Debarkation

I was awake before the Mickey wake up call. This was a fast cruise, and a different one that I had imagined. Having four port days really accentuated the hot summer weather and we spent less time enjoying the sea breeze.

I finished getting everything together. Rather than drag our stuff up to the dining room, we opted to leave our room at 7:00am and went up to deck 9 for breakfast. There was a breakfast buffet and we sat on a very empty deck 9 eating breakfast. It was very leisurely and away from the hustle and bustle of the last minute activity on deck 3.

After breakfast, I sat a bit and read my book while Victoria watched cartoons on the Dumbotron. At 8am she was falling asleep so we headed down to deck 3 where we shuffled off the ship. We passed Lynn who yelled goodbye and we waved. I hate goodbyes. I really did enjoy the quiet of deck 9 for the last morning. As long as you don't have to rush off the ship, why not be leisurely.

We went down the ramp and grabbed a porter. He collected our luggage and we went outside to an area close to the exit, the same spot we dropped folks off in. This seemed a lot closer than previous times, where we walked into the parking lot to a covered tent area. We tipped our porter and a Budget Rental Shuttle arrived quickly. We tossed our luggage into the vehicle and were at the rental office by 8:30am. The driver of the shuttle seemed surprised to receive a tip. He handled all of our luggage and out of four families we were the only ones to tip. And we had the fewest amount of bags! C'mon people, whoever handles your luggage should be tipped!

Except in hotels where they pull a fast one on you now. Remember when you drove up to the hotel and someone took your luggage, waited while you checked in, and helped you upstairs? When did it turn into double tipping? Nowadays it seems there is one person to remove the luggage from your vehicle and another who brings it up to your room. Hmmmph!

Anyway, the rental office was pretty empty, which was exactly what we were hoping for by getting off the ship leisurely. We were on the road at 8:30am, relaxed and feeling good about having another week in Florida. The ride is pretty boring and pretty straight.

We discussed things we could do, and ended up in a shopping area at 9:30am. The stores were not open until 10am, so we drove down the street to check out our condo. Darlene, Stan and Sandy were dropping Lynn and Mary off at the airport and would meet us later. We pulled into the Grand Beach I timeshare on 535 and were impressed with the buildings and set up. We walked around the area, while we waited for the front desk to clear out. People were checking out at 10am.

Just for kicks, I checked if our unit might be ready, though I did not think it was likely. Low and behold it was ready! We were excited! We went up to our unit and called Darlene to tell her we could check in. We unpacked and waited for Darlene and family to arrive at around 11am. They had plans to meet Darlene's son and family at Downtown Disney. We compiled a grocery list and agreed to meet up later.