August 29, 2024
Nikki and I started our trip to Florida to visit her Aunt and Uncle and then catch a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale by planning on driving down to Gatlinburg, TN and spending the night there. Everything was perfect until about 5 hours in when we made our first stop for gas. When I got ready and loaded the car I had my keys to unlock my car and got everythign in the car and then we just left. The problem was I left my wallet which I didn’t put in my pockets when I initially grabbed the keys to unlock the car. Luckily we were able to get in touch with Jonny and he met us half way just north of Cincinnati to hand me my wallet, so we didn’t have to spend an extra 10 hours driving the 5 hours back to home and another 5 hours to get back to where we found out I was missing my wallet. So we were only 5 hour behind. The rest of the drive was uneventful other than missing daylight we were supposed to have in Gatlinburg. We arrived about 11:00 at night and rented a VRBO condo on a mountain overlooking Gatlinburg. The drive up the steep winding mountain road in the dark was harrowing at best. The road was single wide in most spots and blind curves in the dark as my headlights were pointing into the trees because of the steepness of the road was concerning. My car dragged the plate protecting my oil pan at least twice on the tight corners as well. We ended up on top and it took about 10 minutes to find our building in the dark. The condo was small but nice for the two of us. I would go back there, but in the daytime only!
August 30, 2024
We started our morning early just as the sun was rising over the mountains. Our plan was to drive through the Smokey Mountain National Forest and then down to Punta Gorda, FL to spend a couple of days with Wendy and Randy. We spent about 10 minutes on the deck looking at the beautiful sunrise before packing our stuff to head down the mountain. The trip down wasn’t bad with the daylight. We did see a black bear just as we started down. He ran across the road and into the gully. His coat was magnificent black and the tips of his hair sparkled in the early morning sun. He was very majestic looking even though he didn’t appear to be full grown and was trying to figure out how to get into the bear proof trash cans! We stopped in Galinburg for breakfast at Crockett’s Breakfast Camp and had a nice quick breakfast before heading into the National Forest. We saw several more bears, but by the time we were able to stop the car and Nikki got out she was unable to take many pictures of them before they disappeared back into the thickets surrounding the river. We spend about 90 minutes in the National forest and then headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and took an hour detour driving on the Parkway and then back to Cherokee, NC. We drove down to Florida and ran into a heavy storm that luckily only lasted about 10-15 minutes as we had to really slow down because the visibility was so limited. We arrived at Randy and Wendy’s about 11:00 at night. We stayed up until almost 2:00 am talking with them and catching up and meeting their cat, Zane.
August 31, 2024
We started the morning with wonderful waffles for breakfast that Randy made for everyone. Then Randy and Wendy took us out to show us Punta Gorda. We visited the Peace River Wildlife Center, where both Randy and Wendy volunteer their time, and got a behind the scenes tour and told about every animal there and each animal’s story. The center has a variety of mosty birds, but we did see tortoises and turtles, a rabbit, and an opossum as well. We had lunch at Celtic Ray which was an awesome little Irish pub with great fish and chips. We explored Punta Gorda more and Randy and Wendy showed us around their home town. I had a scrape on my leg from before we left that was starting to look infected so, Nikki and I went to the Urgent Care to get it checked out and I was put on some antibiotics and told to keep it dry and clean. The Pharmacy closed before we got there and would have to return the following morning to get the medications. Later that evening around 8:30, Randy and Wendy took us out to dinner and we had a good meal before heading back to their place for the night.
September 1, 2024
We went to the Pharmacy and picked up my meds first thing in the morning. We then packed up the car and followed Randy and Wendy to the Yacht Club for lunch before heading east to Fort Lauderdale. Lunch was wonderful and enjoyed our stay with Randy and Wendy and they were very gracious hosts and we look forward to going back and visiting them soon. They kept warning us that the time Apple Maps was telling us it would take to get to Fort Lauderdale was about an hour off. We headed out on I-75 towards Fort Lauderdale and just like they warned us, they closed the highway down in the middle of the everglades. Luckily we were prepared and filled up based on the advise from Randy and Wendy. We patiently waited about 45 minutes stopped on the Freeway and when we finally started moving again we drove past a burnt out vehicle on the side of the interstate with multiple fire trucks packing up. We made it to Fort Lauderdale the rest of the way fine, other than Nikki and I both needed to use a restroom after sitting on the highway for a long time not moving at all! We checked in to Dolce by Wyndham in Hollywood, Florida across the street from the Hollywood Hard Rock and Casino. We took a shuttle over to the Casino and explred the resort for several hours ate dinner there in the cafe. We ended up walking back to the hotel and got a good nights rest.
