Reflections of My Travel

We left Orlando around 08:30 this morning with my sissy and brother-in-law (BIL) on our way to south Florida.  We took our time a made a few stops along the turnpike before arriving at Holiday Park in the Ft Lauderdale area.  We joined several other tourists on an airboat tour of the Everglades

pretty much the same as ours

where we managed to catch two alligators hanging out in the swamp,

first gator

second gator

an osprey roosting in a tree,

osprey

a couple of large iguanas sunning on the tree limbs (hardly visible in my pix), and other wildlife. 

birdies

vultures

I’ve never been on an airboat so it was a fun new experience.  Especially when the pilot picked up speed and drifted around corners… what a great ride! 

it was pretty out there

Considering it was a cool and windy day, I think we were very lucky to have made so many wildlife sightings.  After the airboat, they had a quick gator show

big mommas

look mom, no hands!

and then we were on our way to lunch.  Once we had enjoyed a bit of sustenance, we made our way south to check out Miami’s South Beach. Now, of course, I have to compare to my backyard (which I miss very much). The South Beach sand is much denser than ours in that you sink into our sand when you walk on it but the Miami sand stayed solid beneath our feet. It was also a courser and slightly darker sand and the beach itself was far wider than ours. The water was a nice shade of teal, not very different from ours, and had bigger waves, being the Atlantic and all. I also appreciated the well maintained activity trail that runs along the beach. We probably walked a mile or so along the water’s edge

sissy, BIL, hubby, and the shadow of my head

sissy trying out the water

sissy and BIL strolling along south beach

either an intense argument or a romantic mating ritual, hard to say

and then took the street route back toward the car so that we could appreciate the local flavor of the architecture.

fun stairs

i would love to get inside the top of that turret and look around

neat looking building

there she waves

Instead of hotels and condos, the ocean front is reserved for high-end restaurants (across the street, nothing beach-side). The restaurants had sidewalk seating so we fully experienced the unique ambiance of each restaurant, all thoroughly impressive. We, however, headed back to Ft Lauderdale to check into our hotel, get changed, and grab dinner there. Tomorrow, we cruise!

This morning, we were able to sleep in just a bit before the hotel’s breakfast bar was closed. We then took our time checking out of the hotel and found our way to the Port Everglades cruise terminal (after a quick stop at the Ramada Visitor Welcome Center to get our boarding voucher). Oh. My. Goodness. I know that this is a small cruise line, but good grief at the embarkation process. We waited in several different lines. Long lines. We had security, luggage check, paperwork, check-in, dinner reservations (what?!), security photos, embarkation photos, and, finally, gangway entrance. It took us one hour and forty-five minutes to board the ship. Craziness.

Perhaps this would be the time to stop and explain that this was a “free cruise” (had to pay port charges and fuel surcharge, which was practically nothing). The travel agency we booked last year’s cruises with offered this little two-night cruise as an incentive to book with them. Since we did two cruises back-to-back with them, we got two free cabins on this Imperial Majesty line. I had looked it over online beforehand and I really wasn’t expecting much. Since my sissy and BIL were joining us, I tried my best to prepare them. I repeatedly told them that I was not expecting a great, luxurious trip but that the four of us would be together having fun and that would make it worthwhile.

All of that to say this… I was very pleasantly surprised by this ship. It was far nicer than I expected it to be. The only thing that met my low expectations (and maybe even sank them) was the staterooms. I was a bit taken aback when I walked in and found two pull-down cots in bunk bed form. Seriously, the “room” is 6’x6’, enough space to have one cot going across the back wall and one cot above that going down the left side wall.

our very own luxury jail cell

The bathroom is pretty standard for a cruise ship but that room?! The beds?! I truly was not expecting the bunk bed situation. Even that wasn’t as bad as the bedding that was on them – threadbare sheets and ragged blankets. Oh well, considering how much nicer the rest of the ship is compared to my expectations, I can deal.

When we met back up with sissy and BIL, we took the tour of their stateroom (also bunks, but one directly over the other as opposed to our perpendicular ones which made more room for storage) and they took the tour of ours before we all headed up to the lunch buffet.

while we found many desserts at the buffet, we never did find any deserts on the ship. yes, we were highly amused by the english-as-a-second language all over the ship.

We then spent the afternoon attempting to nap in our respective staterooms but they kept making very loud announcements over the PA system every fifteen minutes or so which was not at all conducive to me napping. We all met back up, some more rested than others, for the muster station drill and a continued exploration of the ship.

