I woke up at 5.45 having gone to bed at 11.30 on Day Two of my “holiday” on the Internet Marketers Cruise yesterday and it was a full one.    I have some great photos but if I take them on my phone, I’m  not sure how to upload them to somewhere my iPad can access them!

First we headed off to Minesh’s choice of breakfast venue which turned out to be 30 minutes away and the car park was full of Rolls Royces, so we thought “expensive but hopefully stunning”. It was a great location and the food was good but there were no seats outside so we could have been anywhere and he took much ribbing about that.  The roller pictured seems to have appeared in my photo stream but nothing else so I’m rolling  witth that for now!

The relentless banter was to be a recurring theme, as we worked our way up from that end of North Beach down to South Beach, via The Betsy’s rooftop bar to Nikki Beach which reminded me strongly of a club venue in Second Life!

The Betsy is a cool boutique hotel with a very beautiful lobby, and a restaurant specialising in beef of all kinds. We didn’t partake but instead did some damage to some delicous frozen pina colada’s. After a couple of hours practicing doing “proper fuck all” as comedian  Micky Flanagan says, we headed off for lunch. I found this whole doing nothing a bit of a challenge while the boys got straight into it. We all fiddled with our phones for a bit as there is free wifi everywhere, but then the banter subsided a bit and we talked business. I found an emery board and filed all my nails which helped with the twitchiness a bit

The Betsy is retro, beautiful and I would love to stay there, as it’s in the heart of the Art Deco district.

Our lunch venue was Nikki Beach which seemed awfully familiar and I kept trying to work out if I’d been there before, the Masters At Work launch party for Nu Yorican Soul album perhaps, with the cuban cigar bar, Captain Morgan’s rum sponsorship and George Benson and Roy Ayres playing live? After a while I thought that it may just remind me of a club venue in Second Life! I was still not massively hungry from breakfast so ordered Spicy (raw) Tuna with soy sauce and lime and then Conch Fritters (tiny and delicious) with a spicy dip. The boys ploughed into the house special which was some sort of seafood extravaganza, with Prawns, Crab, Langoustines and a light creamy curry sauce. I tried it and it was excellent.

Back to the Eden Roc to the “Welcome Cruisers” cocktail party and then over to the Beach Bar where we welcomed a new addition to the gang, Mike from Colorado. Mike’s specialty apparently is buying multi-million turnover businesses “no money down”, improving their value with internet marketing techniques (and others) and then selling them on again.

We all have badges that proclaim us newbies or veterans and it’s interesting watching the various networking styles going on. As I’ve been running Facebook ads to the Internet Marketers Cruise Group on Facebook, I’m getting a lot of recognition which is very cool, so I’m adopting a very laid back style this year. The networking styles are varying from the frantic to the clueless with the vets chatting to mates in between being tapped on the shoulder by aspiring joint venture partners.

My main goal for this cruise now – as one of my mentors says you should never go anywhere without a main aim – is to interview as many people as I can for my podcast and have a great holiday – that is pretty much it! Yesterday’s goal of coming home the same weight or less seems to be a forlorn hope!

I’m still sun-hatless as shopping is never on the agenda of my travelling companions and I’d quite like a beach bag too. But we have breakfast (which I’m looking forward to, as no dinner last night) at 9.00 then we depart for the ship at 10.30. I have heard rumours of a shop in the hotel but judging by the drinks prices, that would be a very foolish move! But will it be better on the ship, and what sort of choice will I have?

Will I even need a hat as, on the ship, there is always shade and, on the island trips I suspect ditto. The boat excursions are the only time I may need one…

I may look a little daft with an Italian leather handbag but it does go with most of my outfits and is casual enough in style to pass perhaps. Perhaps I should just let go and think “If I see one, I’ll buy one, if not, I’ll manage without”.

Hilarious that I’m obsessed with a hat of all things, but that’s being on holiday for ya!