Planning
--------------
Thanksgiving is round the corner - no plans have been finalized yet - lets call Costco and try out if we get an affordable cruise option. The first option was off range and I could quickly refuse and then she opened up an affordable option - meeting the limit that I had set myself. Some doubt was left open in terms of paper-work but I went ahead and booked a non-cancellable ticket. Interestingly, three members in our office were going for cruises this thanksgiving.
Miami-Stopover : The vacation starts from thursday. The cruise starts on Friday evening. Miami is a 12 hour drive from Atlanta as per reasonable estimates though I made it in ten hours.Check in is at 5 PM - need to be present atleast 3 PM, projecting backwards, I would need to start at 3AM on thursday , allowing some buffer time, will have to start midnight which would mean absolutely no sleep and that train led to the decision that Miami would host us a stopover for Thursday.So we booked a lodge.
Wednesday evening marked the beginning of vacation and I was one among the many happy faces that left office that day.
Thursday Drive to Miami
---------------------------------
A straight drive of 675 miles from 4:15 AM to 2:15 PM saw me catching up on sleep in the unbelievably well-placed lodge in north miami. Divya had prepared chicken fry that went with bread for lunch saving us some time and hassle.
The only break we took during the drive was a bun breakfast around five hours into the drive and for fuel as you need one and a half tanks for atlanta to miami drive.
Thursday(Thanksgiving) evening in Miami
------------------------------------
I woke up around 4PM after the quick nap and we decided to go to the beach. To our surprise, we could see the beach in the backyard of the lodge.There are sky-scrapers all through the street on both sides with beach right behind and this economy lodge right there - sometimes you get lucky.
So we wowed at the amazing blue of the sea and let the beauty sink in. Unfortunately, our daughter got a cold and we rushed back to the room shortly.
Ocean Drive
----------------
Once we settled her down, we decided to go to ocean drive as the lighted street and the party music generates a lot of happiness. Ocean Drive did not fail us - we just walked around and got pulled into one of the restaurants where we had turkey and pumpkin pie for a traditional thanks giving dinner.
Thanks Giving Shopping
---------------------------------
Running on a shoe-string budget, this was more of window shopping that we are looking forward to. We roamed the lincoln mall which in general was lively and pleasant though the thanks giving deals were at midnight and we were roaming an hour too early.
We drove back home and slept.
Friday Morning
----------------------
Friday morning again, I went to the beach with my iPod and took some snaps of the beautiful miami buildings next to the beach , later we fell for some cheap shopping gimicks and wasted time. Wanted to capture some of the art scene of Miami and went to MOCA(Museum of Contemporary Art) which was closed for renovation and then to Hiatian museum which was again closed. Then we went to Little Havana which is an old cuban settlement. It looked pretty dangerous with characters walking around and cops for solace.On the whole, it was a wasted morning except that just driving through Miami is nice. I find Miami very attractive - it is truly a beautiful city.I used to never understand when people call a town beautiful or a city beautiful but with Miami, it makes sense
Checking in to the ship
-----------------------------
We got lucky in that from little havana, the port was 5 minutes or so. We parked our car and got ourselves checked in.
Visa Confusion
--------------------
The previous day, we had taken some amount of discomfort struggling with information of visa requirement from various portals and phone calls to Cosco/ NCL/ US Embassy, Bahamas site etc. We were not really worried anyway though.
All this did not count at all as we sailed in smoothly into the ship.
http://cnatatlanta.blogspot.com/2012/11/miami-great-cay-nassau-ncl-cruise.html
--------------
Thanksgiving is round the corner - no plans have been finalized yet - lets call Costco and try out if we get an affordable cruise option. The first option was off range and I could quickly refuse and then she opened up an affordable option - meeting the limit that I had set myself. Some doubt was left open in terms of paper-work but I went ahead and booked a non-cancellable ticket. Interestingly, three members in our office were going for cruises this thanksgiving.
Miami-Stopover : The vacation starts from thursday. The cruise starts on Friday evening. Miami is a 12 hour drive from Atlanta as per reasonable estimates though I made it in ten hours.Check in is at 5 PM - need to be present atleast 3 PM, projecting backwards, I would need to start at 3AM on thursday , allowing some buffer time, will have to start midnight which would mean absolutely no sleep and that train led to the decision that Miami would host us a stopover for Thursday.So we booked a lodge.
Wednesday evening marked the beginning of vacation and I was one among the many happy faces that left office that day.
Thursday Drive to Miami
---------------------------------
A straight drive of 675 miles from 4:15 AM to 2:15 PM saw me catching up on sleep in the unbelievably well-placed lodge in north miami. Divya had prepared chicken fry that went with bread for lunch saving us some time and hassle.
The only break we took during the drive was a bun breakfast around five hours into the drive and for fuel as you need one and a half tanks for atlanta to miami drive.
Thursday(Thanksgiving) evening in Miami
------------------------------------
So we wowed at the amazing blue of the sea and let the beauty sink in. Unfortunately, our daughter got a cold and we rushed back to the room shortly.
Ocean Drive
----------------
Once we settled her down, we decided to go to ocean drive as the lighted street and the party music generates a lot of happiness. Ocean Drive did not fail us - we just walked around and got pulled into one of the restaurants where we had turkey and pumpkin pie for a traditional thanks giving dinner.
Thanks Giving Shopping
---------------------------------
Running on a shoe-string budget, this was more of window shopping that we are looking forward to. We roamed the lincoln mall which in general was lively and pleasant though the thanks giving deals were at midnight and we were roaming an hour too early.
We drove back home and slept.
Friday Morning
----------------------
Friday morning again, I went to the beach with my iPod and took some snaps of the beautiful miami buildings next to the beach , later we fell for some cheap shopping gimicks and wasted time. Wanted to capture some of the art scene of Miami and went to MOCA(Museum of Contemporary Art) which was closed for renovation and then to Hiatian museum which was again closed. Then we went to Little Havana which is an old cuban settlement. It looked pretty dangerous with characters walking around and cops for solace.On the whole, it was a wasted morning except that just driving through Miami is nice. I find Miami very attractive - it is truly a beautiful city.I used to never understand when people call a town beautiful or a city beautiful but with Miami, it makes sense
Checking in to the ship
-----------------------------
We got lucky in that from little havana, the port was 5 minutes or so. We parked our car and got ourselves checked in.
Visa Confusion
--------------------
The previous day, we had taken some amount of discomfort struggling with information of visa requirement from various portals and phone calls to Cosco/ NCL/ US Embassy, Bahamas site etc. We were not really worried anyway though.
All this did not count at all as we sailed in smoothly into the ship.
http://cnatatlanta.blogspot.com/2012/11/miami-great-cay-nassau-ncl-cruise.html
ipod, hummm...
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