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December 15 to Miami. A day full of challenges. We had had to catch a very early flight to Barcelona from Alicante, this due to Vueling changing the hours of the flight originally booked,. Thus the alarm was set for 4:15 am but failed to go off. Luckily Chris was awake by 4.30 and got up and checked the time. So we bundled out of the house well before five and set off for Alicante airport. Unfortunately, the GPS on the car had failed to register both Victoria parking and Alicante airport the previous evening, but we thought we would be alert enough to get there okay. This was not the case and we suddenly found we had overshot the airport turn off and it took us about 15 minutes to manage to get back to the airport. Luckily once there, Victoria parking had a coach available immediately and we managed to arrive at the check-in for the 7 am flight with 10 minutes to spare.
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Once a Barcelona airport we were unable to check in for our level flight before 11 am so had two hours to pass . Once checked in we went up to a booked lounge which was fairly empty and nicely arranged and the food was adequate We successfully boarded our Level flight and established ourselves in premium economy: very comfortable seats but not really connected one to the other due to their orientation. The plane pushed out for its takeoff slot , only to find it had a mechanical problem aboard and it had to returned to the stand. Engineers came on board and in to the cockpit and spent over an hour fixing the, to us, unknown fault. So we were two hours late eventually taken off but the pilot made up most of this time. We had ordered our food in advance and this were certainly better than normal Iberia food but did suffer from being on plastic plates with plastic folks and paper cups for the wine. We both slept a reasonable amount and watched television that were happy to get to Miami Before 9 pm their time, this being 3 am Spanish time. US emigration was very quick with no queue at all. Our phones did not work on arrival and it took some time to contact the shuttle to take us to the EB hotel where we were staying. We had a large spacious room but without too much character . The end of a 24 hour day.
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Monday, December 16. Miami to Fort Lauderdale. A good nights sleep and we woke up with an errant alarm from the hotel system at 7 am but thoroughly refreshed. During the morning we had a wander round the hotel and a chat to a Venezuelan marketing manager of the Euro Buildings hotel company, this being one of the few hotels it owned outside Venezuela. We put our heads outside to ascertain the temperature and had a look at the non-inviting swimming pool. At 11 am, we went down to pay the bill and found that the hundred dollar deposit they had taken off the night before would not be returned for around 10 days (it actually took 30 days). We were unimpressed by this and had a long chat to the manager, the result was her promising us that she would not charge for the room-this remains to be seen!
We then took an Uber to the apartment in Fort Lauderdale. David was very impressed in the Uber was a Tesla. The driver was very happy with his car and informed us that he just had to pay $38 a month for unlimited recharge in his home. This seems so reasonable to us. We arrived at the Villa Venezia at midday and as we expected the apartment was not ready. So we left the suitcases and walked the 30 minutes down to the sea. This was alongside the canals that main feature of this part of Fort Lauderdale. We stopped at the café Delmar for a ham pizza which was very edible, accompanied by an apersol cocktail. There were a lot of additions to the basic bill like a cover charge local taxes and 18% service charge.
We then stopped and bought two bottles of wine and tried to buy food in a convenience store, but found it difficult to find things like cheese. But we did buy some yoghurt, fruit salad, fresh fruit and then later on very expensive croissants in a so-called bakery. Back at the villa we had to wait a little while to find the manager to show us in to a very nice apartment which was on the first floor with a lovely balcony overlooking the canal. By this time it was raining on and off and I did not get a swim until about 5 pm. We read quite a lot and had a glass of wine and nibbles at 6 pm, followed by a supper of a croissant, fresh fruit salad and yoghurt and later followed by coffee.
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Tuesday, December 17. Fort Lauderdale A quiet day here. We had a pleasant breakfast on the balcony and then I had a swim before we set off on the walk down to Boulevard Las Olas,, This being in the opposite direction from the beach and a little bit nearer. The weather was a little bit iffy but we were spared too much rain. There were various art shops down here, plus a few dress shops and lots of restaurants. We eventually stopped in a Mexican restaurant and had a buritto, a sort of Mexican pancake with various fillings. David had a margarita and I had a glass of sangria. During the day, David worked hard on his new Rayban glasses with artificial intelligence and was delighted to find that they would read printed text for me. He also took lots of photos with them After that. we just read on our iPads and sat on the balcony. I also had an afternoon swim and we went for a wander down remainder of our road, which wasn’t very far. On our outing we had stocked up at the 7-Eleven convenience store , the main item purchased in 12 eggs because they did not sell six. So we then had scrambled eggs for supper and will have more of scrambled eggs in the next two days.
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Wednesday, December 18. Fort Lauderdale. Non-eventful day here. We woke up to heavy rain and breakfasted indoors but by 11 am the skies had brightened. We read and experimented with “Hey Meta “ for the morning and went out soon after 12 to the beach. We walked along the beach for a little while and then came back to the same restaurant, café Del Mar ,where we had eaten on Monday. Once again we indulgd in cocktails and the jamon pizza and also a chat with the waitress. Once back at the apartment, Chris went for a swim. At 6 pm, it was time wine and Tapas, then at 8 pm more scrambled eggs and pizza. During the three days we had here we were mesmerised by aircraft taken off in various directions, particularly at night when the lights shine bright. There was hardly any movement of boats along the canal, but we did see the canoe this evening. 🐷 my overriding memory of I stay here will be how expensive food and drinks are at the moment in the US.
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Thursday, December 19. Fort Lauderdale to boarding the Silver Ray en route to Lima. A lazy morning at the apartment which we were allowed to keep until 1 pm Chris had two swims during the morning and we got an Uber after 1 pm to Port Everglades, where the Silver Ray had berthed.
The boarding experience was good and we found that we have been upgraded to the OwnerSuite, Suite No. 8053 which was three times the size of the cabin we had booked. Congratulations to Carmen. There was a full-size Christmas tree in it plus plants, flowers,fruit , full bottles of Gin, vodka whiskey et cetera, a wine fridge and coffee and tea machines. Also a chess set , two loungers on the balcony and a huge bathroom.
The only downside side was that there were two doors that were difficult to open, one into the bathroom and one between the bedroom and the living room: however the Butler provided to chocks to keep these partially open at least. Once aboard we had lunch in the marquee restaurant and then retired to the suite to unpack and get the iPads and phones working with the ships Wi-Fi. David had to go down to reception for this as they had input Chris‘s date of birth incorrectly onto their computer and for reasons best known to Silverseas, we needed her date of birth to get on the Wi-Fi. After this we went down to the Arts Café for a cake and a coffee: these were fine but not quite the choice that we have been expecting and also the area was a little too dark for Chris. Later we went to the Dolce Vita for cocktails and canapés here again it was fairly dark But we were delighted to find Alfredo playing the piano there. We dined in La Terassa and this was very impersonal and nothing like the Terassa on the smaller expedition ships . At 9.30 we went to the show lounge for a show where the cruise director, Ricky, introduced himself and told us the composition of the 660 odd passengers aboard, two of whom were Irish - we never did find the other one, 60 of which were from the UK and approximately 330 from the US (we think that these included over 100 Royal Caribbean employees). And after this we retired to the panorama lounge for a coffee and grappa. . An interesting day.
