Disembarkation

We woke up early in Ft. Lauderdale this morning.



We don't often get to see the sunrise.  My picture does not capture how pretty it was.


Luminae stops serving breakfast at 8:00am on disembarkation day, so we collected all of our carry-on luggage and headed down around 7:45am.  Since it was disembarkation day, there were a lot of other people in the hallways with their luggage too, and there was a crowd of people waiting for the elevators.  Two of the four elevators said "Out of Service".  I asked another woman how long she had been waiting and she said, "At least 10 minutes."  We waited for a while, and then I decided to walk down the eight flights of stairs with Sweet Pea so I could at least hold a table for us.

Sweet Pea and I made it to Luminae before 8:00am, but Grandma Trudy and Ross took quite a while longer.  Note that they are not in the picture below.  Eventually our waiter told me that the galley was going to close down and asked me to order for them, which I did.

When they finally arrived about 25 minutes later, Ross told me that they had actually run into our butler while they were waiting for the elevator.  They explained that they were desperately trying  to make it downstairs before breakfast ended.  Our butler suggested that  they walk all the way to the front of the ship, take that elevator down to deck three and then walk all the way back to Luminae.   Ross said, "But Grandma Trudy has trouble walking and we have all our carry-on luggage with us."  Our butler just shrugged and wandered away.  


I had smoked salmon eggs Benedict, which is what I ordered for Ross also.  I ordered a yogurt parfait  and scrambled eggs for Grandma Trudy.

Our favorite waiter Adem with Sweet Pea.

After breakfast, we waited in Micheal's Club until it was time to disembark.  I have never had such a nice disembarkation, but as a penthouse guest, we were escorted off the ship and straight to customs.  We did not have to stand in any lines.   Awesome.

Sweet Pea is pretending to be grumpy that our vacation is almost over.




There's our smiling girl!



Ross and Grandma Trudy taking one last look at the Silhouette before we drive away to the airport.



We arrived at the airport around 10:30am and had a long wait until our flight.


A very long wait.




A very very long wait.  :)

But now we are home!  Special thanks to Mimi for keeping our cat and picking us up from the airport! :)

See you next time!


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Sea Day 3 - Evening: Last Dinner at Luminae

We headed down for our last dinner at Luminae.


The menu:

Sweet Pea says that the amuse-bouches are her favorite part of the cruise.


The fennel soup with lobster, fennel and pomegranate seeds was very good, but a little strange.  The tart pomegranate seeds are a surprising contrast in the smooth savory fennel soup.




Sweet Pea ordered the pizzette, which she liked.  Although this version wasn't quite as good as the the Equinox because the crust was so thick and there wasn't as much sauce or topping.

Our waiter, Adem, was concerned that Sweet Pea didn't like it because it wasn't a traditional pizza.  She did.  She had just been so busy talking to us that she hadn't taken a bite yet.


Grandma Trudy had ordered a spinach pastry from the main dining room menu.





For my main course, I had the seafood fettuccini.  The seafood in it was excellent, but the pasta was a little overcooked.





Ross ordered the barramundi and loved it.  It was nicely seared, perfectly flaky and seasoned well.




Grandma Trudy ordered tilapia from the main dining room.


Sweet Pea was in a big hurry to leave so she could get to the kid's club auction and spend her "fun factory dollars" that she had earned during the cruise.  Adem brought her a Chocolate Carmel dessert with pretzel ice cream that she loved.




Yummy!  She ate about half of it and then Ross took her up to the kid's club.  They brought Grandma Trudy a creme brulee, of course.



I ordered the cheese that was on the dessert menu, but Adem brought me a wedge of brie stuffed with sliced truffles and served with a delicious truffle tapenade.  This was not actually what was listed on the menu so I don't know to order it again, but Oh My Goodness.  It was really tasty.




After dinner, we went back to the room to finish packing, which didn't take too long.  (I can not stress how much easier it is to pack-up in the penthouse suite!)

Grandma Trudy wanted to do a little shopping to spend the last of our on-board credit so Ross went with her.  You will not be surprised that I went to pub trivia.   I joined a random team and we won, although the other players on this team were a little lax about grading our answers.  I think it's better when the host makes you switch  answer sheets with another team.



Since the prize ticket redemption had already happened, we won some decks of cards, but I gave mine away.



I picked up my favorite cocktail, Tropically Yours, from the World Class Bar and then went to the theater to save seats for Ross and Grandma Trudy.




Grandma Trudy had bought me a nice little necklace with some of our onboard credit.



The show was "Late Night Comedy with Dave Burleigh".  It turned out that he was on our last cruise too, so we had seen about half of his material.  He was pretty good, especially because he does great impressions.  He did a little bit about Christopher Walken being a waiter, which was dead-on.




