Riding the Rails Home

December 6, 2008
When I got up, I found that I had forgotten to leave out any clean underpants, and I was having some bathroom issues. I know - TMI

Port Everglades

We did not get any daily plan sheet from HAL - I thought the dining room would be open (it was), but Bob thought not, so we ate in the Lido. Then Bob went out on deck to see what he could see, and so did I. We were bunkering on the ICW side. We stood out on deck for awhile taking in the scenery.

Bunkering

Freighter and tug in canal

Baggage unloading area

They said that they would announce when the ship cleared and then would not make any more announcements - that we should follow the disembarkation schedule. We had 'Grey 1' tags and a 9:00 time. They did not say whether we could stay in our cabins or not.

Window to the deck from the elevators

When I went back to the cabin, I found the stewards had half made it up, but the stewards left and we sat there among our carryon bags. About 8:55 we started for deck 5 - the escalator which has been working only sporadically throughout the trip was running up but not down. Bob had a little cart with the carryon bags so he had to wait for an elevator. Then deck 5 was jammed.

Eventually we made our way off the ship, but when Bob tried to go down the escalator with the cart, they stopped it altogether and made him come back up and go down in the elevator. Even so, we were getting our luggage by 9:15.

Baggage Hall

Bob had put the unattached handle into the little zipper compartment, and the luggage handlers had apparently tried to pull the handle out, and since it wasn't attached they threw it away.

Transportation area from the ship

We went out to the transportation area, and saw the Auto Rental bus, but were told to stay where we were and not walk to it. I saw a Royal bus and asked if that was for us but the HAL lady said she couldn't see it. I said it was because she was shorter than I was, because I could just barely see it over the wall. She said she didn't think the bus was for us. So I wanted to know if we could get the auto rental bus. The lady tried to take my large bag from me and found it was quite heavy. She said it was too heavy for me, but we did get on the bus.

The bus driver had never heard of the car rental company that we were using (Royal), but she took us to the correct stop at the car rental place. It was between Avis and Hertz on the third deck. I had seen it when we turned in our Budget car. There were long lines at Hertz and Avis, but none at Royal, so we went right in and got the car. They said they had no economy cars left so they gave us a Dodge, which only gets about 22 mpg

Vanilla float

Wendy's hamburger

We stopped and had lunch at Wendy's and then drove to our daughter's house in Miami and had dinner there.

Grandson eating dinner

December 7th
We had lunch at Burger King. I took photos of the renovations she has done and watched while she started to decorate for Christmas.

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Apple slices

Decorating the tree

December 8th
We took our daughter's family out to dinner at the Captain's Tavern

Captain's Tavern menu

Daughter and SIL

Lobster Newburg

Creme Brulee

Chocolate Mousse Cake

I do not know what we did December 9th. Maybe we turned in the car.

Bob and our granddaughter

December10th

Our daughter took us and dropped us at the train station so we could take the train back home.

Train waiting room

It was a one way special fare for senior citizens of $97.75 each from Miami to Richmond.

Train ticket

I had had to buy new tickets since I had mailed the other ones home by mistake. The time we would have gotten to Baltimore would have been so late that the rental car place would not be open, so when I bought the new tickets, I just bought them as far as Richmond. I thought we could rent a car there.

We had a roomette with a toilet.

Door of the roomette

Directions in the compartment

toilet

Folding sink

upper bunk -storage

trash door

Caution Please do not sit on table

Bob 'relaxing'

I took photos from the train as we went through Florida

People getting on the train

We had lunch

Dining car

Grilled chicken breast

lunch special with wild rice

ice cream

Delray Beach

Deerfield Beach

Do not hammer on car

building from the train

and dinner in the dining car.

Dining car

salad

roll

Wild rice and seafood selection

Dessert

Then we went to bed. I had the lower bunk and Bob had the upper bunk

Christmas tree

December 11

Bob was Very Very unhappy and said he did not sleep much. The train whistling at crossings bothered him and so did the vibration. He said that he felt like the train was running on the ties rather than on the rails. I slept fine. So we decided to get off in Richmond rather than go all the way to Baltimore. We could pick up a car from Enterprise and drive home - we would be home more quickly that way.

We had breakfast in the dining car

dining car

Pouring milk into cereal

Breakfast tea and orange

Breakfast biscuit

scrambled eggs and grits

Crossing a river

Near the train tracks

Bob ready to disembark

and got to Richmond about 12:30.

Getting picked up at the station

The rental car people picked us up and after we had lunch at Hardees,

Fast food Lunch chicken

Hardees burger

we drove home.

My next trip was a cruise with my granddaughter from Copenhagen