Tuesday,  Feb 05 - Day 16 of holiday and Day 14 on board Island Princess

The day started slowly as it was pretty ugly outside.  It had rained all night and everything was wet.  I started my day in the usual manner and Freddi returned our books to the ship's library.  We had breakfast and decided to have a last round of mini-putt out of the wind.  The course was soggy and slow and we managed to move a few "bolders" around to make the course a bit more friendly.  We then settled in at the indoor pool and slept and read most of the day.  Nice feeling that!

We did spend some time packing as we had to have our bags in the hall for 10 pm so they could be unloaded to certain areas in the terminal in preparation for dismemberment in Fort Lauderdale.  The packing exercise at the end of a trip is always a fun event.  Where to put the small purchases is the game and expandable suitcases are the answer.

In the evening we went to the Bayou for dinner.  We had a great deal of attention as there were only 3 tables booked.  It surprised me that the specialty restaurants were not popular on this trip.  We have been on ships where they are on "wait list" status.  None-the-less we had Goran as our waiter and he lingered with us for almost the whole time.  We also had Mario, the Sommelier, drop by a couple of times to check on us and to help us complete our wine selections.  Plural as we had a couple of wines left on our card and he wanted to make sure we got some value from our investment.  He returned with another Paraduxx bottle and Sancerre for us to take away with us.  After a nice dinner where we made an effort not to eat too much we said our good-byes and returned to our stateroom. 

Wednesday,  Feb 06 - Day 17 of holiday and Last Morning on board Island Princess

The morning came early as the banging and clattering of the docking process started at about 5:30 am.  I started my day as usual and finished my Internet time in the games room.  That allowed Freddi to sleep a little longer.  But we had to be out of our stateroom at 8 am so we went to breakfast and packed up our last few things pretty efficiently.  Once at our designated place we sat and read for a half hour until it was our turn to disembark.  That process was easy as we filed off the ship and were escorted to an area of the terminal where our group's bags were stored.  We picked up our bags and went through Customs with relative ease.  We then grabbed a cab to the airport where we found the shuttle to the car rental area.  We picked up a car and were on our way to Redington Beach (4 hour drive) where we were to meet up with our friends from Lake Bernard.  The time was 9:15 am and we were on the highway.

PS:  as a note we drove across Alligator Alley in the everglades and Freddi counted 91 alligators visible from the highway.  There were some pretty big ones out sunning for the morning.

All in alla  good tour.