Monday, February 27, 2023

Back Home And Back At It

Returned very late last night from a week vacation.

Went on a cruise with Tash as both kids were otherwise engaged - Leah on a school trip, and Abby taking her very first independent trip with friends.

Flew Delta out of DTW to FLL rather early in the morning and the plane departed at 7am.  Overall, it was a good flight on a 757. The plane configuration was 3 seats to a side with the aisle literally sized to the exact dimension of a wheeled carry on bag wheeled precisely down the aisle. Any deviance and it gets stuck on a seat. A full flight of over 190 passengers packed in rather tightly.  

We were so tightly squeezed in with such a narrow aisle, that I have suspicions that it would be rather hard to meet the FAA's 90-second evacuation rule (especially so on the return flight given the composition of the passengers, as will be discussed later).

But a good flight all the same.  I got to watch Devotion, and if you haven't seen it, while it is not as good as the book, it's still a darn good movie.

Landed in Fort Lauderdale, got our bags and took an Uber for the short ride to the port. The closeness of the port to the airport makes Fort Lauderdale a really ideal transit point, and the port was very well setup for embarkation.

There we got on board the Regal Princess for a Caribbean cruise to the Princess Cay,  Turks and Caicos, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Boarding was much more relaxed than last year, done very efficiently, and we were on board rather quickly.


Turns out over 400 cruisers had stayed on for a turn-around from the previous cruise which meant the adult-only sanctuary area of the ship was already fully booked for the days at sea before we even got on board.

We consoled ourselves with some perfectly made Mojitos and then headed to our cabin and then to lunch.

The ship cast off and we were on our way out to sea.

Dinner was excellent, getting into the restaurant took awhile as most people hadn't bothered to read up online about how dining works on a cruise and had not made dining time preference selections and gummed up the entryway.  Service was pretty slow that night but it made for a nice relaxing dinner.

Spent some time wandering around the ship, getting our bearings and exploring and then we tucked in to be ready for our first port visit the next day.

3 comments:

juvat said...

Glad you had a good time. Cruising is an excellent way to reduce the BP to Doctor approved levels. They can also be used as a meditation method of doing the same thing while stressed after, I don't know, say a court case.

There I am, sitting on the lido deck, an umbrella drink in my hand. The cool island breeze wafts over me, my Wife looks especially beautiful...Fill in the blanks yourself...

We're within about 4 weeks of a cruise ourselves. and for much of the reasons mentioned above.... Well!

Aaron said...

juvat: Yep, certainly needed this one. First real vacation without the kids as well. Nothing like sitting on the deck or balcony with drink in hand watching the water go by. We did a couple wine tastings on the ship as well, more on that later.

Old NFO said...

Glad you enjoy them, but I'll pass...LOL