Joseph, Gabriella, Julianna, James, and Elora

Joseph, Gabriella, Julianna, James, and Elora

Friday, September 27, 2013

The Cruise that Wasn't {Part 3}

I'm sorry it took me so long to go on with Part 3. Real life interfering, I guess. Also, I realize Part I and Part 2 were kind of depressing. Apologies. Things get better today, I promise.

We woke up Friday morning rested, refreshed, and eager to take back our vacation! After grabbing a quick, delicious, and oh-so-healthy breakfast at Krispy Kreme, we got in our little rental car and began the long drive down through the Florida Keys. It was quite an interesting trip - and in this case, I actually mean interesting in a good way, as in we were both interested in all the new sights and scenery!

There is basically only one road that goes all the way down from the northernmost "key" which, I think, is Key Largo, all the way down through the others to end at Key West and "Mile 0." Both sides of the road are heavily lined with this strange type of shrubbery called mangrove trees, which have long curving roots that branch out into the ocean. I had never heard of a tree that could live in salt water before! But mangroves suck up the salt water through their roots and then somehow filter out the salt, which crusts on their leaves. They grew thickly on both sides of the road, which gave one the impression of driving through the countryside, but then suddenly there would be a break in the trees and you would see the sunlight sparkling off the ocean on either side of you! It was not what I expected the Keys to look like at all, but it was beautiful and unusual all the same.


Our first stop was in Islamorada, the island just west of Key Largo, where we were planning to have lunch. We had heard that the best key lime pie to be had in the Keys was at a place called Mannie and Isa's, a couple who grew the limes in their own backyard and then brought them into the restaurant to make their famous pie. However, sadly, we discovered when we got there that their restaurant had been closed for several years. We stopped to buy some t-shirts for the kids and asked the locals to recommend a good seafood place. This is how we ended up eating lunch at The Fish Company.


It was a beautiful outdoor restaurant sitting on the water.


The restaurant surrounded a central pool, where they would feed sharks, pike, and other fish that would swim up from the ocean for a free meal. Then there was a big fight/feeding frenzy!



The seagulls kept trying to get in on the action, diving down to try to catch the pieces of meat before they hit the water - without getting too close and gobbled up by the sharks themselves!


This seagull was not 6 feet from my chair. He really wanted some of my lunch.


There were a couple pelicans hanging around as well.



View in two different directions from our table.


And there's my handsome husband, just hanging out waiting for his food. We shared stuffed mahi-mahi (the non-cute kind of dolphin) and coconut shrimp - it was yummy!

 After lunch we got back on the road and drove down through several more little islands. Along the way I saw a sign that said "Swim with the dolphins!" and I got really excited. This was something I've always wanted to do, and I gave Robert puppy dog eyes until he gave in and stopped. :-) We went into the Dolphin Research Center and asked if we could sign up to swim with them. Guess what? They don't let pregnant women swim with dolphins either! *sob* I was starting to feel very discriminated against!


 Fortunately we at least got to see some dolphins. They were pretty cute.


A ginormous iguana that was just hanging around:


 And a funny macaw learning some tricks:


A few hours and several more little islands later, we had made it all the way down to Key West! We had a couple of hours until sunset, which we had been advised was a beautiful sight over the water. We walked around Duval Street, which appeared to be the hub of the town, but we quickly discovered it was...well, not exactly our scene, as it consisted mainly of bars, strip clubs, and cigar shops. Yikes. We pretty quickly got disgusted with Key West and decided it wasn't worth waiting around, even for the promise of a beautiful sunset, so we bought a few presents at a souvenier shop and got back in our car to leave.

The funny part was, as we were driving around trying to find our way out of Key West, we ended up on the other side of the island and suddenly everything was lovely! A long, deserted beach with beautiful waves rolling in, nice little houses and hotels, places to rent boats and kayaks and fishing equipment...wait a second - we LIKED Key West! We stopped off at the beach for a few minutes to wade in the surf, and then reluctantly realized that it was getting late and we still had to drive all the way back to Ft. Lauderdale that night. It was just too bad we didn't discover the nice side of Key West sooner.

