Touch You Last

We had breakfast at the hotel and then went to Church nearby. Largely Spanish congregation, but we caught the English mass, which is good because the only Spanish I know is “Ay, ay, ay! No es bueno!” Then it was back to the hotel to scoop up our bags and head out. Veronica, for whatever reason, fell in love with the smallest of our grey suitcases. She named it Buddy, and insisted that she alone would carry it. All well and good until we got to the ship and had to hand off all our bags to the porter. Tears were shed over her good friend Buddy, even though they’d only be separated for about two hours. Embarkation was an absolute breeze and we were on board before eleven. Having not been on a Celebrity ship for two years, I was excited to see what was new and what had changed. And I should have known better because the answer was: absolutely nothing! We were on board the Eclipse, but we’d already cruised on four other ships of the same class and by design they’re all basically the s...

It had been two years since our last full family vacation, and two years since we’d flown with the kids. While some things get more challenging as the kids get older, flights just seem to get easier. No one throws up, the level of complaining is proportionate to the length of the journey, and none of the parents have to physically restrain any of the kids for two straight hours anymore. We flew Ottawa to Toronto, then Toronto to Miami, and other than having to inexplicably clear security at Pearson after we’d already done it in Ottawa, the whole thing was pretty painless. Our hotel was just down the way from where we stayed in 2016, near to a park and shops, and a pretty short ride from the port. To keep things simple for dinner, we went to a nearby McDonald’s – which was probably the roughest McDonald’s I've ever been to: multiple homeless guys (one with no legs), a special needs dude trying to sell a flower to customers in line, an active squad car across the street. I don...