips ever and I would do it all over again in a heart beat.  Unfortunately, when we arrived at the beach, my dad fell out of the boat when he was trying to get out and ended up getting soaked before we even got to the sand.  He wasn't very happy about his experience, but I think he enjoyed the view never the less.

After we arrived at the beach, I decided to take my dad's snorkeling gear and try out the wildlife preserve on one end of the beach.  It was beautiful, but I didn't last long because there was a defect in the snorkel and I was inhaling salt water, which is not a pleasant experience at all.

This school of fish was coming right for me.  For those of you who've seen Finding Nemo, these fish all look like Dory. 
 
This video was shot by Josh on our way from the beach back to the tour vans after we were done with beach time.  It was awesome.  Unfortunately, my camera's SD card ran out of memory as he shot the video, so we didn't get all of the video that we wanted to.  :-(

These photos show the size of the Pitons up close, but there is absolutely no way to describe what a mountain shooting straight out of the ocean looks like.  It was absolutely amazing!




 
Here I am right after boarding the water taxi to go back to the vans.  You can see the private section that belongs to the resort in the background.  I don't think we'd ever be able to spend one night at this resort, but it looked incredible.

Here we all are riding on the water taxi back to the vans.  Can you believe the color of the water?

Day 3 Food

I forgot menu photos this night.

After spending the day in the sun in Barbados, we were definitely ready for dinner.  I was excited to see a grilled chicken quesadilla on the starters menu.  It was very good.
 
I was also excited to see sushi on the menu, but because it had mussels in it, I avoided it.  My dad is allergic to mussels and I have never wanted to take the chance that I'm also allergic to them, especially on a ship in the middle of the ocean, so Josh ordered the sushi and I didn't get to share this time.  :-(

There was also a sushi bar on the ship that opened every night around dinner time.  The sushi from the sushi bar was better than the dinner sushi (according to Josh) but it definitely wasn't Wa from home.  Wa sushi is incredible! (http://www.yelp.com/biz/wa-restaurant-lawrence)

For the main course, I got the short ribs.  They were very good.
 
Josh ordered the seafood pasta and was disappointed that he only found one scallop in the entire dish.
 
Josh ordered warm bread pudding for dessert and I'm sure that I probably had the warm chocolate melting cake.

Barbados

On Day 3, we arrived in Barbados.  We didn't have a shore excursion planned for this island, but I heard through Cruise Critic that the beach owned by Malibu Rum distillery was beautiful, inexpensive and well worth leaving the ship so Josh, Ashleigh, James and I got into a taxi and headed that direction.  We arrived and paid the fee (somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 per person) for the distillery tour.  With the tour, you also get access to their beach, a free drink and a rum tasting at the end of the tour.  Josh stayed on the beach for the tour but James, Ashleigh and I decided to go.  I swear, the people at the Malibu distillery make the BEST Pina Coladas on earth.  It was amazing and I would definitely like to get their recipe.  Even if it was just a little taste at the end of the tour, it was well worth the time and the tour was pretty interesting.  It's amazing to learn what all goes into the process of making Malibu Rum.


After the tour, we were able to enjoy the beach for several hours before our taxi driver picked us up again.  Some private tour operators brought their horses by for a quick dip in the water.  I've never seen horses swimming in the ocean before and it was pretty awesome.




When we got back to the ship, I had to take a picture of the aft end of our ship. 

Progresso Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Marie, the winner of the Progresso Giveaway.  Marie, you have 48 hours (by 3pm CST on Tuesday, December 29th) to email me with your full name and mailing information.  Thanks for your entries!!!

*Disclaimer: I received this product, information, gift pack, and giveaway from Progresso through MyBlogSpark

Merry Christmas from Lawrence, Kansas

(Beautiful Downtown Lawrence at Christmas)

I'm taking a break from posting my cruise re-caps today to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!  I hope you're able to spend the day with family and friends.

Day 2 Food

When we returned to our cabin after spending the day in Dominica, we found these. . .

and this. . .

