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| Hilton Marina Fort Lauderdale |
We had so been looking forward to this cruise and getting
out of the never-ending Chicago winter!
March 12th was the date that winter would end for us.
But the norm for this winter is not normal for most
Chicago winters! Our flight was
scheduled to leave at 6:45 AM on the 12th. Our friends Pam & Paul were going to come
and pick us up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 to deliver us at O’Hare the
requisite two hours before our flight departed.
As we watched the extended weather report, we kept seeing deteriorating
weather reports for Wednesday between midnight and noon, one report even saying
there was a possibility of 17 inches of snow!
Knowing O’Hare’s reputation for canceling flights at the first
snowflake, we were not happy!
To make a long story short, Chuck contacted our new TA
Peggy, who managed to get our flights changed to Tuesday afternoon. Pam and Paul were glad to take us to the
airport then rather than in the middle of the night in a blinding
snowstorm!
Everything went like clockwork. The plane left a few minutes early and
arrived a few minutes early. The only
issue we had with the flight was the man across the aisle who had a terrible hacking
cough. He coughed all the way to Fort
Lauderdale, and I know that other passengers were also disturbed by this. At least he wasn’t behind us. It was worse than the crying baby because
babies usually fall asleep. This man
coughed about every 15 seconds during the entire flight. He spent quite awhile in the lavatory, and I
heard him comment that he couldn’t even keep tea down. Just great!
Later I heard him say something about an asthma attack. Who knows what it was, but we were glad to
get out of that confined area when we arrived.
Our first night was at the LaQuinta hotel in Hollywood. We couldn’t get into the hotel we had booked
for Wednesday and Thursday. The hotel
was fine, and there was a mall across the street with a big choice of restaurants
for lunch.
Chuck took a walk and scouted out a Sweet Tomatoes, one of
our favorite chain restaurants. Leaving
our luggage checked behind the front desk, we headed out toward the mall, Chuck
pushing me along in the wheelchair. I
got out and walked across streets because it went more quickly than him pushing
me in traffic. We enjoyed our lunch there, and we were early enough that the
wheelchair was stowed out of everyone’s way.
Heading back to the hotel, I did a little more walking.
We took a cab from the LaQuinta to the Hilton Marina in Fort
Lauderdale. Dummy me – I thought it
might be less expensive than transferring back to the airport from the hotel
and transferring to the Hilton from the airport. Hah!
What a silly thought! All I can
say is that with all our paraphernalia, it was simpler. Once again, though, I just remembered the
walker at the very last minute!
As we were getting ready for the transfer, we both got an
important email from our TA Peggy. Earlier in the month HAL had offered us what
we considered an outrageously expensive upsell.
We refused it, and they came back with a slightly lower upsell which was
still way over what we were willing to pay. Finally HAL offered us an affordable
upsell to the next level of stateroom. So as we rode from hotel to hotel in the
cab we got that set up, and are now happily in a larger stateroom.
The Hilton is a lovely hotel right near the port. We were all excited to see the view we would
have – until we walked into the room and saw one bed. Nope – that just won’t work for
siblings! So we got transferred across
the hall to a room with two beds and a view of the parking lot. Figures!
To be honest, though, we would have been just as happy at LaQuinta for
the next two nights.
Chuck went for a long walk to scout things and bring
something back for breakfast. So for
dinner we took a wheelchair stroll several blocks down and found a nice little
pizza place where we split a small Margherita pizza.
I managed to walk quite a bit of the way back, as well as
some on the way, so I think I did a lot more walking than I had done since our
trip to Hannibal, MO, last October!
On the way back we stopped at Walgreens for an all-important
pop purchase. Chuck waited outside while
I went in and bought a couple of cases of diet caffeine-free pop, and then he
went in to buy a case of caffeine-free pop to take on the ship. We put the pop
in the wheelchair while I walked as long as I could. When I couldn’t walk any farther, I got into
the wheelchair and piled the pop on my lap.
The walk from the street up to the hotel was a gentle uphill slope so I
got out and put the pop back in the wheelchair. We were both grateful that we
were in a side section of the hotel and didn’t have to parade through the
swanky lobby with the wheelchair loaded with pop! We planned ahead and brought an extra
carry-on just for the purpose of being able to transport pop to the ship.
The evening was spent relaxing and making some needed phone
calls before hitting the sack. We were
looking forward to a much more leisurely day, which is just what it turned out
to be.
Chuck headed for a Subway so we could have a
reasonably-priced lunch, and I relaxed in the room. We headed down by the pool to get a little
sun, but the breeze and clouds were a little too cool, so I returned to sit on
the balcony, which was much warmer. I enjoyed reading, relaxing, and preparing
for the next hurdle, the transfer to the ship on Friday morning.
Up till this year, we were trading off doing blogs. But because I will be spending more time on
the ship this year, I said I would do the Florida entry even though I had done
the cruise intro. From here on out, who knows who will be writing what? Your guess is as good as ours. I will try to do what I can, but Chuck will
probably be doing most of the writing – when he has a chance…
BT
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