Season 6: October 18-31,2025. New York to Florida plus Caribbean Cruise

We are back on the road again for our sixth season of traveling across the country searching for 72°. Coincidentally it was 72° as we drove from my Dads house to our first stop which was the Cape May Zoo. We left Raquette Lake with 125,600 miles on the van. This year we will probably not put as many miles on as last year because we booked all of our cruises for the beginning of the journey for the most part. This year we received SIX FREE cruises. More about that later. 

The day before we left Raquette Lake we had a nice dinner at Hemlock Hall with some friends and then headed back to Long Island to visit with friends and family.

So back on the road today and we drove about an hour and a half to our first stop, The Cape May Zoo. Nice little zoo and it was FREE!!!

From there we intended on going to the Peanut Butter Company in the heart of Cape May but the Fire Department Festival was going on so parking was at a very bare minimal. We drove around and around but no luck finding a spot so we headed over to the Ferry Terminal.

We arrived at our first Cracker Barrel for a late dinner and found a nice place to sleep tucked away in the corner. Had a pleasant night, woke up to 60° and continued south. I went about 10 minutes down the road to Mass and was lucky to participate in Don’t Sunday after the Mass. The church was standing room only. I guess I’m not the only fan of Donut Sunday!

From there we drove another three hours or so to the Flanners Beach Campground. A nice beachfront campground for 10 bucks.

We showered and headed out at 11 am check out. Long four hour day of driving and wound up in Georgetown South Carolina. We had an awesome Southern cooked meal and went in search of a spot to park for the night. Apparently you can park overnight on the streets here so I guess we will see. 

Woke up and went for a two mile walk around town and got to see the beginnings of the sunrise on the Harborwalk along the Winyah Bay. 

Decided to stick around for the cat cafe to open. What a great place and all proceeds go to rescuing cats.

From there we headed south and decided to spend the night at the Georgia Welcome Center. If you have never been there, it’s probably the nicest welcome center I have ever seen. 

From there we headed to Jacksonville and found this really great State Park Campground called Hanna Park. Tons of bike and hiking trails right on the Atlantic Ocean. I caught a beautiful sunrise.

Continued heading south, visited some friends and eventually made it to the Courtyard Marriott by the Miami Airport. We will be leaving the van here for the week while we take our first cruise of the season. This will be our first time leaving the van somewhere that’s not someone we know. It’s a little scary but this place seems pretty secure and I’m sure the van will be fine. The room here was beautiful. 

We packed our backpacks and headed to the Miami Cruise port on a 12 noon shuttle. From the time we arrived at the port to the time we set our packs down in our room was under 15 minutes. They know what they are doing in Miami at the Celebrity Port. First stop after dropping the bags off was the buffet. Of course. Then we strolled around the ship to get our bearings. This ship is absolutely beautiful. It has so many beautiful art installments all over the place. 

I forgot to mention that they changed our itinerary from Eastern Caribbean to Western to avoid Hurricane Melissa. So far the skies have been blue and the waves have been smooth. Our second night we decided to skip the buffet and eat in one of the Four Main Dining room. We chose the one called Cyprus which was a Mediterranean Menu and I got the grilled Octopus as an appetizer which was unbelievable. 

Next Day we arrived in Costa Maya Mexico which two other ships. We decided to stay on the ship for breakfast and lunch and got off late in the afternoon when everyone started heading back so it wasn’t as crowded in the Port Area. I only got Hawked around 7 times by people trying to sell me perfume and diamonds and t shirts. Not a big fan of that. 
So we used that technique for every port. We got off each day after lunch while everyone was getting back on. We visited Beliz and Honduras. Great weather, blue skies, sun was out. Couldnt ask for more. Oh, and calm seas.

On Halloween, the activities people went all out on decorating the ship for Halloween. Lots of people dressed up. It was super festive. I wish I would have taken more photos but here’s a few. 

So we decided to do a few dinners at the Main Dining rooms for this cruise. Normally we just eat at the buffet because we love buffet eating. This ship had 4 main dining rooms and we ate at three of them. The food was amazing. 

On the last night they had beef Wellington with a lobster tail. Delish. We went to the final show afterwards which was amazing. Greg is putting together a YouTube video featuring all of the performances that we saw on the ship. I’ll probably post the link for that in the next blog, but the entertainment on the Celebrity is outstanding.

We had two time changes on this week long trip so we went to bed early because the time was going to be set back again another hour for daylight savings.  We woke up at 6 AM. Had some coffee and breakfast and then got on the line at 7:05 to exit the ship before all the chaos of the Ubers and taxis outside in the port. Unfortunately, all of the computer image software machines were down, and they only had three immigration officers to check everybody’s passports coming off of the ship so it took us quite some time to get off the ship probably close to two hours and then once we got out, there was another half an hour or so to get our Uber back to where we parked the van. The van was fine. Greg had disconnected the battery which was a great idea and everything was good with the van and so we continued on our way to Disney. more about Disney in the next blog.