Oy. I'm tired tonight. We had quite a busy day in Fort Lauderdale, and I'm yawning as much tonight as all our fellow passengers who traveled hours to get here today. But I bet we had more fun! Dear headwaiter Andrew from Poland, who has since gone home, used to enjoy jokingly asking us on the first day of every cruise, "Did you travel long to get here?" Yes, Andrew. About 113 days.
We had breakfast in the Botticelli Dining Room (we call it the cavern) with Darko this morning. Oh, poor Darko. His roommate Georrrrgggggyyyyyy, also from Macedonia, went home today and he and Darko were up all night toasting his departure. We ordered in low voices and kept it simple. We also kept it quick. With the number of passengers staying on from last cruise pushing 600 (we've never seen it that high), we wanted to get the heck out of Dodge and avoid the whole mass procession through immigration. We walked off the ship about 9:30am and, following my own directions from a prior turnaround blog post, turned right at the convention center and walked on the east side of it to the security gate.
Turn right towards this:
Continue under the walkway to the parking garage:
However, we were stopped at the gate today. When there is something going on at the convention center, this gate is staffed with a security guard, and we can come and go through it. But there was no activity there today, so there was no security guard. This might be a shortcut best used on weekends, or when there is easily visible activity in front of the convention center.
No matter; we retraced our steps and made our usual right turn on Eisenhower. Our original goal for the day was to take the Sun Trolley (the Beach route runs Friday through Monday) to Fort Lauderdale beach, but the weather was so perfect today that we instead decided to walk. Right away we had to walk over the 17th Street drawbridge, and were stopped when it opened, and I took a photo of all the motorcycles and bicycles stopped in front of the lines of cars, waiting for the bridge to close and traffic to flow.
The bridge stayed open a long time, so long that the bridge operator felt compelled to make an announcement that played over a speaker explaining that the "sailing vessel" for which the bridge had open was cruising very slowly under it. I expected a masted sailing yacht, but, no. This vessel was simply a motor yacht so large that it couldn't fit under the bridge in its closed position. Wow.
While the bridge is open (and right after it closes, as in this photo), the sidewalk is closed to pedestrian traffic by this rotating gate.
After walking for awhile (I don't know how long. 30 minutes? 45 minutes?) the Sun Trolley was going by, and we decided to hop on it. We bought two all-day passes for $3 each, and rode on it past the beach and up to the Galleria Mall on Sunrise Blvd. Here we disembarked and had a coffee, then reboarded another trolley heading back south.
We found the Sun Trolley app for smartphones to be an invaluable resource; the trolley runs approximately every 30 minutes but there really isn't a schedule. The app showed our location and then tracked the movement of the trolleys on the Beach route, giving us a good idea of our expected wait.
G wanted to ride the entire route, but when we got near Port Everglades, decided he wanted embarkation day lunch beef tenderloins more. And so we got off the trolley again (and congratulated ourselves on our foresight to buy all day passes for $3 instead of single rides for $1), and stopped first in Walgreens to get a couple of things we needed. We ran into several crew members doing the same thing, and dancer Cassie who told us that she had received her next ship rotation. The singers and dancers in the production shows are all leaving on the March 9th turnaround. She and fellow dancer Claire will have two weeks off and then fly to California to begin several weeks of practices with another production show team before joining the Royal Princess. Unfortunately, she'll have left there before we embark next fall.
We walked back to the ship in time for lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room and the blessed beef (don't get me started...an entire beach strip full of restaurants and he needs THIS beef), but we were soon walking back off the ship to catch another trolley to the beach. It was getting busy, and then we remembered: today was Presidents Day and a national holiday.
I took this photo for the twins: basketball courts on a beach. Does life get any better?
Sailboats for rent:
We walked the beach until nearly 3pm, when I spotted that there would be a southbound Sun Trolley coming by in just a few minutes. We got off at the intersection of Eisenhower and 17th Street again, and walked (quickly) back to Pier 2, where the Emerald Princess was berthed. It was 3:27pm when we reboarded (all on board time was 3:30pm), but I took 10 seconds to take this photo of a poster in the terminal. We passed this photo 50 times before we realized last cruise that this is Mihaela from Romania, the hostess who seats us for all our dining room meals. She wants me to email her this photo: she hasn't seen it in a few years.
Captain Nick has returned home, and Captain Martin Stenzel arrived in Aruba as his relief. We heard him for the first time today...while Captain Nick comes across as a laid back Brit, Captain Stenzl sounds very proper British. His background is wih Cunard, so that may have something to do with it.
We watched sailaway from the jogging track on Deck 19. The day had remained gorgeous and warm, around 83 degrees. I was surprised about how quickly after the Noordam sailed that the Emerald Princess was right behind her. Usually the ships are a bit more spaced out.
The other ship in Port Everglades today was the Celebrity Constellation. I know people think we always cruise Princess, but once again today we were in port with two other ships, and we've cruised on both of them in the past.
It's fun to watch what the cruise ships do to the water on the side of the Port Everglades entrance channel when they leave. The Emerald Princess pulled all the water away from this beach (you can see where the sand is still wet)...
...and as the ship passes, the water returns with force.
We've been on the southern point of Fort Lauderdale beach when the Oasis of the Seas (one of the world's two largest cruise ships) sails. The local boys wait with their surfboards. The water is all sucked away from the beach, and then returns with enough of a wave for them to surf on.
The beautiful length of Fort Lauderdale beach:
I took a few minutes while I still had AT&T free Internet and uploaded all these photos. We showered and went to Dinner with Darko and then the Welcome Aboard show with comedian Darrell Joyce. He was a bit of a let down after AJ Jamal and Phil Tag, but we enjoy the two numbers the singers and dancers do at the start.
Then it was fuzzy water and popcorn, and time to add words to the photos on this blog post. An hour later, it's time for bed.