Travel - Café Con Monica

Travel Days: Caribbean Cruise – Roatan, Honduras

January 16, 2019

Finally sharing Day 3 of the Cruise! You can find Days 1-2 here and more Travel posts here!

The third day of the Cruise started by arriving in Roatan, Honduras. This was the stop I was most excited about since I have been to all the other places (minus the stop in Belize that is a man made island and not really Belize). As part of our planning we had chosen to only do excursions in Roatan and Cozumel.

We had breakfast on the boat and look at what a view we had! We had a few hours until our excursion started so we took our time.

They had this little market set up with tourist shops and stalls. We walked around, got some drinks, took plenty of photos and then headed back toward the meeting area.

Excursion: Gumbalimba Park

After a not too far ride (about 45 mins) We arrived at the park where we got to walk a beautiful trail, play with birds (not me, I don’t like birds at all) and make friends with some monkeys and then lay on the beach for a while. It was HOT which I loved but poor AJS turns into a lobster in the sun so SPF 1000 if you do this excursion please! We enjoyed the water being so warm, until AJS found a jellyfish and then I was not touching the water.

I would definitely recommend this excursion to people as something fun to do, especially if you have kids because there are a few different things to do!

Of Course, now I have to share a ridiculous amount of photos!!

We are so happy that we did that excursion and we were exhausted and ready for another night on the boat. We had sushi and drinks that night then back to our rooms to relax!

One of my favorite things about these kind of vacations is the animals in the room when you back!!

Have you been on this cruise or done a similar excursion?

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Top 5 Holiday Things – Austin

December 13, 2018

There are always a 101 things going on during the holidays that we hope we can get to but I like to try and pick a top 5 and make plans to do those.
I was always great at this in Chicago…speaking of I should probably make one for Chicago too.

Since I love all Holiday things, this is our first Austin Christmas and AJS will do whatever I plan for us I thought I’d share 5 great Austin holiday things to do!

A Christmas Carol @ Zach Theatre

I promise you that this is unlike any other A Christmas Carol that you have ever seen! Most obvious is that it is a musical and they use contemporary music (think Bruno Mars).
It is really an exciting update while still following the original story!

Mozart’s Coffee- Christmas Lights Show

This coffee “shop” is huge, right on the lake and both indoor/outdoor. They decorate with tons of lights and you can grab a hot chocolate, one of their delicious brownies and watch the light show to some music. They even have a piano player some nights.

Trail of Lights

We are going this weekend so I couldn’t use a photo of my own yet but we are so excited to check it out! They have a movie night, a fun run, food trucks (because Austin) and 2 million lights with free admission Mon-Weds the two weeks leading up to Xmas too!

Visit a Holiday Bar – Miracle on 5th St

Sometimes you want to do Holiday things that aren’t as family friendly so that you can be be merry and avoid strollers. In that case I always go for the pop up holiday bars! They had a great Holiday themed menu and a Santa throne for photos.

Ice Skating (Whole Foods or Winter Wonderland)

Luckily it really hasn’t gotten cold enough to be miserable outside yet. Of course, I say this coming from Chicago so while everyone here is freezing I am still doing just fine. Since there is no snow or super cold temps here yet I think that Ice Skating is a great holiday season activity! The whole foods on Lamar has a super cute outdoor rink upstairs and the Winter Wonderland has lights, rides, and ice skating!

There are plenty of other ideas and things to do depending what you are looking for and your tolerance for chilly weather but these are some I think are a great start for a first Christmas in Austin!

Travel Days: Orlando – New Years Eve

December 11, 2018

I know I have been saying I will post this for a few months now but I am getting my life together and so here we go!

I love to travel and you can check out some of those recent trips Mexico, Cruising & Denver: Red Rocks! I still need to post about the rest of the Denver trip and get my old posts together so I can share all my different Asia trips.

But today we have celebrating New Years in Orlando!

First things first…some things I want to share.

If you want to see the fireworks over the castle go the night before. They do the exact same thing and even count down like its really NYE. **Listen to this warning unless you plan to be in line at Magic Kingdom at 6 am on NYE and hope you get in.
Tickets to Orlando for NYE were effing expensive. Everything was expensive.
You can bring food into Disney parks…just no glass. Bring food. or spend $50.00 on a lunch for two people.
Staying off the Disney resorts afforded us a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment for 1/4 of the price of the Disney resorts (even w/the added price of taking ubers back and forth) We stayed at Polynesian Isles Resort
Book your fastpass ASAP. Unfortunately we did not purchase our Disney tickets until 1 week before the trip so there were no free times for any of the rides that were convenient for us. You can book a minimum of 30 days ahead. do it.

Now the fun part!

We hopped off the plane, got checked into our hotel and right into an uber to Magic Kingdom where we stayed until the 1:00 am.

The fireworks were beautiful…as you can see! 100% worth going the day before to see them!

On NYE we started the morning at Animal Kingdom.We ended up waiting 3 hours in line for the Flight of the Avatar ride. I am not usually one to wait in a long line but the weather was nice (high 60’s) it was sunny, and I wanted to check it out!

It was awesome and so worth the wait!

Then..we headed from there to Epcot to walk around and wait for the countdown. I am not sure what I was expecting since I have been to Epcot before but it was really amazing to see each country had its own little party going on. We ended up finding a spot in Italy since they had a huge stage and dance party going.

I have no idea why I can’t find the photos of the fireworks…I know Thenewguy took video but I was just so excited and exhausted that I put my phone down and enjoyed the moment and the music.

Next time I will share the photos from our New Years Day at Universal Studios!