Day 08 - Saturday - 3/22/25 - Fort Lauderdale Disembarkation and Overnight Stay
It was a rather short sleep overnight on this last night on the Sun Princess. The 6:30 AM alarm was a surprise, and we were awakened to the ship already docked. After one final breakfast up in The Eatery, we gathered up our things and disembarked the ship with our luggage. We had elected to do the walk off option so that we would not have to gather our luggage in the terminal. The border entry procedure was pretty straightforward where we just had to do facial scanning. Outside the terminal we found our way to the hotel shuttle pick up point and the shuttle was there within 10 minutes of our arrival.
We were then taken to the Roadway Inn & Suites - FLL, paid a $20 per person early checkin fee, which we gladly took. It was about a 30 minute wait to get a room. We then scheduled an Uber to take us out to the Bonnet Museum and Gardens. We have learned of this tourist attraction back in December on a city bus tour of the area. It cost $25 per person to tour the building and grounds. It was the former summer home of a very wealthy Chicago family, and they were only here a few months out of the year. They extensively furnished it with all sorts of memorabilia that they found in antique stores and on their international travels. Frederick Barnett and his wife Evelyn were artists and art collectors and from very wealthy families in the Chicago area. This house was one of many that they owned and they had arranged for it to be preserved as a museum to document how it was to live in Fort Lauderdale before the sprawl that subsequently took over the area. The building and the grounds are now owned by a foundation, and they have a cadre of volunteers that explain the various aspects of the property, and there's also an introductory short video explaining the history.
We ended our time here by enjoying a sandwich from the café and relaxing under a shady awning. We then decided to walk back towards the hotel along Sunrise Boulevard so that we could visit an Aldi grocery store. We especially like these grocery stores as we have encountered them in Europe, quite a bit and like the format. It was a two mile walk. After shopping there, we hailed another Uber, which took us to a Bealls department store where I was able to purchase a pair of nice slacks which I forgot to bring along.
Before walking back the mile to the hotel, we stopped in at McDonald's and enjoyed one last McDonald's meal for a while. At the hotel, we relaxed for the evening and I noticed around 9:00 PM that the new Amsterdam was still moored at Half Moon Cay and it should've left several hours earlier. Upon checking on the Cruise Critic website, I learned that a passenger had been killed in a jet ski accident and the ship was delayed. About that time I received an email from Holland America indicating that our departure on Sunday would be delayed. Around 10:30 PM I rechecked the status of the ship and it was still moored at Half Moon Cay and there was no way that they could make it to Fort Lauderdale Until around noon and that would take a cruising speed of around 23 kn or 26 mph. And that is very fast for a cruise ship. Shortly after I saw that it departed and accelerated to a fast cruising speed. I then received a second delay announcement from Holland America indicating that we could not board until 6 PM on Sunday and the ship would be leaving around 8 PM. I would expect that they will need to significantly bunker fuel as they have been burning that at a high rate on this fast crossing from Half Moon Cay to Fort Lauderdale.
I certainly extend my condolences to the family of the person who was killed. It's a tragic way to end a vacation. And it really brings reality to the fragility of life and the need to daily be thankful for everything that we have and the people that we know and love.
I extended our checkout time until 1:30 PM on Sunday and arranged for a later shuttle at 2 o'clock. We'll see if I need to change that shuttle time to a later time as we're not able to board until 6:00 PM.
And so the adventure continues. We'll be on board the new Amsterdam for the next two weeks doing two Western Caribbean segments that don't have many overlapping ports.
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