Cruise Report - Freedom of the Seas – Western Itinerary - February 25 to March 4, 2007

This trip report is very long and there may be no value whatever in reading any of this thing. I do these things primarily for us, to be able to remember what happened….

We cruised on the February 25 sailing of the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas along with somewhat over 3900 other pax (maximum pax is about 4300). Did not get the numbers but there seemed to be a relatively high percentage of non-US nationalities on board – although I think that the percentage of US and Canadian pax still would be over 85%. There were 457 pax between the ages of 3 and 17. With a crew of just over 1400, there were a lot of people on board the BIGGEST and BEST cruise ship in the world. (The cruise director, James Andrews, reminded us of that a lot.) You do notice the large number of staff – more singers and dancers in the theater, more cruise staff, more of all kinds of people.

We love cruising in general and we very much enjoyed this cruise. Freedom is a beautiful ship. We do continue to feel, however, that the Radiance class on Royal Caribbean is probably as big as we need to go. The only thing we only can get on this size or Voyager class that we really enjoy is the ice rink for the ice show, which we always enjoy. The biggest disadvantage to this size is the tendering – on this Western Itinerary we tendered at Grand Cayman and Labadee. They did not use tender numbers and just had open boarding – each time it was a bit of a pain.

On Saturday, the 24th, we flew down on USAir through CLT to Miami. Everything was perfect, arriving in Miami a little ahead of schedule. But, we then had to wait for our luggage in Miami for what seemed forever – it probably was 45 minutes. Cheapest rental car I found online among majors was with Enterprise. We caught their shuttle to their lot and picked up a 4 door Kia, which was very nice. I was very impressed with the folks at Enterprise; they did a good job of greeting and dealing with customers. I definitely would rent from them again if in Miami. The total cost was $54, not including the cost of filling car with gas.

After getting the car we drove to Key Biscayne National Park – the Dante Fascell Visitor Center. We wanted to snorkel the reef on the other side of Elliott Key, but it was too windy and they were not going over there. So, we did a snorkel trip to the bay side of Elliott Key at Billy’s Point. I forget exact amount but it was about $50 for the two of us for the three hour trip: two hours getting over and back, and one hour in the water. I tipped the crew $10. The snorkeling along the shore was very interesting and quite different than a coral reel. Mangroves line the shore and the juveniles of various species hang out there. Among other things, we saw a nurse shark (maybe 4 feet long) wedged up against bank. Unfortunately, it was pretty cool – the surface water temperature was about 73 degrees F and that gets cold. We should have used wet suits, as did some of group.

We left our luggage in the rental car without too many worries and nothing happened to it. There were a number of families picnicking at the park there and I parked us next to one of their SUV’s as they appeared very safe and unlikely to break into our car.

After snorkeling and looking around the visitor center, we drove downtown to Bayside Market, which is right across from port in downtown Miami. Traffic was a nightmare and we later learned that a Justin Timberlake concert was at the Arena that night. We walked around Bayside and ate at one of the places in the food court as we did not really want to spend time at a restaurant. We did decide that the next time we would eat at Bubba Gump’s, however. There is pretty good people watching at Bayside.

We then drove to the Holiday Inn next to the airport where we had a reservation and had stayed before. Had no problem finding it when coming back from downtown. The HI was just a few hundred yards from the Enterprise lot, so Sunday morning, I went to get gas and buy some things at a Walgreen’s, turned car in, and then just walked back to the HI. Wireless still does not work in rooms, but I was able to get on the desktop in the lobby and do some emailing.

One reason we stay at this HI is that they have free shuttles to and from airport and to the Port. We wanted to get the 11 or Noon shuttle to the Port, but by the time I was signing us up, the only options were the 10 or 1 shuttle; 10 was too early and 1 too late, but we went with the 10. We arrived at ship about 10:40, we were the last stop and the shuttle first delivered people to Carnival and NCL ships. We gave the bags to a porter and, as is my usual, tipped a porter with a $5 bill, which is unnecessary to tip that much, but I figure it is my insurance and good luck payment to help the bags make it onboard in good shape. Walking into the Terminal we learned that pax were still getting off from previous cruise and that we would not be able to go upstairs to get cards and board for some period of time. When on our cruise, a cruise staff person told us that they were slower than usual getting off because of the fact that they had had 1200 pax between 3 and 17 on that cruise – that seems amazingly high but that’s what he said.

Royal Caribbean sends out a special notice with your packet telling you that you may not be able to board until 2 p.m., so I was not too surprised that we could not get on before 11. They apparently started processing pax and boarding a few minutes after 11, although we were not there when it started.

