Hello from Miami, FL

Hello from Miami, FL

Saturday morning October 30, 2010 (First travelogue of this trip).

We are in Miami, Florida where we will depart on a cruise later today. This is a very special cruise since our niece Shawna and her fiance Bryan will be getting married later this week. Rather than getting married on the ship, their ceremony will be held in Cozumel.

Just a bit of background here. When we first heard of the wedding cruise, we knew that we could not afford to go. However, Pat was determined that we would go since most of her family was going. She decided to set a goal of paying for the trip with earnings from Ebay selling. Darned if she did not get the job done and we are not having to dig into our meager savings (wonderful economy {frown}).

Yesterday we flew from Denver to Ft. Lauderdale. What a trip that was. We flew Southwest Airlines and had fairly high seating numbers (no seat assignments on SW). We got all settled in and the pilot announced there was a problem. We ended up changing planes. Everyone was supposed to take the same seats – yeah right!!!! When we got on, almost every seat was filled except center seats. The stewardess talked a passenger into moving and we got to have a window and center seat. I don't like window seats (space seems too cramped), but it worked out OK for the long flight. When we did get to take off, the flight was pretty uneventful.

There were 20 people on the flight in our party. Additional folks will join us for the cruise – 26 altogether.

The travel agency that made all of the reservations arranged for a full size bus to pick us up at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale and transport us to the hotel in Miami. That normally takes 30-45 minutes depending on the traffic. It was probably longer last night, as we were in rush hour traffic and the Miami Heat (basketball) game traffic.

We are staying at the Marriott close to the dock. Indeed, if you look closely in the photo taken from our balcony, you will see some cruise ships. We are not sure if one of them is ours.

Photo of ships from our hotel balcony

Our cruise will be on the Norwegian Epic. It is a brand new ship (July 2010) and it is huge. It is rated at a bit over 4000 passengers! The ship details are detailed here . We will have more details as we cruise.

That is all for now.