Day 18: Sunday, March 18 ~ Disembarkation Day

Two years and one day after originally booking this cruise (we booked it with a St. Patrick’s Day special on the Equinox in 2016), and after endless planning and anticipation, our cruise was officially over. They stopped serving breakfast at 8am in the MDR, so I had set an alarm clock for 6:45am to give us enough time to finish packing up our bags before going downstairs to eat.  We were already docked back in Miami when we woke up… before sunrise!!

After a lot of squeezing and smushing, we were able to get our carry on bags closed with the rest of our belongings.  We checked and re-checked that we hadn’t forgotten anything in one of the closets or drawers, then went downstairs to deck 3 for breakfast in the dining room.  I always like to eat breakfast in the dining room on the last morning of a cruise.  They have space at the front entrance to store the rolling carry on bags, and then we can sit for a relaxing and quiet breakfast at our leisure. The other option is dealing with thousands of people squeezing into the buffet with all of their carry ons, and trying to balance a plate of food while rolling a suitcase through the buffet line.  No thank you!!  We were escorted to a table at the very far corner of the room… I had no idea the dining room went back this far, but if that was my assigned table for dinner every night, I probably would have asked to switch!  It worked out just fine for one breakfast though.

Breakfast menu

The menu is pretty similar to what we had for room service so we both ordered our usual:  omelets and bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese.  I must have been feeling particularly lazy because I did not take a photo of my food this morning.  While we were eating, they walked around with a basket of breads and danishes, a tray of different fruit juices, and a carafe of coffee.  

We were assigned disembarkation number 15, so we listened to the announcements while we ate.  Conveniently, they called our zone just as we finished eating, so we collected our rolling bags from the front of the dining room, carried them up 2 flights of stairs (since there was zero chance of getting into an elevator this morning!), and followed the flow of traffic to exit the ship.  It’s amazing how excited we felt to walk through this gangway 2 weeks ago, and how depressing it was to be back here today.

There were quite a few people ahead of us in exiting the ship, so it took a few minutes to wind through the lines and down the escalator to the luggage carousel.  As opposed to every other cruise terminal I have seen where they line up all the suitcases in a big warehouse, labeled for each zone number, they use airport-style luggage conveyor belts at the Miami terminal.  I think there were 4 or 5 carousels, and each one was labeled for which zone numbers would be on it.  DH spotted our big blue suitcase immediately, so he grabbed it while I towed the 2 smaller bags.  The next step was to go through customs, where we waited about 10 minutes to reach the front of the line, but were then greeted by the friendliest government employee I have ever encountered.  She glanced at our passports and waved us on our way, and just like that, we were standing on Florida soil.  

It was kind of chaotic as we tried to figure out where to stand for ride share pick up.  DH requested an Uber to drive us from the Port of Miami up to Ft. Lauderdale, and it was due to arrive within 5 minutes, but there were so many people walking around with all of their luggage and it was hard to figure out where exactly to stand for the driver to find us.  Ultimately, DH stood out in the shoulder of the road to track down our Uber and waved him over to where I was standing with our bags.  We loaded our bags into his trunk, and then set off for FLL.  DH spent most of the ride napping while I scrolled through 2 weeks of missed posts on social media.  It was not even 9am yet on a Sunday morning, so traffic was light and we pulled into the airport 45 minutes later.

Out driver dropped us off at the departures door for JetBlue, but just as we were pulling up, I realized we should have told him to drop us at arrivals.  We were way too early to check our bags because our flight wasn’t until 6:30pm, so our plan was leave the suitcases in luggage storage for the day. I pre-booked a reservation for 3 bags online through Bagstogo.com for $7 per bag for the whole day.  It was very easy to arrange and I pre-paid by credit card. We were told to look for their booth near the baggage claim, so that meant we needed to get to the arrivals level (duh!  Too bad I didn’t think of that before we got to the airport so I could direct the Uber driver! Haha)  We took the escalator downstairs to the baggage claim level, and after asking the lady sitting at the help desk, we found the small white door hidden against the wall for the luggage storage.  They really need to make it more obvious because we didn’t see it without asking for help. This small sign was on the door to the office:

Notice how small the logo is for Bags To Go?  I was searching for a big sign with that logo… no wonder I didn’t see this sign!  There was a teenager sitting behind the door and she told us she had to look inside all of our bags before we could leave them in storage.  Ummm, really?  She pointed to the sign on the wall which said bags are subject to inspection. Normally that implies that they may inspect bags if they have reason to believe the bag is harmful, not that they need you to open every bag that is left there!  Our bags were packed and locked to take on an airplane… anything we had inside needed to get past TSA so surely it should be fine to leave in a storage closet for a few hours.  I wasn’t thrilled about opening up my suitcase in the middle of a crowded airport, but we had no choice as there was no where else to leave the bags this early. Once the girl was satisfied that our bags didn’t contain explosives or any other contraband, she stacked them on top of each other in the room, gave us a receipt, and told us we needed to pick up the bags before 5:30pm.  That is when their office closes and you cannot leave bags overnight, but it wasn’t an issue because we needed to check in our bags with JetBlue by then anyway.

