Dec. 8-10, 2023
People ask me “what we do with _____ while we’re away?” (car/house/bills, etc). The house is set up for AirBNB/ VRBO, we have a mail service that opens and scans our mail then emails us the scanned contents, and the cars has been going through an interesting shuffle. In April, I gave my 2013 Veloster to my nephew who lives in Philadelphia, and the 2016 Sonata sat covered in the Galveston driveway awaiting the November return. We picked up the 2016 Sonata, drove it to Daytona Beach, where we gave it to my sister-in-law, taking the 2008 Sonata we had given her 7 years ago to drive to Miami. My sister Kathleen and my niece Caitlin flew down to Palm Beach (an “hour” north of Miami), where we picked them up on the way to Miami, so they could drive it up to Virginia to give it to my brother (the “hour” drive ended up close to 2 due to a severe accident on I95 closing 3 lanes).
We made it to the Intercontinental Hotel on Biscayne Bay – our room had an amazing view.
We reconnected with our friends, enjoying an evening out near the bayfront, but all of us were tired so not too late of a night.
On our only full day in Miami, we took a Guruwalk in Little Havana. A 4+ block area referred to as “Calle Ocho” (the rest of the city it’s 8th Street).
Our tour guide Alberto brought to life the great aspects of this special part of Miami. The area is vibrant with Cuban culture, restaurants serve Cuban sandwiches and empanadas, several stores hand-roll Cuban cigars (the people rolling the cigars are Cuban or have Cuban heritage – the tobacco is grown in the US), and a park full of serious domino players (the dominoes have up to 9 dots instead of the normal 6).
Several murals ..
and a monument to the ill-fated and ill-planned Bay of Pigs invasion can be viewed at any time – day or night.
That night, we enjoyed the Gala (though getting down to the party required patience or a willingness to take the stairs as all 665 “all-the-way-rounders” were trying to take the elevators at the same time – so John, Liam, Alan and I along with a handful of other fit partygoers climbed down the 15 flights of stairs, through a door marked “emergency exit only”. Luckily, one of the managers for the hotel was also out on the little patio where our stair exit ended and let us in the back way past the kitchen and catering prep area and into the ballroom -exiting right next to the least crowded bar!).
We grabbed our drinks and chatted up our fellow guests, getting to know some of the people with whom we will be spending the next 9 months. We closed out the bar with our old friends and new.
On Sunday, John and I did a brief walk around as we readied to go to the ship (and cash in our winning $10 scratch off – which we used to buy another scratcher which won $30!). We checked in for the cruise at the hotel the day before, then did some of the same steps in the waiting area before boarding our bus. We were escorted past the long line of passengers joining us on at least the first segment (and a few that had calculated that it was cheaper to pay for the cruise as the 17 different segments – forgoing the included laundry, deluxe beverage package, gratuities, in-room kettle and real small fridge, 11 excursions, and lots of little amenities too numerous to mention – and not to mention – only needing to check-in ONCE).
Bon Voyage – first port – Coco Cay!
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