We had to drive to Tampa to get on the Carnival Paradise for the first 6 days of this short vacation. We had to be on board by 3pm and we had to park the car and take a shuttle to the ship. But we couldn’t drive there directly from Lehigh Acres FL; we had to stop in Cape Coral FL for an 11:15am medical appointment for me. When we booked the cruise I thought I would have to reschedule but a careful look at the route, coupled with my expectation that it would be a short appointment (my last one was no more than 15 minutes), I figured that I could do the appointment and still make the ship on time.
We did, with nearly an hour to spare.
So Hop 1 of the auto portion of the trip was 149 miles via FL 884, FL 82, US 41, some local roads, I-75, US 301 and FL 60 to the cruise ship parking lot.
Embarkation was a breeze. No waiting since we were two of the relatively late arrivals. And our cabin was ready, so we immediately got unpacked, did our muster station checkin and grabbed a bite to eat. Then we watched departure and the long journey (nearly 3 hours) through Tampa Bay from the still-closed casino. We wanted to be at our favorite machines when it opened. We needn’t have been eager. I lost $120 and Marlene lost much more. Not a good start to our Paradise casino experience.
We ate in the buffet and went to bed relatively early as we were both very tired. That might have something to do with the late night in the Immokolee Casino where we both lost money (though not much).
It took some effort getting photos to this new laptop. I couldn’t directly connect my phone and couldn’t link via Bluetooth. I had to upload to the old laptop, copy to a thumb drive then then copy to this laptop. There has to be an easier way…