Caribbean Cruise - Celebrity Reflection - Friday

We flew out on Friday in the early afternoon and the kids were awesome. It wasn’t our first flight with all three kids, but last time there were some air sickness issues – which was recent enough for the kids to remember just how sucky air travel can be. But there was zero complaining. Kudos goes to Susannah who was basically stuck awake and immobile on our laps for three hours straight. And extra special kudos goes to Teddy, who did barf on the descent (neatly, and into an air sickness bag) but then was like, “Alright, checked that off my list – what’s next?” My parents had landed half an hour before and we met them at baggage claim and headed off. Although the flight was to Fort Lauderdale, the cruise was out of Miami. Sarah did her research (as always) and the cheapest and simplest way to move that many people was by limo, so we travelled to Miami in high style. Sadly, the lack of sunroof prevented me from hanging my naked torso out of the vehicle and woooooooing for the entire ride, so if there’s one thing I could go back and change about the whole trip, it would be that.

Our hotel was the Intercontinental Miami, which was a very nice, surprisingly trendy hotel right beside the port. It was after dinner when we arrived, and the lobby was pounding dance music when we came in. It was filled with a strange mish-mash of tarted-up clubbers, foreign nationals, and dishevelled families. While Sarah checked us all in, Teddy dragged me to a bunch of weird, chic shops inside the hotel. His Nonna had given him fifty dollars for the trip and he was hell-bent to spend it, but all he kept coming up against was pottery, scarves, and postcards. He eventually found a pile of shirts and was like, finally, something to spend my money on. To his credit, the shirt he pointed out was pretty cool, but it was also nine times larger than his body so I made him hold onto his money for the time being. After this, we didn’t do much else. Sarah and Mom went to CVS for diapers and pringles, I perused US Netflix on my tablet. We all eventually just crashed.