The Aurea Experience on MSC Seashore

Port Canaveral

Booking a cruise with MSC is a little different than with other cruise lines. You choose one of three different “experiences” - Bella, Fantastica or Aurea. With the Bella experience, you select your cabin type, but your cabin number gets assigned to you. With Fantastica, you get to select your specific cabin. The Aurea experience not only allows you to select your cabin, but it comes with several other perks, like priority boarding, access to the thermal spa, an exclusive area on the pool deck, robes and slippers in the cabin, and most importantly, My Choice Dining. When we booked this cruise, we decided on an Aurea balcony cabin because I hate having a set dining time. It always seems to be an inconvenient time, like 5:30 or 9 o’clock or when we’re in the middle of doing other things. To me, it was worth paying for Aurea just to be able to eat when I wanted to eat.

Three Days in Portland

Wednesday

I was even more excited about this trip than I usually am before vacation. For one thing, I’d waited for it for so long. We’d planned to visit Portland 11 years ago to see the lighthouses, but we’d had to cancel. This year I decided it was time to reschedule! I hadn’t added any lighthouses to my list in a while. The other reason I was excited was because Maine was so different from our usual Caribbean vacation destinations. I was ready to see new scenery, eat new food, and enjoy some cooler weather. But as our plane landed at Portland International Jetport, the captain announced that it was sunny and 87 degrees. So much for cooler weather! :-)

Warwick Paradise Island

Ron and I were looking into taking a short cruise to the Bahamas to tide us over until our trip to Maine. I was about to suggest that we get a day pass at Warwick if our cruise went to Nassau when Ron said, “Instead of taking a cruise, why don’t we stay at Warwick?” We were on the same wavelength! :-)

Warwick is an all-inclusive adults-only resort on the harbor side of Paradise Island. The hotel was built in the 60s and has had several different names over the years. We’ve been wanting to check it out since it became a Warwick property in 2017. I was curious to see how it compared with RIU Palace Paradise Island, where we have stayed a couple of times.

Isla Mujeres

Isla Mujeres means “Island of Women”. It was given the name by Francisco Hernandez Cordova, who discovered the island in 1517 and found many carved statues of women made by the Mayans to honor Ixchel, the goddess of childbirth and medicine. Although the island is only twelve miles from Cancun's Hotel Zone, it has a more laid-back, local vibe. We’d been to Isla Mujeres once before, on our first trip to Cancun in 2012. Since we were with a tour group, we didn’t have as much time to explore as we would have liked. This time, we thought we’d take the Ultramar ferry to the island so that we could set our own schedule and see some of the things we’d missed.