All aboard

I really needed the sleep because I was out cold before midnight and didn’t get up until 8am.  After getting up, I stepped outside our room where breakfast was being served.  We got all of our stuff packed up but before leaving, we walked the half block over to the beach.  It was a lot warmer than we thought so we decided to ditch the jeans for shorts.  Apparently freezing temperatures are heading to South Florida.  Lucky for us we were out of there.

We got in the car and decided to take the long way to Miami down Highway A1A.  It was nice driving along the water in spots.  We saw lots of very fancy homes and boats, and lots and lots of condos.  Just as we got into Miami Beach, we stopped by the Metropole Hotel, the home to the Jersey Shore gang.  It looked nothing like it did on TV.

We dropped the car off at Hertz and then it was a quick five minute drive to the Port of Miami.  There were five ships in port today … Norwegian Dawn, Norwegian Pearl (our boat), Carnival Glory, Carnival Valor and Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas.

From the time that we were dropped off, to the time that we were on board took a total of twenty minutes.  We had lunch at the Garden Cafe and enjoyed the awesome buffet.  After the buffet we took a tour of the Mandara Spa.  It was very nice, and they offer lots of great services.  By the time we were done, the staterooms were ready.  We are in cabin 9124 and it is pretty spacious for a cruise ship.  There seems to be more closet area than on our last ship and the bathroom is huge, relatively speaking.  Balcony is great, and nice for watching Miami fade into the distance, and we headed towards the Caribbean.

After getting settled in our room, we headed to dinner in the Indigo Main Restaurant.  We want to keep track of what we each had this trip so this part of the story might get lengthy. Karen had the endive, apple and roquefort cheese salad with cranberry walnut vinaigrette, sesame crusted swordfish with jasmine rice, scallions and teriyaki cream sauce and for dessert a sampling of cheese.  I had the garden salad with Italian dressing, rosemary roasted chicken with butter mashed potatoes, carrots and peas and pan gravy and I had the vanilla cream puffs with strawberry coulis.

We decided to do some exploring but with the wind being very strong, we were afraid to get blown off the back of the boat, so we came back to the room so that I could start working on the blog.

We’re heading to the 9:30pm show in the Stardust Theatre called “Experience Entertainment”. And then at midnight, we’re going to the Crystal Atrium to watch “Twilight Eclipse”,  Team Edward or Team Jacob … so many decisions!