Hold space for NYC trip
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Big Summer Trip - Cruise
The Celebrity Apex was a beautiful ship! It was a little smaller than some of the other cruises we've been on, but that was actually nice. It felt less crowded, and we enjoyed plenty of space. We boarded at Southampton, and we knew from our balcony we were going to enjoy this trip!
We had two rooms in The Retreat area of the ship which worked out great. This gave us all a bit more space which was appreciated, and it gave us access to some more secluded areas.
Our butler brought us snacks every afternoon which was always a fun surprise to come in and see. There were cookies, popcorn, chocolates, and cheese plates galore! Jackie sent us chocolate covered strawberries at one point and a box of macarons another; those were delicious surprises!
I always enjoy walking around a ship and seeing the artwork and spaces. It's always so creative.
This was probably my favorite space onboard. The Retreat has its own area where they served afternoon tea each day, and they had these wonderfully comfortable chairs to relax and read in while looking out over the water. We were pretty far north, so I loved that they had beautiful blankets out to keep us warm.
We always enjoy seeing the entertainment onboard cruise ships too. Some ships we've been on have given us absolutely incredible Broadway level entertainment. Smaller ships don't quite reach that level, but it was still a lot of fun to be out and enjoy the shows. One night they performed "Tree of Life" which showed life going through the different seasons around a tree. We enjoyed the music and the acrobats were fun to watch.
Tabitha Purcell gave a great performance of iconic female singer/songwriters, and Adam Heppenstall was an excellent magician. I always enjoy these types of shows.
The ship also presented a show called Crystillize which again gave us some lovely music and impressive acrobatics.
The girls and I enjoyed a completely different type of entertainment one evening by going to dinner at Le Petite Chef: The Musical. They projected a fun story about the little chef directly onto the table, and then they presented you to eat with whatever he had just made (there was an alternate menu available to give a bit of choice). This was both delicious food and a ton of fun!
We expected the food on this ship to be a bit elevated, and it did not disappoint. We enjoyed quite a few delicious meals this week! I know pictures never do it justice, but here are a few of our favorites.
The Retreat private restaurant has a menu prepared by Chef Daniel Boulud. I loved it! There was a chilled corn soup appetizer (not pictured) followed by my favorite food on the whole trip: duck leg confit with apricot, braised radish, bok choy, and duck jus. It was absolutely delicious! I ordered it when we returned later in the week too. Dessert was an almond cake with grape confit, mascarpone, fig, and a buttermilk ice cream. I could eat a gallon of that ice cream. It was the lightest, creamiest ice cream I've ever had. It wasn't the dessert on Chef Boulud's menu, but I thoroughly enjoyed every bite of it.
The dessert on the Chef's menu was this Milk Chocolate Pill which was a milk chocolate cremeux, hazelnut sable, caramalized hazenuts, and crispy praline. It was fantastic! We tried several other restaurants onboard too. This warm apple pie crumble was a delicious finish to the French restaurant, Normandie.
The beef wellington and phyllo dough tulip from Normandie were pretty tasty too.
I enjoyed stopping by The Retreat area for afternoon tea each day. They had little sandwiches as well as scones with clotted cream and jam; of course there were little pastries to choose from too. At Cyprus, I definitely enjoyed this Greek braised lamb shank; it was delicious!
At the Retreat restaurant, they offered little amuse-bouche which was a fun little add on. This was some kind of little fish cake, and I loved it. Of course, I'm always a big fan of bread with pretty butter too!
You can't be on a cruise that goes to Belgium and not have a Belgium Chocolate Buffet in the main dining room one evening! There were so many fabulous options to choose from!
We didn't spend a ton of time on this ship because we were enjoying our excursions so much, but what time we had was definitely enjoyable (other than the one night on the North Sea where there was storm that tossed us all around!). I would definitely recommend this ship to others!
Big Summer Trip - London
We were so excited about our big summer trip! We were celebrating that Mia is heading into her senior year of high school. In all, it ended up being a two week trip. We flew to London and spent a few days there. Then we drove to Southampton to board a cruiseship that took us to Belgium and Norway for a week. When we landed back in Southampton, we drove back up to London in order to fly to Dublin, and we spent a couple of days there. It was fantastic!
We started the trip in the Virgin lounge at the Atlanta airport before boarding in first class. It was a very comfortable ride. Flying east meant we were flying overnight. Ryan and Lily were able to get a little bit of sleep but Mia and I took more of a restful approach.
They served us lots of delicious food on the ride over!
As luck would have it, London was in the middle of a heat wave while we were there. It was incredibly hot but we weren't going to let that stop us! Our driver took us to our hotel, Rubens at the Palace, where we dropped off our bags, freshened up, and then headed out.