We left terminal and walked over to the Seaman’s Restaurant, which is between Terminals E and F, on other side of street. Mostly port workers and crew go there, but it is open to the public and is the only restaurant of any kind in port open to public, as far as I know. The wife did not want to bother getting a cab over to Bayside, which is easy enough. The Seaman’s Restaurant is very nice and we had some early lunch as we had not eaten any breakfast, and read the paper. We got back to the terminal about Noon, and were able to zip right on. On all of our cruises, we generally have been able to board no later than between 11 and Noon, but things can be later. They close off access to staterooms until 1:00 p.m. They seem to strictly enforce that these days. We did not need to eat again so we toured the ship and then hung out in Library which was on deck 7, where we had 7813, an outside, balcony cabin. Right at 1 p.m. we were able to get into our cabin and get rid of our carry-on stuff. We then went up to Deck 14 to check out the Diamond Club, which we had not experienced before as this was our first cruise on Royal Caribbean as Diamond (you need to have completed 10 prior cruises on Royal Caribbean to be Diamond). The Diamond Club was great. It is a large lounge on Deck 14 next to the Olive and Twist lounge and one side is windows looking out over the water. We were able to get our ice show tickets for Wednesday night very easily from the concierge, Ricardo Mock, who was great all week. We also signed up for an excursion in Miami on our return with Ricardo. What I enjoyed most about the Diamond Club during the week was when it was open before our early seating dinner. Between 5, when it opened for evening, and 6, when we had our dinner, we could enjoy free drinks in the Diamond Club. I made full use of this perk and it was very nice. By the time we left the Diamond Club, I generally was not permitted much more to drink – so, my bar bill was very low this week. They also had nice appetizers – like chocolate covered strawberries. The wife does not drink alcoholic beverages but very much enjoyed the appetizers.

The wife bought the refillable Coke deal - $6 per day; $42 for week, plus tips. Think it was close to $50 total. She normally might not drink that much but it is handy and if you have it then you never have to stop and ask yourself if you want to pay $1.75 or whatever it is with tip to have a 12 oz. drink. That is a primary reason I encourage her to go ahead and get this deal – because she is the type that would otherwise question spending the money on each drink.

At our early sitting dinner, we had a table for two. Not sure why – over than the fact that now that we had cruised ten times, the complaints about me had added up. It was fine. We usually stopped on the way in and talked with a couple we knew and their daughter (whom we met on a previous cruise) and also talked with a couple and son who were sitting alone at a table next to ours. Our waiter, Veron from Jamaica, was very personable and we talked a fair amount with him. It appeared that a good number of people simply ate in the Windjammer and did not come to the dining room – there were a lot of empty seats in dining room.

The welcome aboard show was OK – with Robbie Prince the comedian as the headliner. He was OK – we did not like some of his jokes, we thought his series of jokes about hitting kids/children was in bad taste but otherwise he was enjoyable.

Monday – February 26 – At Sea

The fitness center is very large and very well equipped. I went most every morning and worked out some. They have a boxing ring! They have boxing work outs and things. The aerobic equipment (treadmills, bikes, elliptical trainers, and Stairmasters) have little TV screens that are tied into TV system on board. You need to have some earphones and you can plug in and listen to the shows. I had a pair of earphones with me and I do not know if they had some to loan you if you did not have your own. The fitness center really is first rate.

We did the 7:30 “walk-a-mile” on Deck 12 almost every day to get exercise and to get ship shape dollars. We had 15 ship shape dollars by last day and the wife got a t-shirt with 14 and kept one for the scrapbook.

At 10:15 a.m. on this Monday we did the Cruise Critic – Royal Caribbean Meet and Mingle. I had not participated much at all on the message board but had read it over and knew the screen names of a bunch of other folks on board. It was nice meeting people. They give you a free gift – which has been a lanyard thing the two times we have gone to these – and they raffle off a prize, which was a computer mouse. Amazingly enough a guy won it who had won one on his last cruise. One couple with whom we talked the most, we continued to see the rest of the cruise and it was nice to know them.

At 1 p.m., I went with the wife to the scrapbooking class. I was the only male who showed up – along with 15 or so women. They give you packets of things and they have lots of pens and stuff to help you make a scrap book page. I just got a packet and then sat talking with people while the wife did some things with the stuff they had.

Lunch was in the windjammer, as always. We eat all our dinners in the dining room and all of our breakfasts and lunches, when on board, in the windjammer, the buffet.

