Going Home!

(We’re not done yet.  I still have some cruising thoughts on my mind.  Things I forgot to post. Remember, when I’m in cruise mode, thoughts and ideas will get left behind in a hurry.  There’s a good possibility I might do a summary to finalize our cruising adventure).

It’s amazing that we do not hear any of the Bridge/Causeway evening into early morning traffic in our room.  I’m in a deep sleep when Hubby pokes me a few times and tells me it’s 5:30 and we need to get up.  I look over at the hotel room digital clock and it’s wrong.  I tap my dependable iPhone and it says 4:30am.  I flip my wrist and my FitBit says 4:30 as well.  Hubby apologizes for waking me up.  Apparently our room has thin walls as Hubby was listening to all the hallway foot traffic and conversations.  Folks must have been out late partying on a Saturday night into early Sunday morning.  Poor Hubby.

Getting up an hour earlier worked out for me as I still needed to do some final packing and weigh our luggage.  Yes, I found a neat portable luggage scale on Amazon.  I throw it in my suitcase when I travel.  No guessing and no stressing at the airline counter.  The three pieces of luggage:  44, 43, and 41 pounds.

Hubby and I are out on our balcony in time to see the Royal Princess come into Port Everglades:


Take note of the Princess sea witch logo on the front hull of the ship.  The Caribbean Princess will get one as well when it goes into dry dock next month.  Sweet!

We leave our room around 6am and head downstairs to check out.  We are stopped in our tracks as there is a line and one person handling check-ins and check-outs.  I am the fourth person in line and let’s just say it was slooooow moving.  I am getting anxious and did not plan on standing in line at 6am.  My mind is going a mile a minute and then I remember that Hilton has express checkout.  I grab a Hilton Marina Activities flyer off the counter and start scanning the paper.  I quickly text the hotel and within a minute I’m checked out and have a receipt on my iPhone.  Sweet!

As we head out of the hotel, there’s another line.  Really?  I see a lone cab sitting near the entrance to the hotel and I wave to him.  I start chatting with the folks in front of me to see if they are waiting for a cab.  They are not and I’m thinking they are waiting for their Uber/Lyft rides.  We load our luggage into the taxi and off we go to the airport.

Hubby and I have travelled in and out of FLL airport many times.  We prefer to take the first plane out before the throngs of cruisers disembark their ships (remember the picture above) and head to the airport to catch their flights.  For some reason, the airport is extremely busy for 6:15am.  Even more so inside Terminal #3.  There’s a long line for something and I immediately make note it’s not for our airline.  I tell Hubby to look for an open kiosk and he finds one after a few minutes.  Honestly, I know 6am is early for most folks, but i have no patience for folks hovering/congregating around kiosks they are not even using.  I bulk up my shoulders (thanks to my local gym) and make my way through.

I’m pressing the screen at our kiosk and I check the boxes for boarding passes and luggage tags.  Out spits our three long luggage tags and boarding passes.  I forget that in FLL and with our airline that we have to put the tags on ourselves.  I carefully read the instructions on the back of the tags (only 3 steps) and slip the tag through the top handle, peel off part of the backing (keep this as our receipt with baggage claim number), and match the ends and press,  Well, the first one came out wonky, but good enough to stay on the bag.  I got better by the third tag.  Go me!

After going through security, we head over to The Food Network restaurant to get some breakfast:  bagel and smoked salmon for Hubby and an egg and cheese croissant for me.  This will definitely tie us over until we get home.

We arrive at our destination with clear weather, but cold and no snow.

Back in Fort Lauderdale

We are up before 6am to find the Caribbean Princess sailing along the Florida coast.  We take some time to straighten our cabin and then head up to Lido deck 15 to have our last breakfast.  As we are are walking from forward to aft of the ship I glance out the windows to see that we are passing by the tall condos that sit along the side of the Port Everglades channel.  

After a quick breakfast, we are back in our cabin before 7am.  We still have another hour before we need to vacate our cabin for the last time.  We lounge around the best we can, but the anticipation of leaving the ship and ending our cruise is just a bit overwhelming.  We’ve had such a great time on this ship, we did not want to leave.  I have Hubby check all the storage areas around our cabin to make sure I did not leave anything behind.  I also have him check our safe.  It’s always best to have the person who did not do the packing to double-check and look around.  

We leave our cabin promptly at 8am (with feet dragging) and look for Hector.  We give him his gift and thank him for taking care of us and our needs.  

