Bahamas Cruise (Bahamas & Miami Trip)

26th - 30th Sep 2008

This is one of the much anticipated & exciting trips. I had planned this trip with my friends, a month in advance. We booked flight tickets in AA website. After doing some research, we decided to take the Royal Caribbean (RC) cruise ship. We booked cruise tickets directly from the RC website. RC charged $300 for the first person, $300 for the second person & $200 for the third person. It cost me about $800 for my family. The round trip flight tickets from SJC -> MIA airport cost about $300 per person. (Also read: Places to see in USA)

Day in Miami

We took the AA flight from SJC -> Miami on Sep 25th. One of my friends have to drop-out in the last minute due to a family emergency. We reached Miami airport on Sep 26th at 7.30 am. We had a few hours to kill before boarding the RC cruise. We rented a vehicle from Alamo. There was a very long queue in the Alamo rental location. By the time we took the rental SUV, it was about 10.30 am. Miami was greenish everywhere. You could see large Banyan Trees along the sides of the streets. We went to the Fairchild Tropical Garden. It is such a beautiful place with lots of colorful flowers, ponds, and gardens. You can spend nearly 1/2 a day in the Fairchild Tropical Garden. The tickets were somewhat pricey ($20 per person). Weeekend visits are free and that explains why the garden was deserted on the weekday. This garden was mostly run by retired folks & volunteers. The garden was maintained very well. We took the narrated tram tour. We walked around for about an hour or so. We then drove back to Alamo rental facility to drop the rental vehicle. Alamo has a free pickup/drop off service from/to the Port & Airport (Note: The last pickup/dropoff service to the Port was 3 pm).

Bahamas Cruise

We reached the Port of Miami at around 3.30 pm. It took about an hour to complete the check-in process and to reach the stateroom. Our first impressions of the Cruise Ship was great. In fact, it didn't look like we weren't in a cruise ship. The ship looked like a five star hotel or a shopping mall - with elevators, restaurants/dining areas, bars, huge lobby, casino, swimming pool, theatre, play areas etc., The ship wasn't wobbling at all. It is hard to sense the ship's motion and so, you don't have to worry about sea sickness :)

We got ready and went to the dining room by 6 pm (We had requested for the 6 pm dining slot). We have to sit in pre-assigned dining tables. My friend & I got it changed, so that we can be in the same dining table. You can order food from the menu and also customize the order. The waiters were very professional and courteous. We had a heavy dinner. There was a stand-up comedy going on in the night. We watched it for about 30 minutes. We were too tired and went to sleep early.

We got up early on the second day of the cruise. The ship was docked in Cococay, a private island of Royal Carribean.We had our breakfast (which was a buffet). There was nearly 100+ items to choose from. Even for a vegeterian, there were lots of options. I had a heavy breakfast (as if, I'm eating for the whole day). A small ferry boat took us from the cruise ship to the Cococay island. Cococay is a very small island. There were some shops in the island (including restaurants). There were all kinds of water sports in CocoCay island. In fact, that is the only thing that you can do in CocoCay. I had a nice fun time with my kid in the beach. My kid was busy collecting shells & playing with the sand along the shore. Around noon, it started to drizzle a bit and we went back to the ship. The lunch was a buffet as well. We had a heavy lunch :) My friend had brought some card game and we played it until evening. We then got ready and had our dinner. We spent an hour or so chatting in the upper front deck sit-out area. We played again during the night.

The cruise ship was docked in Nassau, Bahamas on the third day. We had our breakfast early and left the ship by 8.30 am. However, we have to wait in the Nassau port until 9.45 am, for our Discover Atlantis tour. We used that time to take a few pictures in the Bahamas port & a few pictures in front of our cruise ship :) The Discover Atlantis was a narrated tour and it was nice. It costs a few $$s extra if you book the tour from RC website. Majority of the Bahamas population is of African origin. People sell water bottles & other things along the road side. We spent some more time in the Atlantis resort after the tour and returned back to the cruise ship. We had our lunch & took a nap. We spent about an hour or so wandering in the ship. We then went to the same sit-out area in the upper deck watching the sun set. We then had our dinner and started packing our 'stuff'. We left the suitcase along the side of the corridor (for checkout in the morning).

We got up early on the fourth day, got ready and had our breakfast. It was 9.30 am in the morning by the time we got off the cruise ship, collected our luggages and cleared the US immigration process. I realized that we should have kept our baggages with us (instead of handing over them to RC, the previous night). That delayed our checkout process by about an hour. If we had had our baggages with us, we could've got down from the ship early in the morning. Now that we had checked-in our baggages, we had to wait until our turn, to collect them. In the early morning, there was not many people in the checkout queue. You can just swift through the checkout process in minutes.

