On to Miami

The drive to Miami was 120 or so miles, 80 of those miles were west/east on Interstate Highway 75 through the Everglades National Park – sounds cool, in fact it’s a real shit drive on a six lane concrete highway with never ending scrubland either side.

On the way we saw at least six cars broken down and/or with punctures I didn’t tell her this but for some reason I was paranoid about getting a puncture, one puncture I could cope with we had a spare but what of I got another one out here . . . how do you get the AA out here, we’d be in deep shit and we had to be in Miami by 4pm at the latest.

My paranoia was unfounded and we made it to the Port of Miami where we saw the magnificent Carnival Triumph. We were directed to the luggage check in where we had to bung the porters to do their job and take the bags 20 yards to the ship. Having bunged said porter, he grunted some directions to the long-term car park where they fleeced us of $140 to park the car for a week, ‘Y’all have a nice vacation now’, an’ remember buddy, nothings free in the land of the free’.

So we never did get that our cheap deal we heard so much about – book it Friday turn up and go on Saturday they give them away – my arse, that bit of the master plan went to rat shit a fortnight ago this was the last available place on any ship going out in the window of time we are here, and the upgrade on the junk mail they sent us . . . the masters of small print say subject to availability – the ships full no upgrade - bastards.

They take their security seriously here, passport queues here, queues there, more search queues nothing new really, there’s a 50 metre exclusion zone around the ship at all times and we were escorted out of the Port of Miami into the open sea by a US Coast Guard rigid inflatable dinghy with two huge outboard motors on the back and an enormous 50 calibre machine gun mounted on the front, evidently to deter terrorist attacks from the port.

We were expecting the Snowbirds Cocoon club but our fellow passengers are a real mixed bag of all ages. Mostly American, a lot of the younger/middle aged passengers are like kids in a candy shop, believe it or not we are quite reserved when it comes to daytime drinking but this bunch are on the lash all day long a-whooping and a-partying in the bars and in the Casino as long as its open – although the global financial strife is all over CNN News here, there is no evidence of the credit crunch on this ship.

First off we’ve a day at sea (Sunday evening/night and all day Monday) on the way to Jamaica; we’ve been on cruises before sea days can be a drag and we amuse ourselves by parking up somewhere and people watching - and this place is as good as it gets - teenager Beavis and Butthead lookalikes with heads permanently plugged into iPods, tattooed grey haired men with ear rings and ponytails, ZZ Top look-alikes, bro’s from da ‘hood with jeans around their arse, massive training shoes and baseball caps set on their heads sideways/backwards, hairy Canadian Loggers on vacation loads of cosmetic surgery to spot.

The ship has its share of heavyweights, we try to sit near them when we can, it makes us look good, me like a seven stone wimp and Theresa looks like she needs a good dinner !!.

Some of the habits of our colonial cousins are amusing, I can now accurately guess the nationality of fellow passenger by their table manners, when it comes to a knife and fork I myself am a left hooker which always confuses waiters, but the other night in Naples, a group of youngish professional Americans were served a delightfully presented fish dish, the sort you see Gordon Ramsay knocking up on the telly and they set about by hacking lumps off of it with the side of the fork and scooping it up with just the fork, its like they don’t know how to use a knife; in the lunch dining room on the ship we sat with a group of educated middle aged ‘women who do lunch’ from Ohio, they ate in exactly the same fashion - so coarse.

People watching is such good sport, just as well we're both perfect, innit. God Bless America