Sarturday 12/18 and Sunday 12/19

Our flight to Miami was delayed 30 minutes due to a late arriving crew. However, when we got to the gate, there was a nice surprise in addition to that not so bad news - we got upgraded to first class. That meant a bit more room and a breakfast snack box with bagel chips, Rondele cheese and fruit cup.

We arrived in Miami just before noon. It took a few minutes for our bags to come out, and then we headed off to Super Shuttle. We gave the dispatcher the zip code, and then the fun began. She told us not to take them because it would be over 100.00, but to go to the bus terminal to get the shuttle to the Tri-Rail train (a train that goes up the coast in Florida). I'd already looked at the schedule and on weekends it runs every two hours, and we'd just missed the noon train. Since she seemed to really not want to take us, so off to the bus terminal we went. She told us to go across the parking lot, but that seemed to simply go to a parking garage.
We eventually found somebody who told us to go to the international terminal and the bus terminal there. We found it and the gentleman working there helped us get tickets. The best shuttle left around 1:40 so we went back into the terminal, and had lunch. At 1:15 we headed to the bus terminal, at which point it started pouring. While waiting, we met an art teacher from Renton WA who sat with us on the train and we chatted all the way up to Boyton Beach.

It was about 3:30 by the time we arrived, and Joan and Rich came and got us soon after. We headed to their home on a lake, showered, hung out and then went to dinner at a nice east coast chain called The Village Tavern. I'd eat there again on my travels. Following that, we went to West Palm Beach. They'd purchased tickets for the John Test Christmas concert. It was not exactly what any of us expected, but was mostly fun.
After that we went back to their house, had dessert and looked at some of our Antarctica pictures, and then went to bed for much needed sleep.

Sunday morning, Glen woke me up at 9:30 - Joan was making a lovely breakfast for us - cinnamon scones and a spinach frittata. After a leisurely breakfast we demonstrator our team tango for them, packed up and headed to the port.
We normally sail out of SF, LA or Vancouver - SF can handle one ship, LA three and Vancouver four; there were eight in port here. Traffic was a mess, but once we got into the port, it was a quick trip to the terminal. They dropped us by the luggage drop, so we gave our bags to the porter and headed in. There was a short line to enter the terminal and go through security, but once we got in we walked right up to a preferred check in agent, and she had our cards to us within 2 minutes. There was almost no line to get on the ship, and we were soon in our room. No more than 10 minutes tops. Amazing!

We explored the ship - this is our first time on a ship of this class and it's the biggest ship we've ever been on. There are many features that are similar to other ships, but there are some differences. The rear of the ship has Club Fusion, and the biggest dance floor we've seen in a while. We practiced our tango on it. The ship has two buffets - the normal horizon count and behind it, the Caribe Cafe, a smaller buffet. Today it had similar food to the Horizon court but apparently they put things like the seafood and dessert buffets there. In addition, the International Cafe in the Piazza was bigger than on the Star, because it was in the original design, not put on as a retrofit. The Sanctuary, the adult only area reflected the same thing.

We had lunch, and then headed back to the room to rest and get ready for the muster drill. Glen took a nap while I got a brewed coffee. While we were out, our steward had left our glasses of champagne that mini-suite guests receive. He eventually came in to deliver ice. I asked for an eggcrate mattress topper, extra towels and a top sheet.

The muster drill was standard, I almost have the spiel memorized - this was our fourth one this year. When we came back to drop of the life jackets our suitcases had arrived so we unpacked and headed off to our Cruise Critic meeting.
The group had agreed to wear beads or leis so it was easy to find each other. We met Neil and Jerry from Boyton Beach - Neil is the most active poster on our roll call. A few other members were there including Lydia and Tim from New Brunswick Canada - they're getting married on Tuesday and we're all going to the wedding. We said, passing the Allure of the Seas - one of Royal Caribbean's ginormous ships (over 5K passengers) - it's got an open center atrium so we named it "Grand Canyon of the Seas" or "Monstrocity of the Seas" (it's sister, Oasis of the Seas has been named Behemoth of the Seas).
After our meet and greet we headed to the Platinum Elite lounge - met a couple of women from New Jersey who were on the Antarctic cruise before ours. We offered to play scrabble with them later.

Coming back to our room, Michael, our steward had done the turn down. He'd got the egg crate but no top sheet or extra towels. I paged him and he brought the top sheet.

We changed, and headed off to dinner. We stopped at the wheel house and danced to the jazz quartet there. Not great for dancing but it worked. We then headed to dinner.

We were seated at a table for 10 - I've always requested 6 or 8 so I'll have to contact my travel agent afterward to see what's going on. To our surprise, Neil and Jerry were our tablemates - this is the first time we've had roll call members at the table. It was a nice group, so we'll stay. We are the 2nd most traveled couples at the table.
After dinner we danced to the pool band at Explorers Lounge, they were good and not too loud. After dancing we walked around the Promenade deck, followed by a walk on the top decks. Somewhere on the lido deck a couple of women who were at Explorers complemented us on our dancing. Cool - and it's only the first night.

Now it's bed time, and I'm watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Tomorrow, we head to Princess's private beach so we'll sleep in and head over there for lunch and a walk. Still no extra towels.

Good night.

Off to the Caribbean - wait, there's snow on the ground

Greetings from Washington DC, actually Dulles airport, which for those of you who don't know this - is actually in Virginia.

It's 7am here, which is 4am our time, and we're waiting to board our connecting flight to Miami. From the airport, we'll go to our friends Joan and Rich's home, (if you read my Antarctic blog you may recognize their names) and spend the evening with them. They'll then take us to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow for our 7 day cruise on the Ruby Princess.

On the cruise, we'll make Princess elite status - their highest tier. What's vaguely interesting about that (and when you've had less than 4 hours of sleep it doesn't take much to be interesting) is that to get to that level you need 15 cruise credits (we got two for Antarctica because of the suite) and this is our first Caribbean cruise. Caribbean is a word that I need the spell checker for, so maybe after this cruise I won't any more.

Our flight from SF was short for a cross country flight. I still can't get comfortable in airplane seats to sleep. Oh well.

I will be blogging this trip, although pictures will probably come later since I have limited internet time, and the picture upload was the slow part on the last cruise.

Stay tuned.