And, no, they weren't from Josh, as many friends and family assumed they were.  They were actually from Penny, our travel agent and friend who was traveling with us on the cruise.  She sent them to thank me for all the work I put into planning the cruise.  We took the champagne to dinner to share, but we ate the strawberries ourselves.  They were wonderful!

This is a treat that we were fortunate to see throughout our cruise.  Our waiters entertained us all week long, although, you could definitely tell that the waiter on the right was not comfortable with this display of fun at all.

 





As you might notice, this was formal night (hence the lobster). . .





Josh enjoyed the stuffed mushrooms, but since I'm not a huge fan of mushrooms, he got this one all to himself.

I, on the other hand, ordered the shrimp cocktail, which was pretty standard.
  
This was the pumpkin soup.  I think Josh ordered it but it mist not have been terribly memorable because I don't remember who even ordered it.
 
Our friend James ordered the Chile Rellenos and he said it was awesome.  He wished they served it every night.

Josh ordered the duck, which looked awesome.

He also ordered Cherries Jubilee with an extra scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I ordered the caramel apple pastry and it left quite a bit to be desired.

I'm not sure who ordered this, but it was the diet strawberry cake.

Progresso Giveaway

Here’s another giveaway for my readers from MyBLOGSpark.  This one is a set of Progresso products.

If you´re looking for some helpful cooking tips and exciting new recipes, visit Progressofoods.com and Progressobroth.com for celebrity chef Michael Chiarello´s expertise on casual weekend entertaining, preparing a holiday feast or inspiration for a weeknight meal - all using Progresso panko bread crumbs and Progresso broth.

If you´ve never cooked with panko before, now is your chance because it´s never been easier. Progresso´s panko is a flaky bread crumb which adds a light crispiness to your food and is available in two flavors, plain and Italian.

Progresso broths are 100% natural and use high quality ingredients to achieve a great homemade taste. They are fat free, gluten free, contain no preservatives, no added MSG and no artificial flavors. Progresso broth is available in chicken and reduced sodium chicken and beef flavors.

Chef Michael Chiarello appears daily on the Food Network and can also be seen on Top Chef Masters. In addition, he runs and owns Bottega Restaurant in Napa Valley, CA. Below are just a few of Chef Chiarello´s tips to help you create quick, flavorful meals you and your family will enjoy.

Sample Panko Tips:

Breading 1-2-3: Panko adds the perfect light crunch to fish fillets, chicken breasts and pork chops. Dip in flour, then beaten egg and coat both sides in Panko before frying or baking

Faux Fried: Instead of frying, bake Panko-coated chicken in a 400F oven for 20 minutes to get the same crispy crunch without the fat

Sample Broth Tips:
Give New Life to Leftovers: Time in the fridge can steal moisture and flavor;

drizzle a little broth over last night´s pasta or casserole before reheating

Better than H20: Water adds moisture, not flavor; replace water with broth when you cook potatoes, rice and grains

Check out ProgressoFoods.com and ProgressBroth.com for additional tips, recipes and videos from chef Chiarello. There is even a great recipe for Oven-Fried Chicken Tenders which both kids and adults will enjoy - we hope you´ll try it out and let us know what you think.

Also available on ProgressoFoods.com is a coupon for $1.00*off any two Progresso products. At ProgressoBroth.com you´ll find a coupon for $.50 off a package of broth.

What I’ve got to give away is a Progresso panko and broth prize pack which includes a sample of Progresso panko, a carton of Progresso broth, a measuring cup, slotted spoon, soup ladle and a sheet pan for baking.  I didn’t get a picture of the measuring cup though. 
 
I’ve got one of these gift packs to give away to a lucky reader.  All you’ve got to do to is post a comment here (make sure you include your email address – even if you write it out like “name (at) gmail (dot) com”) telling me your tips for using panko or broth.  I’ll be accepting entries until Sunday, December 27th at 3pm (CST).  At that time, I will randomly choose one winner and you’ll have 48 hours to email me back with your address so that I can get your package shipped out to you.  Be sure to pass the word on to your family and friends who might be interested.  Good luck!

*Disclaimer: I received this product, information, gift pack, and giveaway from Progresso through MyBlogSpark