Day 3/3: Tuesday, January 7, 2020: At Sea

Slept well. Woke to the news that Puerto Rico had been hit with a second earthquake in two days. This last one was about 6.8 magnitude. Power was out all over the island. We are supposed to visit San Juan on Thursday. Today and tomorrow, we just sail along. We saw buildings on Cuba on the horizon this morning.

During the course of the day, I spent considerable time reading and falling asleep. We did witness a water spout many miles off our starboard side.

The evening brought some beautiful sunset photo opportunities.

Tonight is a formal night for dinner. We dined in the restaurant.,

The food was "ok" but nothing to sign praises to.

Tomorrow is another sea day and we lose an hour tonight. We will be on San Juan time tomorrow.

Day 2/2: Monday, January 6, 2020: Fort Lauderdale, Embarkation and Deport

We rose about 6:30 am and I wanted to get a sunrise photo, but the clouds on the horizon were not cooperating.

We had breakfast and messed around until noon.

It took about an hour to get to the port. When we arrived, they could not find a room card for Stephen. They told us to just go ahead and go aboard. Well, that did go that easily. We were turned away at the dock and went back to the start where, when they looked again, found Stephen's card.

We are in Room 725 on the starboard side, almost directly mid-ships. This is a "Silver" category suite and about 650 square feet including 100 square feet of veranda. It seems to me there is a lot of wasted space, but oh well! The twin beds are each very small. The sofa folds out to serve as the third bed (mine for most of the trip). The shower is very tiny. The tub is jetted. I thought there were 1-1/2 baths. I was incorrect, there is one bath, but there is a secondary guest door to the toilet.

As we were waiting to depart, the Carnival Sunrise left port. This is a 101,000 gross ton ship with around 3,000 guests and 1,100 crew. Our ship by comparison is 28,000 tons with 380 guests and a crew of 300.

Reflective of the size of our ship, there is no forward deck or hot tub, just zodiac storage.

We ate in the restaurant. We both had the filet mignon. They brought it to the table raw along with a hot block of salt. You put the steak on the block and got to determine exactly how done you wanted it. I loved it!!!

Day 1/1: Sunday, January 5, 2020: So It Begins; Gala is Palm Beach

Flight from IAH to PBI started a little ify with not being able to check in online. I mentioned this to Maxine in a note and she graciously contacted the airline to find that something was not synchronizing. She told me just to show up and all would be well. I did and, while it took longer to get my boarding pass than it did getting through Security, all did go OK.

The flight was aboard an Embraer A-175 and only took about two hours. We were scheduled to arrive shortly after 4:00 pm local time, but we arrived at 3:45 pm. I didn't realize that the reason we arrived so early is that Trump spent the weekend in Mar-a-Lago and was scheduled to fly out of PBI at 4:00 pm. So, they shut down the airport until he departed. I waited for over an hour for my checked luggage to be brought to the Luggage Claim before the Silversea representative who met me suggested I go on to the hotel and they would bring my luggage later. Until today, I did not know where Ma-a-Lago was relative to anything else. It is directly south of the Breakers hotel we will be staying at on Palm Beach.

Stephen had arrived at the hotel a couple of hours prior to my arrival. He flew into Fort Lauderdale and they chauffeured him to Palm Beach.

During the drive from the airport to the Breakers hotel, I saw a lot of yachts and Teslas. There is some serious money here.

The hotel is very fancy and nice.

We had several hours to look around and enjoy the bar before the gala began at 7:00 pm.

We were told it was a dress affair, but we saw everything from jeans to tuxedos.

We retired relatively early. We aren't scheduled to leave for Port Everglades until noon tomorrow.