Our week aboard the Independence of the Seas was unfortunately impacted by both of us picking up something shortly before we left the Seaside. It ended up being sinusitis and resulted in us having lower energy levels, sinus pressure aches, runny/stuffy noses, and a little bit of a cough. It didn’t make for a miserable week – we just didn’t do as much activity as we normally would, and we avoided a lot of contact with people. We did get to meet several great people and new friends in the dining room during dinners – Cindy from Cincinnati, Neville and Marie from Nassau, and Lorenzo from Atlanta.

We spent our time on the ship living the normal cruise life for us. Breakfasts and lunches generally at the buffet and dinners in the dining room. We saw most of the main shows in the evenings and enjoyed various musicians and activities around the ship as we felt like it. We read, we napped, we sat on the promenade deck and watched the ocean pass by (and the occasional ship). I finally played a couple of games of pickleball toward the end of the week when I was feeling better.

Our itinerary consisted of Monday at Royal Caribbean’s private island, Tuesday at sea, Wednesday in San Juan, Thursday in Saint Thomas, and then Friday and Saturday at sea before arriving back in Miami this morning. We stayed on the ship on Monday and enjoyed the ship being quiet while most people enjoyed their day on the beaches of Coco Cay. In San Juan, we got off the ship to do a four-mile run/walk along the trail to the fort and then we went back to the smoothie place (Buen Papayas) we visited last week when we were here. In Saint Thomas, we walked into the town center of Charlotte Amalie (that is the capital of the US Virgin Islands) and saw the sights. While there, a beautiful US Navy ship docked next to our ship. It is the USS San Antonio and is on a humanitarian mission helping with supplies to Jamaica after the devastating hurricane that just hit the island.

This morning, after a very easy disembarkation, we took an Uber from the cruise terminal to pick up our rental car in Miami Beach. We stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way to Sarasota. We made it to my mom’s house a little after 3pm. We returned the rental car, dropped our stuff off at the same AirBnB we have stayed in the last two trips to Sarasota, and then went to our storage unit to get our bikes and a few things we want to have while we are in Sarasota. That gave us time to meet Rusty and my mom for dinner at Wings n Things to wrap up the trip. Even though we weren’t feeling 100%, we were very happy to get to see them and spend time with them our first night back in town.

That brings us to the end of our second year traveling. It’s hard to pick favorite places or compare this year with last year. It’s easy to say that it’s been another amazing year in our journey. Once again, we saw beautiful and historic places – almost from pole to pole, but it’s the relationships with new friends that stand out above everything. We remain filled with gratitude to be able to experience what we are experiencing. It is great to be back in the States for several weeks and we are excited to see what 2026 has in store for our journey.