This has been an interesting day. The Navigator of the Seas arrived at Port Everglades, Ft Lauderdale, about 5:30 this morning. This was a little later than scheduled because our captain took the ship a little north to stay clear of Hurricane Thomas. We watched as our ship docked alongside Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas, Carnival's Freedom, The World, and at least 2 other cruise ships. We were scheduled to disembark at 8AM, but were not cleared to leave the ship until after 9AM. Once off the ship we had to walk quite a ways to get to the terminal and pick up our bags. While Ray found our bags I found a porter to help us. The porter was very good, helping us through the chaos.
When we got to customs and immigration, Ray handed the officer the customs form. The officer looked at it and said something to the effect of "usually these are filled in before I get them." We both looked confused and Ray asked the officer if he was looking at the wrong side. He then realized that he had handed the officer an extra, blank form that was in his pocket, and he searched his other pockets for the right, filled out form. Luckily, the officer was a nice guy, and smiled at the mistake and waved us through.
The next challenge was getting from the cruise terminal to AVIS. We rented a car at the AVIS at Ft Lauderdale Airport, so our original plan was to take the cruise shuttle from the port to the airport and then hook up with the AVIS shuttle bus. We had the transfer tickets, but when we got to the buses, it was a zoo. There were only 2 buses, both full and lots of people waiting. Our porter told us that most of the car rental companies had shuttle buses on the other side of the parking lot, so we decided to forgot our original plan and try for that. The porter said we might have to call for the shuttle, so while he was wheeling our bags to the pick-up point, I tried calling AVIS. That turned out to be a wasted effort. I plan to write a letter to them when I get home. I couldn't get through to anyone at the Ft Lauderdale Airport AVIS location. After going through all kinds of unhelpful menus, I got to an operator who turned out to be at some central location looking information up on a computer. He was completely unhelpful, to the point that he gave me wrong information. He told me there was no shuttle from the port. I found out later there was an AVIS at pier 66 and we were at pier 24, and their shuttle would have come to get us, but that's info for future reference. We gave up on the shuttle and flagged a taxi van. This was the right thing to do, finally, because he took us directly to the AVIS at the airport. It was cheating a little though. We weren't waiting in the line were everyone else was waiting for taxis, but the sheriff controlling traffic by us pulled a taxi for us and one for another couple who were having trouble out of the line. We think she was just trying to get us out of her way, but it worked for us.
Once we got to AVIS, they didn't have our car assigned because the expiration date for my credit card that they had on file had expired. Once I gave the lady the new card, she got us a car, but it took her a while. The poor woman was dealing with a customer who had an accident with a car, another woman looking for a car with a child seat, and some other problems interrupting her while she was trying to take care of me. She apologized and said because I was so patient, she upgraded us to a Chevy Suburban at the same price as what I reserved. So we are driving a monster car!!
All in all, things worked out fine. I wasn't expecting to get on the road before noon when we started out today, but we actually left AVIS around 10:30AM. We made it all the way to Savannah, Georgia, had a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesday's, and are settled in nice and cozy in a Hampton Inn for the night. From here we should be able to make it home by Sunday night without too much trouble. We're estimating it's about 10 hours drive from here.
No pictures today.
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