End of Summer. Day 1. The Presidential Suite Awaits.
Here we go – our end of summer cruise on the Disney Destiny, bookended by a one night stay in Fort Lauderdale before the cruise and a two night stay back in Fort Lauderdale after the cruise.
Sunday morning, we got up without having to rush because our flight wasn’t until 12:30. We left the house, got in the car, and headed to the airport. Everything was really easy—check-in, security, and then we were at the gate. We were seated in the second row of the plane, which was great. Unfortunately, once we were on board, the flight was delayed for an hour because the fueling truck was fueling the plane too slowly. Eventually, they had to switch fueling trucks.
We did have an amazing flight attendant named Ricoh, who made some pretty funny jokes.
“If you have devices please use headphones. No one wants to hear baby shark. And now it’s in your head. You’re welcome.”
“We need you seated so we can go. If you are standing, please do the opposite of that.”
“If you have children, please put the oxygen mask on your favorite child first.”
“Please take your right hand and place it over your heart now and repeat after me: I will lock the bathroom door.”
The flight itself was pretty smooth. We landed in Fort Lauderdale, collected our luggage, met our driver, and headed to the Omni Hotel. The Omni is a brand-new hotel located right by the port. You can literally look out your window and see the cruise ships.
What I haven’t mentioned is that while we were still at JFK, I received a call from Andrew, an assistant manager at the Omni. He told me that although we had booked connecting rooms, they didn’t have any available. Naturally, I was confused. I texted our travel agent, who told me, “Not only did you book connecting rooms—you paid extra for connecting rooms.”
So she called the hotel because…how does that happen?
Well, evidently, nobody really knows. They told her that perhaps someone on the night staff had switched some rooms around and made a mistake. When I spoke to Andrew, he said something along the lines of, “Well, that’s a pickle.”
Their solution was to put us in the Presidential Suite. At first, we were excited. We had never stayed in a Presidential Suite before. So we got to the Omni, checked in, and were taken to our Presidential Suite. The Suite has a huge living space with a powder room, a desk, a living area with a television, another desk, a dining-room table that converts into a pool table, a kitchen, and a shuffleboard table. The interesting thing about the Presidential Suite though, is that it only has one bedroom. The bedroom has a beautiful bathroom with both a bathtub and a shower, but alas, just one bed. So the solution was to bring in three rollaway beds. Hallie and Madeleine slept in the TV area, and Shir slept in the kitchen. It was kind of funny, but it worked. It feels like a space designed for two people to sleep in but fifty people to attend a party in. I’m not really sure who stays there or how they’re supposed to use everything in that suite.
We quickly changed and headed to dinner at JZ Steakhouse, where we met my friend Sarah, whom I used to work with at FIDF, and her boyfriend.
We had a very nice dinner, ordered way too much food, and ate a lot of meat. We had humus with these giant laffas, long cigars with brisket in them, arancini with brisket in them, onion rings, skewers of beef, skewers of lamb, and short ribs. For dessert we told them it was Tzvi’s birthday and they played loud music and brought sparklers in the desserts.
Mostly, it was just fun to catch up with Sarah and meet her boyfriend. After dinner, we returned to the hotel and put the kids to bed.
Finally able to relax, we decided to test out the fancy very technologically advanced shower. It was a Kohler with four jets that moved in a bunch of different directions with everything controlled by a touch screen display (not a Shabbos friendly shower). It was cool that it showed you the actual temperature in degrees and you could adjust degree-by-degree. Of course, all of that technology won’t help you if the train backs up and turns the shower into a bath. So that was fun.
We went to bed, exhausted, excited to get on the ship tomorrow!
Monday morning began after a pretty crappy night’s sleep, thanks to the girls repeatedly waking up. But when we opened the curtains, the Disney Destiny was right outside our window, looking as though it were waiting for us. It was an exciting start to the day.
We got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast, where Andrew—the assistant manager who had called me the day before—came to say hello and comped our entire meal, plus a little extra. The buffet wasn’t particularly appealing, but the à la carte options were good.
Because the hotel is right next to the port, I expected to see lots of families preparing to board cruises. Instead, we saw almost no families. What we did see was a tremendous number of people with great hair. Eventually, I realized they were there for Behind the Chair, a hairdresser convention taking place at the hotel. Some of them definitely looked like hair dressers, and not because of their hair.
Anyway, if you are sailing out of Fort Lauderdale, the Omni is a great option.
We packed up our things and took the hotel’s complimentary shuttle to the Disney Cruise Line terminal. The girls called it a party bus (it was just a sprinter van). The drive took less than five minutes. We unloaded our bags and got in line to check in. As we stepped into the line to enter the terminal, Shir realized she had left her phone at the hotel. I called the Omni, they found the phone, and then sent the shuttle driver back to the port to bring it to us. Tzvi actually managed to get off the line, get the phone, and be back before it was our turn to check in. It was pretty amazing. Well done, Omni. Top-notch service.
On to check-in!