It's a beautiful Sunday morning here in Central Ohio. Spring has finally discovered us. I love anything to do with the ocean, beaches, islands, ships, that's why I decided to go into this business. So I have to share with you a passion of mine, well maybe it's an obsession. On Saturday & Sunday morning's and then again in the afternoons, I love to watch these cams, see everybody boarding the ships and watching the ships pull away for an adventure, imagine what everyone is doing. If it's their first cruise, they're checking out their surroundings, ' Where does this hallway lead to, Where does this elevator take you, Which bar do I hit first???'
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| The other half of the CruiseOne team onboard the Sovereign of the Seas, Port Canaveral. |
In the past when we have gone, we would stake out a place near the rail pull up a couple chairs and open our bottle of champagne for the sail away party. The music is playing by the pools, everybody is in a festive mood, boat drinks in hand, then the fun is put on hold temporarily, it's time for the lifeboat drill.
Everyone has to grab their life jacket and report to their muster station, initially, there is a lot of confusion, but the ships crew is always very helpful, guiding everyone to their stations if they are not sure.
Once everyone has reported to their stations and been accounted for, there are some brief informational announcements and then everybody's dismissed. It's time to party on the pool deck during the sail away party!!
I'm sorry, my original intent when I started out here was to share some links to some web cam sites, then my mind started wandering, thinking about sailing away again.
I have these links posted on our fan page on Facebook as well.
Have some idle time on Saturday or Sunday afternoons? Want to daydream a little? Come check out these Cruise Port Web Cams. The next best thing to being there? Well, not quite, but they're fun to watch. If you want to get onboard, give us a shout at
CruiseOne Eric & Barb Svenson
This is one of the best cams I've come across, they follow all of the ships as they're leaving the port and zoom in on the folks on the decks and their balcony's.
The Mallory Square cam at Key West is pretty cool, everybody congregates down on the square every evening for the sunset celebration. There are vendors and street performers and a lot of interesting characters about. Even if there aren't any ships coming or going, it's fun to watch. One of the times we were down there we were able to call back home, they were able to get on the cam and we waved to the unfortunate ones we left behind, sorry Kyle, Jenna & Ryan. We did take them with us the next time we went. The Sloppy Joes cam is on the stage in the bar and in the evenings you can check out the live bands.
Port Canaveral
There are several cams at Port Canaveral, the first one is at the port and is usually pointed towards the ships if there are any in port, other times is looking down the channel towards the ocean.
Radisson at the Port Cam
Both times we've sailed out of Port Canaveral we stayed at the Radisson. It's a beautiful hotel and very conveniently located close to the port. They run a shuttle for guests around the Port Canaveral and Cocoa Beach area if you don't have a car with you. In October we were there with friends, we took the shuttle, went over to Fishlips by the port, had a terrific dinner, watched some of the cruise ships leave. After dinner,called the driver and he came back and picked us up and returned to the hotel.
Sunrise Marina Webcam
Cocoa Beach Beach CamThe Cocoa Beach cam at Ron Jon's Resort, this one picks up the ships as they are leaving the channel and heading out to sea, usually about 10 mins or so after leaving the Port Canaveral cam.
http://www.ronjonresort.com/beachcam.aspx
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| View looking south towards Cocoa Beach as we're leaving the channel from Port Canaveral. |
Galveston
Cruise Web Cam Live From Galveston Texas
Unfortunately, we haven't cruised out of Galveston yet. We did spend a couple nights there a few years ago. Would love to go back and cruise from there.
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| Barb & Ryan up on the seawall. |
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| Northeast view along the seawall. |
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| Southwest view along the seawall. |
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| The Gulf from our hotel balcony. |
We ate at a fantastic restaurant, right across from the sea wall, Gaido's,
http://www.gaidos.com/. Do yourself a favor and stop in for dinner if you get the chance.
New Orleans
We have to get back to New Orleans. We've cruised from here twice, but didn't stay overnight. We took a road trip down through Louisiana and Texas, spent the night in Slidell, stopped over in New Orleans on the way over to Galveston and San Antonio. Picked up some CDM coffee at the grocery store there. If you like Cafe Du Monde coffee, this is the same stuff, just not packaged under the brand name and much cheaper, it's delicious, we brought back a few pounds. While we were there, we wandered around the French Quarter, it was during the day so there wasn't much going on. Took a tour of one of the cemetery's, very interesting.
Ended up at Cafe du Monde for some coffee and beignets then walked up along the river to catch the view.
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| North towards the Riverwalk and the Julia Street pier where the cruise ships dock. |
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| I love the full size mural of the clarinet on the wall of the Holiday Inn! |
Well, sorry I've been at this for so long, I initially intended to just post some links for cruise port cams, while I was at it I got a little sidetracked. Hope you enjoy some of the insights and the pictures. If you want to see some more, just let me know.
Now it's time to get back to finishing off the taxes and it's getting closer to departure time, the ships will start pulling away between 4:00 - 5:30 pm.