Now that we were down to just our (extremely heavy) backpacks containing all of our electronics and valuables, we set off to find the Sun Trolley.  This is a free bus that runs between Ft. Lauderdale airport and the downtown riverwalk area.  They don’t let you bring luggage on the trolley, so that’s why we needed to check our bags.  They have a pick up location at each terminal in FLL- just look for this sign near the ground transportation pick up spot.

I didn’t catch this detail when I was reading through the information about the trolley, but they pick up from the airport once an hour, on the hour.  We were incredibly lucky that we got to the bus stop at exactly 10am, just as the trolley pulled up!  Had we taken even one extra minute dealing with the bag check girl, we would have missed the trolley and wasted an hour of our day, so we had extremely lucky timing!  You can’t miss the trolley- it is painted bright red and yellow and is a full-sized bus.

The trolley only operates on weekends, and there is only one physical bus that runs laps back and forth all day.  The ride downtown took about 20 minutes, and the bus driver talked the entire time, explaining the rules of the trolley.  He was actually very funny, although I don’t know if he intended to be!  When he dropped us off at the Ft. Lauderdale Historical Society, he said that he would pick us up at this location every hour on the :40, with the last bus leaving at 4:40pm.  He recommended we go inside the historical society as they can help direct us towards tourism points of interest, so that’s what we did.  

The lady at the front desk told us about the riverwalk and that there are 2 kinds of tourist boat rides.  One is a yellow boat called the Water Taxi and costs close to $30 per person for a 3 hour tour around Ft. Lauderdale.  The other one is Water Trolley  that is a red, white, and blue boat, and is free, but only runs a short distance for a 20 minute tour.  She recommended the latter and told us where to find the first pick up location.  It was now 10:30am and the first water trolley started at 11am, so we decided to just go for a walk down to Las Olas Boulevard, and we planned to pick up the water trolley down there.

We wondered around the streets of Ft. Lauderdale and eventually found our way to stop number 4 on the water trolley route at the Laura Ward Riverwalk Plaza at 11:15am.  

It was a very pretty spot along the river, surrounded by high-rise condos and hotels, and with a parade of yachts floating passed us. We sat down on the curb and waited for the water trolley to arrive.

A few minutes later, this big yellow boat pulled up to the dock and we realized it was the more expensive 3 hour tour boat. I guess both boats share a dock since they come and go throughout the day.  I asked the guy who worked for the water taxi and he confirmed that we were at the right spot for the water trolley to pick us up.

That is when things went down hill.  After 30 minutes of waiting and not seeing the water trolley, we started to wonder what was going on.  If the trolley tour is only 20 minutes long, then surely it should have come by our stop by now, right?  We tried calling the phone number on the sign, but no one picked up the phone. Then we started to wonder if the water trolley only runs once per hour just like the sun trolley.  We decided to wait it out until 12:15pm as that would be one hour after we originally arrived, and if it runs once per hour then it would arrive by then… hopefully!

This tiki bar boat floated by at one point. I’ll bet it is a lot of fun, especially for a party or a big group of friends!

Do you know the feeling where you are waiting for someone to pick you up but you don’t know what car they drive?  Maybe it’s just an acquaintance or someone you don’t know very well.  You feel kind of anxious because you don’t know when or if they will ever come.  And you stare longingly at every vehicle that passes by, hoping it’s the one you are waiting for, but it’s not, and it just keeps driving by?  It’s not the best feeling, and it makes time seem to drag on extremely slowly.  Well, that’s how we felt right now.  The lady at the tourism desk hyped this trolley up like it was the best thing we could do in Ft. Lauderdale, and we waited over an hour but it never showed up!  At 12:30pm, we were tired, hot, and bordering on pissed off.  We had just wasted over an hour of our day, and clearly this mystery water trolley was never coming, so we cut our losses and left the riverwalk in search of lunch.

We were just a few blocks away from Las Olas Boulevard, so we walked over there to pick a restaurant.  We considered coming over here back in 2016 but we never made it, so it was fun to check out what we missed out on.  There were tons of different restaurants lining the street, most of which with outdoor seating, and many of which had a DJ or some kind of live music.  It was such an exciting vibe for a Sunday afternoon, and I can only imagine how crazy things must get down here on a Saturday night!  After standing around outside for over an hour, we really just wanted a quiet lunch inside an air-conditioned room.  We decided to go to Mango’s Restaurant and Lounge as they had one of the more affordable menus (many of the other restaurants were over twice the price for each item as Mango’s) and they were able to set us right away since we were willing to eat inside (there was a longer wait if we wanted an outside table).  

