It's time to go to the ship!!!!

The day dawned bright and clear, with almost no wind, a first for our trip so far. We finished packing and settled in for our "late" checkout at 12pm. Thinking we'd be able to sit outside, we were just getting ready when the wind blew up out of nowhere and again it was the one sided palm trees.....

We then checked out of the hotel and started our drive for the airport to return our car, which we'd put a total of 37 miles on it! Still basically a new car. We were asking the the best way to get to the taxi stand to catch a ride to the port, and the Hertz return guy offered to have one of the employees drive us over and drop us off. How awesome is that? So we waited a few minutes, and then loaded the bags into a Jeep Liberty and off we went. Of course, right about this time it started to POUR down rain. Like Autzen stadium at the Cal game rain. Sideways, in your face and blowing. Except it was warm.

There were 5 ships in Port Everglades today - Celebrity Eclipse, Holland America Westerdam, Carnival Freedom, Crown Princess and Oasis of the Seas. We arrived about 1245pm, gave our bags to the porters (and $5 to make sure they stayed out of the rain!) and headed inside for our security check and checkin. The whole process took maybe 20 minutes, 10 of which was walking to get on the ship! We were onboard by 110pm, and then figured out that the rooms were ready, so we headed towards our room, which is just as nice as the last one on Solstice! We dropped our carryons, and headed up to the Oceanview cafe for some lunch.

I wish I had taken a photo, but had left the camera in the room, but they had an ENTIRE leg of beef they were carving off for lunch. I've never seen anything like it before. Of course, I had some and it was DELICIOUS! As well as the baked potato and some green beans. When we were sitting at the table, our cruise critic friends from Vancouver BC, Sarah and Andrew, came up because they recognized Chris from the picture I had sent them. He's apparently very recognizable! We sat with them and ate our lunch, which was really fun! We are doing an excursion in Aruba with them, the Trikes, so it should be a lot of fun!

Pam and Michael were the last people to board, and we went to meet them as they got onboard. Yay vacation has begun!!!!! :)

Muster drill was at 3:45pm, and we were comfortably seated in the dining room. So much better than hanging around outside!!! Watched the safety video then headed back to the room and our luggage had arrived. Time to unpack! And our butler Allano came by to introduce himself, as well as our cabin attendant Janette.

Dinner was very tasty, but very sloooooooowwwwwwww service. I think we'll have to try a different area for tomorrow's dinner. After dinner, we spent some time in the martini bar, then headed for bed, it's been a long day.......

Here's a nice photo of our wake, as we are sailing away

When we got back to our room, look what was waiting for us!!! Ha ha! Fancy dinner at a fancy table!!!! Looks like we'll need to look fine tomorrow for formal night!!!!

 

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How 'bout those Ducks?

After spending much of the day at the pool with Mollie and Jack, they all left for the airport and the three of us (Chris, my mom and I) headed for Houston's for dinner. This restaurant has a great location, right on the intracoastal waterway and the food was excellent as well! I had a slice of bone in prime rib that was awesome, possibly some of the best beef I've eaten in a while. The baked potato and other sides were also very well done, and we got out of there in about 45 minutes - it was the complete opposite of the hotel restaurant.

Once back at the ranch, we set ourselves up to watch the end of the Apple Cup game, and then the Civil war afterwards....this is where things started to go sideways. After the Apple cup was over, the channel cut from Fox Sports 1 to Fox......which meant no Civil war!!! WHAT!!!!!!! It ended up working out mostly ok, we figured out how to get the game on my ipad using Comcast to Go, but we couldn't link it to the TV and we ended up watching it all huddled around the ipad. For the most part, we could see everything, but the wifi did cut out at some inopportune times.......and had to be restarted. The best part was at the end, when my mom had left and Chris and I were jumping around the hotel room cheering. That was quite a game.

We packed, and then headed for bed, as we were checking out and heading for the airport to return our rental car and catch a taxi to the ship.

 

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Black Friday!

No shopping here! The day dawned bright and windy, so we tried to get some pool time in......well, I was in the pool for a few minutes, but it was freezing, so I got out again. The wind has not ceased all day, and actually has gotten stronger as the day has gone on, and some big ugly clouds have moved in as well.

Palm trees are still VERY one sided!

And the ocean is pretty rough too. We are hanging out helping Abra get packed, as they are leaving for the airport soon. :(

 

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Thanksgiving, part 2

We spent most of the day at the pool, and headed inside about 3:30 to change for dinner, which we were having at the hotel. We decided to eat outside, which was an interesting experience to say the least. I don't have any photos of dinner, but afterwards here's one from our room.

My comment is, you know it's windy when all the palm trees are one sided!

We then went back to Abra and Chip's villa and hung out and played with the kids. A good family evening for sure!

 

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Thanksgiving!!!!

Today I was awakened by Mollie at 7am asking if I wanted to play card games. Ummm, not really at 7am. I convinced her to play ipad games for about 45 minutes, then gave up and got up. We checked out the view from our room and headed back to Abra and Chip's villa for breakfast. Chris stayed in bed, I think he was the lucky one!