BIL, the painter, found and inspected the paint locker

whereas sissy was more interested in playing with the fishies

and hubby got all electric! boogie woogie woogie with the electric slide

We spent some time on the very comfortable poolside loungers,

lounging around the pool

sissy and BIL relaxing sans kiddies

enjoyed our view of the sail-away,

pretty bridge and yachts

my attempt at the technicolor csi-miami condo shot

our small passage

a look back at ft lauderdale

hubby, me, and a lovely sunset

and eventually made our way to our scheduled dinner.

I had mentioned earlier that one of the long lines that we encountered during the embarkation process was for dinner reservations. This ship does the standard early/late seatings but you also have to choose your dining room. There is the normal sit down with a menu and order restaurant and there is a themed buffet restaurant (also another fancy restaurant for which you have to pay extra). We made our reservations for the buffet tonight and the standard dining room tomorrow night. The theme for the buffet tonight was Brazilian and it was in the style of a mini-churrascaria– we made a buffet run for salads and sides and then they came around to all of the tables with long skewers of meat (beef, turkey, sausage, and duck – yeh, duck) and put slices on our plates as long as our tag was turned to green.

pirates!

After dinner, the show. There was a Tina Turner style singer with a lovely voice and impressive dancing considering the extreme motion of the ship and her six inch stilettos. She was followed up by a British comedian who started out very funny but lost me a bit when his show turned into impersonations of cultures around the world. 

 We followed up the shows by sneaking into the teens-only lounge for a little play time before bed.

hubby plays wii tennis

BIL and sissy start a dance dance revolution

sissy getting down with her bad self

BIL challenging hubby to guitar hero

hubby accepting the challenge in comfort

This morning, we all had to wake up early to meet up for breakfast before our snorkeling excursion. We got off the ship in Nassau and were led to a boat that would take us out to the reef. After a thirty minute ride, we were shuffling off the boat and into the water. To ensure that we saw plenty of fish, the guides released fish food a few times and they swarmed to the buffet. For the most part, us four stayed off to ourselves, exploring some nicer coral formations further from the boat.

brain coral

funnel shaped coral

bowl shaped coral

The seas were up and I kept having to go from one side to the other to find hubby or sissy so I got a pretty good workout of flippering while looking at all the pretty fishies.

yellow/blue fishie

what's black and white and red all over?

blue/yellow fishie

parot fish

silver yellow-tailed fishies

convict striped fishie

camouflage fishie

striped needle fishie

speckled needle fishie

charcoal/yellow fishie

little puffer fishie

gray speckled fishies

lots-o-fishies

electric blue fishie

close up and personal

We were given a little more than forty-five minutes of water time and were the last ones back on the boat, with the exception of BIL who had gotten pretty green in the water, even with his patch.

sissy fishie

The ride back seemed more leisurely than the ride out there. 

tiger woods' house

we passed a sailboat race

self-portrait with sailboats

atlantis resort

cool sissy

bahamas celebration

the ship lineup - ours is the little one on the left

bahamas celebration

hubby playing around in the port market

We made it back to the ship in time for lunch, which we had in the main dining room. Here is where I tell you about the fabulous cream of asparagus soup – I so could have made a meal of it and the warm bread. Also, I ordered some lemon meringue tort thing for dessert and it was the first non-ice cream or sherbet dessert that I’ve had on a cruise ship that was worth eating. With full bellies, we got back off the ship and walked around town for a couple of hours

i think it's pretty, i reply

and then spent some time in and around the pool before dinner and show time.

sissy and BIL checking out the pool

this was the first "above ground" pool i've seen on a cruise ship

sunset from the sea

BIL and sissy

hubby and me

Dinner was a bit of a flop for me. I’m not sure whether it was snorkeling in the rough water or if my stomach had finally had enough of the horribly exaggerated rocking of this ship, but I just couldn’t eat. I had a few of the warm rolls but that was nearly it. My salad was warm and I couldn’t seem to get past that for more than a couple of bites. I ordered pasta, which was good, but I could only stand a bite or two of it. I was so hot in that dining room that I had to get up and walk around the ship for a few minutes before coming back for dessert, a warm strawberry mousse of which I could only eat less than half.

The show was another comedian, who was not only very funny but an exceptional tap dancer, and an impersonation singer/dancer. I wasn’t expecting that one to be very entertaining but he was actually pretty good. We swung by the karaoke bar for a few minutes but went to bed fairly early since it’s going to be a way too early morning.

towel dog