I did the free Crown & Anchor (which is the repeater club) wine tasting at 3:30 in the dining room and it was well done and fun. We tasted four wines and got a good talk from one of the wine stewards. It was one of the entertaining wine tastings that I have attended.

Could not get online during this afternoon and evening. This was very frustrating and disappointing because I had a business matter going on that was in a very critical stage and I had thought I would able to communicate by email. I had a colleague working with me who had known it might be possible that I would be completely out of touch while on ship, but we had thought I would be able to communicate readily and I was not. It ultimately worked out fine, but I was kind of annoying and I dumped more work and stress on someone than I had meant to. I tried for almost one-half hour to get on and could not. A bunch of us in the computer area realized none of us were getting on. One guy called Guest Relations and complained. I went down to Guest Relations desk to talk to someone. They immediately told me that they would credit all time back and not charge me anything – which was fine, but my real concern was ability to get to my email. He said that there was nothing they could do as they were having trouble with the satellite; he could not give me any prediction or assurance of when the connection would be better. I finally got on the next day but the connections were not good much of the week. I never signed up for the wireless and just used a desktop in the Diamond Club for the rest of the trip.

We like the trivia contests and we went for the first time at 8 p.m. on this Monday. We teamed up with Martin and Delores and managed to win – and, just like last year on Jewel, we won a Royal Caribbean water wallet. We had a lot of fun with the trivia all week. We also teamed up with Allen from Canada and a couple from Scotland. A woman whose name I forget who was Diamond and who was normally in the club before the early seating dinner with us got into the competition with her group and we had fun harassing each other during the trivia. I think the cruise staff were a little taken aback at how rowdy we got. I never won again, but the last night when we decided not to break the rules too much (because we wanted to be able disqualify the other teams that were “cheating” with more than six team members and not get disqualified ourselves) the wife joined a couple we had teamed with earlier in day and won a Royal Caribbean hat. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday – February 27 – Cozumel

We docked at International pier, which still needs a lot of work after Wilma. They were working on it big time while we were there. We thought we would be able to walk off easily about 9:30, but it turned out that the Radiance was approaching the pier across from us right at that time and when that happens they stop letting people off. We had to wait about one-half hour. It was pretty annoying because they had not given any warning about this happening. I asked a cruise staff member about it and she said that this was first time that Radiance had docked with them at pier and they just had not realized it would happen. The delay caused a little consternation because we had booked a private snorkel trip with Eagle Ray Divers and the delay caused us to be late to the marina where the boat was – turned out to be no problem, as I had thought, but added a little unnecessary stress to the start of this day.

I had signed us up online for the “3 Reef Snorkel Trip and Lunch” with Eagle Ray Divers. It was $65 pp – you send a deposit to Chellie in Arkansas and then pay the balance of $100 when you are there. You get a taxi to the Caleta Marina – I had no idea where that was, but it turns out it was only a couple miles south of the International Pier – very easy to get there. The cab was $6. The snorkeling was very good, the water was crystal clear in three of the four places they took us – they quickly had us get back in and moved when it turned out one place was cloudy because of run off from shore. The crew was very nice and very accommodating. Two of crew got in water with us and showed us stuff in water, without trying to herd us together. While we were on the boat, they serve drinks, beer or soft drinks, and various snacks – including fruit of various kinds and cookies. I had been concerned about the fact that the ship stays on Eastern Time, but Cozumel is on central time. The duration of the 3 reef trip that they advertise online is too long given our need to get back. I had exchanged emails with Chellie and was told not to worry. At the marina, I simply had Luiz promise me that we would be back to Marina in time to get back to ship. We actually never went back to the Marina but it turned out that we need not have worried. They know what they are doing and they know the ships’ schedules and where the ships are. There were 16 people who took this trip – 2 of whom were brought out to boat at first stop because they had not been able to get to marina in time to leave with us. On the boat, we had people who had signed up for the 2 reef and people who had signed up for 3 reef and lunch. Everyone had different concerns about the timing. They handled everything very well and made sure everyone had a great time and had no problems getting back. We snorkeled at four places and then went to a place within walking distance of the International Pier where everyone who had bought the lunch, had lunch. The 2 reef people got the same snorkeling the 3 reef people got, but that certainly was fine with everyone. We had a great time and I highly recommend Eagle Ray Divers. The snorkeling was better that we had had on Cozumel on our own before and we enjoyed it very much. After lunch, we simply walked back to ship, pausing to look in some shops along the way and at pier. The wife bought a silver charm bracelet. We were supposed to be back on board by 3:30 for 4 p.m. departure. We joined a long line to get back on about 3:15; we made it on board about 3:35. We were late leaving because of lines to get back on – I think that happens a lot in Cozumel.

