Sunday, May 30th
Kate and I listened to the end of sacrament meeting as we drove to the airport. Greg and the other kids were in Utah for a soccer camp. We had enjoyed our weekend together folding piles of laundry while watching movies and indulging in the cheesecake factory. But Sunday the party was supposed to really begin. We were scheduled to arrive in Miami at 12:30 and Addy told Kate she was waiting up for us.
We landed in Atlanta and endured a mad rush looking for food. Almost everything was closed for the evening. We ended up standing in line for 20 minutes for premade sandwiches and a special piece of rainbow cake. Not my fav but we needed food. As our flight time approached our delay was announced on the intercom. Instead of leaving at 10:45 we would be leaving at 1:30 am due to the flight crew being delayed on another flight. I read, talked to Greg, and just killed time while Kate watched a movie. I realized it was 1:30 and we hadn’t boarded. I checked the app to confirm that the flight had been delayed till 2:45. I laid down for a nap; it was going to be a long night. We finally boarded then sat on the tarmac waiting for approval to take off. The plane finally left the ground at 3:45!
We arrived in Miami at 5:00 and after the shuttle ride and a 15-minute mix up checking into the hotel we were in bed by 6:00 – planned wake up time 8:00am -Wah!
Monday, May 31st
We woke up at 9:00 when the maid knocked on the door. Teresa had let us sleep in, which ended up working perfectly because we still managed to get to the luggage store just as it opened, we did have to skip the free sit down breakfast but remedied that at a little café and the girls finished Kate’s rainbow cake. Teresa and Addy were excited to take their first Uber but by the end of the day it was old news.
The man at the luggage store spoke very little English but his ability to communicate with gestures was incredible. We left our luggage with him, enjoyed the views of the famous mall from Miami Vice then headed to the Frost Museum.
Our favorite part was the Sherlock exhibit where we got to solve the crime by examining clues and conducting experiments. Along the way you got to stamp the little booklet they gave you. We may have been more interested in the stamps than all the stations and we may not have read all the instructions so in the end I think only Addy had solved the crime correctly. But watching the blood splatter experiment made it all worth it.
The girls loved playing fruit ninja and checking out the body heat monitors to evaluate whose nose was the coldest. The planetarium movie may have put me to sleep – hey it was a short night. The sea horses and other aquarium exhibits reminded us of how near we were to the ocean.
These lifts simulated your weight on the moon and other planets.
The girls and I enjoyed some empanadas and Teresa got to crunch on some dried cauliflower while we wandered over the to PAMM. The museum had a fun variety of works from Warhol and Marisol. Kate was excited to find the cow wallpaper. 
We went back to the mall for our luggage then Ubered to the cruise port, amazed that we had spent a whole day in Miami and weren’t dripping in sweat. Our driver didn’t know which terminal to take us to and our info just said to follow signs. The unhelpful signs said terminal A, B, C etcetera but we had no clue where Royal Caribbean was. He dropped us off by the nearest ship which was terminal E. I asked one of the employees near that ship where we needed to go- Terminal A, he assured me it was only a fourth of a mile away, so we decided to walk. We had 15 minutes till the end of our check in time, so we started speed walking, and walking, and walking, what was definitely more than a quarter mile. By the time we got to terminal A we were a little late, dripping with sweat, breathing heavy, and our luggage was wet from a massive puddle. But we made it!
At check in Teresa couldn’t get her Covid test results to come up, we were all laughing at our sweaty, nasty state and the lady checking us in was laughing and joking right along with us. We eventually got everything figured out and boarded the massive boat.
Our room was roomier than expected with the bunk beds lowering from the ceiling. We did some exploring of the 13-floor boat and quickly learned that our room could only be accessed from the front of the boat, but keeping front and back straight wasn’t always easy. Our first formal dinner was lovely and followed by an action-packed ice-skating show. I was amazed that the skaters could move so quickly with so many of them on the tiny space of ice at a time. We really enjoyed the show then we were so happy to go take turns showering and getting ready for bed. Teresa may have sprayed the bathroom with water when she turned the shower on the first time – a lesson for all of us. The party upstairs had less appeal than our pillows, so we went to bed rather early.