The trip back was fairly uneventful, as we were mainly trying to get back as quickly as possible. We stopped for dinner at Porky's Seafood and Barbeque in Marathon, which was the first place we could find that was open! Apparently all the little towns pretty much shut down after dark. It was kind of a fun, funky little place that reminded me a big of an old houseboat, as it extended onto the water.


Every square inch was covered with writing by its customers, and there was a live guitarist as well. Robert had a crawfish sandwich and I, having had my fill of seafood, ordered bbq. Then we both ordered key lime pie.
Me with my perfectly normal key lime pie

Robert with his very weird fried key lime pie. He insisted it was delicious.

Dinner over, we drove steadily until we reached our hotel, at about one in the morning, and fell into bed, exhausted but satisfied after our first actual successful day of vacation!

Monday, September 16, 2013

The Cruise that Wasn't {Part 2}

So, evidently, the cruise wasn't going to happen. We drove another hour back to Ft. Lauderdale, kind of vacillating between shock and outrage. We kept trying to get over it and change the subject, but then one of us would suddenly turn to the other and say "I can't believe they didn't TELL us beforehand..."

The cruise had been scheduled for months. I think Robert bought the package back in February, and then it took a long time getting my passport updated, but it had definitely been scheduled for about 3 months in advance. And the worst part is, while he was scheduling it, Robert TOLD the cruise representative on the phone that I was pregnant. "Okay, great!" he replied. Not "how far along will she be?" or "Oh, that's great, but by the way, we have this policy..." Not a word. Then, once it was all scheduled, they sent us some paperwork detailing all the things we would need, the extra fees we would be charged, the papers we would need to get on the ship or if we were going to bring our children.... Guess what that paperwork didn't include? ANY mention of their pregnancy policy whatsoever!

I understand the policy (now that it's been explained to me), and I don't really have a problem with it. See, after 23 weeks, babies born early have a lower but very real chance of survival. If a pregnant women were to go into premature labor and have her baby early, they don't have the neo-natal facilities or resources to properly take care of it. It doesn't have a helicopter pad, either, so it would take longer to get the woman and her premature baby back to the mainland to get to a hospital, etc. I understand that they are afraid of getting sued and don't want to deal with it. I get it. And I would have had no problem with this stupid policy if SOMEONE, ANYONE had bothered to mention it to us BEFORE we tried to set foot on the ship!! We would have scheduled the cruise for 3 weeks earlier and everything would have been fine. But...BUT...

Back in Ft. Lauderdale, we found ourselves being shuffled back and forth between the "Welcome Center," the cruise line phone representative, and the hotel staff, none of whom seemed to want to claim us. We were starting to feel like Philip Nolan, the fictional character from The Man Without a Country! Our plane didn't leave until Sunday morning, so we were here for another three nights no matter what. We went to get some lunch at a local seafood place while waiting for the whole situation to get straightened out so we could get another hotel room.

Right next door to the seafood restaurant, we spotted this:
 

Did you know in an alternate universe, I'm a notary public? ;-) When you have such a strange name as I do, you always get excited to see it in random places. It's even spelled correctly! Also, the seafood place, Flannigans, was good. Robert was very happy with his shrimp linguine, and I even ate smoked fish dip and clam chowder of my own free will and enjoyed them. (I'm not a big seafood person, in case you can't tell!)

Back at the hotel, we FINALLY got our room, and went and fell into bed and took a four hour nap, trying to catch up from a night of little sleep and a day that held frustration from start to finish! Woke up feeling better, grabbed a quick dinner at the hotel, and took a short walk to buy some water bottles. Then we girded up our loins and began planning Our Vacation: Take 2.  Robert suggested we take the car the next day and drive all the way down through the Florida Keys, stopping at various interesting sights along the way. We resolved that no amount of aggravation from the cruise line or the "Welcome Center" was going to prevent us from having a terrific vacation after all!

