When we last left off, Michelle and I were leaving St. Marys Georgia for her sister's place in Delray Beach Florida. After about a six-hour trip on I-95 and the Florida Turnpike we arrived. Jody and Carole have a nice two-bedroom, two-bath condo on the first floor in an over-55 gated community. The apartment features a Florida room (a type of screened-in porch) which overlooks a pond. We spent a couple of nights there before heading to Miami to board our cruise.
Delray is in the general vicinity of West Palm Beach; other nearby towns are Boynton Beach and Boca Raton. The area is mostly over-55 communities and most of the seniors are from the New York City area. A large proportion of the citizens are Jewish and this population supports any number of delis, bagel bakeries etc. Carole says it's like the lower east side with palm trees. She especially likes the fact that she can get all the authentic foods she enjoyed growing up Jewish in NYC. E.g. real chewy "water" bagels (simmered in water prior to baking as opposed to the doughy roll-like things that pass for bagels in most of the U.S.), excellent lox and nova salmon, kosher pickles from the barrel and so on. I can attest that the "deli" - cold cuts, rye bread etc. are very good. They took us to a place called "3Gs" deli and restaurant and the food was excellent. We also went to a place on the Intracoastal Waterway which is not far from their home which had a great view and excellent seafood.
Well, we arrived in Delray on a Friday and two days later, bright and early Sunday morning, we were up and on our way to Miami for our cruise. We checked on the Internet and found that there was parking for a fee at the Port of Miami, so we took Michelle's car, loaded the luggage, and off the four of us went.
Incidentally, M. came up with a good plan for the luggage on this trip. We both packed small bags with just what we needed for the trip to Florida, including the two stops on the way down, while we left the main bags packed for the cruise. This worked out well and saved dragging the bigger bags in and out of the car.
To continue, I drove us all to the Port of Miami and dropped my companions and our luggage off at the dock and proceeded about a quarter mile or less to the Port parking garage. One word of advice: they want payment in advance and they only take cash! Fortunately, I had the $100 in cash with me ($20/day x 5 days) but it was a bit of an unpleasant surprise - especially since the Port of Miami website indicated that credit cards were acceptable. Well, I hoofed it back to the dock and after a fairly short wait, we were allowed to board.
The "Norwegian Jewel"
The cruise went to Cozumel and Grand Cayman. Cozumel was fun: we booked a snorkeling trip aboard a large catamaran and later to a beach. The down side was that there were more people than fish in the water where we snorkeled; the up side was that they gave us all the free drinks we wanted. Grand Cayman was interesting. The waterfront had all the usual Caribbean t-shirt shops and duty-free joints, but one block inland were wall-to-wall bank buildings. I guess the place really is a big money laundromat.
The cruise ship itself was also a lot of fun. The ship had some halfway decent entertainment in their theatre and the food was pretty good. NCL has something which I like called "free-style" cruising which means among other things that even in the main dining rooms dress is resort casual i.e. golf shirt and slacks. It was the first cruise that I ever took that didn't require a suit and tie - I loved it (the first cruise I ever took as a passenger - back in the 70's -I had to lug a tux along!).
One thing they had that was neat were these automated self-service coffee machines. They had rows of buttons for both regular and decaf coffee, cappuccino, latte, etc. I wish I had one at home.
The ship had a number of specialty bars, one of which was a single malt scotch bar. I asked the bartender to recommend one to sample and she poured me a drink of something called "Aberlour" 16 year old single malt. It was probably the smoothest scotch I ever tasted. It was like a cross between sherry and scotch (not surprising-it is matured in old sherry casks). Anyway, it was very good and when my birthday came along after we got home, Michelle bought me a bottle.
All in all, then the cruise was inexpensive and fun, and we all agreed we would cruise NCL again.
Well, the ship finally made port in Miami and we piled in the car and headed back to Delray for a few more days' visit with Jody and Carole.
Next: Savannah GA and Mount Pleasant NC
