The Cruise is over... and we are home

Well, I've got a lot to tell, so hold on...

We left about 5am on Sunday, 4/2. The drive down proved to be an adventure in itself. We were travelling east on I-26 in SC about to turn onto I-95 when an older lady passed us going the wrong direction on the interstate! Needless to say, that rattled us a bit, and it made us miss the exit for I-95. We ended up having to turn around at the next exit which was 8 miles down the road.

Around Jacksonville, we ran into my dad who was on his way back to Florida from a visit with his sister in Charlotte. He told us to take Hwy 17 instead of I-95 because there was heavy construction in Daytona. We took his advice and he followed us so we could stop for lunch together. South of Jacksonville, somewhere in BFE we saw a buzzard eating something in the median. Just as we approached it, it took off flying right at us. I swerved and so did it and we barely missed each other. Hitting bugs with the windshield is one thing, but a buzzard would have done some serious damage. In fact, when we stopped for lunch, I found out that the hole in my Dad's grill on his Jeep was from hitting a buzzard a week earlier. Apparently they are a problem in Florida. Go figure.

Anyway, by about 5:00 that evening, we arrived in Orlando to visit my mom's friend Celesta and her family. Their house is unbelieveable. Stunning is all I can say. Anyway, we went to dinner with them at Margaritaville just outside of Universal Studios and had a great time.

The next morning, we got up and headed out to Miami to start the cruise. That drive was reasonably uneventful until we got to Miami. A truck shed its tred right in front of us and the traffic gave me no room to swerve. I hit it but luckily the car still drove fine and we decided to not look at the front end until we got back. If there was damage, there was nothing we could do about it then so why let it spoil the cruise. When we got to the Port of Miami, we took a half dozen laps or so before finding the right parking deck and getting parked.

Check in was pretty painless. We had to stand in a quickly moving line until we got to the check in counter. It was much like checking in at the airport. We found out we had been upgraded to a nicer, oceanview room (we had paid for the cheaper inside stateroom) which was a pleasant surprise. We got checked in and boarded the ship.

We were led to our stateroom and then headed off to explore the ship. The Zenith is an older ship (About 12 years old) and small by cruise ship standards (but still far bigger than anything I'd been on before). I'd give the ship 2.5 - 3 stars. There is nothing wrong with it, but nothing particularly spectacular about it either. It does its job well, but does not have the size our beauty of some of the newer, bigger ships we saw in some of our ports.

That evening, we had our one (and it turned out... only) dinner in the main dining hall. We were seated with 2 couples that could not have been any more different if they tried. One couple was a very "country" couple from upstate NY who ran a cow farm. They would not try anything that sounded too gourmet and seemed completely out of their element just having a waiter take good care of them. They were nice people though and very friendly during dinner. The other couple it turns out did not even speak English. Unfortunately, our waiter did not speak Spanish so their ordering consisted of a lot of pointing and nodding. My impression of them is probably unfair since it was based mostly on appearance and facial expressions since we could not talk, but they struck me as snobs by their mannerisms and they were definitely not having any fun not being able to participate in the table conversation or communicate with the waiter. They were the first to leave after dinner and the waiter said he was going to have them reassigned to a table with othe Spanish speaking guests and a waiter who could understand them.

The next day (which was our anniversary) we arrived in Key West for our first port. We got a quick breakfast and then disembarked in the naval shipping yard. After a brief wait, a tram came to take us to our snorkeling trip we had booked. We went out on the Fury, a very large catamaran and went snorkeling on a reef (the name of the reef escapes me right now). It was very pretty and we got some good pictures with some disposable underwater cameras we bought. When we get them developed, I'll post a few. We were then dropped back off at the marina and had a few hours to shop in Key West before we had to get back on the ship. When we arrived back at the ship, we had a few hours to kill before the Captain's Welcoming dinner which is the formal night. We were worn out from the snorkeling and the sun and decided to take a nap before dinner. Apparently, we were more tired than we thought. We woke up a little after 6am the next morning and had completely slept through the formal dinner. Oops.