We went to the Crown & Anchor repeaters party at 5:15 – this was the one for all repeaters. Got the free drinks and appetizers. The Captain gave a talk but it was not as informative, in the way that I like to get information, as it has been in past. (Nothing against Captain Erik, who seems like a good guy.)

On this night, we stopped by Diamond Club after dinner and I learned how Ricardo considered every drink order to be for at least a double. Ricardo was great!

The show at 9 featured Drew Thomas, the magician. We had seen him last year on Jewel and thought him OK. This time, we found the show too slow moving and not all that great – he is very talented but just not what we like. Later in the evening, they had a show in the Royal Promenade called “Dancing in the Street.” It was very entertaining and a lot of fun. Apart from the normal entertainment, there was a female passenger, who appeared quite drunk, who was putting on quite a show dancing by herself. Among other things, she took off her belt and whipped the floor and other things. The cruise staff and some shop people kept an eye on her but let her do her thing. After the show, we happened to walk by her talking on a phone, screaming that she needed something or she was going to have her helicopter come get her. She was way out of control. I do not think her night ended well –I suspect security may have had to help her get back to her cabin - but I do not know what happened. For the rest of the cruise, she was well known throughout the ship and everyone kind of looked at her without wanting to let her see them doing it.

Wednesday – February 28 – Grand Cayman

We arrived about 9 a.m. There were at least 7 big ships there: Imagination, Inspiration, Liberty, Radiance, Freedom, Voyager, and Magica. At 9:30, they said over PA that there was a 20 minute wait. We went down at 10:00 and had to wait about 30 minutes to begin loading onto a tender. They said that normally they tender off both sides, but that they could not use starboard side because of conditions. Tendering on this ship is a pain. The tender ride itself took about 20 minutes, not counting time to get off.

We walked to Eden Rock to snorkel – not to the Dive Center but to the Paradise Restaurant, which is about 150 yards closer than the Eden Rock Dive Center to where you come in on tender. Paradise Restaurant has a small man-made beach there and steps to enter the water. The snorkeling was excellent and better than we have seen along seven mile beach on other trips. The reef looked very good. We ate lunch in restaurant and it was fine. Service was good. After lunch, the wife took another very long snorkel. I just went in for a half hour or so. I managed to slip on steps trying to get into water and managed to do some damage to my right foot in particular. This maintained my continuing tradition of causing some injury to myself on all Caribbean trips. The Dive Center has a safer entry as it is a big ladder…oh, well.

Tendering back to the ship was pretty easy and was not a repeat of morning hassles.

This night we watched the ice show, which was excellent and we enjoyed it. There is open seating. We did not show up until ten minutes or so before it started and we had to be at the tables at the top of the seating area. We thought it would be bad, but we actually could see pretty well when we just stood up for the whole show. If you want good seats, you apparently need to be in line before they open the doors one-half hour before the show starts.

Thursday - March 1 – Montego Bay, Jamaica

No ship shape dollars this morning because of my foot and because of our desire to get going. We had been trying to decide where to go and had been thinking of going to Sunset Beach Resort but we decided to go to Doctor’s Cove Beach, instead, because that way we would at least see some of the downtown area. I have read a lot of posts on Cruise Critic about both places and did not really know which, if either or both, had decent off beach snorkeling. Sunset is very close to ship and you do not go anywhere near downtown. We took the “shuttle” for $4 pp – a taxi is the same $4 pp to Doctor’s Cove.

At Doctor’s Cove, we paid $5 pp for admission and then another $15 for two chairs and an umbrella. I very nice older fellow named Rupert set up our chairs and umbrella. I gave him $5 to keep him interested in our well being and, among other things, he got us set up with his buddy Horace to go out on a boat to the reef past the rope line to snorkel. We very much enjoyed Doctor’s Cove Beach. The off beach snorkeling was very good. There is a pretty healthy reef within the rope lines, right off the beach. We paid Horace $15 per person plus $5 tip to take us in a boat out past the rope lines, on the other side of a channel where a lot of boats come through. Even if you could just swim past rope lines, I do not think it would be safe to swim out through this area where a lot of boat traffic is. The reef we saw when snorkeling from Horace’s boat was bigger and better, but really not much different from what you can see within rope lines. We ate lunch at the Groovy Grouper, which is the beach restaurant at Doctor’s Cove. I had the Jerk Shrimp Pasta, which was good and the wife had the grouper sandwich, which she said was good. The service was very good and it was a good lunch. Total meal before any tip was $41. When we were ready to leave Doctor’s Cove, it was very easy to get a cab because there were a lot of drivers waiting at the entrance. Our guy took us in his van, just the two of us, when no one else was coming out at same time. The charge was just $4 pp and I gave him $10.

