Mariner of the Seas Live Blog: The Drive to Miami

The day started nice and early. We all got restful sleep and got up and finished packing. Our daughter K was so excited when she got up... She could hardly contain herself. Lol

We hit the road at 12:00... picked up the friends in our rental Chevy Suburban and headed for Miami. The Suburban was great for the 7 of us. We had the perfect amount of room for all of our luggage. Would we have enough luggage room for 7 days? Not 100% sure... 😀

The drive was good. We took the Turnpike straight down to Miami. We stopped for some time at the rest stop for gas and sandwiches at the Earl of Sandwich. We sang, danced, and slept of course along the way... as well as watched a video of one of our past cruises on the entertainment system!

We saw construction on the new Hard Rock Casino expansion on the drive near Ft. Lauderdale. The tower will be shaped like a guitar!

We arrived at our stop for the night. A Hyatt Place. A nice hotel with all you really need for an easy one night stay. The room has a king bed, desk, high tech tv system with all the connections you need, a Mini-Fridge and the “cozy corner” sofa bed. Really nice room and modern.
They also have a nice free breakfast each morning from 6-9:30 which we will use in the morning.

We headed out for a dinner. The area is just west of the airport and there are many choices for dinner all around the area. We decided to narrow down on a few choices and highest vote count sent us to Panera. Easy dinner before the big week ahead.
We got back, quickly walked around the hotel. Stopped at the fitness room. Worked off dinner with some walking on the treadmill. Lol. Working off the calories before the extra food. Lol. See a trend, here?

Everyone then headed back to their rooms for an early night before heading to the port early tomorrow!

Quick observations:

Rental car was a great idea to allow us all to travel together for a fun ride.
Making a fun music playlist is key for the enjoyment of all. We asked for the group to choose songs ahead of time. It made a large playlist which had a good random assortment of music for all.
Going the day before is key! No stress with any timelines to have to stick too and a relaxing night.

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