January 2, 2020

The adventure begins!

I always like to fly to the port two days early since a few years ago one of my suitcases stayed in Atlanta while I went on to Fort Lauderdale - luckily it showed up at 1:30 am on departure day.  This was too close for comfort for me!

Once again, I chose not to go to sleep Wednesday night (I am a night owl so it wasn't too bad). My daughter picked me up at 4 am and took me to the Richmond airport.  We arrived around 4:30 and as she pulled away, I realized I had left my driver's license at home.  Thank goodness I have Global Entry because it is a government issued ID with my picture on it so I can get back on the ship in the ports where they check (some ports only want to see your ship card).

There was no line for JetBlue so I checked my luggage in quickly.  There were not many people in the security line and none in the TSA pre-checked one so that took maybe two minutes.

The plane loaded on time and we pulled out a few minutes early.  There was a man in the window seat (he slept the entire way) and I had the aisle seat so there was plenty of space.

We landed early and was off the plane about 25 minutes early.  After I collected my checked bag I went to the HAL desk (which is where I went two years ago) but there was some kind of mix-up about my transfer to the hotel.  The nice representative checked my paperwork and put me in a shuttle to the hotel (Renaissance Fort Lauderdale-Plantation Hotel).

I was in my hotel room by 9 am.  I promptly took everything out of my suitcase to hang up my clothes for the next few days and shift some things to the fold-up duffle bag I had stuffed in my overstuffed suitcase (it weighed 47 pounds).  I knew I would buy a few necessities in Fort Lauderdale so I needed the space.

By 10 am I had run out of steam - I had been awake 23 hours at that point.  A nap was in order and an hour and a half sleep pepped me back up.  It was a beautiful day in Fort Lauderdale with the temperature in the high 70s so I went to the pool.  The water was a tad cool but I stayed in for over an hour.  I met up with a man I met on the 2018 GWV and we talked until the hotel blocked the sun from the pool and it got chilly in the water.

I headed to the shopping center (Pine Island Plaza) which is less than a half mile away.  You have to cross three very busy streets to get there but they have pedestrian crosswalk lights.  I walked through a number of stores but spent the longest in the Dollar Tree where I picked up a few things (gotta love the dollar store).

By 4 pm I was ready for lunch/dinner.  Two years ago I ate at the Mexican restaurant in the shopping center and had a great meal so I wanted to go back.  Had a wonderful taco salad and three glasses of iced tea (which I drink all the time but the stuff on the ship is horrible so I won't get any for months).  A couple from our Cruise Critic roll call introduced themselves at dinner (and I have seen others during the day).  I wanted to get back to the hotel before sunset so I didn't have to navigate the busy streets in the dark and made it with a few minutes to spare.

It is supposed to be nice tomorrow so I plan to spend quite some time at the pool before the Cruise Specialists (my travel agency) cocktail party and dinner on Friday.

Smooth sailing until next time!