Tuesday, June 1st
We woke at 8 and readied ourselves for our excursion to Nassau. Our trip to the first floor took us longer than expected as we learned some things about the elevator- push a button right away, it won’t let you push the buttons once it starts moving and find the elevator that is going down if you want to go down because no matter what floor you push that elevator will stay on course till it hits bottom or top. We finally got to the first floor only to realized that Kate hadn’t brought her card with her (this card was necessary for getting on and off the ship, and into your room. So up and down again only to realize there was a down pour outside- Kate’s mistake had saved us from being drenched.
Exploring led us to the library where we found daily trivia sheets with sudoku. That entertained us for some time, that and the weird notes the girls found hidden in the room.
The rain cleared and we headed on our private Teresa led walking tour of Nassau. The pirate museum was a hit in spite of the long wait and covid restrictions. 
Gregory’s arch, built by the local black people so they wouldn’t have to climb over the hill two times a day to get to work at the white people’s homes.
Some of the trees had enormous green fruit on them. Our curiosity led us to a parking lot to check out this fruit, luckily a friendly lady in the parking lot explained that they were bread fruit. She was pretty chatty, and we learned more than we ever needed to know about the fruit.
How nice would it be to have a mango tree in your back yard?!
This charming arch led us to some delicious chocolate truffles with unique flavors, and thanks to Teresa we all got to try one.
Much to my chagrin the girls chose to eat at DQ. And they had to have blizzards to add to their running count of ice creams for the trip. While eating Kate realized her hat was breaking, that led to some silliness and some sadness from Kate. I was glad I have brought two hats – I gave my matching hat to Kate.
The British Colonial former Hilton was enormous and beautiful, we wished we could go in. 
Fort Fincastle provided amazing views, but the cannons were truly massive and not even Teresa could get them moving.
The Queen’s Staircase, built in the cavern left after quarrying the stone for the forts, was beautiful and peaceful.
The library was closed which was a bummer – the building was originally a jail, and the cells are now filled with books. I would have loved to see that.
The girls were quickly tiring and ready to go back to the boat. It was hot but we hadn’t completed the tour yet, so the girls endured while Teresa and I marched on to the pink buildings of parliament square. Isn’t this wall of conch shells incredible?
We finally wandered back to the boat where we grabbed cups of water at every bar we passed. Crashing in our room we all needed time off out feet after 17,000+ steps. We were pleasantly surprised by this cute bear on our bed, but eventually hunger drove us out for nachos and ice cream.
I helped the girls locate the teen room; the entrance was a mirror maze. They were kind of chicken and didn’t actually go into the room, but at least now they knew where it was.
The girls went exploring, supposedly to end in the teen room but apparently, they got lost and never made it. Meanwhile Teresa and I enjoyed the rainy view as the ship pulled out of Nassau, putting our feet up on the covered deck of level 4. 
At dinner that night our waiter brought us all lemonade, our dehydrated bodies loved it. He brought us more lemonade and a Sprite. Addy proceeded to take the ice out of the Sprite and do some mixology- half lemonade and half Sprite. It was just the thing and pretty soon there were 14 empty cups littering our table: 4 waters, 8 lemonades, 2 Sprites. Somehow, we still managed to eat all our food on top of all that liquid.
Rodney, one of our servers created a cute napkin duck for us. He also put Kate’s napkin on her lap two nights in a row. Kate had been asked several times on the boat how old she was, context clues leading us to conclude that people believed her to be younger than she was. So, Addy created an experiment to see if the napkin thing was because Kate looked young or just happened to be sitting nearest the walkway he served from. Wednesday we would put the plan into action.
After dinner we attended the “Marquee” show, a medley of Broadway songs. I enjoyed the show, but Kate was less entertained because she knew so few of the songs. Then we caught the end of a “Finish the Lyrics” game which had us all singing along and laughing at the contestants. The winner was a 10-year-old girl, helped to her win but a generous man who seemed to know every word to every song.
We took turns showering again and stayed up way too late talking, but luckily we got to sleep in in the morning.
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