Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Bahama's Trip- Day 1


Today we left for our Bahama's cruise.  We were very excited.  We left around 4:30am.  We were on the airplanes most of the day.  We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida around 5:30pm.  We picked up our rental and went straight to the 'Ramada Resort' to check in (which is the worst hotel not even close to a resort.  They need to demolish it and rebuild it's so terrible).  We had to package deal through the cruise line so we had to check in at the welcome center first before the hotel.  So we went there to check in and get our cruise vouchers and all that stuff.
Well, we were misinformed about the proper identification needed so we no longer could go to the Bahamas.  We could go on the cruise and tour the Bahamas for the day but when the ship left at 5pm, we had to also.  So for the next 2 hours or so, we were in shock and disbelief that we couldn't go even though we were told were would be allowed before we left Utah.
The workers in the welcome center were not super helpful or friendly in the least bit.  Once the one lady saw us in the hallway, after a good cry, like always, I'm super red forever, that lady became very helpful and friendly.
We got our room at the dump hotel.  Enrique was on the phone with the cruise line person trying to reschedule.  I was trying to reschedule our flight back home at the same time.  It would have ended up being over $1500 to reschedule our flight, plus more to reschedule Enrique's parents too.  We were devastated to say the least. 
Normally the cruise line won't let you reschedule so close to  your cruise date or they make you pay extra fees if they even let you reschedule, specially the night before.  However, no new fees were added and Enrique was able to reschedule our cruise for April.  Except next time around we have to pay for our rental car and 1 night stay of hotel.  It's no longer part of the package deal because we used one night hotel and even if we returned the rental the same day, it would have counted for our week's rental.
So we decided to leave the nasty hotel and go eat, since we were starving.  On  our way down to tell the welcome center lady that we rescheduled, we decided to make the best of it and stay in southern Florida for the week since we had a the rental car for the week.  Once we told the lady we rescheduled, I grabbed tons of brochures and coupons so that we can plan our spur of the moment week vacation in southern Florida.
At the restaurant, we were seated at a huge table and most of which was taken up by maps, and brochures and paper trying to figure what in the world we were going to do.
We left the restaurant with a tentative plan, drove around a bit and then went back to the nasty hotel to sleep.