Our Cruise Adventure

The 5th of December came faster than I had anticipated it would. Our summer had ended, and we went directly into winter seeing very few days where the temperatures went above 40 degrees. Most of our November saw the thermometer hovered just above freezing. We were focused on getting through this stretch and before we knew it it was December. Linda was telling me that I needed to gather my cruising gear and get ready for our 12-day adventure in the warmer climates.

The two ladies kept a close eye on us as we chatted.

Dale, my brother, picked us up at 12:15 PM on the day of our departure and drove us to the Spokane International Airport. Roads were clear and so were the skies over the Inland Empire.

There had been nasty weather warnings throughout the states for the Thanksgiving holiday and we were on the tail end of these weather events. The Northeastern States were still in the process of getting hit with bad weather, but our flights were not affected. Linda was a bit nervous since she had been planning this vacation for over a year, but after we landed in Seattle, waited for our redeye flight and got in the air heading for Miami, she calmed down.

We landed in Miami at 5:00 AM local DADE County time and caught a shuttle to our Hotel. We were extremely tired, to say the least, but we had our hardest most stressful leg of our journey behind us. We arrived at the Hyatt House Hotel and checked in. Our rooms were not ready so early so we checked in our luggage and accepted the invitation of the front desk to eat at the hotel's free breakfast. It was delicious. We waited until 8:00 AM to call Caroline and Don Samuelson's room to let them know we had arrived safely. They had flown in the day before and were settled in their room waiting for the entire group to gather together. As soon as they heard from us they invited us into their room where we could sit and rest while waiting for our lodging to become available.

Our first group picture on the Riviera. 

10:00 AM came and the room was available. We quickly moved in. Jacquie and Grant were on their way from Penticton, B.C. and they moved into our combined room at about 2:00 PM.

Linda, Caroline and I went out to the pool and talked about the upcoming events. While we were relaxing two peahens came to the fence around the pool. I dug out my phone and found a You-Tube video with the call of the peacock on it and I played it loudly.  Within minutes the two fowls were honking and searching for the source of the calls. We laughed about this exchange until they both flew over the fence and joined us at the poolside. I stopped my calling and they lost interest after a bit, but it sure gave us something to talk about that evening at dinner.

I found my spot for the week.

It was great to have everyone together again! We all cleaned up for the evening and then rendezvous-ed back out at the pool for the first of many happy hours. We decided to make things easy on everyone and have dinner at the poolside. We enjoyed two pizzas that we had delivered by the local Papa Johns. We talked and laughed, catching up, before we disembarked on our cruise.

Our shuttle was to arrive at 11:00 AM the next morning. We were cruising with Oceania and would pull away from the dock on the Riviera, our ship, at 6:00 PM.

Morning came way too fast and before we knew it we were loaded into the transfer van and headed to the cruise port to meet our ship the Riviera.

The night skyline as we left Miami!

Boarding was a breeze. We dropped our luggage outside the ship and within minutes were walking the decks of our home for the next ten nights, exploring where everything was. The crew was busy loading baggage and taking it to the various assigned rooms. When all the baggage had arrived for our section of rooms, there was an announcement stating that we could proceed to our room and get settled in.  Our space was ready at about 2:15 PM and an hour later we had unpacked and organized our little home.

Our first evening on board we ate up in the Terrace Cafe. This area would be our restaurant for meals whenever we were not scheduled to dine at one of the four specialty restaurants.

By 10:00 PM we were ready for bed, we would check the ship out more thoroughly over the upcoming days.