February 22 - Off to Miami

This cruise on the Regent Seven Seas Voyager is our "dry run" to try out Regent cruise line.  We have put a deposit on their 2020 World Cruise departing from San Francisco next January and Michael suggested it might be prudent to sail with them to make sure we like it before getting on for 131 days.   Sounded reasonable to me, so we booked this 10 night Caribbean cruise. It isn't the same ship because the schedule didn't work out to sail on the Mariner (the World Cruise ship), but we will at least get to see if we like the atmosphere, etc. 

Since we had the dreaded 5:45 am flight to Los Angeles, our alarm clock went off at 3:00 am; actually both alarm clocks since I have a fear of one of them not working and sleeping right through.  But we were ready when our shuttle driver arrived 10 minutes early and off we went.  Getting through check-in and security at Redmond airport was a breeze, as usual.  There are 5 flights that depart between 5:45 and 6:00 am from Redmond and I think our plane was first.  Everyone had to get de-iced first which delayed us by 10 minutes, but we made up the time and landed in LAX 15 minutes early, which was good since we had a scheduled 36 minute connection time and we had to get to the International terminal from Terminal 5.  But all went well and we made the connection easily and our bags arrived with us in Miami.  Woo hoo!  I knew that if we divided up our clothes between the two bags we would be guaranteed they would both be there.

We stayed on points at the TownHouse by Marriott at the airport - a completely forgettable hotel which has an airport shuttle.  There aren't many restaurants nearby, and Michael didn't want to be walking around the neighborhood after dark, so we made a meal of the appetizers in the bar.  Heavy on the carbs, but acceptable.  We were very tired from our long day so we hit the sheets quite early.  Looking forward to boarding the ship tomorrow!