Spent the morning watching some of the Macy's parade, then came back to our room to catch up on some emails and have some bagels. it's starting to get a little windy, but still beautiful outside! Here's a photo of the kids and Abra in the pool, shot from our balcony as well.

 

So, I think we are headed for the pool and some swimming time before lunch. Hope everyone has a good holiday!!!!

 

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Arrived!

Made it to Fort Lauderdale! We were about 45 minutes late in landing due to a mechanical difficulty in Atlanta (we left late) when the cargo door would shut properly. But that's ok! Picked up the luggage, took the shuttle bus to the car rental area and picked up our rental car - a brand new white Nissan Altima, with only 10 miles on it!

I don't even think when I bought a new car it had as low mileage! We then drove to the Beachcomber Resort and Villas in Pompano Beach, which added 9 miles to our odometer and took abot 20 minutes. We arrived and checked in, but our room was not yet ready so we put our stuff in my mom's room and then changed into our bathing suits for some lunch and pool time with the kiddos! Mollie and I spent some time playing in the ocean as well, and then back to the pool.

After our room was ready, we unpacked and got cleaned up to head for our traditional pre-thanksgiving dinner at Benihana!! This was a special occasion, since this is the first Benihana that Abra and I ever went to when we were kids, and it was nice to go back. it's also right on the Intracoastal waterway, so has a beautiful view

I have to say the meal was spectacular, and the staff was COMPLETELY top notch. Our server, Tracie, was absolutely the BEST EVER! She was super fast with keeping up with the drinks and took excellent care of the kids, bringing them everything they ever asked for and more. Our chef, Saha, was also excellent and did an awesome job cooking the food and joking with the kids at the same time. They were completely mesmerized when he was going throught the show, and got their pictures taken with Tracie at the end. All in all, a very memorable experience and it's just too bad we don't live closer!

We stopped at Publix to pick up a few things on the way back, and then we headed back to the hotel for the night. We watched the making of the Sound of Music live in Abra and Chip's villa, and then headed back to our room with Mollie in tow for the night, she was having a sleepover with us. We brought the cushion for the outside chaise lounge in and made up a little bed for her on the floor, since our room only had a single bed. We played some card games and then it was time for bed, since I could barely stay awake. Chris claims we were asleep 2 hours earlier, but just hadn't closed our eyes yet. I would agree actually, since we were asleep before 10pm!!!

 

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It's midnight, where am I?

Somewhere over Wyoming, a bit north of Denver it appears! Flight is quiet so far, I watched some videos, had some pretzels and a drink or 2. And it's still over 2.5 hours until we land. Looks like we are going to miss the crazy weather headed for the east coast, good timing on our part!

 

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Guess where I am????

We made it! Successfully packed up everything and got the heck out of dodge! Here's a picture to show that we aren't just making it up.

The view from the Delta Sky Lounge is quite pretty! I'm having a glass of crappy wine (free crappy wine, I might add, so I'm not complaining too loudly!) while typing this up. So far, so good, we have about an hour to kill until boarding time.

 

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Packing? Yep, almost done!

So, for those following along, I hate to pack.  I am however, aware of this fact, and yet I still never seem to start any earlier.
Last night, we got all of our clothes, shoes, etc out and started making piles on the bed.  We usually cross-pack our clothes into each suitcase, so if you lose one, at least everyone has clean underwear!!!!
Once we started this process, we realized we were missing a suitcase - and by missing, I mean "forgot that it had broken on the last trip in June and didn't yet buy another one"
Oops.  Lucky for us, we aren't leaving until 10:40pm Tuesday!!!

In light of only having 1 bag, we decided to pack the "stuff I won't need in Florida but need on the cruise ship" bag first.  We stuffed that thing full, and were CERTAIN we had exceeded the weight allowance.   With much trepidation, we placed it on the scale and waited breathlessly for the beep.  When it arrived - we were astonished at the result!!!  49.7 pounds!!!!!

How's that for being under the limit?  :)

The balance of the packing will commence when we arrive home this afternoon, after Chris has braved Costco to purchase a new suitcase.  Always an adventure around here!

Trying to figure out Blogsy

Well, the program I was using to blog before (called POSTS) is no longer working and they don't answer any emails....so I've switched to Blogsy, which I think will be fine once I figure out how to get everything organized. Trying to switch from drafts to posts seems to be a challenge, but I'm betting it's a bit of user error.

Basically, I'm doing anything so I don't have to pack. It's going to be a long day I think.

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Packing? Well, not quite.....

Well, the clock keeps ticking on down to our departure - we're leaving for Florida Tuesday night. I (as usual!) have not started packing yet - although I did make a list. So I guess that's a good start.......My most recent dilemmas have been around how to have Thanksgiving dinner without going out and lacking a kitchen. We were going to look at getting some food from a grocery store precooked, but none of them are open on Thanksgiving day (!) Our next idea was takeout - which looked like it was going to work great! Then we discovered that the hotel restaurant is actually going to be open that day, with some sort of Thanksgiving feast so why not make it easy and just eat there??? Problem solved!!!

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