We didn't have much time to explore Bahamas during our trip. However, the cruise experience was very memorable. We felt that our time in the cruise ran very fast. The top two things that I liked in the cruise was Food & Service. I was amazed by the level of service provided by the RC crew. I wasn't expecting individual attention - but the RC crew did provide individual care to everyone. Even my little kid enjoyed the cruise experience. She had lots of places to explore in the ship. If I had to do take a cruise again, I would definitely choose Royal Caribbean.

2 Days in Miami

We had to wait for about 1/2 hour (some people have waited for an hour) for the Alamo rental shuttle to pick us up from the Miami Port. The same Alamo car rental shop services customers from both Port & Airport. We rented an SUV and drove to Key West. On the way, we stopped near the famous "7 miles bridge over the sea". There was a nice beach close to the bridge. The water in the beach was sparkling & crystal clear. My daughter had lots of fun in the beach. It took us about 3 hours to reach the Key West area. We stopped at a Starbucks to get our energy drinks (Lattes). We then visited Fort Zacher Taylor's park to see the sunset. We killed nearly 2 hours in that park by taking some pictures & by playing a card game. However, Mr. Sun disappointed us. We then headed back to Miami for our night stay in Metropole Hotel. Metropole Hotel is located in the downtown area. The outward appearance of the hotel was not that great (in fact, it was scary). However, the rooms very nice with brand new appliances - most of them, designer class.

The next day, we got up early and visited Vizkaya Museum & Gardens. We had our breakfast in Dunkin Donuts (I used to think that they just have Donuts. But, DD has lots of other items too. I liked their hash browns. It was yummy!). It was raining heavily when we visited Vizkaya Gardens. I thought we have to abandon our plans. However, the rain stopped in a few minutes. The garden was fresh & gorgeous (Thanks to the morning showers!). There are some nice photo spots in that garden. You could see a few newly wed couples busy with their photo shoot sessions. We spent nearly 2 hours in the Vizkaya Gardens. We had our lunch in a fine Thai Cuisine in the downtown. We then visited a few road side parks, took pictures of the Miami Skyline and then went to Miami South Beach. Miami Skyline was not all that great. South Beach had a long shore line and lots of parking space. It was almost deserted (we visited on a weekday). I personally felt that the Key West beaches are more beautiful than the Miami beaches. We left South Beach, returned our rental vehicle and reached Airport in the evening. We reached SFO at around 10 pm. We had parked our car in Anza Parking, San Francisco. We picked our car and reached home at around 12 pm.

Our Bahamas/Miami trip was very relaxing and memorable.

Miami Trip Planner 

[Update - Bahamas Tourist Visa]

If you are a US Citizen, you don't need a tourist visa to visit Bahamas. If you are residing in US on a work or a visitor or a dependent visa (H1B/H4/L1/L2/B1/B2 etc.,), you need a tourist visa to visit Bahamas.

I applied for my visa to the Bahamas consulate in NY.

http://www.un.int/bahamas/Consular_Travel_Information.htm

The following private website provides the details that you need for applying for a Bahamas visa.

http://bahamas.visahq.com/

Talk to the Bahamas consulate directly to find out more details.

I was able to get my visa in just one calendar week (5 days). I overnight couriered the application/passport on Monday and got the visa on Friday.

Denver & Mt. Rushmore Trip

Aug 8th - 11th, 2008

"If anything can go wrong, it will". Murphy's law came true during our trip. We boarded a Southwest flight from SJC on Aug 8th. The flight got delayed by an hour. We reached Denver late in the night. It took us about an hour to rent a vehicle from AAdvantage. I didn't realize that customer service could be THIS BAD. It took another 2 hours to get to our hotel in Colorado springs. By the time we reached our hotel, it was about 2 am in the morning. The receptionist in the hotel took another 30 mins to check us in. Finally, the hotel keys didn't work. I have to come back to the reception to get that fixed. During this trip, we were accompanied by my friend (Santhosh Ram)'s family also.

The hotel served a complimentary breakfast (just muffins & orange juice). We went to Pikes Peak & Royal Gorge Bridge on the first day. Pikes peak drive was nice. It was an awesome view from the top of the peak. There was hardly any oxygen to breath. We spent about an hour there and drove to Royal Gorge Bridge.

Royal Gorge had lots of activities. I think you can spend the whole day there. We went on the Aerial Tram & Inclined Railway. We walked over the bridge & spent a few minutes at the Inspirational Point. The Gorge was beautiful. But the bridge didn't create a 'Wow' effect! There were a few rain showers in the evening. My daughter had lots of fun in the rain. She also enjoyed her time in the carousel.

On Aug 9th, we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. We spent the whole day there. The rock formations looked great and it is a very scenic location. There were lots of gorgeous lakes and rivers. Rain spoiled our day. We hardly spent any quality time in the park.

