Cruise: Day 8

Day 8, Saturday, October 4: Miami

We set our wake-up call for around 6:30 AM--the earliest we ever got up on this vacation. I peeked outside, and it was still dark. We were already docked in Miami, and I was too sleepy to take much notice of what it looked like outside. We got ready to go to breakfast, and once it started to get light out, I took my routine first-thing-in-the-morning picture.



Gross, huh? It wasn't just overcast--it was raining. I suppose you could say the weather matched my mood, since I was reluctant to leave the ship and say good-bye to our perfect vacation.

We went to breakfast at the Windjammer, laughing at the fact that it was the first time we'd eaten breakfast out of our room. And the only reason we were going out was because they didn't offer room service on this last morning. We got a table by the windows and watched the rain trickle down the panes as we ate.

When we finished, we returned to our rooms to collect our bags. The previous night, they had sent us colored luggage tags to put on all the bags we were leaving in the hallway--basically, they assigned you a color based on what time you were supposed to leave the ship, which was based on forms they made you fill out earlier in the week telling them what times your flights were, etc. We figured we would be the very last group off the ship, since our flight was so late, but we were surprised to find that the "Brown" group was scheduled to leave the ship between 8 and 8:45 AM. It didn't matter to us--we'd already made arrangements to rent a car and spend the day seeing Miami, so getting off a bit early worked to our advantage.

I took one last picture of our room...



... and then we left it for the last time. Our designated waiting area was the Platinum Theater--the same theater where all the nightly shows had been. We got there a few minutes before 8, and of course, took another picture.



We had hardly gotten settled into our seats when they called for our group to leave. As we exited the ship, they scanned our SeaPass cards for the last time (but they let us keep them, which was cool), and we walked down the gangway, away from Liberty of the Seas, our beautiful home away from home.

In hindsight, I suppose we could have taken our time getting off the ship. I just wasn't entirely sure how the whole process worked--since they said our group could leave from 8-8:45, I assumed that meant we HAD to be off the ship by then. But now that I know how it all works, I know that just meant that was the earliest you could leave the ship and know that your luggage would be waiting for you.

We waited for our luggage at a baggage carousel on the bottom level of the RC building, and it all arrived pretty quickly. It reminded me of waiting at baggage claim at an airport. I was a tad nervous about going through customs, simply because I've never done it before, but we breezed through without a hitch. Tony called Hertz to have them pick us up, and they told him a shuttle was on the way. Moments later, we were piling into a van and on our way to the downtown Hertz office.

I waited with our luggage on the sidewalk, huddled up against the building to avoid the rain, while Tony went inside. We got a sweet car--a brand-new Chevy Impala with only 167 miles on it. It had a sunroof, leather seats, and heated seats (which, yes, I ended up making use of, because the AC made me too chilly).



We hadn't thought to get any maps or tourist info from AAA before we left, but luckily, Hertz gave us a map of the city marked with all sorts of attractions. We drove aimlessly around for a long time. Our first stop was Miami Beach--even though the weather was awful, we had to at least go see it. Don't let these pictures fool you--yes, the water looks pretty, but it was pouring rain when I took these pictures.





After that, we just drove and drove--through the Art Deco district, the shops on Lincoln Road, Little Haiti, the Design District, Morningside Historical District, past several museums and convention centers, etc. Due to the weather, we never parked and got out--just drove and appreciated all the buildings from the outside. We were a bit at a loss for what to do, since we'd planned on spending a chunk of time at the beach.

We ended up driving out to Key Biscayne, a small island just off the coast, which turned out to be a gorgeous drive. We stopped at a Subway for lunch and then headed on to the Seaquarium, thinking that might be a nice way to kill a few hours. But when we found out that parking was $8 and tickets were over $35 apiece, we changed our minds. It was just way too much money to shell out, especially at the tail end of an extravagant vacation.

We ended up returning to the Port of Miami area, to check out the shops near there. On our way back in, I snapped a few pictures of the Miami skyline.



Don't let that break in the clouds fool you--I think that was the one and only time all day we saw blue sky. And every so often, the rain would taper off. Other than that, it was a steady rain all day long.



Also, you can't see it in these pictures, but we could see our ship, just barely, from that bridge. And there were several other places throughout the city where we could catch sight of the Liberty of the Seas. It was weird to look at that ship, then look at our watches, and say, "Exactly a week ago, we were just getting on for the first time." Even weirder was to think that there was a whole new group of people checking in, getting on, seeing the wonders of the ship for the first time... even a brand-new couple setting up in our old stateroom.

We found metered parking near the Bayside Marketplace, and as we were trying to figure out the payment machine (they had one machine where you paid, rather than individual meters at each spot), a couple that was leaving offered us their ticket, which still had over 2 hours left on it. So, we got to park for free.



One of the first things we saw in the Marketplace was this crazy tree. It's a banyan tree, and all those "branches" are actually roots--they grown down from the top of the tree, and once they touch the ground, they burrow in and form a new trunk.



We walked slowly through all the shops--there were your typical tourist-trap souvenir shops as well as regular mall-type stores (I was excited to find a Disney Store, for example). We bought a few last souvenirs, and once we were done, we realized we had kind of run out of things to do. I mean, sure, we could drive around more, but we would just be killing gas, and we really didn't want to spend any money on museums or other attractions. So we made our way to the airport Hertz, got a shuttle to the airport, and began the airport check-in process. The airport was crazy-busy, but we were in no hurry, so it was fine with us. Turned out that one of Tony's suitcases (which was tipping the scales at 49 lbs. before we left) now weighed 51 lbs. (I blame the souvenirs), but the airport lady was nice enough to let it slide for us.

