I was awake early…like 5 am early. We were still on the ocean early. So I watched us approach port, and, eventually, dock. And…they use pickup trucks to move the lines here?!
Needless to say, we arrived safely back in Fort Lauderdale. I got ready for the day, gaped at the line of forklifts moving luggage into the terminal, and took some pictures as the sun came up, while reconnecting with society, and trying to decide if I had a sore throat or not. I had had SOME texting ability over the course of this cruise, but it had been MUCH spottier than on our cruise last February.
Around 8 we gathered our stuff and headed down to Royal Palace, where we met up with Kim and John. Breakfast was…the last day breakfast. We chatted with our table neighbors, ate the most boring meals of the cruise, and chatted a bit more with our servers. Eventually we realized we’d prolonged the inevitable as long as we could, said goodbye to Edison and Ekkaphon, and headed out, joining the line off the ship in the atrium after a quick bathroom stop. And of course, we got some last minute pictures while we waited in line.
Disembarkation was EASY. We easily found our luggage, figured out how to use the facial recognition stuff, and all too soon we were in the ride share area, requesting an Uber to the Fort Lauderdale Airport. The rideshare area is definitely nicer at this port than New Orleans, and was pretty well organized. Our Uber, a Chevy Traverse, arrived about 10 minutes later. We loaded ALL the luggage in, and climbed in.
Everything went smoothly for the first couple minutes. Then I discovered that there’s a security checkpoint LEAVING the port too. And of course my ID was in my backpack, way in the back of the vehicle. So I had to jump out and get that. So, if you’re sailing Disney out of Fort Lauderdale, make sure you have your ID on you IN THE CAR, upon return. But, after that quick little issue, it was a smooth trip over to the Southwest departures area of FLL.
Yes, you read that right. I know you’re thinking, “but you just ended the last chapter of this report saying there are several vacation days left”. And you’re right. We wound our way inside and followed the signs across a series of escalators and walkways to the rental car center, where we headed straight out to the garage for Alamo. You know I did the skip the counter stuff. Also, if you ever need to pick up a rental car at the Fort Lauderdale Airport when you’re not flying in, you want the terminal that Southwest is in. Otherwise, you’re taking a shuttle from whatever terminal you’re dropped off at.
I had HEAVILY debated what size rental car to go with, and in the end, had taken advantage of a good price on a “premium crossover” because this would hold 7 people, so we knew there would be room for luggage. This was listed as a “Dodge Durango or similar”. When we got to the dude who directs people to rows, he saw my paperwork and said “why don’t you take that Infiniti right on the end there”, and pointed to an Infiniti QX60. So we headed in that direction.
We loaded the luggage into a VERY nice vehicle, settled in, programmed the GPS, and we were off! It was…not the most relaxing drive…to our destination, because Miami area traffic, but it sure was a smooth ride. This is a REALLY nice rental car!!!
It was a little over an hour to our destination: Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. This had popped up on my radar via a facebook post about Florida botanic gardens on one of my billion sick days this school year (no, really…between sick days and funerals I missed 10% of this school year…), and I decided it should be part of our itinerary. None of us had been here before, Kim LOVES flowers, and I love tropical.
Um, this place was awesome. It’s so big we actually only saw half of it. They’ve got a large variety of different types of gardens, plus a butterfly house. There’s a great little cafe where we had lunch too. We ALL enjoyed it and felt this stop was well worth it.
Once we’d sufficiently seen approximately half of Fairchild Garden, we got back in the rental car and drove to our hotel for the next two nights, the Courtyard Miami Homestead. I think this took about 45 minutes, but it was a much less stressful drive than the drive from FLL to the garden had been. Once at the hotel, we checked in, agreed to text about dinner, and went to settle into our rooms.
This hotel was…pretty good. The room actually wasn’t bad at all. The hallway, particularly the carpet, was showing a decent amount of wear and tear. But other than the worn-ness of the hall carpet, the place was in decent shape, everything worked, and the employees were pleasant and helpful. The location was also convenient for this next leg of our trip.
After a bit, Nick and I figured out where we wanted to eat. We texted his folks, and got…no response. After probably an hour of no response from them, we figured they were asleep, so we decided on a plan B and went to get dinner. We went to Chick Fil-A. Chicken sandwich (no damn pickles!) for me, nuggets for Nick. The Lord’s chicken was delicious, as always.
On our way back, we stopped at the Publix across from the hotel for a case of water, some muffins for breakfast and to scope out what lunch could look like the next day. By now, Nick’s parents had texted back, and sure enough, they’d fallen asleep for a couple of hours. We offered to bring food from Publix for them, but they declined, so we got our water and then headed back to the hotel.
Back in the hotel, Nick played games on his phone and I joined Kim and John for a bit on the patio out back, where they were finishing up dinner from the Bistro inside. They both were very happy with their dinner, so all was good. We visited for a bit, but it was really breezy, so I got pretty cold (that’s my excuse anyway), so I headed back to the room after a bit.
Showers got taken, I tried denying that my throat was sore and my congestion was increasing, and after we all had agreed on a meeting time for the morning, I crashed hard.
