Sorry it has taken me so long to write this, but with half of my department leaving, a new boss and a promotion left me in a whirlwind when I got back from vacation. So much so, that I’ve already booked another cruise at the end of Jan. on the Carnival Dream. But that is still 180 something days away so I’ll stick to this most recent trip.
I planned this trip back at the end of Jan. It was a birthday and mother’s day gift to my mom. This was the first vacation that mom and I had taken together since her mother passed away around 1999. Mom and grandma had planned on taking a cruise together, but my grandmother’s cancer came back and travel was no possible. Thinking that she would once again go into remission my grandmother gave mom some money to put away for another cruise. Remission didn’t happen and mom held onto the money only to give it to me for my high school graduation for the cruise I was planning on taking with my friends. So, I figured it was about time she took the cruise that she never got and I put it all together and booked the Carnival Liberty June 19th. And so the story begins.
June 18th-Travel
Since mom has never flown we decided that it would be better to drive to Miami and so at 2am early on June 18th we finished packing the car,
flipped on the GPS and headed down the road. I was driving the first 450 miles and then mom would take over from there.
We stopped briefly for some coffee and a latte for me and some breakfast to eat later b/c neither of us were hungry. We had to stop 3 times for gas and bathroom breaks and we were pretty lucky with those being easy turn offs. The first was an IHOP that actually was closed or technically just opening around 5:45am, but they allowed us to use the bathroom. We stopped at 2 gas stations after that, nothing special. Other than the fact that most people went about 15 miles over the speed limit on average the drive was uneventful. That is until we got to Florida. We drove through about 3 downpours on our way through the upper part of FL. I was so glad mom was driving.
We did learn something new though. Apparently, in the lower South people either pull over for these storms or just put on the emergency blinkers and keep driving. Learn something new everyday. After the storms we weren’t far from our hotel when we needed gas, I needed to go to the bathroom, and mom was getting a cramp in her leg. Where did all this occur? West Palm Beach, 15 mins before 5pm! This is where it almost gets comical. Mom pulled off on the next exit that said it had a gas station, but it was more of a residential area and we didn’t see the gas station. She then pulled over into a apt. building and walked around for a bit, asked for directions to the gas station, then asked me to drive b/c her leg still hurt. My problem? Well, I’d been holding “it” for at least an hour already and the only thing from keeping me from peeing myself was the fact that I was sitting down, not moving with my legs together. I told mom just to get me to the gas station and a bathroom and then I would drive from there, even though the whole reason she was suppose to drive the second half is because I don’t like city driving. We got back on the road only to pull right into what I didn’t want to drive into….West Palm Beach 5 O’Clock traffic. Should I specify that we are from a very small area, where 3 lanes of traffic is the norm? Well, needless to say, 6 lanes of traffic, various on/off ramps, 5pm traffic, West Palm Beach…this small town Southern girl was not happy. Did I mention that West Palm Beach goes on FOREVER! Mom, in her pain from the cramp, kept saying, “We will get back to open highway any min. now.” This never happened. But we eventually reached our hotel around 7pm that evening. So, that is 2am from Southern VA to 7pm Southern FL, so about 17 hours of driving.
The Hotel:
Hilton Garden Inn-Airport
We choose this hotel b/c of its park and cruise rate that included: Parking for the week, Breakfast for 2, the room, and a shuttle to the port. Cost: $123 and about 15 mins from port. The hotel had good reviews on Tripadvisor and I have to agree with the reviews, but I will get to that.
First things first, your GPS will take you around back of the hotel. There are two gates back there, the closes is closed at night and the one on the far end is open and vice versa for the day. However, easier than that…….IGNORE YOUR GPS! There is a little road beside a gas station right in front of the hotel. I can’t remember the name of the gas station, but it was Red and blue colors. So, if you turn at that road you can go over a little bridge and right into the hotel parking lot. BTW, we told the GPS to take us around the toll roads and there was one right at where we had to turn to get to the hotel……the GPS took us around that, so we ended up on the right side of the road right in front of the hotel, just in case you go another route.
Juan greeted us when we walked in to the check in desk. He asked for our information and also inquired about our trip. It took about 5 mins for us to get checked in and he even explained the breakfast voucher. He also told me to park in front of the hotel b/c it would make it easier for security to make its hourly sweeps (I def. saw them check at least 3x’s on the hour when I was there). The only thing he forgot was our shuttle voucher, which he then just walked outside to my mom while I was parking the car and gave to her (so you need a slip for the shuttle, just make sure you get it). Though he forgot, he could have waited for us to come back in to give it to us and not walk out, plus he made sure we got the 10:45 shuttle.
We were in room 521, which jut over looked the road in front of us and some of the pool, but the room was clean and beautiful plus the neutrogena products in the bathroom were nice. It had a nice alarm clock with radio and maybe cd, office desk, chair and foot stool by the window, microwave, fridge, nice LCD tv, and coffee maker. We freshened up and headed down to the “Great American Grill” inside the hotel. Jilian was our server and she was nice. Now, these ladies serve and cook the food, but they are relatively fast, but they weren’t busy at 8pm at night. The menu has some good stuff on it and some healthy choices as well, but mom and I went with a simple burger and fries for about $10. It was good, but it wasn’t gourmet, but I wasn’t expecting that.
Mom asked a few more questions of the desk clerks (moms) and they answered them with smiles and then we went upstairs to get ready for bed. After making a few phones calls and pulling out some clothes for the next day we settled in for the night around 10pm. We didn’t hear any planes going by or even much of the traffic out front. The beds were really comfortable too. We set the alarm for 7:30, so we could catch breakfast and off to dreaming about our long awaited cruise that was only hours away.
Embark Next.
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