We got to our gate by about 5 PM... and our flight wasn't due to leave until 9. I knew I'd be fine--I had a book to read--but I wasn't sure what Tony would do. Of course, we chatted for a while, got dinner, and found other ways to kill time. Tony ended up swiping my word find book and doing those for a while... but eventually, he got bored, and took it out on me. Nah, I'm kidding. I was getting antsy myself, even though my reading material was really intriguing (I Am Legend, in case you're wondering, which also includes several other short horror stories--good reading). So we took one last vacation picture.



And then it turned out that our flight got delayed by more than a hour, because the plane was coming from Mexico and had gotten delayed there. My parents had told me earlier in the day that their plan was to bring Ari to our house around bedtime and then just wait there for us--that way, Ari could sleep in her own bed, and she'd be there for us when we woke up in the morning. Mom said she'd been starting to cry for us more in the past couple days--it seemed like she was really starting to miss us. I kept Mom posted on the flight delays, but since they'd already told Ari they were going to her house (and she was psyched about getting to see Sasha and Ivan), they decided to stick to their plan. I felt so bad when we got delayed, even though, of course, it wasn't our fault.

Our flight finally took off around 10. Tony and I had the middle and aisle seat, as before, and there was someone else in the window seat. About halfway through the flight, he got up to use the restroom and ended up telling us he was going to change seats, since there were several open seats on the plane. So I stretched out to my beloved window seat... and promptly fell asleep.

We got back home, got all our luggage (with only one damaged suitcase--part of the zipper broke, but seeing as I've had that suitcase since college, I really wasn't surprised), and the valet service for the long-term parking picked us right up. By the time we got to the long-term parking lot, our car was pulled up, running, with the heat on. We finally got home around 1:30, and after chatting with my parents for a few minutes, they left.

We sneaked upstairs to see Ari, who was peacefully sleeping. Tony covered her up (since she always kicks off her blankets when she sleeps), and then rearranged her blankets... and then rearranged them again... and then rearranged them again. "I know what you're doing," I whispered with a smile. "You're trying to wake her up."

He just grinned in reply... but his plan worked. Ari stirred, opened her eyes, looked at Tony and said, "Daddy sing?" He scooped her up and started singing. She laid her head on his shoulder, looked at me, and gave me the biggest smile. And, miraculously, she went right back to sleep when Tony was done singing. We went to bed not long after.

And so ends our cruise vacation. That last day in Miami was kind of a bust, due to the weather, but it wasn't a horrible day or anything. Though nothing can compare to the cruise itself. I'm serious when I say it was the perfect vacation--everything was above and beyond our expectations. I could go on and on, but I think, from all these previous entries, you can already tell how pleased I was with this vacation. And the food... oh my gosh, the food. I have never eaten so much in my life, and I can't remember the last time I've ever eaten 3 square meals a day for so many days straight. I mean, my normal breakfast is a donut or Pop Tart--but on the cruise, I was eating cereal, fruit, sometimes eggs, pastries... every single day. And a full lunch and dinner--both finished off with dessert--and sometimes snacks in between. I was terrified to get a scale at home, but by some miracle, I didn't gain any weight.

Several people told us that nothing beats your first cruise, and I can see what they mean. I felt like, everywhere we went, we were just like little kids, with our mouths hanging open, saying "Wow!" about everything. And it's not that I think we'd be "jaded" by the time we take another cruise--but I guess there wouldn't be that same sense of wonder. Not to mention the fact that we were on the biggest cruise ship in the world--totally unintentional, by the way. When we were searching for our cruise, we knew we wanted to go to the Caribbean, but didn't really care where. And we were more concerned with what dates we'd be gone, since we were trying to coordinate babysitting with my parents, and trying not to miss 2 Sundays from church. What ship we were on was the least of our concerns, so it was a complete accident that we ended up on the world's largest. But again, I don't think that means we're going to be disappointed with any future cruising.

I think the best thing about this cruise was that it felt like a true vacation. Due to the fact that we were at sea and/or in international territory, and because we didn't want to spend money on Internet access or phone calls, we were pretty much cut off from the world. The whole time we were gone, I barely thought about work, about church, about anyone back home. It was a perfect escape. Am I going to sound like a horrible mom if I say I didn't even miss Ari that much? I think part of the reason was just that we were in such a strange, new environment. Oddly enough, once we were back on solid ground in Miami, on that last day, I suddenly missed her immensely. I guess setting foot back on US soil was enough to shake me out of the dreamland I'd been living in and remind me that I had a real life to get back to. If any of that makes any sense.

OK, I'm just rambling now. It's a little sad for me to end these cruise entries, because now it feels like the cruise is most definitely, surely over. I'm in the middle of working on a Picaboo photo book, though, so I can relive it all through that too.

So for those of you that have tagged along through this long, LONG saga... thanks for sticking around. I hope you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I love the way so many of you are saying things like, "You know, cruising never sounded that great to me before... but now that I've read your entries, I really want to go!" Let's just say, I highly recommend it. You won't be sorry.

THE END