Sunday, March 18th

Today I tug along with Cody, Jennine, Dave Keaton, Charles, and Kris Geddes, who is one of the main dancers and also the Crew Welfare Chairman, to the Dadeland Mall in Miami. The mall is a solid trek from the port, and the cab ride is $50 one-way.

But, with Kris being on official crew welfare business, the cab rides were covered by NCL - as was the $4,200 we spent at Best Buy! Yes, our mission was to snap up laptops and iPods and digital cameras all for the crew welfare raffle and DVDs to add to the ever growing DVD rental store we have for the crew. Did I mention we spent $4,200...in cash? Thanks, NCL!

If that wasn't enough, the absolute highlight of the day was getting to eat at a traditional American, fat-laden, over-proportioned chain restaurant. We headed directly to The Cheesecake Factory, where we proceeded to order almost everything that we couldn’t get on the ship (i.e. a decent burger, jambalaya, crab wonton, and diet cokes from the fountain – not a can). We tried to eat it all, we really did, but we were sent home defeated, our doggie bags our Scarlet Letters.

Steve met us there for a quick hello/goodbye before embarking on his arduous flight(s) from Miami to Seattle to Ontario, CA, and then a late-night drive to LA. Needless to say I ate all my leftovers that night.