Disembarkation – Day 11

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Landfall in Florida - Sunday – March 11^th



FYI … the previous Blog Entry has been updated with a few more details from last night- things which occurred after we had posted that entry.





Good morning from Port Everglades Florida. The ship was tied up at the pier when we woke up this morning. Practically everything had been packed last night, so we only had to get dressed and head off to breakfast in the Horizon Court. The original disembarkation time was pushed back from 7:10 to the new time of 8:05, so we had a more leisurely process this morning.



But after a final breakfast, we picked up our bags from the cabin and went back to the Casino where we had our Life Boat station on the first day. There was a short wait and then they called our group (Aqua-3) to head for the gangway. One more swipe of our keycard to officially leave the ship, and we were off. The luggage was in a large warehouse, all arranged by color-group. Unfortunately the tag had come off one of our bags, so it was not with the others. Fortunately we had decided to use a porter to help haul the luggage, and he found the bag in the “lost bag area”. Then he led us on a short walk through the formality of Customer/Immigration and out to the shuttle area.



Our shuttle was waiting and it took some folks to the airport to catch flights and then took us back to the hotel. Fortunately we were able to check into our room, even though it was barely 9:00 in the morning. And YES, the car was still here and in good shape. After a week on the cruise ship, Janet’s first reaction to the room was “the bathroom is so big!”



Before leaving the cruise phase we should report that this is the first cruise where we have felt like part of the older generation. There were a number of families with younger kids, quite a few who appear to have been on Spring Break from college, and a bunch of folks who probably are going to have to go back to work tomorrow. They did not publish an actual demographics this cruise, but our age group probably was not the majority this time.



We collected the dirty clothes from the cruise suitcases, and from the car drive suitcase, and then found a Laundromat. They have one washer and one dryer in the hotel, but that would have taken many hours to get our 5 loads done. This way we got everything cleaned up and we are ready for the rest of the vacation. Besides, there was a Walgreens in the same strip mall and a Bank of America across the street, so we are really set for this coming week.



While at sea we had both of our cell phone turned off to avoid expensive international phone calls. It turns out that we each had one voicemail message, neither of which we would have wanted to pay those rates to receive at sea. But now we are back on the telephone grid. So we got a simple Subway sandwich for lunch and then started calling the girls to report our safe arrival back in Florida.



Then we made a visit to the local IKEA store. Janet wants a new bedroom set later this year and she wanted to see what they have. It turned out to be a huge place but there were literally several thousand people there. There were even security personnel directing traffic to help people find parking spaces in a 2-story garage. The only thing we left with (besides an overall idea of what the store is like) was a catalog.



We went back to the hotel room to rest and get caught up on lots of e-mail which had been neglected during the past week. We start tours again tomorrow so this was a pause between adventures. We settled in for a delivery pizza while we watched the NCAA Basketball Tournament seeding. We aren’t surprised to see that Missouri made the tournament, but are very happy to see that St Louis U made the tournament – go Billikens! Then we plan on a quiet night (no shows in the Princess Theater) before we have an early start in the morning.



We did not take any new pictures today.

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