Our Empty Nest Adventures

All my bags are backed ... I'm ready to go

Archives for June 2016

Caribbean Cruise Destinations

Dolphins, Sharks and Sea Lions in the Dominican Republic

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Hello friends!

We hope you are all having a good week! Here in Kansas, it’s hot – so hot I saw two trees fighting over a dog! We are trying to think cool, relaxing thoughts, and it’s always memories of the ocean that get me chilled.  In particular, our recent trip to the Dominican Republic.

Shanna and I have been fortunate to visit a number of the Caribbean islands multiple times, but had never been to the Dominican Republic. On our last Carnival Cruise, we made sure to book a trip that was traveling to the Dominican since we’ve heard nothing but good things about it.

On arrival, the weather was a perfect 75 degrees. We already booked an excursion at Ocean World, so all we needed to do was find the right group, and enjoy the short ride through the countryside. …Read More

Destinations

Traveling to Washington D.C.

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Hello everyone!

Topher and I went on a trip to Washington D.C., and we just had to share with you all! First of all, can you believe it was my first time there? I know! You would think by the time I was 40 years old I would have gotten around to our nation’s capital at least once!

Before we get started, let me apologize in advance for the fact that we didn’t bring our “fancy” camera on this trip, so the pictures aren’t up to par … but they were as good as we could do with our iPhones.

Once we arrived in town, we checked into the Ritz Carlton. Staying at the Ritz was another first for us. How fancy do we sound saying we stayed at the Ritz? Before you start to hate us … just know this was paid for by Topher’s business, and it isn’t a normal thing for us.

As you can imagine, this place was gorgeous! From the swanky rooms, to the to-die-for crystal chandeliers, this place was the bomb! The customer service, from the front desk, to their room service, it was bar none.

TravelinginWashingtonDC

Topher was actually in DC for a work function, so we did all of our sightseeing in one day (in case you’re wondering why we never change our clothes). We took a bus tour to all of the sites, and we highly recommend doing this as you don’t have to worry about finding your way around, finding a place to park, and the bus stops were definitely long enough to see all that we needed to see….Read More

Caribbean Cruise Destinations

Our Day at St. Maarten

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Last week I shared with you my Top Ten Ways to Cruise Cheaply. This week I thought I would share some of the fun ports we went to on our cruise earlier this year.

First, this was our sixth Carnival cruise. Some people have asked why we always use the same cruise line. Frankly, every one of the ones we have taken on Carnival have been amazing, so it’s one of those “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kind of things.

We had friends that took a cruise on a different line, and they left the very same day as us, from the very same city, and went to the very same ports. We came back and touched-base with them and told them how incredible our cruise was, but they were so disappointed with theirs. They said they had awful service and blah food the entire time.

Since we only cruise every couple of years, we would be so bummed if that happened to us, so we have always gone with what’s worked well for our family….Read More

Caribbean Cruise Destinations

Swimming With Stingrays in Antigua

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I know the name of the blog is Our Empty Nest Adventures … but our latest vacation included our kiddo. We thought we would all go on one last trip as a family to end her senior year. So in case you’re wondering why the nest doesn’t look too “empty”, I thought I would fill you in.  And in full disclosure … we’ll probably take her on others, but the plan is to travel more frequently with just us two.

I can’t emphasize enough how cruising is one of the favorite ways to vacation for our family. Since we always have a budget to stick to, cruising allows us the most bang for our buck. Since we don’t have unlimited funds and can’t travel to multiple places every year, cruising lets us see several different places every time we go.

If you’re like me, when you travel you like to do a little bit of research so you know the best places for entertainment, famous landmarks and food. So I thought I would show you where we went on our port to Antigua.

We decided to go swimming with stingrays….Read More

Events

Magical Night at the Wichita Lantern Festival

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Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend!

Usually Topher and I are homebodies on the weekends. When the kiddo graduated, and we kicked off this website, we decided we needed to go out and do more, be more adventurous, and try new things. We definitely aren’t getting any younger, and we want to have some fun dating once again.

We discussed before how we would love to be lounging on a different beach each week in the Caribbean … but sadly the budget does not allow it.

So we decided to look around in our own backyards to check out the fun things relatively close to home. While scouring the internet, we came across the Lantern Fest and noticed it was coming to town. Have you seen the amazing pictures on Pinterest of the gorgeous skies, lanterns floating up towards the heavens? Well I have, and it became a line on my bucket list folks.

When I found out they were having one of these 30 minutes away from my house, you bet that I was on board!  I reached out to the event host, and they graciously gave us tickets in exchange for a review.  And although they covered our entrance fee, all the comments in this article are genuine….Read More

Travel Tips

10 Ways to Cruise Cheaply

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Hello friends!

Our family has been taking cruises for the last 14 years. We usually try to go on one every 2-3 years. I wish it was something we could do every year … but it takes us a couple of years for us to save up.

The first one we took, it was just Topher and I, and we loved it so much we knew we had to take the kiddo on the next one … and she absolutely loved it.

The year after our first family cruise, we took a week long trip to Branson, Missouri. We had a fun trip, but when we got back home and figured out how much the Branson trip cost us, we were pretty surprised.  By the time we paid for our gas to and from, our hotel, three meals a day, and entertainment it cost us as much as a 7 day cruise to the Caribbean!

From then on we knew that cruises were going to be the way to go.

I thought I would share with you a few ways that we’ve found to keep the costs down while cruising….Read More

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