The alarm was set for 6.45am start with the intention of being on the road for 8am. As ever we were few minutes behind schedule.
Today had been the day that Neil had volunteered to be at ours whilst the plumbers carried out a power flush on the heating system to try and get all the downstairs radiators working at last but at the last moment rescheduled. This seems to be a common theme in my life at the moment.
Getting out of Norwich proved to be a nightmare. There were temporary traffic lights on the Low Road, then Hellesdon bridge was shut. Larkman Lane also had temporary lights. Then we heard the Southern bypass was closed. Finally, Cringleford bridge was also closed. It took us 35 minutes to get to the Thickthorn roundabout and I think we were lucky it only took that long as the congestion gradually built up behind us.
The rest of the journey though was straightforward after that and involved only one toilet stop although I did have use the facilities at Sunny’s house when we got to his. He dropped us quickly off at Terminal 5 and we made use of the empty Business Class check in and fast security line.
The BA Business Lounge was a step up from the Club Aspire Lounge but not as good as the Virgin Upper Class Lounge. Still, we made full use of it. I had a hot breakfast when we arrived along with copious glasses of bubbles as I wasn’t driving the other end. We were in there almost 2 hours meaning I also managed to sample their giant fish fingers as well upon Graham’s recommendation from his visit the week before.
Boarding was easy as we were in Group 2 although easy going Karen was perturbed to find they had not introduced a Group 0 ahead of us for boarding as well.
The service and food was fine which is good as you can hope for with British Airways. Our cupboards that we were sat in not as good as Virgin cupboards but I was able to sit with my leg fully up which was the main thing.
The flight seemed to pass slowly. I watched the first 3 episodes of the TV series National Treasure. It had a good set up but then seemed to lose its way with not enough character development or explanation to the story. I could see why it was not renewed for a second series.
I spent most of my time on ‘the book’ both editing and formatting it. Finally, the end of it is in sight. I keep veering from it being hopeless and embarrassing to actually some bits are almost OK. Anyhow this labour of love is almost there. I intend to self-publish at cost price for anyone foolish enough to want to read it. Looks like being about 300 pages long and this is only Part One
When we landed on time we found Miami airport to a mess with building work everywhere. This meant stupidly long walks with none of the walkways working along the same for some of the escalators. I found it hard work with my foot and I gradually got slower the further we went.
I love global entry as here it used facial recognition as we found ourselves walking through immigration without stopping. Our bags were quickly off the carousel and we made our way to find the hotel shuttle. Strangely it meant going up another level to where we waited on the kerbside to a general free for all for shuttles doing their pickups.
Our shuttle didn’t turn up for 25minutes just as I was wanting to give up and try to find a taxi instead. The Holiday Inn Express that we had booked was close by and turned out just a few metres from the runway. It would have just a short walk if we had come direct from the plane rather than the miles we had to walk to immigration and baggage claim.
We were both tired and went straight to bed after having a much-needed cuppa.
The jet lag really kicked in overnight and we were both wide awake chatting just after 4.30am. Not long after 7am we headed down for breakfast where we lingered for a while before heading back to the room to pack up again.
The Uber I had pre ordered to take us Port Everglades arrived 10 minutes early whilst we were already waiting in reception for him. Not sure what nationality he was but he only had very few words of English. The journey took about 40 minutes which including having the car searched at the port security point. I can understand that happening on the way out of the port in case of smuggling but not on the way in.
Although boarding didn’t officially start until noon, we were allowed to check-in and wait in the terminal building. By 11.20am we had boarded and were in our ‘state room’.
As this was a last-minute trip, we had booked a ‘suite’ which meant we had a decent sized room with a balcony upon which I could rest with my leg up.
After registering at our muster station, we wandered to the Lido market for lunch. It seemed everyone who had now boarded had the same idea and it was very busy. The food was not bad.
Then we headed to one of the pool decks found somewhere to sit and used some of our drinks package for the first time -Lime margarita’s. I may have had another couple of those as the pool departure party started up around us. We watched rather than join in with the line dancing that started up.
Eventually we headed up to the Crows Nest to get some hot drinks and eventually found seats to watch as the ship pulled away and headed out to sea.
Our bags had by now been delivered to our room so we went back to get ourselves organised and changed for dinner.
In the ‘posher’ Dining Room we ordered our 3 course meals (I had pot roast) washed down with our old favourite ‘Dutch 150’s’.
We ate leisurely before heading back to the music bars and found seats at Billboard Onboard which was the piano bar.
Within minutes we were both singing along enjoying ourselves with a nice glass of red wine. The pianist’s set was over to soon before the music started up in the Rolling Stone Rock Lounge behind us.
The music was loud and brash and I suppose surprisingly contained a lot of Rolling Stones covers. The musicianship was high but we were both too tired and still jet lagged to appreciate it too much and so headed back to our room.
By 10.30am after putting on my night splint and with a very gentle roll to the ship it was only seconds before I was back in the land of nod.
