Salty Vibes Adventures

09/14/2024

08/04/2024

As we wind down our time in Europe, which was nothing short of spectacular. I thought I would do a list comparing what I thought would be my favorite places with what turned out to be the best. I am in love with Italy and Croatia!

What I thought would be my favorite.

Rome
Athens
Dubrovnik
Corfy
Venice
Split
Kotor

My actual favorites:

Venice
Dubrovnik
Rome
Split
Kotor
Athens
Corfu

Interesting to me the places that were much better or not as great as I anticipated!

01/06/2024

Sometimes our adventures are at home! This week I’ve started taking ice baths! 8 minutes at 50 degrees. 4 times since January 1.

So far I’m seeing my energy level go way up! Loving the cold water.

10/25/2023

My view for my morning workout in Scottsdale. We are here for a work event this evening.

That is Camelback Mountain just past the top golf. Staying at the Talking Stick Casino and Resort. More pictures and reviews of the resort, Scottsdale, our hike this morning, and the restaurant tonight still to come!

10/19/2023

A great day in Cancun! Video from our room at Le Blanc!

10/01/2023

Recently, our adventures took us to my home town of Nashville. I have to admit, I had no idea how much fun Nashville has become.

Broadaway is one of the best places in America to spend an evening. We love live music and the entire downtown is just restaurants and bars with typically 3 floors of live music. We absolutely loved it!

We also saw Pink, who we love. However, the venue (Geodis Park) was terrible! Acoustics were awful and getting in and out nearly impossible. We would love to see Pink any time, but I would never go to an event at that venue again.

Highly suggest a weekend in Nashville if you love music (even if you don’t love country music) 5 stars

10/01/2023

Our adventures often bring us back to Fort Walton Beach, Florida. One of the prettiest beaches anywhere!

09/14/2023

When we were in Vegas last weekend, we did the Antelope Canyon/Horseshoe Bend excursion. Booked it on Expedia.

The bus left at 5 am. It’s a long ride to the canyon (4.5 hours). We stopped at a store for about 15 minutes along the way. They gave us about an hour for the hike down to view the bend. It’s an easy hike down the path. The bend is very cool to see and fun to climb around on all the rock formations. Definitely got some great pictures.

Antelope canyon was the highlight and just amazing. Very different and extremely exciting to see. The tour was about an hour and we’ll worth it. You can see from the pictures below how unique this place is.

My take is that Antelope Canyon is worth seeing for sure but do it on a trip to the Grand Canyon or a day trip from somewhere closer than Vegas. A very long day with much more time on the bus than in the canyon!

Still glad we saw this unique marvel of nature. Another ✅ off the bucket list!

09/08/2023

Amazing views!

09/08/2023

09/07/2023

Riu Republica! We booked this resort for a trip with our girls. After seeing mixed reviews we were worried. Well, we certainly wasted time worrying. The Riu was exactly what we were looking for for our 20 something’s. A fun Resort with lots of entertainment. First off the Riu is huge. A number or pools (two pools by the beach with swim up bars), water slides, tons of food options and plenty of entertainment.

The food was typical all inclusive fare, but better than average. The buffets were pretty good. The jerk chicken stand at the beach was phenomenal.

We did one excursion that we booked on Viator. Parasailing and snorkeling. Started off iffy with a long wait to parasail, but the snorkel boat cruise was awesome!

We also went to the foam party at another Riu which was a blast. The acrobat show, neon party and magic show were all great.

This place isn’t upscale like the Sandals in Jamaica, but more than makes up for it with entertainment and fun! If that is what you are after, then the Riu may be a good option.

As a bonus, I ran into a friend from high school that I hadn’t seen in 30 years.

09/07/2023

Portland Maine! We recommend the lighthouse bike tour!

09/07/2023

We visited Jamaica in August and stayed at the newly opened Sandals Dunn’s River. It was a small, but absolutely gorgeous resort. We were a group of 8.

A quick review:

The staff were all very friendly and accommodating, and always went out of their way to make our vacation experience great!

Food was very good for an all inclusive. Didn’t need reservation for most restaurants. We all liked the Greek, Italian and Asian places the best. There is not a buffet at night and the restaurants do take a while, but we never waited very long to be seated.

The small resort made it easy to get around. No long walks here. The grounds are immaculate. We took lots of pictures all around the resort. They do a free photo shoot that was fun but we ended up not buying the pictures. Very expensive and we had so many great ones we took ourselves. Our son got engaged during the vacation and they ended up buying the pictures! If you do buy them - negoatiate the price. Maybe wait till you get your check out paperwork. Ours had a coupon for 5 extra photos for free.

Pools were nice! Not a lot of entertainment during the day, but we loved the swim up bar, floats and basketball goals. The entertainment overall was good. We particularly enjoyed the band and fire show on Friday night, the acrobatic show, and the silent disco. Could use more entertainment in my view.

We spend some time in the spa which was amazing. A hot tub and cold tub are available anytime. As is the eucalyptus steam room. We did a couples massage which we very much enjoyed.

The only negative really is the pool and beach chair situation. If you don’t have a butler you probably won’t get pool chairs at the pool with the swim up bar. We had a group of 8 (then 6) and only one day could we get pool chairs together and not at the swim up bar pool. The butlers literally block off almost all the chairs early in the morning. Most of the time they sat empty all day. My suggestion is to get a butler just for the chairs. Not really any other reason to have one that we could see.

We did the snuba on-site and a couple of excursions. The snuba wasn’t really good. The reef we went to didn’t have a lot to see. The excursions we did on the other hand were the highlight of the trip for us (other than the engagement of course).

We did the Dunn’s River Falls and catamaran excursion that we booked at the resort. We’ve done this before but loved doing it again. Started with some really good snorkeling, then the hike up the falls, ending with a dance party catamaran ride back! Highly recommend.

What I recommend even more is the Blue Hole and White River tubing excursion. We also booked this at the resort. Most fun I’ve had in Jamaica! You do a bunch of dives off the rocks on the river, ending with a rope swing. After that we got a couple really strong drinks and tubed the White River. Really a perfect day!

If you are heading to a Jamaica, Sandals Dunn’s River is a great option.

09/07/2023

A trip around the lazy river at our Salty Vibes condos at Destin West, Fort Walton Beach. Never disappoints

09/07/2023

Fireworks from the balcony of our Salty Vibes condo at Destin West Gulfside G204 in Fort Walton Beach, Florida! Fort Walton is our home away from home!

09/07/2023

Great trip to the Dominican in July with our girls! We stayed at the Riu Republica and did some parasailing. The view from the parasail!

09/07/2023

Aruba is one of our favorite places! When we were there in May, we got to swim with sea turtles! Highly recommended.

09/02/2023

Our most recent trip was to Jamaica. We stayed at the gorgeous Sandals Dunn’s River Fall’s. Here is a video from our balcony!

09/02/2023

Welcome to our new Salty Vibes Adventures page, where Linda and I (and the family and friends we explore the world with) will share our travel and other adventures and give advice and tips for visiting the places we travel to and explore!

Please like our page and follow us for travel advice and tips!

09/02/2023

One of our favorite new Adventures is Wakesurfing! Linda’s really good surfing, but it’s taken me a while to get the hang of it. Finally getting a little better