Trip Itinerary

On Thursday, September 9th, Mom and Dad will meet us at IAH. Their flight arrives from Amarillo at 9:25am CDT. They arrive at Terminal B and will meet us at our gate at Terminal C where our flight to FLL departs at 10:40am CDT. We arrive at FLL at 2:07pm EDT where we will head straight to our hotel for 2 nights and 1 full day in beautiful Fort Lauderdale.

The "plan" is as follows:

Thur - 9/9: dinner at Outback Steakhouse (right next door to our hotel and my parents have never eaten at an Outback!)

Fri - 9/10: Marty's 55th birthday! Spend the day on the Water Taxi doing the full tour. Lunch at the Chart House (formerly Charley's Crab House) for some yummy, fresh seafood.

Sat - 9/11: Set sail day! Arrive at Port Everglades around 10:30am EDT. Get checked in and then explore the fabulous new cruise ship and set sail at 5:00pm EDT. Mom tells me that soon after we get onboard we must make a beeline for the Cupcake Cupboard to get our reservations for the cupcake decorating class because it fills up quickly! Marty is particularly interested in this activity. ;-)

Sun - 9/12: Nassau, Bahamas from 7:00am-2:00pm. This is the only port on our cruise itinerary that Marty and I haven't visited before. He and I will go check out Atlantis Resort while Mom and Dad stay on the ship. This is our first formal night and we have reservations to eat at Chops (specialty steak house) at 6:00pm and then we will go see the water show, Oasis of Dreams, at the Aquatheater at 9:00pm.

Mon - 9/13: At sea day. We will see the show, Hairspray, at the Opal Theater at 2:30pm.

Tue - 9/14: Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas from 9:00am-6:00pm. Probably won't get off the ship here except for the requisite port photo to show we were there. (Mom's a scrapbooker.) We will go to the Headliner Show at the Opal Theater at 8:30pm.

Wed - 9/15: Phillipsburg, St Maarten from 7:00am-5:00pm. I hadn't planned to get off here but Marty is talking about going back to Maho Beach (right next to the airport so the planes fly very low over the beach). So he and I may grab a cab and do that. It *is* a pretty cool place! But very LOUD! ha! After dinner on the ship, we will see the ice show, Frozen in Time, at Studio B at 8:30pm.

Our last visit to Maho Beach - red arrow points to Marty (gray shirt)
(click on image for full-size view)

Thur - 9/16: At sea day. Second formal night. We will eat in the main dining room for dinner so we can get the lobster tail! After dinner, we will see the show, Come Fly with Me, at the Opal Theater at 9:00pm.

Fri - 9/17: At sea day. Absolutely nothing pre-planned for this day! We may try to see the comedy show on this night since I think that's the only show we don't have scheduled. And the only reason we know when we will see all the other shows is because with 6,400 guests (max) on the ship, it is recommended to make reservations for the shows ahead of time to ensure you will have a seat! And there are 24 different dining options so we haven't done much pre-planning for our meals either. We'll play that by ear and see what we're in the mood for each meal.

Sat - 9/18: Arrive back at Port Everglades at 7:00am EDT. :-( Head to the airport and wait for our mid-afternoon flights home. We won't be flying back to Houston together as Marty and I are using our OnePass miles for our tickets so we fly home via Newark. I know, makes a lot of sense but our round-trip tickets cost a total of $15 per person so it's worth a little detour. Mom and Dad are scheduled to arrive back in Amarillo at 8:24pm CDT. Marty and I should arrive back at IAH at 10:14pm CDT.

So that's the itinerary in a not-so-small nutshell. I pledge to attempt to publish a post daily with more details of our actual adventures (if you think you can stand it) and toss in a few photos along the way.