Our trip starts with me still packing at midnight at March 21. Yawn. I'd worked all day and then had packing and various work and business related matters to take care of into the evening. So, it was about 12:30 am on departure day when I zipped the suitcase for the last time.
3:00 am March 22 - the alarm went off. A quick cup of coffee, get dressed, load the car and we were on our way by 3:40. We picked up my friend Lyn and headed to the airport for our 6 am flight. Lyn was going to take care of our cats and parakeet while we were gone and drop us off/pick us up at the airport. 3:45 and we were picking up Lyn and at the airport by 4:30.
A fun meeting at the airport, I ran into a teacher from the school where I used to work. He and his family were going on vacation and on our first plane of the day. We visited with them while we waited to board the plan. At about 5:30 am we were boarding our first plane. United Express from Colorado Springs to Denver.
About 6:45 am were were in Denver and waiting for our 10:15 flight to Charlotte. We had about 3 hours to wait. We walked from one end of the terminal (gate B90-ish) to the other end (gate B7-ish). Along the way we had breakfast. After breakfast we headed to our next gate.
Our second connection was late getting in and we were late leaving. We were scheduled to leave at 10:15 and we actually left a bit after 11. The second flight was uneventful and we arrived in Charlotte nearly an hour late. Many people had to rush for their connection but we had a couple of hours still left. After finding our next gate we went back to the food court area for a late lunch/early dinner. Charlotte is a lovely airport with a piano player, white rocking chairs in which to relax, and a good variety of restaurants. We had lunch at a Carolina Barbecue place. We had pork sandwiches, cole slaw with a choice of sides. Byron had baked beans and I had fries. We each had a soda.
After lunch we went to our gate. We still had about an hour left, so I found an outlet, plugged in my iphone to charge and played around on facebook. Finally it was time to board the last leg of our journey to Miami. A 2 hour flight later and we landed on time. Upon exiting the aircraft I noticed that we weren't in Colorado anymore. We live where there is very dry air and at 6500 feet elevation. The air in Miami seemed moist and heavy. It took me a few minutes to feel comfortable breathing. We picked up our luggage and called the hotel shuttle.
We were staying at the Hyatt Place. The shuttle was nice, picked us up quickly. A quick trip round the terminal to pick up other passengers and we were on our way to the airport.
We check in and head to the room. The room is very nice. The sitting area is very comfortable, the bathroom quite nice and the bed very very comfortable. The hotel has 6 floors and is full this evening. Many cruisers stay here the night before the cruise. I met a couple dozen people at the hotel who were going to be on our cruise. I saw some of them later in the week. I would recommend this hotel.
It's late and our lunch in Charlotte was hours prior. So, Byron starts to call to order food. We can't get the phone to work. That's strange, so he heads to the lobby. Byron works in a hotel kitchen and well knows how they work. We decide to order burgers. Ends up the hotel is out of burgers? I end up ordering a ham/cheese sandwich and Byron orders a wrap of some sort. We wait up in the room for about 20 minutes for the food to be made.
I browse what's on TV. We don't watch much TV (to say the least) and commercial TV doesn't appeal to either of us. We settle on watching
The Hobbit on Pay Per View as a start of vacation treat. He starts the movie and I head down to pick up our food. While waiting I run into some people who will be on our same ship and visit with them. Soon the food is ready and I bring up. We watch the movie and about 1 am it's over and we head to sleep.
Next post: Embarkation Day
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