Our plans and resolution being made, we went back to sleep. Can you tell we're parents with small children??

To be continued...

Saturday, September 14, 2013

The Cruise that Wasn't {Part I}

Last week Robert and I took a vacation. It wasn't the vacation we intended to take - it wasn't the vacation we planned - perhaps it wasn't even the vacation we wanted. But it was the vacation we got, and, as I believe God has His hand on everything in our lives, it surely was the vacation He knew we needed.

Originally we were supposed to go on a cruise to the Bahamas. Robert found a good deal, and we had been planning to go for months. We wanted to have one vacation with just the two of us before the new baby comes and we can't really go anywhere for a while. (Nobody wants to take five children on a cruise ship. NOBODY. Can you imagine? I would spend every waking second and probably most of my sleeping ones trying to prevent one or all of them from getting lost or falling over the side. Oy. That is not a vacation!) So, we planned, we scheduled, we packed, we ran around frantically trying to find our passports that I had gone to tons of trouble to have expedited and then hidden carefully away from the children and then couldn't find the day before our trip...!

Finally all was ready and the day was here. The kids were packed up and sent off to Grammie's for their four-day "sleepover," which they were super excited about, and Robert and I boarded a plane bound for Ft. Lauderdale and our glorious four days of sun, ship, relaxation, and all the food we could eat. Or so we thought.

The first "bump" in the road was our flight getting delayed coming into Denver - all flights, actually, due to bad weather - which resulted in our flight to Ft. Lauderdale getting bumped back three hours, which meant we arrived at 2:15 am local time, give or take a few minutes. We trekked the deserted airport, got our rental car and directions, and drove out into the POURING rain to try to find our hotel. It was not terribly near the airport, but we finally arrived, got our room, and fell into bed to get a few hours sleep.

The next morning we had to rise early all the same, because we had a tour scheduled with the "Welcome Center" as part of the package deal we signed up with our cruise in order to get an inexpensive hotel room and rental car. Turns out the "Welcome Center" was most inaptly named. We arrived at 8:30, said "we're here for our tour," and were informed (quite testily) that the tour was actually located an hour away! Gee, thanks...that would have been nice to know when we called you to check in yesterday! Every single person who worked there was not only less than helpful, but quite rude about it. Finally we managed to get the tour rescheduled for Saturday after our cruise ship returned, retrieved our boarding passes, and set off for the Port of Palm Beach to get on board our ship!

After another hour drive, we arrived at the port to see the World's. Biggest. Ship. stretched out in front of us! I have never seen anything that massive, particularly up close. It dwarfed everything around it, including the "embarkation building" next to it, and made up feel like ants next to a mountain! Two tiny little ants who parked our car, went through security (security?? To board a ship?? It was nearly as thorough as TSA!) checked our luggage, and went to fill out our final paperwork to get on board. While Robert was writing, a tiny little Asian lady came up and smiled at me.

"Getting ready to get on the ship?"

"Yes," I smile back.

"Ah. I see you are expecting!" (gesturing to my burgeoning stomach)

"Yes, that's right."

"How far along are you?" (conversationally)

"Oh, about twenty five weeks."

"Oh." Her smile disappears. "Well, I'm very sorry to have to tell you, but we cannot allow pregnant women on board after twenty three weeks."

I blink. "Excuse me?"

Oh, yes, I heard her right. This small factor, which not ONE person from the cruise line OR the 'Welcome Center' had bothered to mention until we were actually boarding the ship, was company policy. No amount of discussion, reasoning, or appealing to more highly authorized personnel did any good. We were very apologetically but firmly refused entry to the ship and shown out of the building, one of us fighting back tears of frustration. You can probably guess which one! The four hours' sleep combined with the hormones weren't exactly helping.

We drove back to Ft. Lauderdale in defeat, tired, frustrated, stunned by this turn of events and wondering how to salvage our vacation.

To be continued...