First of all, Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all! I started this post before I went to bed on St. Paddy’s Day (Thursday night), and I’m doing some last minute packing of mostly my electronic gear; i.e. cords adapters, meds etc. Steve (DOS) and I had already finished the majority of our packing a couple days ago for this upcoming month long trip.
I was at the podiatrist yesterday, and posted a couple of these photos on Facebook of the happy looking Leprechaun and St. Paddy’s decorations while I was in the waiting room. I have flat feet and wanted a follow-up shot for my left heel, while I sometimes wear a portable plastic Ritchie Brace on my right foot if I do any significant walking, such as what we will be doing over the next month.
Now that Steve (DOS) and I are retired, and COVID and health issues have subsided, we are traveling a bit more than normal, even for us. We are blessed to be able to travel so much, and as I always tell people, “travel now, while you can”, meaning who knows what tomorrow brings, be it COVID , health issues, family, financial or other. We are taking two different cruises, the first a 19 day cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Vancouver, Canada, and the second a 7 night cruise out of Los Angeles to the “Mexican Riviera”, then flying back from LAX to MCO, with a three day stopover in LA before the second cruise. The first and longer cruise is a repositioning cruise thru the Panama Canal, and has quite a few sea days, which we love.
As we are leaving out of Fort Lauderdale, but ultimately returning from Los Angeles, we rented a car one-way to get us to Fort Lauderdale, and then we will fly back from LAX and Uber home. We picked up a Subaru SUV at the nearby Orlando Sanford Airport on Thursday, and dropped it off at Fort Lauderdale Airport this evening (Friday), taking the hotel shuttle back to the Hyatt Place hotel where we are staying tonight as a one night pre-cruise getaway.
I write this every time we cruise, but always, always, always, stay at a hotel reasonably near the cruise port at least one day prior to the cruise leaving, unless the port is only an hour or so away, such as Port Canaveral is to us when we sail out of there. This trip we are sailing from Fort Lauderdale, which is only a four hour drive from our home in the Orlando area, but with traffic, possible car issues etc, it’s nice to arrive a day early and actually relax prior to the cruise, as well as get on the ship earlier. On this trip (as usual) we way overpacked so it was nice to get away from the house early; otherwise we would keep finding extra things to pack! LOL!
We left the house this morning in Orlando around 10:30am, and with a couple stops and some light traffic as we approached Ft. Lauderdale, got to our hotel around 2:45pm. Once again on this trip, we are staying at the Hyatt Place Hotel, which is conveniently located near Port Everglades, and is also walking distance to several restaurants.
We ate at Outback Steakhouse tonight, which is just a couple blocks from our hotel. As it was Friday night, it was quite busy, with a mix of diners, much like the hotel guests, probably going on a cruise in the morning.
It’s now 10:30pm, and we’re back at the hotel, and excited to be going on the cruise in the morning! We had our required COVID tests done yesterday at a Walgreen’s drive through back home, and fortunately both of us tested negative. Even though we both have had the Moderna booster, (3 shots total) there’s always a chance of testing positive, be it an asymptomatic case, or false positive. So YES, we are cleared to go! DOS just finished putting the cruise tags on our 4 pieces of checked luggage, and 4 carry-ons, just in case!
In the morning, after breakfast in the hotel, we will take an Uber XL to the port around 10 am or so for an 11am check-in on the Caribbean Princess. Until then, we will try to get some sleep as we’re both so excited. Until then, Good Night from Fort Lauderdale!
