Cruise Round Up: December 31st

Happy Anniversary to me and Kevin! I can't believe it's been 6 years! (See, I look less tired here... this is why airport pictures aren't allowed!)We stayed at The Hampton Inn – Plantation and it was an excellent location. We easily walked over to the mall to have lunch at the food court and then with a bit of hassle to cross the street, over to Target to get Cokes and our 2 bottles of wine. (Carnival lets you bring on a 12 pack of Cokes per person and a bottle of wine per person- a good way to defray the sail and sign card bill, even if I wouldn't normally pay $4 a 12 pack for Coke- I always wait for a sale.)

They had a nice selection of Wine (I mean, for a Target!) and we got a Da Vinci Chianti and a Clois Du Bois Cabernet Sauvignon. (And a pack of Diet Coke and Barq's Root Beer.)

Then we walked back to the hotel. If you don’t go by way of the mall there aren’t any roads to cross worth noting, all easy to cross with no hassle (getting across from the mall there it was quite busy and took a while to wait for an opening)

The hotel had a nice pool, but we never used it. They have a teeny spa with a max occupancy of 3- what’s the point of that? It was the same temperature as the pool, but we didn’t use it either. Kevin meant to check out his snorkel, but time just got away from us.

The rooms in the Hampton Inn were very nice. We had a king size bed, a sofa, and a desk with chair (where Kevin worked on his thesis today...no rest for the almost doctor!). We also had a mini-fridge and the smallest microwave ever. (We never used them). There was an option on the website to pay $20 to upgrade to a room with the frigdge, but we didn’t choose it, and neither did our travelmates, so we wonder if they just try to sucker you into paying it, but all rooms are equipped with them, or if we just got lucky.

When our travel mates arrived from the airport via the shuttle, we walked (another easy walk) to Olive Garden. (Red Lobster and Chili’s are also a quick walking distance). We had a nice dinner, which was our official anniversary celebration- LOL. Kevin and I are just so romantic.

This was a pretty relaxing day, in between going places we watched some Animaniacs and Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (two DVDs bought specifically for this trip), and we were in bed by about 9:30- no New Year celebration for us. (It was especially embarassing as we texted good night and Happy New Year to family in the Central time zone- we looked like postive losers going to bed that early!)