The restaurant was nearly empty as the hostess led us to our table.  The waiter came over with a large bottle of water, which he left on the table for us to refill our glasses as needed, and a basket of bread.  As an added bonus, there was a lady playing a keyboard and singing stripped down versions of pop songs, setting the tone for a quiet and relaxing meal. She is sitting in the lounge on the other side of the wall to the right, so you can’t see her in this photo, but we could hear her just fine.

We both ordered the chicken burger, which was a grilled chicken breast with caramelized onions, provolone cheese, and mushrooms, with a side of French fries.  It was simple but very good and we felt much better after our stomachs were filled.

After lunch, we walked back to the water trolley stop.  It didn’t look like the trolley was anywhere in sight, so we just decided to walk back to the historical society office along the riverwalk.  We didn’t realize it, but the whole walk was less than one mile! That’s not much of a tour, and had we known it was such a short route we may not have wasted so much time waiting for the trolley to never show up.  It was a beautiful sunny day, so it was lovely to walk along the river, watching the boats and the other people pass by.  When we were almost at the end of the path, we finally spotted it… the red, white, and blue water trolley was tied up to the dock, with no employees anywhere in sight!  We finally realized that the trolley must not be running today.  I’m not sure if the crew never showed up to work, or if the trolley was broken, or what the reason was, but clearly there would not be a water trolley today.  I was really disappointed that no one made any effort to announce that the trolley was out of service.  There are only 8 pick up stops over a route that is less than a mile long, so it wouldn’t take much effort to someone to go around and post “out of service” signs at all of the stops.  At the very least, they could have posted an announcement on their website (we did check that but saw no indication that it was closed today).  We went inside to tell the lady at the tourist desk what happened, and she explained that she had no idea they were closed today as it is part of a different company and she just recommends it to tourists but she does not work for them.  At least now she knows they’re closed today so she can stop telling people to look for those boats and wasting their time!

We went back out to the river and found a park bench in the shade to relax and people watch for a little while.  We were originally planning to take the 3:40pm bus back to FLL, but we were hot, tired, and bored, so we decided to go back on the 2:40pm bus instead.  If we needed to sit around for a few hours, may as well do it in the bar at the airport where it’s air conditioned!  The trolley pulled up right on time, and we headed back towards the airport to wrap up the end of our vacation.

Pay attention when the driver announces your stop name as you board the Sun Trolley at the start of your day.  Even though we got on at terminal 3, he told us to get off at the Green 4 stop when we returned to the airport in the afternoon. We went back into the terminal to pick up our luggage, and then brought it upstairs to the departures section to the JetBlue bag drop.  Amazingly, when we put the bag up on the scale, it weighed in at exactly 49.9 pounds! There was a short line at security, but that didn’t surprise me considering how many cruise ships disembarked today from Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.  We finished going through security by 3:45pm, so we still had over 2 hours to go before they started boarding our plane. Amazingly, we found 2 seats at the bar in Chili’s, and there was even an outlet right there at our seats so we could charge our cell phones.  It was too bad our seapass cards weren’t valid at the airport though because they charged $12 for a pint of beer!  CRAZY!!! I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised considering they have a captive audience, but $12 for a Blue Moon was a bit steep in my opinion.  We drank our beers verrrry slowly so we could hang out there for a while.  When our cell phones were sufficiently charged, we walked over to the food court to pick up a couple of sandwiches at Einstein Bagels to eat for dinner on the plane.  

You know how the rest of the story goes… we boarded the plane around 6pm, took off on time, kept ourselves entertained on the 6+ hour flight by watching TV and looking through photos on my iPad, and landed back at SFO around 10pm local time.  We still had an hour-long drive to get back home to San Jose, so by the time we walked in the door, it was after 11pm… which felt more like 2am on Florida time!  I’m not gonna lie… going back to work the next morning was rough!

Step Tracker Daily Total*:  15,215 steps; 6.25 miles; 3 flights of stairs

*My FitBit was set to Florida time so I made sure to check my steps while on the plane before it reset the tracker for the new day!  This total includes all of Sunday in Florida, plus the 2 hours extra because we went to sleep at 2am Florida time.

So that’s the end, folks!  Overall, it was a great vacation and we really enjoyed our time on the Celebrity Eclipse.  I do kind of wish we could have a re-do with some of those ports on a day with less wind. I feel a bit cheated that I have now been to Bonaire but did not get to snorkel there, and there were several other days when the snorkeling would have been significantly better without the strong winds churning up the water.  One of my photography goals on this cruise was to take a great photo that is half above and half below the water line, and that was completely impossible with all of that wind.  I guess that means we need to book another tropical cruise and try again, but for the time being, we are putting cruising on hold to take a few land trips instead. We will definitely cruise again eventually, and when we do, I promise to come back here and tell you all about it!