Florida and Bahamas Trip – Day 2 and 3

26th Dec – was spent at Savannah, Georgia. We woke up at 7am, had complimentary breakfast at the hotel, checked with front desk about local attractions and roamed around the city till late afternoon. Kids played in a park for a while, we visited ginger bread house display at a hotel on other side of river bed, visited candy store at river street and ate freshly made pralines that were made on site.

Some pictures:

Serious talk with Seagull

glad to find chairs to rest

Waving girl – she has s story

Ginger bread house

Candy tree

We left Savannah around 3:30pm and reached the pre-booked hotel at Fort Lauderdale at 10:30pm. Ate food bought from home and called it a day around 11:30pm.

27th Dec – Woke up late, had complimentary breakfast at hotel and checked out the hotel at 11am. We parked the car at the same hotel for daily fee and hotel had complimentary shuttle to/from cruise port. Reached cruise port around 1pm and boarded right away. Cruise was supposed to depart at 4pm but boarding was allowed from afternoon. Boarding was almost similar to flight boarding. There was check-in, big luggage’s were collected separate that reached our room later and upon boarding a credit card like seapass was given for each passenger. This card was linked to primary’s credit card and could be used to operate the room and purchase within ship. Once boarded, we went straight to deck 10. If you wondering why, that’s the cafe deck 🙂 Ate to our heart’s content and by that time the stateroom was ready to occupy. Cafe had all sorts of cuisine including Asian and I even spotted “Madras chicken curry” on the menu one of the day. Pizza and pasta was there all the time and rest of the counters were open at specific time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was at least ten varieties of desserts and Adi frequented to ice cream bar at every visit.

Pool and food was the best I liked at the cruise and the rooms were cleaned twice a day. What more can I ask for? We called them as genie as every time we leave and come back, the room was looking spot clean. It just lifted my mood up instantly though gratuities has to be paid every day per person. Every night we received the plan for next day. It will have list of all activities and helps to plan our next day. This helps especially on days when ship is on sea.

There was library, fitness room, jogging track, hot tub, pool, children’s play area, art gallery, shopping deck, casino, theater, restaurant, bar and many more in the ship. It was luxury overloaded.

On day 1 at the ship, we hogged on the food as if we were starving for a week, roamed around all the decks to get familiarized and spent rest of the time in the pool/hot tub. For dinner, we had tables reserved at restaurant and the same waiter serves us every night. Its open to all and dress code has to be followed. I surprised myself by ordering dishes not knowing what will land up on my plate. Made some bad choices but no regrets as there was always cafe as backup in 10th deck. Most of the dishes were winning recipes from different episodes of top rated food reality TV shows.  The dishes were of five star hotel quality. I mean took long time to arrive, very less portion and partially cooked but surprisingly we liked some of the dishes. Dining every night was truly a celebrity feeling. Every single night I ordered creme brulee for dessert. Yum it was!

We took ocean view stateroom as this was our first time experience. I would recommend balcony room if you are planning a trip. There is no big difference in the cost atleast when we booked. The genies were kind enough to make four beds for us in that tiny room. Adi was scared to climb the bunk bed and we ended up squeezing every night.

It was mesmerizing to look at the ocean through window during daytime. None of us had motion sickness though we took Dramamine tablets to be safe. We could hardly feel the movement.  While choosing staterooms, have a look at the virtual plan of the deck and choose the ones closer to midship.