It was both.
First, though, a moment of celebration. 100 injury free, illness free, infection free days. We're still having fun, still going strong. Still debating just how long we'll be here...
But I first need to back up to when we were awakened by our usual turnaround day alarm of thrusters and rattling just after 6am. We turned to the "front of the ship" channel and saw...nothing. It was pea soup foggy this morning and whether for that reason or some other, the Emerald Princess docked bow first at Pier 2, facing the 17th Street drawbridge. Our first duty today was to give G a haircut. It's so much easier, not to mention safer, when the ship is docked and we're both happier about that. Quick showers later, we were in the Botticelli Dining Room for breakfast. I like to keep it simple on turnaround days, and so ordered just orange segments and then shredded wheat with mixed berries. No, no mixed berries were left in stock. Berries of any kind? No, no berries of any kind. Bananas? Yes, they had no bananas either. Well, it WAS turnaround day, but my simple breakfast was turning out to be not so simple. Overhearing this from the next table, friend Steve was about to enjoy what must have been the very last of the blueberries he'd received just before we arrived in the dining room, and he sent half his blueberries to me in a coffee cup. Now that's sharing!
We were on multiple missions today. First, G sent a few photos from his iPhone to Walgreens using their app to be printed and picked up later. We then packed some water bottles and Chex Mix in my backpack and walked off the ship shortly after 8:30am. We navigated the line through immigration and walked over to the water taxi stop #5 under the 17rh Street drawbridge by the Hilton Marina. A quick note about the walk over there: to go to Walgreens or any of the stores on 17th Street, walk out of the Northport parking garage by Pier 2 and go straight ahead to Eisenhower Blvd and turn right. To go to the water taxi, turn right directly after exiting the parking garage and walk past the front of the convention center. There's no need to walk around the convention center; there's a gate in the fence just past that building that is guarded and you can exit through that, saving 5-10 minutes of walking.
Check out the intense color of this bloom in the landscaping at the Convention Center:
Our goal today was not to take the water taxi to the north, past the multimillion dollar mansions and yachts of Fort Lauderdale, but to the south, to Hollywood and Hallandale. We'd never been down that way on the intercoastal before.
The 17 Street drawbridge open and the water taxi stop #5:
We caught the first water taxi at 9:30am, and cruised past the Emerald Princess and the Port Everglades entrance channel, past the Maasdam and the Noordam, and down to the Southport area of Port Everglades.
Security warning on the Emerald Princess:
Here we saw seven large but low freight cranes that were custom made by Samsung for Port Everglades at a cost of $11million each. They had to be built shorter than most cranes with the same capacity, due to the low flying planes from the Fort Lauderdale airport, just a mile away. While Port Everglades is the third largest cruise ship port in the world, it's not a huge freight port, by worldwide standards.
The lifeboat on a freighter:
On our left as we cruised south was John Lloyd State Park, on a narrow strip of land that separates the intercoastal from the Atlantic Ocean. And so we continued for over 45 minutes until we started encountering more buildings, first high rise condos and restaurants, but then some low rise condos and homes that, though I'm certain they still well over $1million, were some that we mere mortals could identify with, unlike those mega million dollar ones just miles to the north in Fort Lauderdale.
All the homes and condos along the waterfront had boat docks and/or boat lifts, and these boats were also ones that we could identify with (well, actually, we could identify with their tiny inflatable tenders) not like the $50million to $75 million ones in Fort Lauderdale.
Finally we started to see mostly high rise hotels such as the Crown Plaza and Westin Diplomat.
For the life of me, I do not remember much about this area from when we lived here 25 years ago. I remember the beach area in Miami and in Fort Lauderdale, but the area in between is a blur. By the time the water taxi completed its southward journey, 75 minutes after we'd left the Hilton Marina, it was completely packed with passengers cruising north to see the waterways of Fort Lauderdale. On our way past the cruise ships on our return, it was a dose of reality to see the people leaning out to take photos of the ships and oohing and aahing as the ships grew increasingly larger as we headed north (the largest today being the Emerald Princess). No, most people don't have a cruise, or multiple cruises, to look forward to. We need to keep that sense of wonder in our days, too.
Shortly after noon, we returned to the Hilton Marina, where we disembarked. I was ready to transfer to another water taxi and go a bit further north (though none of that area is new to us), but, well...embarkation day beef for lunch was on G's mind. He was hot on the trail, and so we stopped by Walgreens just long enough to pick up the photos he'd had printed (and somehow still spent $61), and walked back to Pier 2 to reboard the Emerald Princess. Wow. There was quite a line up outside the terminal (at about 12:50pm or so), but, thankfully, waving those magic In Transit passes, we were able to go to the short security line and then bypass all the other lines to reboard the ship.
Our first stop was our cabin, to drop off the backpack and our purchases, and then back to the DaVinci Dining Room for lunch, still with Paul and Ahmed today. After that, I grabbed a charger and retired to the Adagio Bar, where I plugged in and took care of some business. Before I knew it, I was hearing the muster drill announcement, and ended up meeting G in Deck 19 for sailaway. It was quite interesting to watch the Emerald Princess push away from the pier and reverse, reverse, reverse before the bow finally started to swing to starboard so the ship could enter the channel to the ocean.
Next came Skywalkers and then Dinner with Darko, and then the Welcome Aboard show in the Princess Theater. We're starting to see some turnover in the cruise director's staff; every cruise we see at least one new face, and that's part of the reason we go, to see the new staff.
And that was the day. Except for this- we took a bottle of Korbel champagne to dinner to have with dessert (embarkation dinner dessert is my favorite flourless chocolate cake, and I'm convinced that it was invented to be paired with champagne). As we were toasting 100 days, I said, "And here's to XX more", and G said XX+30 more, and we were off once again, verbally tussling over our near-term cruise future. Finally G suggested that he post a poll on my blog, and we let you all decide how long we stay on board. While he thinks it's a great idea, I'm not convinced. Something tells me you'll all side with him...except, hopefully, two 10-year old boys and the kids at school.
Hopefully...