Day 16

Tuesday, Oct. 11

Well, there is Fort Lauderdale.  It is still dark outside at 7:00, so at this point all we can see is the lights of the port and city.  It is pretty impressive looking from our balcony.  There are lots of lights along the shoreline, tall buildings that seem to be right on the beach, and the full moon hanging over it all.  It is a beautiful view.

The pilot took us into the docking area, and then they parallel parked alongside the Princess pier.  That continues to be an impressive feat to watch this guy pull up, and then back into a spot.  The pier is one slip separated from a big tank farm so our imagination went somewhat overboard trying to imagine what would happen in an accident.  The Hollywood airport must be just off to the side as there were a pile of airliners coming in to land.  I think we’ve seen too many disaster movies.

Disembarking is quite a process.  We had time to go for breakfast as we had to be out of our staterooms by 8:00, but weren’t getting off the ship until 9:30.  We met in the buffet and had our last breakfast on the ship (we’ll miss the great service and all the choices for our meals).  Then it was downstairs to gather in one of the bars to wait for our call to get off.  Karen had ordered wheelchairs for mom and dad so they wouldn’t have to walk a lot.  Just before 9:30, we got our call and then we departed.

The terminal was another display of great organization.  They had to get 2000 people off the ship so they could get it cleaned up and ready for another 2000 boarding in the afternoon.  We got down to where our luggage was waiting.  It took a while to find it, but at least they had a good system for that.  Our tags were green 1, so we first found green, and then the lines where the number 1’s were kept.

The fellows wheeling mom and dad’s chairs got a porter who managed to put all of our bags onto one cart, and then they all went with us to pass through customs and take us out to the buses and taxis.  The porter let me use his phone to call our hotel to see if they had a shuttle.  They did, and promised to be at the pier in half an hour.  He was.

Princess kept pretty good care of us as we waited.  One of the cruise employees (who I imagine lived in Ft. Lauderdale) kept an eye out for us, and when we saw the shuttle coming, helped us with all the bags.  Again, the driver was able to squeeze all of them into the van, and off we went.  We weren’t supposed to check in until 4:00, and it was only 10:00, so he took us for a short drive around the beach area before going to the hotel.  It was a pretty nice gesture.

Once at the hotel, they allowed us to store our bags and we hunkered down to wait.  I had the information for our car rental tomorrow, but there was no phone number and no address, so I didn’t know where we were to go to pick it up.  The front desk fellow didn’t know where there were any Budget rentals around, so I asked to use his phone book.  Wouldn’t you know it; there were about 8 different locations.  Then another staff member came and looked Budget up on the computer.  That at least got us a phone number, and I tried calling (we wanted to rent a van for the day so we could tour around).

Well, the place we called knew nothing about us renting a vehicle.  I was on hold for a while at the beginning, and then the battery on the house phone ran out.  After waiting another half an hour, we tried again.  About that time, the desk informed us that our rooms were ready.  It was only just after 11:00, so that was very nice of him.  In the meantime, while we were checking in, I managed to get in touch with Budget again, and the fellow there looked us up on the computer.  He was able to find our reservation at another site, and gave me the phone number there.

Then, once we were in our rooms, I contacted that office.  They didn’t have any vans in, but he was willing to call around to see if anyone else had one available.  I called him back about ½ hour later, and he had found one.  He had to have it driven over to his location, and then cleaned if necessary, and then it was ours.

When I called him back again, he had just gotten it.  It had to be vacuumed out first, but it would take us at least a half hour to get to his location.  He gave us directions and we called a cab.  Within a few minutes, a cab showed up and we were off.

Dawn had a great discussion about American politics with the driver, who seemed to have a lot of opinions.  He enjoyed talking, so we didn’t have much to do except look and listen.  Just over $20 later, he got us to the Budget place, and we went in to get the van.  The place was in a shopping mall, and the store looked just like any other retail outlet, so it was interesting to try and figure where the vehicles would be stored.

The fellow had quite a sense of humour.  First he said he didn’t have any vans, and didn’t know anything about what I was talking about.  After a brief time, he started laughing and let us off the hook.  We had a pretty good laugh about that.  Once we got the papers signed, he took us out the back to where he had a Dodge van.  We got the keys and directions to the road back to the hotel (again, thank goodness for the GPS), and we were off.

Once we got back, we picked up the others, and then went off to find some lunch.  By now, it was about 2:00, so we thought we would get something light to eat.  Dad wanted shrimp, so I looked for restaurants in the GPS system.  It located lots of them around us, and one of them was Red Lobster, about 4 km from where we were.  It took some time to get there (they allow U-turns at intersections in this state!!), but when we got there, we went in.

Well, to make a long story short, we didn’t have a light lunch.  It turned out to be a very filling feed of shrimp and we weren’t going to need supper tonight.

After that we decided to go for a drive.  The waiter had indicated where we should go to find the hockey arena where the Panthers play, so off we went to find it (Dawn and I are hoping to go to a game on the 15^th).  Of course, I took the wrong main road, and when we got to the end of this road (at least a half hour later, likely longer), the only choice I had was to go on the turnpike.  I knew the direction we had to go, so we went.  Wouldn’t you know it, this was a toll highway, and I couldn’t find any way to get off the highway.  Luckily dad had a $1 bill, which was the toll.  When I gave it to the lady, I asked her how we got off this highway.  She just laughed.  Wouldn’t you know it, the very next exit (about 800m) was where we were to get off the highway to find the arena (we could see it).

The sky had been very black since we went into the restaurant, and the rain finally came.  It poured for about 10 – 15 minutes, and then it was over.  We were heading back towards our hotel, and then decided to continue on, to view the beach.  We aren’t that far from the beach and it was quite easy to get there (by car).

There is a highway that runs right along the beach so we drove west on that one, all the way to the channel where our ship came in.  We could see our ship leaving off in the distance, as it started on its way back to Los Angeles (that will be its route over the winter – LA to Ft. Lauderdale and back).  It was heading into the area where the hurricanes were coming ashore on the west coast of Mexico, so we were happy that we weren’t onboard.  There are some pretty fantastic looking hotels along the beach – ones we don’t think we could afford to stay at.  Also, there are some pretty fantastic yachts parked in people’s back yard (there are channels all over the place).

After that it was back to the hotel to do some relaxing and finish off the day.  Dawn and I used the laundry to wash some clothes.  We were able to hang shirts, etc. to dry in our room, and those things that could be dried, we did.  I got caught up on my emails and Dawn watched the baseball game.  Then it was time for bed.  This being in the east means that ball games are on TV much later than they are at home, so the games are generally very late for us.  We didn’t finish the game before we fell asleep, so that was one of the major orders of the day upon waking.

Well, more about that tomorrow.