Our first stop was Borough Market. We wanted to get there as everything was opening up to try and avoid some of the crowds; it was a good move on our part. We were looking forward to trying some of the viral items we've been seeing on social media. We found two of the three items we wanted! First was the chocolat and strawberries, and they were absolutely as delicious as advertised. We shared a cup which was plenty. Ryan and I also found and shared a creme bulee doughnut. It was actually heavy because there was so much cream inside! I have to admit, it was pretty tasty. While we were disappointed to not get a pork sandwich that looks really good, we were very pleased to get these. This gave us a bit of energy and helped pick up our energy.
From here we headed over to Harrods. The girls had not visited here before. We knew it would be good to keep us moving, and as an added bonus, we were inside in air conditioning instead of outside which would totally have zapped us. We explored several parts of the store, but the girls were most excited to visit the Jellycat store. There were some pretty cute items in there!
We finally decided to stop for lunch in one of their restaurants. We weren't particularly hungry, but we needed to sit and rest for awhile; we were fading after our long travels over. After this we walked all around their famous (rightfully so) food hall.
I loved the whole room of chocolates! Not a big surprise that I ended up with several of these pretty truffles and enjoyed them over the next couple of days.
The next morning, we got an early jump to head out and take Mia's senior pictures! We used they Flytogopher service again and met Jimmie. He was so knowledgeable of where to go to avoid crowds and get lots of great shots. I've made a whole other post about this, so I'm only going to put one behind the scene picture here.
After the photo shoot, we grabbed a quick bite for lunch and then decided to walk around just a bit. It was a beautiful day!
The girls really wanted to see the show Hercules, so we bought afternoon matinee tickets. We're always up for a new show! It wasn't my favorite show that I've ever seen, but it was cute. Disney knows how to put on a good show.
After the show we stopped in at a local Pizza Express which we loved on our last visit. This was a different location, and it unfortunately wasn't quite as good as we remembered. Still a decent dinner though.
After dinner we headed over The Savoy where Paddington was playing in its theater. We weren't sure what to expect but we knew it had a great reviews. We were absolutely blown away! This was such a well done, heartfelt show. Every character had so much depth to them, and Paddington was absolutely adorable. Ryan and I have been listening to this soundtrack pretty nonstop since we returned home. This was one of the best surprises we've had in quite awhile. I would love to see it again!
The next morning we started our day with a delicious breakfast at the hotel and then visiting the Royal Mews which was right across the street. It was a pretty interesting place to visit. We saw a few of the current horses that are cared for and used in ceremonies which was fun. We also saw the history of the mews, the various carriages used for different purposes, and cars that have been used. I'm glad we stopped in to see this!
Some of us really got in to the scene!
The mews is of course right by Buckingham Palace, so we walked right by it as we left. Lily and I snapped a quick picture. Someday I hope to have the timing right to actually go inside!
We asked the girls to plan our afternoon, and they came up with a super fun "this or that" game. I always love those! First up was picking lunch. Technically we picked this a couple of weeks ago, so we could make a reservation. We picked The Chesterfield Arms pub, and it was delicious! I couldn't resist the fish and chips; look how huge the serving was!
One of our rounds of selections actually had to be dropped. They had selected a couple of outdoor activities to choose from, but since London was in the middle of a heat wave, we decided to skip these options. It was incredibly hot and AC isn't really a great option in London! So, we skipped to round three which took us back near the Westminster Bridge. We stopped here for a few minutes to enjoy the view and get some classic pictures.
Our chosen activity was visiting the Paddington Bear Experience! We absolutely loved this musical the previous night, so we were excited to sneak in a bit more Paddington love. It was a really cute, interactive exhibit.
When you come in, you learn that you'll get to celebrate Marmalade Day, so you know this is going to be fun. They take you through several exhibits that range from Peru and back to the Brown's home and neighborhood in Windsor Gardens. There's lot of interaction throughout each exhibit which was great.
The best part is getting to meet Paddington at the Marmalade Day celebration at the end!
From here we had our last selection which was my absolute favorite: afternoon tea back at the Rubens! I love a delightful afternoon tea service. The food and tea were delicious and everything was so pretty.
The girls did a fantastic job of coming up with choices for fun new things to do this afternoon, and we loved getting to be surprised. It was a great!
We ended the day with a completely different theater experience for us. We went to see Witness for the Prosecution at the County Hall. This is based on a short story written by Agatha Christy, and it takes place (mostly) within a courtroom. Half of County Hall is actually a Marriott hotel where Ryan and I stayed on our honeymoon years ago. The other half though is a courtroom that used to truly be used by the government, so it was perfect to perform here. It was huge and beautiful. Most of the seats were spread throughout the courtroom, but we bought jury seats. We were just to the right of the judge, and we were individually sworn in as it all began. As the show progressed, the actors would look over at us and address us just like it was a real case.
At the end of the performance, we had each written out two signs from our notebook. One said guilty and the other said not guilty. We then had to hand over our vote to be counted. The foreman than read out the verdict. The show finishes up (no spoilers here!) soon after. It was such a cool experience!
It was getting late when the show ended, but since County Hall is across the Westminster Bridge, how can you not stop for a few beautiful nighttime pictures?
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