Martin Matters: The Cruise: The End

Sunday morning we had to be out of our staterooms by 8:30, I believe. Our luggage all had to be out of the rooms for pickup the night before. We ordered a wake up call the night before to make sure we got out in time.
That morning though, was noisy. The ship docked early that morning at the port in Miami and made for some loud engine sounds, extra wobbling that caused drawers to clang open. Plus, people were out in the halls all night long and into the morning.
In the room that we had, it was pitch black when the lights were off. We had no window or outside light coming in. No alarm clock. Nothing. So it was impossible to guess what time it was based on light. I kept waking up all morning, waiting for the wake up call. Finally I got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom so I could turn on a light without disturbing Aaron. It was still a half hour before we expected the call, but I decided since I wasn't sleeping anyway, I would dress and prepare for the day. Then I read. Then the time for the call came and went. Strange. So I woke up Aaron, we packed our remaining items, then headed off to breakfast.
Halfway through breakfast I looked at my watch again. This is when I learned that I had been reading it wrong all morning. It was an hour earlier than I thought it was. When I woke up at 7:30, it was actually 6:30. However, if you want to look at it differently, it was actually 4:30 AM MST. How lame.
After breakfast we found some comfortable-ish seats on the fifth deck and read until we were allowed to debark. We got in line to get off the boat, then got in line at customs. There were probably ten lines for this. We choose the one that looked shortest. Soon we realized our line wasn't moving AT ALL. The customs guy that was supposed to be doing stuff for our line must have taken a smoking break or something.
He finally came back and our line finally started moving again. Slowly. Very very slowly. Even though we were definitely not the last ones to reach the customs lines, it was becoming evident that we might be the last ones in those lines. It was so ridiculous. Our guy moved so so slow! He was trying to make small talk with everyone, which was making everyone else very upset. I do not joke when I say that every other line emptied out completely while ours was still mostly full. Of course the people in our line didn't stick around when the other lines were emptying. We finally made it up to the guy. I wasn't very polite with him when he made the comment of "You guys are almost my last in line." He was too jolly. I responded with, "Yeah, but we sure weren't the last ones to get in line!" I was grumpy. We stood in line for probably an hour.
Anyway, we hailed a taxi, which took us to our hotel. We were still far too early to be able to check in, so we stowed our luggage, found a city bus, and rode it to Miami beach.
Oh, this was my birthday. Happy 26th.
We certainly enjoyed playing in the ocean. Before this trip, I had only experienced the Oregon and California coasts. Both were always cold and windy with freezing water. Boy oh boy was it different in Florida. The water was warm and turquoise and somewhat clear. The weather was definitely hot enough to swim. It was fun. I don't think the breakers and swells were as big and fun, but we still enjoyed ourselves.
We got out just in time to get caught in a sudden rain storm. It made our dry clothes wet.
We headed back to the hotel and showered and changed and stuff. Then, since we were starving, we headed across the street to a fun outdoor mall for some grub.
But we were pretty wiped out, so instead of walking around much, we went back to the hotel to veg. It was far too hot.
Here is the view from our little strange corner window.

The next morning we shelled out more cash to catch a ride to the airport. When we went to check in we learned that the flight that we had paid for and had seats booked on didn't exist. But, no worries, they just put us on a different one that left about 45 minutes earlier. And because of the trouble, we didn't have to pay the $20 for each of our suitcases.
The flights were long. I finished my book.
We stopped in Dallas. That is a huge airport that you have to take a monorail thing around to get from terminal to terminal.
Back in Salt Lake we met up with my cousin and his family and Morgan. They kindly met us at the airport, even though they live in Logan. We greatly appreciated that.
The first thing Morgan said to me was, "what's your name?" I guess I'm not one to make much of an impression on people. Easily forgettable!
We finally got home around 9:30.
Before sending him off to bed, we unpacked some souveniers that we got for Morgan. The captains hat and the cruise boat. It mades a honking noise and has wheels. He likes them. The pictures aren't great though.