About a month ago the
Baumgartner’s reached out to Justin and told him they'd booked a Caribbean
cruise over mid-winter break and wondered if we'd like to join them. Justin had
spent countless hours over Christmas break trying to find us a warm escape over
the upcoming break. We'd even booked airfare to Maui, but when we couldn't find
a suitable place to stay within the 24-hour cancellation period we cancelled
our airfare to paradise. So a vaca was already in our minds and while this
particular cruise wouldn't have been one we'd chosen on our own – we’d cruised
this same Royal Caribbean itinerary way back in May 2001 pre-parenthood, we
knew the kids would love spending a week with their cousins and so we decided
to book it.
We ended up finding cheap
airfare to Florida on Frontier. We knew it was a bare bones airline but knowing
it and experiencing it are two different things. No carry-on luggage unless you
pay $$, no seat selection unless you pay $$, no drinks or refreshments of any
kind unless you pay $$, no charging plugs or entertainment options... We flew
to Denver on Valentine's Day and then had a 2:45 layover before boarding a
midnight flight to Fort Myers, Florida. Funny, we spent those nearly three
hours waiting at the wrong terminal and barely realized it in time to make our
connecting flight. Jason, Katie and Drew slept while we waited for our flight
in Denver.
Another bummer about Frontier
is that there is significantly less legroom and the seats don't recline AT ALL!
I don't think you'll ever find us on a Frontier red eye ever again. The three
youngest slept like babies (possibly thanks to the little purple melatonin
pills I bought just for the occasion) but the rest of us didn't get much rest.
We arrived in Fort Myers at 5am
EST, which is 2am for us! Unfortunately, our hotel was fully booked that night
so even though I'd requested an early check-in when I booked the reservation
with points they couldn't get us a room until after 9am. Our friend/home
teacher/former bishop/stake presidency counselor told us we needed to check out
Waffle House so we decided we'd have an EARLY breakfast. He'd warned us the
establishment wouldn't impress us and boy was he right, but the food was good
and cheap so worth it.
We also hit up Wal-Mart for
snacks, sunscreen, and deodorant for our forgetful, pre-teen son.
We were hardly able to keep our
eyes open by this point and crashed hard when we finally got into our room. I
think we could have slept all day but we only allowed ourselves a few hours
before we woke everyone up to check out the Fort Myers Beach.
That’s Drew in is rightful
place between Carly and Abigail – and Jason collapsed on Justin and my bed
leaving Katie passed out somewhere on the floor – boy, were we tired!
I feel like I've been cold for
months so to be warm and enjoy the sunshine was divine.
Drew
still has an adversion for walking on the sand with shoes on
Pretty
girl braiding her hair
We also stopped at Bunche Beach
just in time to catch the sunset. Beautiful!
We had a free meal at PF Changs
that expired today so Justin and I ordered takeout and we stopped at Costco for
the kids. The rest of the evening was spent poolside back at the hotel, cause
when you're from Seattle you take advantage of swimming even in the dark and in
temperatures the local Floridians would never consider pool weather.
No comments:
Post a Comment