Key Lime and the 3 day

Sunday, July 29 - our first port - Key West.

Beth was excited to visit a bookstore there because it is a non-profit bookstore owned by one of our favorite authors, Judy Blume (Are you there God, it's me Margaret and SuperFudge). So after breakfast in Luminae we gathered our stuff, got some water and headed off the ship. We walked out of the port area, and turned to Google maps to guide us for the about 12 block walk to the bookstore. We arrived just after 10:00 and were relieved to see that it was already open.

Sadly, Judy was not there, but the very nice young lady told us that if we bought books, they could be autographed and then shipped. Beth bought a book for her super fan daughter, and I got one of her adult books. Both will be shipped to Beth in about a week. We also asked where we should go for Key Lime Pie. She gave us a couple of suggestions consistent with what we'd read on the web. We decided to go to the Key West Key Lime Pie CO, with Kermet's as a back up.

Our other stops were planned to be Starbucks so Beth could download books to her Nook, and a mail box or the post office so she could mail letters to her kids. We decided to do the pie first (everyone should have a piece of pie at 11:05 am) since there was another ship coming in, and we wanted to get the pie before it got too crowded.

So, we made a slight wrong turn, and ended up at the Key Lime Bakery. We decided to turn and around and find the shop we planned to. About 5 minutes later we arrived, ordered our slice of pie and sat down to enjoy it. Right after we started, a tour group arrived, and their leader said for everyone to find a place and he'd bring the pie. We decided to finish quickly to give them the table, but all but one couple disappeared. They told us it had been a bike tour, but was at the end, so I guess people took their pie and left. We had a nice chat with the couple that were there, and then decided to go to Starbucks, then post office. I found a Starbucks about two blocks from the post office, back by where the book store was. So back down the main street (Duval) we went. We found the Starbucks, and a CVS nearby, so we decided to go to Starbucks, then post office, and then a stop at CVS before heading back to the ship.

We had our coffee, Beth did her download, and we headed to the post office. We arrived at the location, and no sign of it. We asked in a store and they pointed us to a brick building across the street. We walked over and saw it was the side of it. The grounds had a couple of iguanas, and a lot of chickens running around. Beth mailed her letters, and we headed back to CVS. We bought a few items and then headed back to the ship. As we were approaching the pier, someone tapped us on the shoulder from behind. It turned out to be our friend Melissa from the sweep team in San Diego. She and her relatively new husband were also on the cruise. We decided to have breakfast in Blu tomorrow morning.

We headed back on the ship, dropped our stuff, and went up to the buffet for lunch.

Later in the afternoon we headed to Michael's club for afternoon tea. We enjoyed cucumber sandwiches and chicken sandwiches, as well as desserts and scones. We'd been invited to the helipad for Sailaway, so at about 4:35, we made our way to deck 6. A security officer was there, and told us that the group had already gone, so we headed down the hall and joined the group.

We spent some time talking with our roll call people, and enjoyed watching the Florida keys disappear.

Tonight was formal night, and so after leaving the helipad, we got ready for dinner. It was evening Chic night, so we had reserved seating in the theater. At about 6:45 we headed down to the theater. Jo seated us and we settled down to watch Jessie Hamilton Jr sing. He's most known for playing Simba in the Lion King on broadway. He was moderately entertaining.

We then headed to Luminae. There weren't a lot of good seats available, so Auri (the maitre'd) suggested we go to Michael's to wait for the table. Serken, our favorite waiter, said it would be about 10 minutes. We sat down and started chatting with a couple from the San Diego area. Turns out they are in the room next to us. By about 8:30, the concierge had left, so we asked one of the bartenders to call the restaurant. She did, and they said it would be about 5 to 10 more minutes. Ok, we continued chatting. Finally, close to 9, Auri arrived to tell us our table is ready.

For dinner, I had beef tartare, a tomato watermelon salad and cote de beoff. All good.

After dinner, we headed up to the room, still catching up on sleep.