I got to bed around 4 in the morning, I wake up and it’s
about 6:30. Eric happens to be semi awake as well, so I ask him what the plan
for this morning was, where we are suppose to meet etc. he tells me to meet
everybody on Deck 5 at around 8:30 and that others were going to meet up before
hand for breakfast.
F-that. I’m not making breakfast today, my body simply won’t
let me. So I sleep for another hour and a bit, wake up then pack my bags and
get ready. I get down to our central meeting area, say hi to everyone, drop my
bag off with them, then quickly head on over to the Park Café to have my
Sun-Dried Apricot & Craisin Flavoured Cream Cheese bagel spread on one side
and Smoke Salmon Flavoured Cream Cheese spread on the other side, with a side
of coffee.
Once that has been taken care of, I am a happy camper once
again, and head on back downstairs to meet up with everyone. We all line up and
wait to get off the ship, while we’re in line, I’m talking to other people, and
it sounded like a whole bunch of them decided to pull an all nighter. WOW! I
have to drive today, so no thank you!
We finally all make it past the checkout point and then
someone from my group comes running up to me to inform me that they wouldn’t
let Karen off the ship because she didn’t settle her room bill and that Eric
went with her. Uh-oh, we’re already off the ship, so the only thing we can do,
is stand to the side and wait.
Karen had used her Visa, they had informed her that they
weren’t able to make any charges to her card and that she would have a free
complimentary phone call to her bank to find out why, but when she went up to
guest services to try and fix it earlier on during the cruise, they told her
everything was fine, so she just left it at that. Turns out, they weren’t
really able to charge her card; luckily she had another credit card on her. By
the time Karen and Eric made it through the final checkout point, it was
probably already 9:30 in the morning, and by the time we cleared customs and
walked through the doors back out into the hot Florida sun it was about 10AM.
Perfect, just what I had calculated! Our flight wasn’t until 6PM that night, so we had quite a
bit of time to kill, luckily, this time was factored in before hand and we had
rented 3 vehicles so that we could drive ourselves places. I called the rental
car company and they sent over two vans that would take us to their car rental
facility, where we would conclude the paperwork.
Once that was all done, we proceeded to head on over to the
Galleria Mall, I did some reading online, and people were highly suggesting
this one, so that is why we chose that particular mall, however, little did I
know, that the shops weren’t open until noon, and it was only almost 11. So we
had a little over an hour to kill.
Ly and Derrek had an earlier flight than us, so they had to
be at the airport soon, so I dropped them off at the airport, while the others
just slept in the car. When I came back, I walked inside the mall, and found
that it was already a buzzing, well mostly the food court, which worked for me
since it offered comfortable seating, air conditioning and food!
There wasn’t much to do, at that time except eat. I went to
a place that served chicken! Roasted chicken! They were offering half a chicken
with two sides for about $8 or I could skip the two sides and turn it into a
whole chicken for $1 more, needless to say, I opted for the full chicken! But I
guess I wasn’t as hungry, as I thought I was, ‘cause I was only able to finish
half the chicken, luckily there were others around to help me out.
After lunch we each went our separate ways and walked around
the mall until 2PM, then proceeded to head on back to the rental car facility
to drop the cars off and make our way over to the airport. Once we got there we
saw a lot of our fellow cruisers, just sitting there and waiting for the
check-in gates to open.
Was the rental car a bad idea? Not necessarily. We talked to
one family, they paid $25 per person for two hours, to have a cab take them to
a mall and drop them off at the airport, the mall opened @ 11, so they only got
in about an hour of shopping time and were forced back to the airport.
We talked to others who also rented a car, and others who
paid about $15 per person to go to the mall as well, but didn’t have a time
restriction, so I’d say it works out about evenly.
After talking to everybody at the airport, we found out that
the majority of the people went to Saw Grass Mills Mall, because it was the
closer one and that it opened at 11, ugh! If only we knew that everyone would
be going there, we would have went as well! Oh well!
The previous night, everyone in our party grabbed their
passport information and did the online check-in stuff, I grabbed, Karen,
Grandma’s, Eric and my own passport that very same night to do the online
check-in as well. I checked in Karen and Grandma first, then proceeded to check
myself and Eric in, but for some reason the system wouldn’t let me, it wasn’t
an error message, it was just a message informing me that it couldn’t be done
without providing any reason why.
So at the airport, when checking-in, I found out why, we
were put on the standby list, along with several other passengers from the
cruise. So this was going to be fun, everyone else on the flight, while Eric
and myself sat outside watching the TV screens and listening attentively to the
announcements to see if they called our names. I wasn’t worried though, I knew
we’d make it onto the flight, I even told Quenton that when I walk onto the
flight start clapping and try to get everyone else to clap too. Also, if we
didn’t make the flight, then I knew we would be compensated, so I was secretly
hoping for Air Canada flight credits, but in the end, they called our names and
we made it onto the flight and were welcomed with a round of applause.
Of all the ports that we visited, Haiti, Jamaica and Mexico,
I would have to say that Mexico was my most favorite port. Why? Because there I
got to use all the Spanish that I learnt over the years from watching TV, even
though we got ripped off on the booze and food, it was still a great
experience. Jamaica, I was there a couple years ago, and it was a pretty
similar experience. Haiti, we were just at the beach, and having a wild beach
party, so that wasn't too bad either.
All in all, I would say that this was an excellent and
memorable cruise, it wasn’t the most exciting one, but it was still very fun
and enjoyable, met a lot of great people, had some excellent food and got some
wonderful and cherish able memories.
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