The only “shopping” we did was back at terminal where they have some shops. Did not buy anything. The Jamaican security in the terminal was very tight. They have you put most everything through machines. They had me open my water wallet to look in and the female officer gave me a fairly thorough pat down that got pretty personal. I am not sure why Jamaica needs to be so concerned with what you have when leaving Jamaica. My impression was that they do what they do just to show you they can. The ship security folks still did the same scanning they always did.

That evening we did all the normal stuff, Diamond Club for pre-dinner drinks and conversation, 8 o’clock trivia, and the 9 o’clock show. The show had comedian Rondell Sheridan who was pretty funny. The wife got a new watch in the on-board shop, a Citizen eco-drive which she likes.

Friday – March 2 – Labadee, Haiti

Labadee was looking very good; the big beach on the far side from the tender pier looked beautiful, in particular. Royal Caribbean is continuing to add improvements. We walked over to where you can hear the “dragon’s breath” (air going through some rocks); they have built a nice walkway over to it. They appeared to be adding some kind of zip line, but I never heard what it was for sure. In a general announcement on the ship, the cruise director, James Andrews, actually referred to Labadee as being in Haiti, which was a first for us. (Andrews is a high energy guy and seems a fine cruise director – we did not really have any personal contact with him.) Usually, they avoid mentioning that Labadee is part of Haiti, referring to it in other ways. We arrived at Labadee about 9:00 a.m. The tendering required about a 20 minute wait – but it was OK. When you get to beach areas, there are guys who want to set up chairs for you and then want a tip. We know what to expect and I just let them carry the chairs where we want them (which is in the shade as they do not have umbrellas there) and then give them a couple dollars. I think that many pax who are first-timers are unsure how to interact with these guys, who can be pretty aggressive. One fairly large family almost got into a tug of war with a guy over a couple chairs that they just wanted to take and move where they wanted them – they did not tip the guy, who stood there awhile trying to convey the hint unsuccessfully. I think Royal Caribbean should give people information on what the deal is with these guys and even suggest a tip – like 50 cents or a $1 a chair or something. People do not like being unsure and uncertain of what to do and it can detract from an otherwise great experience on Labadee. The snorkeling was OK – there were some healthy bits of reef inside the rope lines and some decent fish viewing. After Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica, the snorkeling certainly was not as good as those places. We also, of course, had to rent the safety vests for the $6 pp and had to wear them in water, which we just find annoying – especially me. We were interested to note that they do not make you sign a waiver any more – unless they just forgot to ask us to sign one. (We talked about this and cannot remember if we were had to sign one last year in Coco Cay.) I really thought requiring people to sign those waivers was ridiculous – the first time we saw the waivers was on Coco Cay a number of years ago; I refused to sign one but then my wife went and got a vest and signed my name for me. It seems especially silly to require the vests when people are swimming and floating on the mats as far out as the people snorkeling can go and they are not required to get a vest. Of course, some people want the vests and they should have them for those people. The barbeque lunch on Labadee was fine – the ribs were pretty good. There was plenty of seating available where we were, which sometimes seems a problem on Coco Cay or Labadee. We had been told that the last tender back to ship would be at 4:30 – and that the ship would depart at 5 p.m. At 3:50 p.m., when there were only a couple people in water at Barefoot Beach where we had hung out, they asked everybody to get out of water at 3:50 p.m. I was on shore with no intention to go back in and the wife was about ready to get out anyway, but it seemed odd to throw people out of water before 4. A couple people still in the water seemed a little annoyed but nobody cared too much. We briefly looked at the vendors, but we did not really have interest in buying anything there. The vendors did appear fairly desperate to sell stuff.

After getting back from Labadee, I again was unable to get online in about 15 minutes of trying. Last year on Jewel, I had no trouble getting online and spent several hours total using email, even printing off various documents to work on. I am not going to spend the money for their faxes or phone calls, so this year reminded me that when on a ship, I have to plan to be out of touch.

This evening was the Platinum, Diamond, and Diamond Plus repeaters party. They said that there were 462 such repeaters on board. At this party, the hotel director gave a talk in which he also said that the crew was 1408 people, that of that number 150 were in the cruise staff and 750 in food and beverage.

