Chapter 2

When we arrived to the terminal, we walked in and must have looked like we were looking for a bathroom. The ladies all said, "The bathrooms are outside, there are none in here." Now, if you know anything about me, you know, when I gotta go, it's usually already too late. But, we made it. When we returned to the inside, I said to Kathy,
     "Oh, man, do my feet hurt." and a gentleman from the cruise line who must have been walking by at just that second said, "Do you need a chair?" I assured him I did not. But, I did have some pretty nice blisters on my feet from our short little walk to the ship. (Now, to be clear about this, Kathy did not support any of my misdirections. She objected the whole time. I take full responsibility!)

We stopped to take a picture at the KLOVE sign and some nice people from Prescott, AZ were there ready to take ours in exchange for us taking theirs. Dene and Lori soon became our first set of cruise friends. (Dene told us to smile for the picture...only Donahue descendents can master that smile of ours, one that doesn't look like we are smiling!) Dene and Lori told us that they had been on a waiting list for the cruise and had only found out in December that they were going. They will be married one year in March, so this was their anniversary celebration. Dene was a cancer survivor. Lori loved my hair.

We were season crusiers by this trip so we expected to be put in a cattle chute and pushed toward the check in. However, Miami has updated their procedure and we were immediately at the check-in. We then proceed to security and then we were in. This is getting so exciting!!

I had decided not to take my big camera with me this year. It gets bulky and heavy. I may change that plan for next year. I kind of missed some good photo ops. But, Kathy will have some great shots I can share later.

This is looking down from deck 11

Since we were old pros at this, first stop, the Windjammer. Some may call this a buffet or maybe even a feeding trough. But we knew that needed to be our first stop. We grabbed lunch and while in line we ran into Ken and Christine. Christine was not a familiar face, but Ken was, he was the person I cut in front of on a dare last year while we were in the cattle chutes. When I saw him in line, I squatted down in order to jump right up in front of him. Christine was a bit taken back, but Ken knew right away who I was and why I was there cutting in front of him again.  ( I have no pictures of them, despite my plan to photograph all new friends, I failed)

We ate lunch and looking around the area for "famous" people. Kathy was determined that a table of young men across the way from us were famous. As they started to make their move to leave, she went over and asked them if they were famous. They all denied being famous, never gave up their identity and later we discovered they were Tauren Wells' band. We had several other opportunities to give them grief about who they really were. They were very good natured about it and we had a good time teasing back and forth once we knew their true identity.

On to the Muster drill. We had ours in the dining room. As we were walking in, we said, "Let's be sure to sit by someone who is fun!" Little did we know, we were about to make another set of lifelong friends. Despite the Bears gear, we sat with Leon and LaTonya. We chatted, got to know each other, and decided we would try to save seats for each other at the concerts. (That actually never worked out, but we spent a lot of time talking with them and getting to know them over the course of the trip.)

It hurt to see this symbol on his shirt

While heading back to our cabin after the muster drill, we got onto a crowded elevator (pretty much you get on or you wait another ten minutes) and Kathy didn't want to miss any opportunity. She says, "Is there anyone on this elevator who is famous?" Of course everyone chuckled and then a very beautiful woman points to another woman (both African American) and says, "She is Nicole C, Mullen." That woman was right next to me, we were touching shoulders. I looked at her and my thoughts were, "I thought Nicole was tall and thin, but hey, I haven't ever seen her in person and it has been awhile since she has been on the scene..." I reach over and hug her and tell her how much I love her music. All the while she was acting all embarrassed for being discovered, etc. The elevator opens to their deck and as they get off, Kathy says, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you, but even if you hadn't been incognito, I wouldn't have known it was you." And the other woman says, "Actually, I am Nicole." As they walked away, Nicole's friend looks back and sings "I know, my redeemer lives," off tune and loud. I replied, "That's just how it sounds when I sing it!"

Well, later on that day, we ran into Nicole and pseudo-Nicole (later named Mandisa) and we informed them that they really owed us a picture for tricking us like they had. So, we had a special photo op.

