We go cruising today! That's the first thought that entered my mind when I woke up at 7 am. Which is 4 am in LA time, but considering I fell asleep before the early bird specials were over the night before, I was feeling really good.
Except...I woke up to a voicemail from Costco Travel. Uh...okay. I listened to their urgent voicemail saying it was "imperative" that I call them back, so I did...except they weren't open yet. I started to panic at this point - because really, what's so imperative that Costco had to call me?
Once I booted up my laptop, I found out: our cruise had been delayed by a day. Costco had called me at 8:30 LA time the night before...you know, after I'd already fallen asleep. Princess Cruises had emailed me the notice the night before as well, after I was already asleep. REALLY??!! The ONE night I actually sleep early is when something crazy happens!
This is their email:
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So...we didn't have a place to stay for the night, because we only booked one night! I ran downstairs to the lobby to see if we could extend our stay - but they were fully booked - which isn't a surprise since it was a timeshare. I ran back upstairs, told my mom to continue packing, and hopped on my laptop looking for a hotel for the night. I didn't want to splurge big, because Princess indicated they'd reimburse "reasonable" expenses, and I didn't know what their version of "reasonable" was since it's a subjective standard (let's just say my "reasonable" and my dad's "reasonable" mean very different things), so I didn't want to book anything too crazy in case we didn't get our money back (spoiler alert: they DID reimburse everything - even the resort fee and taxes). I looked at the Hyatt House, the Hyatt Place, Hilton, Hilton's friends, and all the places I had been checking out before I booked the BeachPlace Towers. All booked up. There was another cruise ship in town departing that day, AND over two thousand displaced Princess passengers looking for a hotel room for the night - so MOST of the places in Fort Lauderdale area was booked up. And what wasn't booked up was crazy expensive! The freaking Courtyard Fort Lauderdale was going for $380 a night! There were two more rooms at the Comfort Inn going for $280 each, but I didn't want to spend that money at Comfort Inn! So I found rooms at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort for about $300 - which ended up being about $360 after taxes and fees. It was expensive for what it was, but I figured that even if Princess only reimbursed us $200 each, the out of pocket wouldn't kill me or give my dad an aneurysm. We packed up, checked out, and waited outside with our luggage for our Lyft.
While mom with Grace and Ed headed across the street to take photos at the beach, my dad and snapped a cheesy selfie while waiting with the luggage.
Our Lyft driver pulled up, looked at our luggage and LITERALLY SAID HE WOULDN'T TAKE THE FARE AND TOOK OFF. I don't know who the guy was, but he was a black guy in his 30's driving a Tahoe. I shake my fist at you Tahoe Man!
So after Lyft cleared me to request another car, I did, and this time the guy not only took us, but helped with our luggage. I know it was a weenie fare since it was literally a mile down the street, but I gave that guy a fat tip for being cool and not a dick to us.
Since it was about 10:30, our rooms weren't ready - but they gave us our towel cards (we've never stayed at a beach resort before...you need towel cards???), drink cards (yay for mojitos), and set us free to enjoy the pools and beach. Except well...I was wearing jeans. And it was hot outside. And humid. And jeans and heat and humidity are not friends - so after walking the grounds briefly, I wanted to go back in. I also hadn't had breakfast yet, so I went to their cheap(er) restaurant and got the brunch buffet for $29. My dad already had breakfast when I was feverishly trying to find us accommodations for the night, so he just ordered a cappuccino while I ate the world. My mom, Grace and Ed came into the restaurant later and we moved the nearby tables over to form a bigger table. They had already had breakfast, but decided to just eat again since we didn't want to leave the hotel to search out lunch without our rooms and luggage being settled. My dad was still being stubborn and refused to eat, claiming he wasn't hungry and he didn't like the food there. Personally, I think he was just being cheap, but whatever. I happily munched on croissants, bacon, parfaits, oatmeal, fruit, potatoes and made to order omelets. I was full 😄
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| one of the many croissants I had. Yum. |
After we finished, we went back to the lobby because it was air conditioned (they were over the heat and humidity in jeans too) and there was wifi. By noon, I got a call that our rooms were ready - and we had our luggage delivered to our room so we could all change into shorts (yay!) and be able to relax.
We took a king room (there's no way my parents could both fit into a double bed) as the king room came with a sofa bed and Grace and Ed took the double room. I didn't spring for an ocean view room, and now I wished I would have since I know Princess would've paid for it (sobbing with regret). This is the view from our room:
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| They called this the "intercoastal view". Sure... |
My parents were tired and wanted to nap - I wanted to go lay on the beach, so I changed into shorts and a tank, grabbed my kindle, and set off in my Rainbows in search of sand and sun (all in shade, of course). On the way, I stopped off at the Starbucks in the hotel, grabbed a "you are here" Miami mug for my friend Marci, and treated myself to an iced chai tea latte. I then meandered out to the beach, and grabbed a lounger in the shade.
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| this is the view on the way to the elevator. The view I wished I paid for. |
I guess this was the off season, because it wasn't busy. I had my choice of loungers, and picked one set further back because I'm anti social. I also didn't intend to swim, so it didn't matter if I was close to the water.
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| as you can see, shade was important in my choice of loungers |
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| awesomely awkward selfie! |
I happily whiled away a few hours lazing around on the beach. I drank my tea, read my book, toodled around on the internet, took some photos of my feet, and read more. Around 4pm, the rest of my people came out to take a look at the ocean. I mean, if you're going to (potentially) pay for a hotel on the beach, you should enjoy the amenity that makes it cost 3 times more than it's actually worth, right?
They lounged around in the shade awhile and we debated where to have dinner.
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| hello cruise ship that's not ours! |
I made the executive decision to have Italian as it's something my parents actually can tolerate, even like. The reviews for the Chinese food in the area were dismal, and I really didn't want Panda Express on vacation, so I won!
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| the view from our room as the sun was setting |
They also gave us a platter of really good garlic bread. It was so good, I want to try to dupe it next time I make pasta at home.
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| look at that big honking pile of clam shells! |
The food was good, but not great. The pasta was a little oilier than I liked (see the above photo), though the flavor was fine. My parents were okay with it - it wasn't as good as the food we had in Italy, but come on - we're in Florida.
After dinner we walked a few blocks to the 7-Eleven to pick up some bottled water for our rooms. we were on Las Olas - but the few blocks separating the restaurant from the 7-Eleven went from festive and buzzing to pretty sketchy. The parking lot of the 7-Eleven smelled like pee, and my dad was approached by an old guy asking for money. We purchased water along with breads and pastries for breakfast the next morning (because we cheap and lazy and want to eat cruise food we've already paid for) and stayed inside the 7-Eleven a long as we could waiting for the Lyft driver. WHO TOOK FOREVER. We ended up waiting outside for about five minutes - and I knew my mom and Grace were freaked out, but there were 5 of us in a lighted location just outside a store. If you're going to rob someone, it sure as hell wouldn't be FIVE someones standing right in front of a video camera with excellent lighting. But we were all relieved when our Lyft driver pulled up. Within 10 minutes, we were dropped off at our hotel.
We showered, I made up my sofa bed, and we slept. The next day, we go cruising for real!
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