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Sea Day 3 - Afternoon: Luminae Lunch and Kid's Talent Show

We were back at Luminae for lunch.

Here is the menu:


Grandma Trudy wanted to see the main dining room menu again, and it's a good thing she did because Amelia discovered that they were serving her favorite appetizer, blueberry soup.  She wanted us to take a picture of her savoring it.



I had the beet and fennel salad.  I adore this salad.  Every time I have it, I think about how I wish I had a cook who would roast and peel beets for me at home.  lol.



Ross had hamachi crudo, which he loves.


For the main course, I had the signature Luminae burger, which is easily one of the top 5 hamburgers I've ever eaten.  I don't know how they consistently make such an awesome hamburger.





Grandma Trudy ordered the ricotta ravioli.


As did Sweet Pea.  She was strained by having to wait to start eating until we had taken a picture.





Ross ordered the lamb burger, which was also great.






I was able to have one of my favorite Luminae desserts again, the chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream.





After lunch, it was time for the kid's club talent show.    I ran ahead to get us seats, which was good because there was a fairly large crowd.

We were so happy to see that they had a keyboard.  There were some technical difficulties getting it to actually play and the sound guy had to come in and help, but they did eventually get it hooked up correctly.

Sweet Pea played a nice version of Sonatina.




Right after the talent show, I went to Movie Tunes Trivia, which is always fun.  Grandma Trudy and Ross showed up about halfway through so we had to shuffle the players again to make sure we only had six on our team.   We did not win.




We had a pretty bad round of regular trivia too.  (What is the only county with a five sided flag?  Nepal.  Who owns Christmas Island?  Australia.  Who directed American Grafiti?  George Lucus.  I want to kick myself for getting that one wrong.)


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Sea Day 3 - Morning: Trivia and Packing

I slept in a bit this morning and had to skip breakfast so I could make it to trivia. Ross was going to take Sweet Pea to get a quick bite, but she wanted to go eat in Luminae with him. She ordered the biscuits and gravy, which was one of our favorite meals on the Equinox, but they weren't very good. They made them with a brown gravy instead of normal breakfast gravy.

At trivia, I joined my usual team, but we didn't do very well this morning. (Where was ice cream invented? China. How many seasons were there of the TV show Friends? 10.)



After trivia, Ross and I met back up and drank cappuccinos on our deck.







Then we spent the rest of the morning packing. I will say that being in a penthouse makes it a lot easier to pack. We had enough room to lay the suitcase out on the floor and had almost everything done by lunchtime.





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Sea Day 2 - Evening at Tuscan Grill

This evening we had dinner at the specialty restaurant, Tuscan Grill, which specializes in Italian and steaks.  The weather wasn't as good tonight and the ship was rocking a lot.  Sweet Pea wasn't feeling very good so she started her meal with some Dramamine.


It was another "Evening Chic" night so we dressed up a bit.




The menu:






I started with a warm goat cheese and arugula salad.  This was delicious and easily the best dish of the night.   The warm goat cheese, tangy dressing and peppery arugula made for a perfect combination.


Ross ordered a Caesar salad which was okay, but we've had much better.  The dressing was a little bland.


For a main dish, I ordered the ribeye, which was good.



Grandma Trudy ordered the lasagna and was very happy it.  The sauce was excellent and it was loaded with meat and cheese.  Everyone thought this was the best pasta dish.


Ross ordered the branzino and really liked it.  The skin was cooked perfectly crispy.



Sweet Pea ordered the lobster Alfredo, which was good.


I had high hopes for the ricotta gnocchi, but it wasn't great.  The gnocchi were a little bland and chewy.




The dessert menu:








Amelia was feeling so sea sick that she did not order a dessert.  Grandma Trudy and I both ordered pistachio creme brûlée which was good, but I prefer Celebrity's plain version.  



Ross ordered the tiramisu, which was excellent.  This was clearly the better dessert.





Ross also ordered a special coffee, Italian Café Brûlot, flavored with liquor, cinnamon and orange peels.  The server told us that during prohibition, this was a popular drink because they could hide the liquor in the coffee.





After dinner, we went to pub trivia.  It was a special St. Patrick's Day version.   I am proud to say that I knew what a leprechaun's profession was: a shoe maker.  We did not know who was the first president to attend a St. Patrick's Day parade.  It was Harry S. Truman.




Here we are looking a little green under the St. Patrick's Day lighting.



The music got a little too loud in the pub so we took Grandma Trudy to the atrium to enjoy some oldies before turning in for the night.




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