The dinner tonight had the lobster which was OK – not great – but enjoyable. The dessert was a great chocolate thing. The show was a production show based on Broadway shows – it was very good. The raw talent they have in these ship’s companies is very high, in my opinion.

Saturday – March 3 – At Sea

We did the ship shape things this morning to make sure we would have enough for the t-shirt. I turned in my casino coupons for the $6 you can get. (You get three of the $12 for $10 in the Diamond book.) I immediately lost $2 in the slots on my way out – a quick try for a big win. I did no other gambling. I think the wife also lost $2 but she may have taken longer to lose it. Also used my Ben & Jerry’s coupon – the coupon says it is for a “peace pop”, whatever that is. They had no “peace pops”, however, and the guy gave me a single scoop cone – he managed to give me the biggest amount of ice cream in a single scoop, I think I ever have received. The Butter Pecan was very tasty. Hung out around pool, had lunch, and went to the 2 p.m. trivia – still no win for me.

I did not want to sign us up for another cruise as we often have done to get the shipboard credit – because we really are unsure what we want to do next with Royal Caribbean. They have a new program in which you pay a $100 non-refundable deposit on board and then when you next book, you get credit for the deposit and you get whatever you would have gotten as the onboard credit. I know that we will sail with Royal Caribbean, again, so I figured it was a no-brainer for us. Incidentally, we bought some Royal Caribbean stock last year just to get the onboard credit for being shareholders – that got us another $100 onboard credit.

The wife went ice skating on the ice rink in the afternoon and enjoyed it – I could not give it a try because of problem with foot. At 3 p.m., I went to the Connoisseur Wine Tasting, partly because the guy who had done the free Crown & Anchor wine tasting had said that they would have the “really good wines” for this one. It was $18, plus – total about $20. They were supposed to have at least 6 people to do it and only had 5, so a new guy working in the Vintage Wine Bar joined the group. Four people came late – or they may have been coming for another tasting to start at 3:30 which was cancelled because there were not enough people for it. We again tasted four wines, two white and two red. It was interesting and fun. A couple of the pax in the group were pretty knowledgeable and their comments added to the session. In the discussion, the wine tender (that is his job title now but he does not like that title – he far prefers the old title of Sommelier) said that they really don’t have many very good wines in the wine bar, but that the dining room has a much better and complete selection. He recommended some particular wines to try that you could get in the dining room.

The wife went to the ice show for a second time tonight. She could not get a ticket, but they told her just to show up shortly before show and if there were any seats available, she could have one. She got a better seat this night than the night we had the tickets. Tonight was the night for tips – I pay the money on the card for the tips and have the paper vouchers to hand out – so that makes the tipping pretty easy. Some tips I do with cash.

The Farewell show was good. We had to pack. They said to pack by 11, instead of midnight as we were used to, but we got our bags out in hall by 11:30 and none from hallway were picked up, yet.

Sunday – March 4 – Last Day

We rose at 6 and had breakfast in Windjammer at 6:30. We got to the Pharaoh’s Palace (a lounge on board) about 7, where we needed to wait to leave for our tour. We took the Everglades Safari for $54 pp. We did this excursion, because of the trouble of dealing with your luggage, if you just want to do something on your own. We were bussed to Gator Park, next to the Everglades National Park. They may not be there in a few years, because of new rules going into effect for the National Park. We took air boats out into the Park, seeing birds of various kinds and alligators. After the boat ride, we saw a show with alligators that was interesting. Our guide for the overall tour was Orlando, who was very good. He was extremely knowledgeable about everything we were seeing.

We got to the airport about 12:30. I was hoping to be able to check in our luggage immediately for our 6:40 p.m. flight on USAir. Normally, I can get them to take luggage that early without any trouble. Unfortunately, this was no normal day for USAir. Early that Sunday morning, when they had thrown the switch to bring up the systems for USAir and American West, things did not go well. The entire system was a mess all day – with the worst problems in the morning. They were absolutely refusing to take any bags until 4 hours before flight time and the only place to check bags in the airport was under siege. So, we gave up thought of dumping luggage and heading to Coral Gardens or back to Downtown and just hung out in airport until we left more than one hour late. I was able to get online after a bit of a fight with my laptop, and for a fee of $9.95 was able to use the internet for several hours, getting caught up on some things. We had lunch at Chili’s and overall the wait was not at all as bad as it probably sounds.

Great trip.