We are suppose to meet our disembarkation group at 8:55 in the Coral Dining Room.  Instead we find a quiet place in Vines and camp out until our disembarkation time.  I pull out my laptop and show Hubby the GoPro videos he made from our snorkeling adventure.  There are quite a few and some are lengthy.  I am glad I purchased the latest version with the two hour battery life.  Now, Hubby is not shy about video taping at great lengths.  

We mosey on over to the Coral Dining Room to find our group had already been called.  Looks like another early disembarkation process.  We have our cruise card “dinged” for the last time as we exit the ship.  So sad….

Down in the cruise terminal (#2) we locate our colored tags.  It takes awhile as others are hoarding and hovering over lots of suitcases.  I wish folks who are not looking for their luggage would just stand a few steps back and away and allow others to get their bags.  After a few minutes of elbowing folks out of the way, we find two of our three suitcases.  Mine is missing!  Great!  I narrow my eyes and focus on the folks standing close to me.  One old chap has my bag next to his.  What?!  I take no time and confiscate my bag.  Yes, I clearly “mark” my bags (as well as the other two) with bright colored luggage tags and bright color shoe strings.  Oh yeah, I wrap the bright color shoe strings around the luggage handle and tie a nice knot.  

Off we go to Immigration to show our passports and hand in our Immigration form.   The Immigration lady waves us on and we quickly leave the terminal to find a taxi.  In less than 5 minutes we are at the Hilton.  Much to our surprise a room was available for us to check in immediately.  Yeah team!  It is now 9:30am.  What a fast disembarkation time for us!

We are on the 11th floor with a balcony view of Port Everglades:

I’m taking pictures and enjoying the view when Hubby says “let’s go” and see the beach!

We drop our bags in the room.  Thank goodness!  I wasn’t too sure how on earth I was going to carry my 14lb backpack and my heavy shoulder bag all over Ft Lauderdale.  

We had plans to take the water taxi to Hollywood Beach (south of Ft Lauderdale).  It was chilly this morning in FLL and a water taxi ride did not appeal to us.  Think 50s or there about.  Also, we would have to wait for the service to start at 10am.  

Instead we hopped on the Sun Trolley and paid $3pp to ride all day.  We are given a bright color bracelet to wear.  Easy for the Trolley drivers to recognize us as we hop off and hop on all day.  The Sun Trolley is easy to to use.  Just look for a “bus stop” sign or even better, just wave when you see a Trolley approaching.  You can’t miss the Trolleys as they are bright yellow.  They will stop and allow you to get on.  For those “app nerds” like me, there’s a Sun Trolley app you can download to your iPhone.  It has maps of the different Trolley routes and shows where the Trolley locations are on the map.  How cool is that?!  

For those of you staying in and around the 17th Street Causeway (T and V), you can pick up the Sun Trolley where it begins it’s FLL Beach route in front of the Publix grocery store in the Harbor Shops shopping center.  

Before I forget, remember I mentioned the FLL Water Taxis?  Well they have an app for iOS as well.  It’s called the “Water Taxi” by TSO Mobile.  It also shows a map and you can track the different water taxi routes.  You can also see the route numbers and the name of the stop/place.  So, the Hilton hotel we are staying at is considered stop is #6 and called Hilton Marina.  For those of you staying in and around 17th Street Causeway (T and V), this is the stop you want to pick up the water taxi.  Just head to the Hilton property and look under the bridge for a white concrete gazebo and you’ll see a small dock with a fence/gate.  There is typically someone there after 10am to help get where you need to go.  When you get on the Ft Lauderdale water taxi and go north along the Stranahan River the stop number increases.  There are two main routes:  Fort Lauderdale and vicinity and Hollywood Beach (to the south).  

Okay, back to our Sun Trolley adventure.  

Traveling on the Sun Trolley this early in the morning is a breeze.  There’s hardly any traffic to compete with and we were wondering where everyone was.  Hubby kept thinking it was Sunday and that got me all turned around.  That’s what happens when you cruise as long as we have.  You stop keeping track of time.  No schedules.  No rushing around.  Just plain fun and relaxation.  Now that we are off the ship, we have to keep track of time.  Eventually, we figure out it’s Saturday.  Still, it’s really quiet here on the beach:  

After walking for several blocks along the beach, we head back and decide to have “second breakfast”.  We end up at Cafe Del Mar on the main drag of Ft Lauderdale Beach Blvd:  

We order some coffee and we were in for a nice surprise:  

We are people watching from our outdoor table:  

Yes!  This is my second breakfast, because I need all the protein I can get for the rest of the day.  I know I just go off the ship, but this was sooooo delicious!  Three-egg veggie omelet:  

Feeling very energized and awake, Hubby and I decide to take the Las Olas Trolley.  From Cafe Del Mar we head towards Las Olas Blvd and walk one block west towards Seabreeze Blvd.  We find a “bus stop” sign on Las Olas Blvd and wait.  Fifteen minutes later the Las Olas Trolley turns the corner and picks us up.  

