Cruise Day 1 Miami

OK I'm going to tackle this one day at a time. On Friday night we kissed our little Craig goodbye and Sent him off to grandma and grandpas (he had a blast by the way) but it was hard. then we finished packing and at 2 am started the trip to Vegas so that we could catch our 6 o'clock flight to Miami.
This is when we got to the hotel in Miami around noon on Saturday we grabbed some lunch and then took a very long wonderful nap!

About to go get dinner (I'm in Miami!)

I have a sad tale to tell about Saturday night. Just my luck too. As a precursor to the story though you need to know that we had 3 excursions planed all of which involved quite a bit of physical activity, we were very excited for them.

OK so Saturday night we decided to walk a little ways away to a Cuban restaurant to eat dinner. It was just under the freeway and a couple of blocks away. Never having had Cuban food I was excited. So we got ready and headed out. I'm not gonna lie it was a little scary. The rout we were going was hardly designed for pedestrians and I had heels on so it was a little slow going.

We were about to dash across the off ramp and when I stepped off the curb I somehow twisted my ankle, very badly! I couldn't put any weight on it and K.C. had to pick me up and put me back on the curb. It hurt so bad that I could not walk on it and it immediately started to swell.

We were only about a block away from the food place so after sitting long enough that the pain wasn't so sharp we decided to go the short distance forward instead of going the long walk back to the hotel.

I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to do anything that we had planned. Such bad timing! My foot still hurts today if I'm not careful. I just had to limp around for several days and go very slowly.
Sunday morning (which is where I start counting the days, hence this post is day 1 even though we had been on the road for a day and half at this point.) we headed to the port. Miami is a beautiful city. I was amazed at how much water there is everywhere. I mean it's EVERYWHERE. There are huge rivers and channels running through the city in every direction, and from the airplane it looked as if there were some buildings that were only accessible on foot or by boat. I could be wrong, we weren't too close but it looked that way.
We had a heart wrenching experience when we got to the port. The were putting us all in our lines to board and we realized that we had left K.C.'s passport home! I seriously felt ill. You had to have a photo ID AND proof of citizenship. I had my drivers licence and birth certificate but K.C. only had his Drivers License. Of all the things to forget! But as you can see we made it.
We were about to breath a sigh of relief, and then they said,
"It won't be a problem you can still go, the only time you might encounter a problem is when you're coming back into the states."

We were like:

oh O.K..... wait WHAT!? that happens to be a very very important part! we asked over and over again to see what we could do to make sure we could come back but they assured us that people did it all the time. So we more that just a little trepidation, we were off!

Here's one of the few times that we actually have a picture together!
(Miami port in the back)

this is as we were all lining up on the deck waiting to set sail.

As we sailed out of the port this was the last part of Florida we saw. I am amazed at how close to the sea they build things!

I love how blue the ocean is! it is SO gorgeous! I loved to just sit and watch it.

This was kind of a fun shot of the Miami skyline. I liked it anyways.
We had to get dressed up every night for dinner. That was fun. There were 2 formal nights and the rest were just resort casual (no beachwear or flip flops or shorts, in short NICE attire.)

This was the library

This is the dining room where we went for Dinner every night.

And last but not least... the towel animals. (And the bed!... Oh the bed.)


You can't really see in this picture because the covers are filling up the hole. This bed was 2 twin beds side by side. The one close to the window was decent, if you don't mind feeling the springs in your ribs while you sleep. But the one closest to the camera... holy cow. I think that it was the first mattress that The Carnival Cruise lines ever bought and it ended up on Carnival Triumph.

It had a crater in the middle of it. I kid you not if the person on that side was not holding onto the person on the other side they would fall down into the abyss that was trying to be a bed. And it was uncomfortable! We would wake up all through the night.

And it's not like we could both sleep on the one semi-good side either because the ridge in the middle where the mattresses met was like a mountain between the valleys. You couldn't stay perched there without considerable effort and we both couldn't comfortably fit on the one mattress either.

In short: the bed was our enemy.