On the elevator was a young man, the one we really thought could possibly be famous. He was not then, but he has won over a special place in our hearts. More on his story in Chapter 3. (Stay tuned)

KLOVE Cruise 2019 Chapter 1

We will see just how far this goes. I had many amazing experiences this trip and this may just end up being more like a book than a blog.

Started out with a middle of the night trip to Chicago to board the plane at 6:30 am. They were encouraging early arrivals due to the government shutdown and the potential for TSA to be especially slow.  Well, they weren't. But, I was happy to be sure I wasn't going to miss my flight.

I flew to New York and changed planes to head to Miami. I had a lot of fear to fly this time due to the fact that I had been very sick with an upper respiratory infection the week prior to leaving. I had fear of pressure and pain in my sinuses. However, I know at least one person prayed for me and I had no issues of that.

I arrived in Miami and Kathy was already there from Austin. She thought I was coming from Atlanta and kept texting me asking me where I was and why it was taking me so long since the board said the plane was on time. Well, I couldn't answer her as to why she was thinking I should be there since my flight was 40 minutes behind schedule. I guess the Atlanta flight was on time...

We didn't really have a solid plan for getting to the hotel. We knew they did not provide a shuttle, so we had to figure out something. We were about to go Uber and then realized that Miami does have public transportation. So, we headed that way. We went on people movers that took us a very long long way with several turns. I told Kathy when we got to the end that it had taken us back to where we started. (She sort of believed me)

At the end of the people movers was a little monorail that took us to the rental car and train area. So, we asked for help at the desk and the lady told us how to purchase a ticket and board the train. We knew our hotel was in Coconut Grove and that was one of the stops listed on the train we were on. When we got off the train in Coconut Grove, we could see our hotel. It was a block over from the train station. We were thrilled. The cost of that train ride was $2.25.  We had definitely made out well there. The hotel was having happy hour when we arrived and that provided enough for us to have a full meal. So, no added cost of food that night. We had to walk about 10 blocks each way to go to Walgreens for sunscreen and underwear. Kathy had forgotten hers.

We were going to color her hair purple to match mine but decided against it since it was going to be messy and we weren't sure it was safe for her scalp.

We went to bed and got up for complementary breakfast that morning. The hotel provided a ride to the port for $10 and only had one trip that they made at 10 am. We opted to try to get there on our own.

So, we got back on the train. I thought we were supposed to go to the end of the train line, but as we headed that way, Kathy saw ships. We decided it was probably best to get off there and try to get to where the ships were. Now, the adventure begins.

We were looking around, classic lost tourist look, I am sure. Two people saw us and came over and asked us if we needed directions. So, we asked how to get to the port. The woman was pushing an empty wheelchair and the man was walking. They guided us onto the monorail that was FREE and told us which stop to get off at. She then proceeded to tell me that they were homeless and could use some money. By this time, he had taken his seat in the wheelchair. I handed her some cash and thanked her for her help. We all four got on the monorail and she told us they would get off before us but to stay on until our stop (she told us which one). She got off, with the wheelchair, he stayed on. There were no seats, this is a standing transporter. We got to our stop, he got off with us and pointed us in the right direction.

So, we walked about two blocks and ended up at Bayside. We knew we were closer but we also knew we were not at the port yet. So, I googlemapped it and it said we could walk there, it would take about 30 minutes. So, we had a lot of time to kill, about an hour, so we decided to start walking. Let me tell you, Googlemaps does not know if there is no sidewalk, or areas that are blocked off with 10 foot chain link fences, but by golly, we were going to follow their directions no matter what.

See that fence? That was no obstacle for us!!

 When we finally ended up back to the original street we had started on and were three blocks up, having walked at least 10 blocks to get there, we changed our plan and decided to get something with wheels. That $10 each from the hotel was looking better and better. But, we stood at the trolley stop and waited for a trolley. There was a lady there who asked us if we were tourists. (I wonder if people always pull suitcases behind them if they aren't tourists) She called the trolley office because she was certain that the road was blocked back a few blocks and no traffic was getting through. We then spotted a flat rate taxi, that guy must have seen the look of despair in our eyes. He took our bags, we got in, and in a matter of 5 minutes, we were at our ship. Good grief!!

This was taken later as we did not get any pictures before we boarded the ship.