Day One - Manchester to Miami

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Geo: 25.7488, -80.1951

'It is good to have an end to journey toward. But it is the journey that matters in the end'.
Ernest Hemingway.

And so it begins. I love the excitement at the start of any journey. I often catch myself thinking that in so many weeks I will have returned home and the holiday/vacation will all be over and life will have resumed its normal cadence. I think a lot of us make the mistake of thinking those days don't count, that they are in some way, lesser days, simply for being mundane. Early alarms calls, dark mornings, endless traffic, late buses, rainy skies. The point I make is that life shouldn't be measured by just the good days. It's full of many diffrent types of days, each as important as the one before or after. However a blog about my bus journey to work would be less than thrilling and so instead I will blog about the cruise we are about to undertake for my 50th birthday.

We awake in the Premier Inn near to Heathrow Airport having flown down from Manchester the afternoon before. Our flight to Miami is at 9.45 so we wouldn't have had enough time to fly down the same day. We had dinner last night with two fellow cruisers, Sue & Malcolm, who are on the same flight today. Sue and Peter are real chatterboxes so they led most of the evenings conversation which of course centred mostly on cruising.

We have a taxi booked for 7.15 to take us the short distance to Terminal 3. Seems we got in the wrong cab though as Peter received a call after we had checked in to say our taxi was waiting outside the hotel...oops. We wondered why the cab driver wanted to take us to Terminal 1. As we are lucky to be flying business class today we have access to the American Airlines Lounge which is very nice. Was also very quiet as all good lounges should be. We grab some juice, coffee and bacon barms before heading to the gate to board.

We are seated in rows 3 & 4J. Which are behind each other. The business class product on the 777-300 is excellent. Lie flat seats, huge TV screen, Bose headphones, amenity pack, large pillow and blanket. We push back on time and are soon airborne and heading out across the south coast of England leaving land behind over Cornwall. The captain says it will be a smooth flight and for the most part it is. Some slight turbulence at times, captain bizarrely leaves the fasten seatbelt sign on for about 60% of the trip it seems.

As with most American flight crews they skew older. However, they are very attentive and pleasant. Way better than the crew on our last Virgin flight. We get served lunch shortly after 11am. A little early but we didn't have much for breakfast so was fine. Warm nuts and a Jack & Coke to start (never too early for that). Starter was asparagus salad, smoked salmon blinis with cream cheese and wheat bread. I had chicken for main, was a little bland but the Ben and Jerrys Sundae for dessert more than made up for it. Brandy and coffee to finish. Very nice.
I then recline my seat to watch some movies? Dallas Buyers Club, excellent with oscar winning performances from Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto. About Time, funny and moving. Philomena, again funny, moving but also tragic in that it really happened. It didn't finish the 4th movie as we are descending into Miami by this time.

Immigration and customs were a breeze and soon we were in a cab heading to downtown Miami and the Intercontinental Hotel. We had room 3204 which was a gorgeous suite on the 32 floor. The views out over the bay towards South Beach were amazing. After showering We decide to head out for a walk and pick up a few things from chemist and also stock up again in Bath & Bodyworks. I swear we have more products at home than they have in store. We return to our room and snooze for an hour before heading out to Bayside which is walking distance from the hotel. Bayside is full of shops, bars and restaurants. It's busy tonight with a real party atmosphere. Mambo music is blaring out from some of the bars much to the delight of the mainly Hispanic customers. We go to the Hard Rock Cafe and relax with a cocktail in the hotel bar afterwards. We try to stay up as late as possible but jet-lag inevitably takes it toll and we turn out out lights at 10.30pm which is 3.30am at home so not bad going.

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Photos

Taken as we fly over Nassau en-route to Miami. Ironically this is our first port of call on the ship.
Taken as we fly over Nassau en-route to Miami. Ironically this is our first port of call on the ship.