Apparently we took a cruise in 2020

Around this time of year, I start thinking about updating the Powell website so that I can link to posts in the Xmas email. Usually, I’ve covered some events, and missed some. This year the last thing I posted was Christmas 2019! So I had better get my editing hat on!

Looking through photos, one of the topics I found was our February vacation. I had pretty much forgotten all about it! I had posted a few photos on Facebook and slapped together a quick video which is on YouTube. It appears I never even finished editing and cataloguing the other photos, so when I went looking this week, I wasn’t able to just filter for the “best” shots and pick a few, I actually had to rate 500 or so images before I could start choosing some for this post. Life is rough.

It’s almost like there was a global pandemic or something that distracted me.

Anyway, Mary-Jo, Anna and I flew down to Fort Lauderdale a couple of days early, with the idea we would visit a wildlife park, hit some restaurants and do some shopping, rather than going down the day before and generally twiddling our collective thumbs until the ship left. It didn’t turn out that way, as we started the day sitting on the runway for several hours waiting to get de-iced, and arrived at the hotel at 4pm to find our room wasn’t ready yet. We got a hotel shuttle to a nice seafood restaurant that evening, and then sat waiting for a promised shuttle to pick us up – for an hour – despite several repeat calls. Everyone has a car in Florida, it seems, and out in the sticks, it was impossible to get a cab, so we waited. I forget why we didn’t go to the wildlife thing, possibly a lack of transport and promised rain. But we did shop. Boy, did we shop. By which I mean the ladies shopped.

But enough with the complaining, at least I justified a new phone before I left, so I could run the ship’s app, and find out what was on the menu without shifting my butt from the deck. The cruise was nice. We were very well looked after, and my only complaint was pulling a hamstring on day one when I side stepped to pass someone on the walking track. And did it again on day four when I stopped and turned to photograph the sunrise which was reflected in a glass door. Took four months before I could touch my toes again, so it was just as well Covid cancelled my yoga classes.

First port was Key West, where we took an open trolley around the town and out to a butterfly conservatory. This allowed you to get off at any designated stop and then board the next one when you are ready. Which is fine except everyone wants to stop at the same places, so you don’t necessarily get back on the next bus, as it was full, and there typically weren’t any places to sit while waiting. Mary-Jo and Anna toured Hemmingway’s tourist trap, I mean former home, which featured lots of cats, so Anna was happy. We also tracked down the best Key Lime pie in the world, which was somewhat disappointing.

On the ship, we ate lots (duh!) and basically luxuriated in being well looked-after. Anna and Mary-Jo each helped create a nice vase to bring back.

Porta Maya is a Mexican port created as a cruise ship destination. There were lots of touristy jewelry and craft shops and a very unique aviary which was built as the second storey of the ground floor shopping. Once we paid and entered, we (Anna and I) got from pod to pod via rope bridges, with the free-flying parrots and parakeets contained by hanging nets. The big parrots were well trained to very gingerly take a sunflower seed from your fingers, and the smaller birds would just go for the small containers of seed in your hand.

In Cozumel, we took a cab along the coast to a small resort we’d been to before and had a beach day.

And in Grand Cayman, which we never reached last time because of winds and waves, we went to a turtle farm, where you could swim with turtles in a man-made lagoon or wade in a pond or pet small turtles in a tank, depending on your level of confidence. I swam in the lagoon but didn’t take the goggles and so never saw much more than a fast moving turtle shadow. I did take some underwater video, and later found I had in fact captured fleeting glimpses.

By the end of the trip, our cabin steward had discovered my favourite afternoon beverage, and when we ordered late lunch on our balcony, it automagically came with proper libations!

Mary-Jo liked the cruise so much, she immediately booked us on a cruise in February 2021. And THAT’S why the pandemic got so bad, just to mess up our vacation plan. Well, that and Trump. Needless to say, we won’t be going. Coming back from vacation with a tan line across my nose is not my idea of fun!

Here’s the video I edited back in February, which has actual moving pictures, as well as some more photos. If you’re watching on a phone, turn it sideways. This site is still using a theme that hasn’t quite caught up with small-screen technology.