Birthday Bash!

Ordinarily, I work the Christmas holidays, including my New Year's birthday. This year, because we are rebuilding, I am not working... so Barry decided that we should make a big deal of my birthday! We jumped on a United Airlines flight... got settled in our seats...

I love window seats... seeing the city lights during take-offs and landings. It seems I can never quite capture the beauty. But I keep trying... Barry was on the aisle and I was in the middle but I was allowed to be rude for a moment and snap some photos! Miami is a beautiful city to view from above!

Sometimes the best thing about traveling is the special people you meet along the way. For some reason, Sonia and I really hit it off. We talked the entire two hours! The time passed so quickly, we were both shocked when the Captain announced "Final Approach"

As this is the week between Christmas and New Years, the tree and decor is still up! The tree was three stories tall! All the colorful lights, made me excited to celebrate my birthday (which never happens!)

One thing I love about Navigator of the Seas, is the bathroom! The view is one of the best on the ship! I went in to use the restroom and ended up taking photos from different angles!

As soon as we got settled, we headed to Vintages Wine Bar to surprise Nikola... and boy was he surprised! Nikola is the Sommelier we follow from ship to ship (as you will discover when I recreate past travels). He jumped from behind the bar with a giant smile on his face and a big hug for us! He arranged for us to receive gold wristbands to attend the exclusive New Year's Eve VIP party.

We immediately got down to the business of picking out our wines for the next five days! Royal Caribbean has our favorite wine list at sea. They carry many California wines. We love Napa/Sonoma wines, especially the Wagner Family varieties! Based on our likes, Nikola has introduced us to several Italian wines. We are now fans of Super Tuscans :-) He takes special care in preparing the wines to serve them at their best!

We got settled for a night of celebration. This guest was in quite the festive mood!

Our friends, Jon and Lisa, asked that I say 'hi' to Nadja. They were on Navigator a couple weeks before us and Nadja was their Concierge. Sweet, sweet lady with a huge following!

Vintages was the place to be for New Year's Eve... Nikola introduced us to many of the officers (including his boss). What a fun bunch! We rang in 2018 with some amazing people... Happy Birthday to me!

We have grown close to Nikola. It's not often we get a giant smile out of Barry. What a fun party of hors d'oeuvres and our favorite wines... too many bottles actually.... oops!

When the alarm rang, our first thought was WHY did we book a wine tasting the afternoon following New Year's Eve???? It ended up being a fantastic selection of Wagner Family wines: Conundrum, Mer Soleil Silver, Emmolo and Caymus Special Selection. In honor of the tasting (and my birthday), we had Nikola prepare a Special Selection for our "dessert".

To continue the celebration, we had dinner in Chops Grille. We were given a very nice window seat in the second section of dining room. It was right next to the window and no one else was seated in the room until the very end of our meal.

Dinner at Chops Grille was amazing. Since we are trying to eat more healthy in 2018, we are careful to avoid the basket of bread and desserts. I ordered the Rib Eye and Barry had the Filet Mignon. Both were cooked to perfection.

The sun setting can only mean one thing.. it's time to go enjoy our wine selection for the night! Caymus Special Selection!

The more we cruise, the smaller the world becomes... As I mentioned earlier in this post, we chose this ship because of the Sommelier. Then I was asked to say 'hi' to Nadja from a couple in our town and this... this is Cuddy. He is the Cruise Director for Navigator of the Seas and just happens to be friends with an amazing person we met while sailing on Ovation of the Seas. Chris asked me to send greetings so I did one better... we selfied!

While everyone went to shore in Costa Maya, we hung out at the pool. Finally warm... I needed to soak up some rays! We enjoyed the solitude... and our coffee. As people started to return, we packed up our things and headed for a quick trip to shore to buy cold medicine for Barry.

We decided to take advantage of shore side, empty bar stools. A refreshing beer hit the spot!

Walking back into port, I was able to catch the full length of Navigator of the Seas.

Next stop Cozumel. We took a taxi with a friend to have lunch and talk business. We are interested in purchasing retirement land in a foreign country. It was a very productive lunch!

Just thought I'd throw this in since I posted "art" in the last photo... every time we open our door to leave, THIS is what stares at us!

I saved the best comment for last... One of the traditions when sailing with Nikola on cruises, is to carefully remove the labels of the wines we enjoy while sailing. When we were on Ovation of the Seas, Nikola and his colleague actually created a collage... it was amazing. Labels were mounted on fancy paper, signed, dated and corks sliced to hold some of the labels. It was the most amazing "souvenir". Well... while catching up with Nikola at the beginning of the trip, I mentioned the damage done to our home during Hurricane Harvey. I explained that we are handling it well but feel sadness at sentimental things that can't be replaced... baby pictures, the wine labels.

On the second to last night, Nikola's face lit up. He said, "Oh! I have something for you!". I laughed thinking he was bringing me a blanket since I kept saying I was cold.. No... what he had, took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes! He handed me the labels from this trip mounted on hard paper. I couldn't believe it... his kindness warmed my heart. And that, my friends, is why we keep returning to Royal Caribbean!