Filled with Anticipation

Day 0, Tuesday, January 2, 2024, CLE to FLL, Overnight at Marriott Element Fort Lauderdale Downtown

Note: The graphic above is not for our exact cruise. When we booked this cruise about six months ago, the last port of call was to be Key West. Then the Key West government and the vendors in multiple industries who profit from cruise ships calling at Key West started fighting about the damage being done to the port. And Holland America changed the itinerary. Our final port of call would be the island of Bimini. This suited me fine, as I will explain in my post on the day we stop at Bimini. You'll just have to wait. 😉

As I said, I woke at 3:45, after waking numerous times before that, and turned off my 4:15 alarm. Showered, repacked things that had been pulled out last night, and was downstairs by 5:15 for the 5:30 shuttle. Tom and Kerry had shipped their baggage ahead to the hotel in Lauderdale, and the four of us—Mike & Marilyn, Jas and myself—had checked in yesterday and each had one large bag to check. Glory be! United now has Bag Drop service. At 5:45, the desk was open. We waited in a line of about 15 passengers, and quickly moved up to the desk. We showed our passports and our boarding passes, placed our bags on the scale, one at a time, and then headed to TSA Precheck. Freaking Magic!

Thanks to the new CLEAR Plus service ($189/year) at certain airports, the PreCheck lines were shorter. The Road Warriors were standing in line at the CLEAR kiosks to verify their existence. The vacationers were able to move through the Precheck line quickly. By 6:30, we were in the line at Dunkin for coffee and breakfast noshes. About 7:45, we were in our seats in First Class, and drinking water or mimosas. The temperature in Cleveland was about 30°, so once we went through the safety videos (very well done!), we waited for deicing and were then ready to go.

Easy flight. Delicious raspberry waffle for breakfast, accompanied by a fruit cup, peach yogurt, and a croissant with strawberry jam. I spent time working on setting up the new blogsite to work differently. And before I knew it, we were flying over Florida. Last year, we flew down the east coast of Florida, and I was able to get a photo of Daytona International Speedway. So cool. This year we flew down the west coast, over Tarpon Springs, Tampa Bay, and the eastern edges of Sarasota Places I knew well in earlier years. Then we were flying across the Everglades, out over the Atlantic, and with a sweeping turn, back across Port Everglades and into FLL.

After claiming our bags, the HAL representative found us and directed us to the shuttle to take us to the hotel. An hour later we were in our rooms. Another hour later, and we were on our third meal of the day.

Margaritas were consumed.

And a very enjoyable meal was photographed and consumed! I had Greek Salad, Jas had a mega-burger, Tom had Lobster Salad, Kerry had a flatbread with, oh, cheese of some sort, Mike had a BLT, and Marilyn had a sort-of caprese salad that looked excellent. I believe everyone sampled Tom's salad—none of us had ever seen that much lobster on a salad. We worried aloud that the chef would be fired tomorrow for putting so much lobster on one salad. And, of course, Jas ordered key lime pie for dessert.

The afternoon was spent in quiet time: I was on my laptop, and Jas was studying the inside of his eyelids. Around 3:30, he got up and went for a swim in the 6th floor pool. Heated. Lovely. At 5:00, we met the others at the first floor restaurant, the Terrace Grill.

Big mistake! The restaurant was so dark, we all had to turn on the lights on our phones to read the menu. We all were still full from lunch, and just wanted appetizers and drinks. The Terrace menu was totally insufficient for what we wanted to eat, so we left. In the meantime, Jas had gone up to the 3rd floor lounge to see what other dining venues were open in the hotel. We ended up back on the 6th floor. Two of us got flatbread margarita pizza, one got the burger, and three got the truffle mac and cheese. The food was well prepared, but we were out of the mood by then. The memorable parts of dinner were the beverages and the conversation.

By 8:00, we were back in our room and ready for bed. We quickly prepared our bags for the 8:00 a.m. pickup on Wednesday, and turned in.

Oh, we learned something from the other three passengers who shared the shuttle from the airport with us: The other Holland America ship that will be embarking passengers at Port Everglades tomorrow will be the Zuiderdam, heading out on a 128-day around-the-world cruise. I was so jealous. I would love to go on an around-the-world cruise. But I think I need to build up to 128 days. So far, the longest cruise the Jazzman and I have taken is 10 days. Maybe a 20-day cruise next, then 30 days?

For now, I'm headed to bed so I can dream about tomorrow's sailaway moment.

And if you want to dream about cruising around the world, here's one of the primary blogs by a passenger on the Zuiderdam cruise.