We are not sure where we want to stop and decide to just sit and ride and see what looks appealing to us.  In Las Olas, there are plenty of shops and restaurants here and old cars:  

Lots of outdoor dining venues:  

Lunch anyone?

Along the way, Hubby and I see some signs about an art show.  We ride by and make a mental note to stop here when the Trolley turns around:  

We hop off and immediately walk around the art show tents.  The first one displayed beautiful underwater photography shots of sea turtle (Tortuga!), fish, coral, etc.  We continue walking and end up at another tent where Samuel was painting beautiful koi.  I enjoy watching him paint and notice he was painting his subjects all the way out to the matted area of paper.  He made it look effortlessly.  Hubby is looking through Samuel’s portfolio and then he stumbles across a turtle painting/print of Tortuga!  Yes, I love little Tortugas!  I hug that print while Hubby continues to look.  I grab a palm tree painting/print and by now we are looking for a third painting to complement what we have.   We keep looking and decide on a simple koi painting with similar colors to the other two I’m holding close to me.  

Samuel is enjoying our company so much he stops painting and starts chatting with us.  We make our purchase and thank him for his time with us.  As we leave, I’m still thinking of another painting/print he has.  It was the first koi painting/print I saw when I stepped into Samuel’s tent.  It took my breath away.  It’s a much smaller print and did not go with the three we already purchased.  We continue to roam around the tents.

We end up in Samuel’s tent again.  I have the “take my breath away” koi print and getting ready to pay for it when Samuel asks if I would be interested in a recent painting he completed this weekend…a signed original.  I said Yes!  He came out with two originals and I immediately picked one that had three koi’s (because odd numbers are better in photography).  Hubby did not wait and purchased the painting.  What a special find!  We also have a new friend we’ll keep in touch with.  

From the art show, we walk back into the Las Olas area.  We find a “bus stop” sign and I check my iOS Trolley app to see where the next Trolley is and when it will arrive. Got to love technology!

Once we are back on the Trolley and heading out of Las Olas, we see lots of yachts along the waterways:  

We also see a water taxi approaching a bridge:  

We are back on the beach and enjoying the weather.  It’s still a bit cooler than the last two weekends and not many people are out today:  

Watching people dine at Bubba Gump’s:  

More people watching:

I check my Sun Trolley app and see a Trolley is heading our way.  We flag her down and by this time it’s getting closer to 3pm.  I’m hoping to be back at the Hilton in time to see the cruise ships leave port.  Traffic is bad and lots of people are using the Trolley today.  We make it back to our room in time.  

Here’s the water taxi coming into stop #6-Hilton Marina:

Lots of boats today:  

Can see the water taxi under the bridge (lower right):

A beautiful megayacht owned by a famous film director.  Can you guess?  

Watching the 17th Street Causeway bridge open up:  

There goes a Sun Trolley as the Caribbean Princess prepares to move away from the port:  

Too bad Hubby and I are not sailing with her back to the ABC islands:  

Day 1 - It's Here! Caribbean Princess (Part 1)

I am up early in anticipation of today’s events.  First things first, I must keep up with my blog and post lots of pictures for those of you following along with us.  As some of you already know, D and M are sailing with us for the first week of our adventure.  

We are going to miss our balcony at the Hilton.  There is always something going on in and around the marina.  Since it’s the start of the weekend, we have a sailing class that’s about to get started:



Some are being pulled along.  They will get their feet wet out along the coast on the Atlantic.  When you see them farther away in the ocean, they look like “tiny pups” on the water.  So cute that I want to take one home with me!



Hubby and I head out for a quick coffee run and simple breakfast and want to get back to enjoy a quick view of our ship, Caribbean Princess which is docked at Terminal #2:



She pulled in versus backing up into the dock area and so we were pleasantly surprised to see her facing us.  What could we do but just smile at her beauty.

Back at the hotel, we finished some packing.  D and M came for a quick visit to see our room with a view.  Since there were four ships in port today, we were not allowed to do a late checkout at 12 noon. We said goodbye to our balcony and waited for what seemed like eons for an elevator to arrive.  Two of the three elevators were working.

