Interesting trip I just took in Florida. It started with a conference on cruising. I had booked the cheapest beachfront hotel I could find in Fort Lauderdale. And it lived up to the cheap qualification. The backdoors did not lock, the carpets were filthy, the walls had brown streaks and the ceilings had mold. The ocean was barely visible between two buildings; the hot water was intermittent as was the Internet connection. Thankfully the time spent there was minimal. I had rented the smallest car possible and on a spur of the moment decision added a GPS to the package. It was nighttime and I have trouble reading maps as I drive at night…besides I have a very poor sense of direction…and do not deal well with getting lost (i.e. I start to cry).
I plugged it in, turned it on, fiddled with the suction cup for a bit and then heard the voice say: “fasten your seat belt”. So far so good. I drove out of the parking garage and waited to hear more…she stayed worryingly quiet. I was very concerned as there were a variety of ramps and road numbers appearing left and right. It finally said something. But I was so startled that I missed the exit and ended up in the boondocks. It eventually said in a stern voice “recalculating”. I came to understand that that was the equivalent of “you were bad and did not follow directions”. After a lot of driving around I finally made it to the hotel.
The next day I was a bit more familiar with the voice and her last minute instructions as I learnt to also watch the map to expect what was coming. Unfortunately, it died on me without warning and I was stuck in the middle of nowhere without a map. After painstakingly making it back to the hotel and trying to get someone from Avis on the phone, I decided to go back to the car rental kiosk at the airport. They gave me a new one and all was good…. for a while and it died again! Back to the airport I went (I at least knew the way by now) and they gave me a third GPS. As I plugged it in, it occurred to me that the problem was not the gizmo; it was the lighter plug that was defective thus not re charging the machine. I went back inside and asked for another car. They gave me a fancy shmancy car and everything was fine…until I parked it in a huge parking garage and could not find it when I returned (I had not really looked at it in the airport parking lot and obviously not noted the level I had left it at). A nice attendant in a golf cart found it for me. Playing the confused old lady works…
As part of the conference were got to visit some cruise ships. Unfortunately, because of delay we hopped on and off more than we toured. But I did manage to snap a few pictures.
The first ship was the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the seas. It is very airy, with a lot of glass and cool blues and greens.
I visited two ships from the Holland America line, the Zuiderdam and the Westerdam. We visited one of the bigger staterooms, one that has a Jacuzzi on the verandah!
We stopped by the library, I noticed a great selection of magazines! We also visited the spa. There will be a lot more photos to come as this is a sister ship to the Noordam, that I will be sailing in a few weeks….stay tuned!
As I have mentioned before I am fascinated by turtles but have never been in Florida at nesting or hatching time…I knew that street and city lights have been known to confuse them. Here is how Fort Lauderdale deals with this problem: they place hoods over the lampposts so that the light only shines away from the beach. Cute bonnets….As I have mentioned before I am fascinated by turtles but have never been in Florida at nesting or hatching time…I knew that street and city lights have been known to confuse them. Here is how Fort Lauderdale deals with this problem: they place hoods over the lampposts so that the light only shines away from the beach. Cute bonnets….As I have mentioned before I am fascinated by turtles but have never been in Florida at nesting or hatching time…I knew that street and city lights have been known to confuse them. Here is how Fort Lauderdale deals with this problem: they place hoods over the lampposts so that the light only shines away from the beach. Cute bonnets….
