The first thing I always think of is I Dream of Genie for some reason...but no, this was the official kick off of our cruise! We wanted to beat any bad weather so we planned to fly down the day before and stay at the Radisson at the Port.
We had a series of little mis-steps on the day we left. We couldn't get Neil's car started (it was going to the garage while we were away). No time to wait for AAA, so Dad P. to the rescue (this will be a theme.) He waited it out for us so we could get to the airport.
Then, mechanical delay (ack). (Un)fortunately there was this nightmare woman on our flight who was loud and annoying and immediately called her son-in-law (and airplane eingineer) to make sure that a generator isn't a really bad thing (not to fear, there were apparently 2 extras). We were delayed for about an hour, just enough time for the woman to FINALLY realize she's going to miss her connection and got off the plane. There was a cheer, I'm not kidding. Flight staff was so grateful to be rid of her, all of those around her got free drinks. Yeah!!
We took a town car from the airport to the hotel. This has always been a goofy (get it, "Goofy") dream of ours to come off a plane and see our name on one of those signs being held up. Well, that didn't totally pan out as planned, but Neil was surprised anyway. In retrospect, we should have taken a shuttle. Julia, just like her mom, gets carsick when she can't see out the window. So, we had to pull over and let her get some air. (Fortunately it never got worse than that.) However, as we stood there we suddenly realized that Neil was in an ant hill and was covered with ants. (Any of you who know Neil know this is a recreation of a traumatic childhood experience for him). He managed to only get 1 bite on his hand (a miracle).
When we finally got to the hotel, we thought this is it, all the bad little things are behind us...almost. It was VERY chilly in FL (low 60's that day) and windy. But the pool was heated so the kids wanted to swim. Made us cold just looking at them. We were sitting with jeans and sweats on. But they had fun and got to try out the new water camera. (Try a "Parrot's Tail" some time - very yummy drink.)
Dinner was a little dramatic as Devin was concerned about the nut-free safety of his food. We were able to reassure him and asked LOTS of questions of our SERVER named Devin (how funny is that?). Note to anyone with food allergies: the Radisson staff at this hotel was AMAZING about all of the food questions we had. I was really pretty impressed. Dev thought after eating his chicken (which they had brought out the label for us to read, so we knew it was fine) that his throat felt funny, so I busted out the Benedryl, but it turned out to be just a little anxious moment (again, whew).
Room was nice and was about a 5 minute ride to the ship. I would definitely stay there again!
Video clip is Julia doing her "I'm on vacation" dance on the bed in our room. It sort of expresses how we all felt!!
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