Our first stop on the cruise was in Samana, in the Dominican Republic. This island is largely undeveloped, and many people on the boat we talked to took a cruise excursion to a private island for the day (which, fyi, we got the impression that everyone felt they were ripped off).
We had booked a tour online before we left with this guy Terry, an American expat who has settled in Samana. He took us to his family’s property and showed us some interesting plants, including coffee beans growing:
Oak on the family property. It had the most amazing view of the ocean from the top of the mountain.
We stopped for lunch and some beach time. We took a walk down to some interesting bolders. Of course Oak has to off-road:
For lunch, we had an island medley cooked up by an old Samanan (?) woman. It was all tasty – fresh veggie salad, rice and beans, plantain and root vegetable,chicken and fish.
We stopped a shop that had this crazy “island moonshine” but really it was more like a mulled wine. It had a bunch of different spices and flowers inside the bottle. We tried a sample but it wasn’t too tasty.. haha
And, we spotted some island chickens. How could I resist?
Oh, our new camera came this week. So, I will be back with more house photos eventually!
In my previous post, I mentioned that we stayed at a fancy-ish boutique hotel in Miami. The Chesterfield seemed to be recently renovated in a tres Ikea-ish style.
Our room was back in a courtyard from the hotel – you couldn’t actually get to the room through the lobby. That was kind of interesting – it was actually kind of in an alleyway between two buildings.
We had the Albany area code room. Yes, I still remember the old RPI area code. Hah.
The room was made up with classic white linens. Oak noticed that the headboard wasn’t actually a headboard, it was laminate flooring mounted on the wall. How interesting! LOL.
This little seating area was to the left of the entry. Have I seen this furniture at Ikea? I’m pretty sure…
Then, right off this area there was a completely other little sitting room type thing with this lounger dealie-o. I have no idea what the purpose of this area is supposed to be… maybe space for your passed-out drunk guests that you invite to your room after clubbin’?? Maybe someone can explain to me.. it was still cool nonetheless..
The bathroom was also in a bunch of different areas.. the tub was in another little off-room, next to the desk..
But the shower was in another room! With a completely un-functional shower enclosure that made the entire room fill up with water after the shower.. haha
A touch of art deco past was on the bathroom door. Glad they kept this neat little detail…
Yet another “bathroom area”" – the external vanity:
We also noticed that all the moldings weren’t actually molding, but flat pieces of wood – even the “crown molding” at the top of the room. Ah, the things renovation does to your mind..
Overall, we enjoyed our stay at this quirky hotel. If only Priceline hotel bidding would get me such good luck every time! haha. 
To reward/motivate ourselves to get the upstairs painted and carpeted, we planned a vacation to use up the remainder of our awesome NCL cruise points. Oh Worldpoints Rewards, you just are not the same as the Compass Rewards! Sighs. Apparently the days of almost-free cruises are over. We did enjoy our final trip..
We stayed in Miami just 1 night before our cruise – basically the night before. We didn’t really get out or do anything too exciting because we were pretty tired from driving all day, but we did manage to win a hotel right on Collins Ave. in the heart of the Art Deco district of South Beach. Don’t ask me how that happened.. I had about every region of Miami selected when I was bidding on Priceline. (EXCEPT Florida City.. we made that mistake one other cruise! It’s so far away!! LOL)
The Chesterfield hotel was our home for the evening. I will have to write another post with some pictures of our room – it was very interesting! In our past experience these art deco hotels in South beach look really nice on the outside, but not so nice on the inside, being like, old and all. This one was recently renovated and very “boutiquey” or, something! The lobby turned into a club at night. haha. Aren’t we fancy?
Anyway, we never printed our cruise documents so we went in search of a Kinko’s to do so, and I took some pictures of the architecture on the walk:
We concluded our walk with a tasty breakfast at the 11th Street Diner before our journey to the boat:
Our reward to ourselves after the major milestone of the carpet installation was a trip. We went on a Carribbean cruise, and it was EXACTLY what we needed after the extremely exhausting few weeks we had leading into the carpet installation.
We’re slowly getting back into the swing of “normal life” and starting in the setting up of the upstairs rooms. Exciting! However, the vacation took our camera as a victim by the way of a “waterproof bag” that turned out not to be “waterproof.” D’oh. As soon as we get that little broken camera situation resolved, I’ll be back with more updates! Boo!
