 grandmaR's Fort Lauderdale Travelogues | | | |
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| Page Views: 389 Last Visit to Fort Lauderdale: December, 2006 | Air Boat Ride and Xmas on a Cruise Ship by grandmaR - last update: Jan 26, 2007 |
| Truck for pulling in line |
December 24th - Christmas Eve I took pictures of the distant Florida coast from the ship - we docked about 10. I was amused to see that the dock-hands who in St. Kitts pulled the lines by hand - in Ft. Lauderdale hooked them to a pickup trick and pulled them that way. Apparently there were 11 ships docked in Ft. Lauderdale yesterday and they didn't have room for them all. It was a zoo. There was still a Celebrity ship, one of NCLs and another HAL ship loading. |
I decided that I'd missed doing an airboat ride in the Everglades when I was there before because they don't do airboat rides in the Park anymore. So I signed up for an excursion. They took us to Sawgrass Recreation Park, which is a private park. We saw one alligator (who appeared quite alert and interested in the boat-top photo) a couple of birds including an osprey with a fish, and a few fish. The guide demonstrated saw grass, and how you could get a cottony gauze type substance out of cattails. We also saw how they were trying to kill the Australian trees that they brought in to suck the water up out of the Everglades. They had a tame egret who sat on top of the building. There used to be a Seminole village there, but it was blown away by hurricanes, and all there is now is a video tape made when the village was there. They also had some animals in cages including a breeding pair of alligators, a crocodile, various snakes, turtles and iguanas, a very young Florida panther (7 months old - still had some residual spots) and of all things a 3 month old tiger cub. When we got back to the ship, I took a photo of the sign that said "Baggage porters are salaried. Tipping not required", and also one that said "No Photography or Videotaping Allowed in the Terminal" We left the port at dusk. Our steward did a cute towel rabbit for us. We found that the two old ladies had gotten another larger table so another couple (Tom and Sheila) took their places. |
Christmas 2006 I gave Bob his presents in the morning. The trivia was all Xmas related. It was very hard. We went to hear the speaker and they were having trouble getting the projection system working, I was in the computer area on deck 8 when the talk was to start, so I walked forward to the theatre balcony and when I walked in the technician was lying flat on the balcony railing with his head over the railing and only his feet over the balcony. Not an OSHA authorized position. But he didn't fall. The speaker was an anthropologist with long (down to the middle of his back) grey hair and a beard - he was an anthropologist, but theCaribbean was not his area of expertise and Bob said it was like he had read a book about it before he came on cruise. They have a gingerbread house in the main dining room and are singing carols. At dinner, I had Lobster Medallion Parisenne for an appetizer - the lobster was in chunks on a half lobster shell (lengthwise). Bob had Hazelnut Crusted Camembert which I didn't think he would like and he didn't. We had to have turkey for dinner of course. For dessert, Bob had the Santa Sundae, and I had the "Happy Holiday" Chocolate Box. |
26 December We did trivia again, and had Sue on our team and a college sophomore named Sean. I named the team "Sean and the Grandparents", and everyone thought Sean was our grandson. It was up in the Crows Nest - we saw a man and boy playing shuffleboard while we played Trivia. |
They had almost exactly the same questions as they had on December 13th. I remembered most of the answers. So of course we won. I thought it was sort of like cheating, but Sue said that I still had to remember what the correct answers were, which was true. We got mouse pads that you can put a picture of your choice into. We had lunch in the dining room and I had quiche Lorraine, and Bob had the pasta pasta. |
| Spinach with cheese crisp |
Pinnacle Grill For dinner we went to the Pinnacle Grill which is the extra price restaurant. This was part of the package that the travel agent got for us. There were only two couples in the restaurant at 5:30. That made it feel very cold to me. They came around and offered us wine and drinks but I think we were a big disappointment to them as we didn't want any. There was an orchid spray on the table - just a little bigger than the orchids on the table up in the Lido buffet. After they came around with the drinks, they brought the cuts of meat on the menu to the table (raw). Then they served us with a tiny plat of appetizers before the regular appetizers - one shrimp, a tiny little quiche and something in a spoon that I'm not sure what it was. I had the Dungeness Crab Cakes for the regular appetizer. There were two of them - each about the size of a tater tot. Bob had the King Salmon as his entree and I had the smallest cut of beef they had which was a Filet Mignon Petite Cut. It was about 3" thick and about 3" in diameter. We both ordered asparagus as a side, but I also ordered spinach which was something of a mistake because it was too much to eat. It came with a cheese crisp - it was as if they had grated some cheese on a grill and then scraped it off and cooled it so that it was a potato chip consistency, but was all cheese. It was very good. |
Before dessert, they brought a tiny tray with 6 chocolates on it. I had the creme brulee, which was in three sections - one was chocolate, one was coffee and one was regular vanilla. I had so much dinner that I couldn't eat it all even as much as I love creme brulee. Tomorrow: Aruba |
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