After our coffee run, I made a last minute reservation for shuttle service.  This was a first for us.  Normally, we would use the Princess transfer to get on and off the ship.  We decided to do this on our own.  There’s a company, Quick & Easy, that mans a temporary desk in the lobby and offers shuttle services to the cruise port.  They only take cash and I made arrangements for a 12 noon pickup for a party of 4.  We all checked out of our rooms by 11am and settled in around the bar and pool area with our luggage.   No need to have Concierge hold the luggage for a short amount of time.  Save some $.

Around 11:45, I checked to see if a shuttle would be on time.  Much to my surprise, they were waiting for us.  We all hopped into a van with 5 suitcases and 4 bodies and were on way to Port Everglades.  It was at most a 10 minute ride and we were dropped off in the luggage drop off area.  A porter immediately took our luggage.  Since we are Elite, we were able to get D and M to board with us.  We quickly went through security and then through a quick line at the counter to get our cruise cards.  It took about an hour from the time we left the hotel to the time we arrived on the ship.  This was the fastest and hassle-free boarding we have done in our history of cruising.  Another first in our adventure.

I help direct D and M to their cabin on Emerald deck.  They have an obstructed-view window cabin.  On this ship, Princess has done a great job with arranging the furniture and bed in this cabin.  Makes it easier to get into bed from the sides.  Other variations, you would have to get into bed by crawling from the end.  Their view is between two of the ship’s tenders.  Good view.

I head up one deck to Dolphin to our mini-suite/balcony cabin to look for Hubby.  He is relaxing and already in cruise mode.  It didn’t take long for him.

I survey our room and make mental notes or things to do to get our room “functional”.  Last year, we were cruising on Princess’ newer ship, the Regal Princess.  We also had a mini-suite, but the configuration was slightly different and the cubby holes/drawers were much larger and well just more abundant in that cabin.  For example on the Caribbean Princess we have tiny desk drawers, where on other ships we would have shelves behind a door.  Just little differences in where I store things and then trying to remember what’s where.

Our Room With A View

Hubby and I really, really like the Hilton FLL Marina.  It's a beautiful hotel located in the marina.  In the early afternoon we were able to get into our corner room on the 12th floor.  Here's our balcony which continues around the corner:  

 

With lovely views of the marina:

 

Here you can see downtown FLL in the distance:  

 

Backside of the Hilton including the pool area where we were sitting at earlier this morning:  

 

We are enjoying our balcony time so much that we took another stroll down 17th St to pick up dinner and take it back to our room.  The Hilton was providing outdoor Caribbean music while we were dining on our balcony.  What a treat!  

We are slowly fading and I'm sure the lights will be out before 9pm.  Tomorrow will be another adventure for sure.  

We Have Arrived!

Our adventure started around 3:45am this morning.  We left the Hyatt with sleepy eyes and arrived at the airport in time to be #3 at the counter line.  We breezed through security (TSA-pre) or at least one of us did.  I got stopped because the zipper of my down vest or maybe yet, it was my jewelry that set off the bleeping alarm.  Hubby just smiled as he passed by me.  No worries I just smiled and walked through again.  

We boarded our flight and took off around 5:50am.  Two hour or so later...we arrived at our destination in the beautiful and warm Fort Lauderdale.  

 

There's something about traveling in the early morning hours.  Besides being sleepy-heads, it's just peaceful.  

We grabbed a taxi and made it to the Hilton before 9am.  Daniel, at the front desk, noted that I had already checked in and selected a room (yesterday) and that room was not available yet.  No worries.  He said he would text me when it's ready.  We were free to roam around the hotel, but we decided to roam over to Joe's Cafe for some breakfast.  

 

Hubby and I have walked by Joe's so many times before, but never had the need to stop in to eat.  Since breakfast is not included with our Hilton room (like the Embassy Suites we stayed at several times) what the heck let's give it a try.  It's now our favorite breakfast place because of this:

 

Hubby has this thing for Eggs Florentine.  I can't remember if it started while we were cruising or was it at the Dunes restaurant in OC.  At home when I ask him what he wants for breakfast, he says EF.  I reply that it will so many months until we're on a ship and you can have it then.  So now, Joe's Cafe has made our list.  

On our way back to the Hilton, we stop by Lauderdale Diver shop to say hello.  I also add another accessory to our growing GoPro family.  I love visiting this dive shop as they have a nice selection of snorkel gear.  A nice teal (Caribbean) blue snorkel caught my eye.  I restrain myself as we still have to take a trip to FLL beach in search of a bikini...we'll see.  Caribbean blue....

It's around 12 noon and I'm ignoring Hubby's teasing remark..."is it lunch yet?!"  Really?  I'm just enjoying our view for now.  

 

Be back with more....