In the evening, we returned our rental van and rented individual cars. I drove to Hot Springs, SD. My friend decided to spend the 3rd day in Colorado. I had a 6 hours drive to Hot Springs. We wasted about 30 minutes to find our hotel (Google maps screwed up as usual!). Finally, I stopped a cop vehicle to get help. He guided us to the hotel - nice cop! :) The stay in Rodeway Inn, Hot Springs was very comfortable (except for the poor complimentary breakfast. They had just muffins & orange juice. There was no milk also).

On Aug 10th, We drove to Keystone to visit Mt. Rushmore. It is a very beautiful & amazing place. They had spent about 14 years to carve the memorial. The memorial has carvings of George Washington, Roosevelt, Jefferson, & Lincoln. It is a perfectly done & well maintained art work. We spent about 2 hours there and left to Crazy Horse Memorial. The entry fee was 20$ per person (It was just 10$ per person in Mt. Rushmore). It looks like Crazy Horse Memorial is getting constructed from public funds. Hence, they are charging more money. This memorial is being constructed to honor the sacrifice of Red Indian Soldiers. They had already spent about 60 years already. It would look as if the work has just begun. It is amazing to see that people have dedicated their entire life for this kind of construction. We watched the video show in Crazy Horse Memorial that explains the history a bit. We then had our lunch & started driving to Denver. Well, I forgot to mention about my car. I had rented a 2008 LE Camry - it was sooo... comfortable driving it. We reached Denver airport on time, boarded the flight & reached SJC in the night. The best part of our trip is the visit to Mt. Rushmore & Crazy Horse Memorial.

Crater Lake & Mount Shasta

3rd - 5th July

This was our second attempt to go to Crater Lake & Mount Shasta and we made it :)

We planned for a trip to Crater Lake during the beginning of spring & we had to cancel it in the last minute due to snow storm.

We had a horrible 7 hours drive to Mt. Shasta from the bay area. We got fettered in the long weekend traffic. We reached Mt. Shasta at about 11 pm.

The next day morning we drove to Crater Lake. Crater Lake is about 2.5 hours drive from Mt. Shashta. Crater Lake wasn't very crowded (may be the 'season' hasn't begun yet). We spent about an hour in the visitor center watching few videos & having our breakfast. We took the Rim drive and were disappointed to see the lake fully covered with fog. The lake wasn't in its traditional light blue attire. Imagine how you would feel when you drive for 10 hours to see the lake not looking at its best. One of the rangers said that they were expecting to see the sun around noon. What would you do when you are hungry and you didn't get your favorite double cheese burger to eat. You'll start to enjoy the cold veggie sandwich that you have in your hand. Thats what happened. We started to admire the beauty of the lake in her current form.

We drove a few miles and reached "Cleetwood Cove trail". We decided to walk down the trail to get our feet drenched in Crater Lake. It took us about 1 hour to get to the bottom, with our 20 months old kid. We took several breaks in between- well, our legs wouldn't co-operate otherwise. By the time we reached the bottom, the lake was glittering in silverish blue color. The view from the bottom of the trail was amazing. Boat rides for the season hadn't started yet. We spent a nice 1 hour there. My daughter had more fun than us, by playing in the water. She collected pebbles from the shore. Our return hike was even more strenuous. We took more than an hour to come back to our car. We were very hungry and had our lunch in the parking lot. Thanks to my wife for preparing a delicious meal!

The rays from the Sun had wiped off all the fog. The lake was shining in fresh blue color. It was exciting to see the lake. We stopped in a few locations along the Rim Drive and took some pictures. We drove back to Mt. Shasta and reached hotel in the evening.

The next day, we checked out of the hotel and drove to see 'THE MT. SHASHTA'. Mt. Shashta had a few snow lingering around. Since it wasn't fully covered with snow, it was not as beautiful as Mt. Hood (Oregon). We then went to see Lake Shashta Caverns. It was a guided tour. They took us on a boat, followed by a bus ride to the Caverns. Lake Shashta had very little water (due to drought!?). Lake Shashta Caverns is a must-see place if you are in that area. The caverns was formed out of melting limestone deposits. They looked marvellous. NPS has been maintaining it well. Interiors were neat & clean & well lit. The only thing is you've to have the energy to climb about 200 stairs (& walk down 200 stairs). Our tour guide was very friendly & knowledgeable. It takes about 2+ hours for the entire trip.

We stopped over in Redding to see the Sundial Bridge. I believe the bridge will be more beautiful to see during the night than in the day. We spent very little time, there. I guess you can spend more time in Turtle Bay acquarium if you have toddlers. It is a very 'commercialized' place. I was surprized to see lots of people there.

We drove back to California & reached home in the evening.