Jerry and I will board the Emerald Princess ship at Fort Lauderdale on Friday, April 4th. It's been about five years since our last cruise so we are itching to get on board and enjoy our mini-suite. I'm looking forward to the first two days at sea so the relaxing can begin. I will spend a lot of time on our balcony enjoying the sound of the ship moving through the sea and the sunshine.
We will sail all the way south to Aruba and then make our way back. Besides Aruba we will be stopping at Dominica, Grenada, Bonaire, St. Thomas, and the last stop will be Princess Cays which is the Princess owned island in the Bahamas before we are back in port on Monday, April 14th.
Jerry and I are headed to Fort Lauderdale to spend a couple of days prior to boarding the Emerald Princess. We were up early and off to the airport. We flew out of Dallas Fort Worth Airport's Terminal D. It's such a nice terminal where you could get spoiled and expect to have all the amenities like this at all airport terminals.
This is a first for us, Toby dropping us at the airport and leaving him home alone for almost two weeks! He seems to be taking all the instructions well, humoring us by listening to everything rather than arguing about what we need him to do or not to do.
Jerry and I are staying at the Comfort Suites in Fort Lauderdale just north of the airport. We have a nice big room which is nice since we will be here for two days. We hope to do some exploring on our own on Wednesday and then Thursday we plan on taking a cruise around the harbor.
Jerry and I met up with my cousin, Jackie at her house and went to dinner at Sea Watch. We sat in the bar until we got our table which was on the patio looking out to sea. It was a beautiful sight and we totally enjoyed the atmosphere. The breeze off the water was quite pleasant. The food was absolutely delicious. After dinner we went back to Jackie's house and visited with her and her boyfriend, Ted before heading back to the hotel. Check out some pictures of our room and Fort Lauderdale along with a picture of Jackie and myself.
Thursday Jerry and I got up and had breakfast at the hotel before heading downtown Fort Lauderdale to take a cruise on the Carrie B. It took us on a memorable tour of the harbour and the intercoastal waters. We learned that Fort Lauderdale is known as the "Venice of America" because of all the canals in and around Fort Lauderdale. We saw multi-million dollar homes and yachts to match. Our tour lasted an hour and a half, it was really nice a bit breezy but the temperature was perfect. We saw two cruise ships in port, RCCL's Navigator of the Seas and the Regent Seven Seas Navigator. There was a cargo ship coming into port we had to wait for and then followed. It had a limo on top of the cargo.
After disembarking from the Carrie B we drove down to Ernie's BBQ for lunch. It is near our hotel and we have been told we have to try the bbq and the conch chowder. The sandwiches are made with bimini bread which is quite delicious.
Once we finished lunch we took a ride heading south on highway A1A toward Miami. We had been on the A1A headed north on Wednesday. The beaches are beautiful. Heading south seeing all the condos and the ones under construction was amazing, it looked like Waikiki and we didn't even make it to South Beach in Miami! Jerry had at that point had enough driving so we cut over and came up 95 to Fort Lauderdale.
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