September 2, 2024
We got up and packed and headed out to the port in Fort Lauderdale to check in for the cruise. We parked the car and had to walk with our expertly packed bags, which was suprisingly very manageable. We passed through security and were scheduled for an early boarding since we did pay for the VIP package, which included lunch for that day on board and wifi for both of us. We boarded the ship and found our room and got our cabin card keys. We then headed down to the dining room and had a wonderful lunch. We met several other couples sitting at our table. After lunch we met up with Guy and Pattie near the pool before we left Fort Lauderdale. We got some frozen drinks and enjoyed the party as we left the port. We explored the ship some and had a wonderful dinner. We had some post dinner drinks with Guy and Pattie, we also changed our dinning table to be able to sit with Guy and pattie as they had us at separate tables to begin with. We enjoyed the silent disco in the ships atrium before going to bed.
September 3, 2024
Today was a full day at sea. We got up early and watched the sun rise over the ocean and had breakfast at the buffet. We explored the ship some more and attended some events around the ship like learning the beginning steps of salsa dancing and watching the pool party events like pool volleyball with the crew members. We met Guya nd Pattie for drinks in the late afternoon and had dinner with them which again was excellent. After dinner we attended a show called Rebel in the main theater that was a lot of fun. It was three men singing rock songs, one of them in a kilt, they were all great and it was very entertaining and fun. After the show we went into the atrium and watch karaoke
September 4, 2024
We got up early again, before the sun rose and watched as we approached Key West and they ported the harbor master over by small boat and watched that process which was very interesting. We disembarked early and the shore excursion we had scheduled that day was located right there at our dock. We had a little time and spent some time going through the shops at the dock and then met up with Guy and Pattie for our shore excursion. We took a catamaran 7 miles south of Key West to the Florida reef to go snorkeling. We had gotten some shower protectors for wounds for my leg and applied them just before snorkeling. We got int he water which was choppy with 4 foot swells. We swam the short distance to the reef which was maybe 100-150 feet from the boat. There were lots of smaller fish and the coral was very muted in coloring. Evidently one of the hurricanes came through a week or two earlier and covered the coral in silt and sand and it takes several weeks for them to get clean again. We were in the water about 10 minutes before my snorkel got swamped and I came up coughing. I was up for about a minute and Nikki popped her head and swam over and told me how there was a shark below us and she watched it glide through and around the coral and how cool it was. I popped my head back underwater, but it was already gone. I finally stopped coughing and started snorkeling again and seeing all the little fish, some brightly colored. The biggest was about 1 foot long. I got swamped again and came up coughing and by then my bandage was starteing to leak and come off and it was stinging, so I headed back to the boat to see what could be done. I was in the water about 25 minutes. I cleaned off my wound with fresh water they had on the boat which took about 10 more minutes. About that time other people were boarding the boat as the jellyfish, which I only saw a couple and stayed away from , were being blown off the reef towards the boat and people were starting to get stung. Nikki, Guy and Pattie came aboard during that time and Nikki was telling me that right after I got swamped she saw a barracuda hunting the reef. Then it noticed her and swam right up to her face to face, which made her nervous and she was swimming backwards and rand into a jellyfish on her elbow that stung her. Guy got stung as well, but neither of therm were as bad as some people coming on board with welts all over their back from the jellyfish. Needless to say everyone was on board before the hour was up for our snorkeling time. We went back to the dock and Nikki and I shopped bought a hat for myself and were looking for a long sleeve sunshirt for her, but didn’t find anything she liked. We then went back to ship and ate lunch at the buffet and then went and took an afternoon nap. Later that evening we attended a comedy show in the theater and we had a blast.
September 5, 2024
Once again we were up early and had breakfast at the buffet and then went on deck to watch us dock at CocoCay, which is Royal Caribbean’s private island, we were docked next to Royal Caribbean’s Utopia of the Seas which had just gone into server a few weeks prior. The ship was huge compared to our ship. Once we got on the island we realized how few kids are on the Celebrity cruise. The Utopia of the Seas guests had kids running around all over the place, screaming and yelling and having fun. We found some lounges under umbrellas on the south beach. I was unable to go in the water with my leg wound, but Nikki went in briefly to swim with Guy and Pattie. She was caught in the middle of kids throwing sand on each other and said although it was nice seeing the kids playing, screaming and having fun, she was kind of glad our ship was more adult oriented. We spent about 3-4 hours on the island and got lunch there before heading back to the ship. It was really hot and we both were exhausted. We showered and took an afternoon nap. There was a broadway type musical we attended in the theater and after, Nikki and I went up to one of the bars and watch karaoke again, before heading abck to the room and started to pack a little in preparation for debarking the following day.
September 6, 2024
We were up before the sun rose and got breakfast at the buffet again. We then went out on deck as we arrived at Port Everglades. We watched them manuver the ship from the topside and then went to our cabin to finish packing up. We were able to disembark with the early group and ended up driving non-stop from Fort Lauderdale to home in Granville. We had to make it back because the following day, we had tickets to see Weezer at Nationwide Arena. That was a lot of fun as well and they sounded just like they do on the recordings. We had a wonderful time and look forward to doing it again. We had lots of fun with Guy and Pattie and hope to be able to do some more adult vacations with them in the future.
