My husband and I went on a cruise a while back. This week as I was thinking about what to write for “travel” I suddenly remembered that I had been journaling during the entire cruise trip. I looked through some old files on my hard drive and finally found the entire 7-day detailed description of the trip! It was 10 pages long, so I won’t force you to read through the entire trip. However, I think the story of how we got to Florida from Idaho is pretty entertaining. Here is (almost verbatim) my description of the trip (I will warn you in advance – this blog is a little long).
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February 2007
We were flying Delta airlines and one of our friends dropped us off at the airport at 7:30pm. There were many funny things that happened on this flight. We had arrived early and were at the terminal waiting for our plane to depart. We still had about 30 minutes until the plane was scheduled to leave. All of the sudden, this sweaty, plump little guy (resembling a blend of George Costanza and Newman from Seinfeld) wearing an Indiana Jones hat and camo pants comes RUNNING down the corridor. He was SO afraid he was going to miss his flight! It was really funny to watch him once he realized he was early and indeed had not missed his flight. He then proceeded to take off his over-shirt because he was so hot and only had this little, tiny wifebeater undershirt on. Sheridan and I were trying to stifle our laughter (ironically this guy ended up flying on the same flights as us all the way to Atlanta).
I forgot to mention, on this first flight we were directly across from the airplane bathroom, and on all the other flights we were VERY close to it. Thanks Orbitz. We soon arrived in Salt Lake where we had a four hour layover. I was going to have some family come visit us, maybe go out to dinner, but it didn’t really work out because they all had prior arrangements and my 16-year old sister was too afraid to drive on the freeway (she had just gotten her license and wasn’t yet comfortable on the highway). But, it ended up working out better, because I had a 12-page paper due in one of my classes by 5:00pm on Monday (but I wanted to get it done as soon as possible so I could enjoy my vacation). So, in SLC I worked on the paper (with a lot of Sheridan’s help). Oh yes, I forgot to mention that the whole week before this I had strep throat with a temperature of up to 105 degrees and was still recovering from my sickness. Luckily, Sheridan hadn’t caught it and was able to take care of me all of last week. I was still a little weak, but the antibiotics were making me feel much better. We departed SLC at 11:45 pm (MST) and landed in Atlanta, GA at 5:05 am (EST)!!! Talk about a long trip! Sheridan has a hard time sleeping on planes so he let me lay down on his lap (we didn’t have a third person to fill the seat next to us) and I was able to sleep while he watched some movie about Robin Williams running for president.
Day Two – Sunday February 18, 2007
So, technically this is already day two, although we never really got a chance to sleep after day one. We get to Georgia and have about a two-hour layover and I only have about half my paper done. Although I am completely exhausted, I plugged in my laptop and started working on my paper relentlessly (one again, with much of Sheridan’s help organizing my tired ideas). At 7:20 am we leave Georgia for Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Keep in mind we had been traveling for more than 24 hours straight at this point.
This is where the story gets interesting.
We land in Ft. Lauderdale at around 9:00ish (AM Eastern Time). I still have to put the final page on my paper. Luckily, in Ft. Lauderdale, the wireless internet is free at the airport! We had plopped down on one of the airport chairs and I worked to finalize the paper. I get my paper done (nearly 12 full pages) and email it to Dr. Kim. Yay! What a relief! My paper is all done.
So, it is now probably about 10:00 am and we have to get from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami (about 30 miles) and don’t know how we are going to get there. We could have taken a shuttle through the cruise line, but that was going to cost $40 per person, and we didn’t want to waste $80 and figured we could find a better way there. HusbandThursday (then BoyfriendThursday) thinks he is being smart, and decides to ask the old bum sitting on the corner the cheapest way to get to Miami. He gave the bum a dollar for the directions. The bum tells us that you can catch the 1 and then the 12 and that will get you to Miami for $1.50. So, we decide, why not?? We still have about 6 hours until the boat leaves, let’s try the bus!! So, we get on the first bus at the airport (remember we have ALL of our luggage for the cruise: my huge, enormous bag, Sheridan’s bag, our scuba gear bag, Sheridan’s suit bag, and my big old honkin’ purse). We get on the bus and ask the bus driver, “Can you get us to Miami?” He smiles, laughs, and says he will tell us when we need to get off.
We ride the bus through some really sketchy parts of town, we are both trying not to make eye contact with anyone – the people on the bus were really shady. Keep in mind we are two innocent little white people from Idaho. I have never ridden a public bus in my entire life!! However, Florida is really pretty! I’ve never seen real live palm trees before. Turns out, halfway, we have to switch busses because Miami is in a different county than Ft. Lauderdale. So, we get on a different bus with even ghettoer people than the bus before.
This was the trip from hell. The bus stopped EVERY block. The whole bus ride took us two very long hours! You must also remember - neither Sheridan nor I had really gotten any sleep the night before. Picture this. We are sitting on this bus, trying to hold ALL of our luggage either between our legs or on our laps. We are both nodding off occasionally because we are so incredibly tired. In an attempt to stay awake, we ended up talking to the lady beside us. She was really friendly and told us where we could get off in Miami that would be closest to the cruise ports.
If we would have realized how far away from the ports we were, we probably would have taken a taxi. But, what we didn’t realize is that we were on the completely opposite side of the port! We had to walk around for about 30 minutes before we finally realized we were even on the wrong side!! Then we decided we could just walk across the bridge to the correct side of the port (about 3/4 mile). We had been trudging around our entire luggage (switching off, because my luggage had rollers, but the two other bags were so heavy). I swear, people probably would have thought we had been evicted from our homes if they had seen us rolling around these massive amounts of luggage in downtown Miami!
Finally we arrived at the ship! Both Sheridan and I are sweating at this point, my hair looks like crap because it is so windy outside, but we finally made it to the ship! There were about 5 ships leaving today, and ours was the very last one – so we had to walk about an extra mile or more just to get to our ship. But, we made it in time, which was all that mattered. We showed our passports and driver’s licenses and got on the ship. We check into our room and are pleasantly surprised that our room has a window! We didn’t pay the extra fee for that, so it was nice. I am really just exhausted at this point (my body is still really weak from being sick the week before). After we explore the boat a little, we decided to take a quick nap to rejuvenate our spirits. What an interesting start to our trip!! I hope isn't a sign that the rest of the trip will be hectic and crazy! We will see from here....
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