The next day (Wednesday) was a day at sea while we sailed to the Caymans. We were pretty bored the first few hours because most of the on board activities did not start that early, but the day picked up as it went on. We played bingo (yes... I know, but it was actually fun), played in the arcade, gambled some (I did quite badly but Leilani did pretty well), add did a few more things that I can't seem to remember now. I remember that the day was pretty full. That night, we decided to skip the main dining room and hit the Sushi Bar instead. It was pretty good and very plentiful.

The next morning, we were at Georgetown, Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman does not have a port large enough for cruise ships to dock so you have to anchor off shore and get tendered in. The Zenith actually uses its life boats for this which do a good job. We were dropped at the small marina right in the heart of the shopping district. Our tour we had pre-booked did not start until just after noon, so we had the morning to shop and shop we did. OMG... the bag we had brought with us to carry our purchases would barely zip by the time we met our tour. We met the tour back at the marina and I saw that by that time, there were 5 cruise ships anchored off shore. Apparently, Grand Cayman is a popular port. We took what was called the Land & Sea tour. It started out by bussing us to a different marina where we boarded the Nautilus. It is a semi-submarine which means the top deck stays above water but the cabin where we were was completely submerged. It was basically a big room with rows of benches and windows. We were taken on an underwater tour that included 2 wrecks and 2 reefs. They even had a diver jump in and feed the fish to make sure lots of them swarmed the windows for some good pictures. I'll post pics of this too when I have time to pull them off the camera. Next we were boarded on the bus again to do the land portion of the tour. We were taken to see 7 mile beach and the governor's mansion. Then, we were taken to Hell, which is a real town on Grand Cayman. Then, we took a trip to the Rum Cake factory for free samples of rum cake and rum. Quite yummy. Lastly, were taken to the sea turtle farm where we got to actually hold some of the smaller sea turtles. Very cool. After that, it was time to get back to the ship before we got left behind and had to sleep on the bus driver's couch. When we got back to the ship, again we were so beat from the sun we spent that evening in our stateroom and ordered room service.

The next morning we got up and headed to the casino. It was another day at sea while we sailed back to Miami. This one turned out to not be so great. Leilani had been complaining for a week or so of a pain on her left side. It was a tender area that seemed to be a pulled muscle from coughing. We had both been fighting colds the week before the cruise. While we were in the casino she had a very hard sneeze and she said the pain in her side felt like her intestines tried to break through her ribs. She was in a LOT of pain. I helped her back to the stateroom and she laid down to try to see if it would pass. After a couple of hours, it became obvious it would not. I went and got the ship's doctor and they had her brought down to the ship hospital. The doctor took xrays, blood work, etc... and in the end, found nothing and decided what I already knew which was that she had pulled or torn a muscle in her side. The doctor gave her an antibiotic for the cold and pain killer for the pain. We headed back to the stateroom and ordered room service again since she was in no condition to venture out. Later that night we got a bill slid under our door for over $600!!! If you are ever on a cruise ship, don't go to the doctor unless you are dying.

The next morning, she was still hurting pretty bad, but it was time to disembark. We were back in Miami. After breakfast we headed down to the show lounge where we waited for our group to be called to disembark. When we were called, we got off the ship and found a porter to help with the luggage since Leilani could not do it and there was too much for me to do alone. We cleared customs quite easily and then the porter took everything to the car. I checked the damage in the front from the tred I'd hit on the way down and it was minor. We got everything loaded and hit the road. We had planned to stop half way (probably Savannah) and finish the drive on Sunday, but after a $600 doctor bill, we didn't want to spend the money. We drove about 900 miles in 14 hours and finally got home right at midnight Saturday night.

Overall it was a good trip, but the injury to Leilani and the LONG drive home put a damper on the end of what started as a great vacation. Our initial feeling was that we would not cruise again, but after thinking about it, most of the negatives were because of the doctor bill which would hopefully not repeat itself and the motion of the ship (Leilani is very sensative to motion sickness) which would hopefully be less on a larger ship. I think we will give cruising another try but probably not next year and on one of the newer, larger ships. We are already planning our next anniversary trip. Next year, we are thinking about visiting an all-inclusive resort in either Aruba or the Bahamas. At least there if we get bored, we have the whole island to explore instead of just a ship.