Starting a New Year

Dan has convinced me that it would be better to just keep adding our various trip blogs to one long list rather than keep creating a new one for each trip.  He points out that if any of you actually subscribe to the blog, the posts will trigger your systems and you will know what we are doing.

January 7, 2012

Arye picked us up at a God-awful 5:30 am to take us to SFO to catch a 7:50 flight.  Timing was a bit conservative, but better to be early than miss the flight.  Virgin America was everything people have said.  The counter clerks were friendly and efficient, the boarding was quick and smooth and in spite of a small problem with a radio, departure was almost on time.  In flight service was excellent, clearly no meals, but the drink service was frequent and friendly.  Arrival was on time and the bags arrived quickly.  All in all a good experience.  We called the Sheraton for a pickup and were told the van was right outside.  It was and we were able to get on with no waiting.  Ten or so minutes took us the the hotel and the desk was quick and we were in our room within 45 minutes of the airplanes arrival.  The hotel was sort of in the middle of nowhere, so dinner was at the hotel restaurant.  We were on the “Club” floor and had access to the Club lounge, but since it was the weekend it wasn’t staffed or stocked so they provided coupons for a free buffet breakfast.

January 8, 2012

Betti’s Panama Canal cruise arrived in Sunday morning, so we had arranged to meet for some sightseeing.  She got off the ship, got her car and called to say she was waiting downstairs.  When we got down, no Betti to be found.  Turns out there are four Sheratons in the Fort Lauderdale area and I had sent her to the wrong one.  It took about 20 minutes for her to get to the right one and we were off to Bonnet House.

Bonnet house is one of those homes built in the early 1900s by the rich northerners as snow bird hideaways.  It isn’t a Miami Beach mansion, but rather built as a Caribbean style plantation house.  It is very similar to a Spanish hacienda, four sides of rooms built around a courtyard with plantings and fountains.  One of the most amazing things is that it was donated intact to the historical society when the property taxes got to be too much for the owners in the 1980s.  The donation included all the furnishings and even the many complete sets of china.  Apparently the owner was a bit of a collector of china and there are perhaps a dozen complete sets.  It is set on 35 acres of prime Fort Lauderdale beach land, now surrounded by high rise condos, so you can understand why the last tax appraisal before the donation was  one million dollars per acre.

Betti took us back to the hotel and we caught the shuttle to the Celebrity Solstice.  Again the shuttle was efficient and the check in process at the ship went quickly.  The room was available and by the time we had had lunch, our bags were at the room.  Dinner was very nice, an interesting preparation of lamb shank with all the usual cruise ship service and accompaniments.  The introductory show was way above average, not quite the production that Disney does, but very good.

January 9, 2012

I don’t know where the day went.  It was a sea day and we took it pretty easy.  Leisurely morning so that we barely made it to the sit down breakfast before they closed, followed immediately by the galley tour.  In fact, we never even left the dining room since the dining room was the meeting place for the tour.  From there we went to a talk where the captain spoke about the way they operate the ship.  It is amazing how much the modern navigator depends on his electronic assistants.   He never even mentioned a sextant.  Most of the morning we were sailing down the coastline of Cuba.  I’m sure they were at least 12 miles offshore.  After lunch, were was a talk by a retired professor on the Mayan calendar and the theory that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012.  He attempted to disprove this by pointing out that it isn’t even clear that the number of years that people are using to show that the calendar ends in 2012 is correct. That date might be 2086 instead.   The afternoon was perfect clear blue, sunny Caribbean.  I guess the only way the world will end in 2012 is if Newt gets elected President.   Dinner and another good show, this one in the style of Cirque de Soleil.