Key Largo, Montego, Baby Why Don’t We Go (Or, a Week on The World’s Largest Cruise Ship): Part Fivefeatured
We were up bright and early for our last pre-cruise day in Fort Lauderdale. Well, Mom and Stephanie were up early. They were up and dressed before I got out of bed. The plan was to go to the beach and have brunch on Las Olas, but right as I was getting dressed, it started raining. Best laid plans, right? We changed and headed to Boca instead.
Obligatory we’re-in-Florida-omg-a-palm-tree picture
/sidebar but I randomly learned how to french braid my own hair. And I was really proud of it. So you get a picture of it
We bummed around Boca for a few hours, shopping around and visiting some spots we used to visit when Stephanie and I were little…and then it started raining again, so we headed back to Sawgrass Mills for…more shopping.
This is where it gets super fun. So I was at Michael Kors buying a new handbag (don’t judge me) and my debit card was declined. Now, I keep religious tabs on my bank account. I had plenty of money in there. Figuring that they just saw charges in multiple states and flagged my account for suspicious activity (I used my card at O’Hare the day I left, my data plan for my iPad renewed to an address in Georgia and I was charging all over Florida), I called the automated number on the back of my card and the service said it reactivated my card. I went back into Michael Kors to try to complete my purchase and…my card was declined again. So back outside I went to call a live rep. The first one says he took care of it and put a note on the account saying I was traveling and he transferred me to a fraud specialist. Fraud specialist says that they have reason to believe someone might have my information (not that they used it or tried to, just that they HAD it), so they cancelled my card. Without notification. While I was about to leave the country. And they were already sending me a new card. To Mom’s house. This was a mess. I wasn’t upset — it wasn’t worth the energy and I’m a seasoned enough traveler to know to bring enough cash with me to cover any emergencies I could have while I’m out of the country — but I was incredibly frustrated. Mom and I called back and a third rep told us they thought my card was cancelled early and in error but at this point there was nothing they could do.
So, takeaway from this: travel with enough cash to get you through your trip comfortably.
I was lucky in that I had pre-paid my excursions and my tips, so the only cash I needed for the ship was for drinks, onboard purchases and specialty restaurants. And I have other credit cards (I just don’t like to use them when I don’t have to) and I was traveling with Mom and Stephanie, who both had cash and cards to cover me if I needed it. So I went back to Michael Kors to pay cash for my bag (seriously, stop judging me!!! They were having an amazing sale!) and then we headed to Grand Lux for some lunch.
The skies opened up after lunch, so we headed back to the hotel and we…watched Titanic. Well, Stephanie and I watched Titanic. Mom protested. She thought it was in poor taste and tempting the karma Gods. Come on, Mom. It’s Kate and Leo! And I know how to swim so we’re a-okay.
After the Titanic sank and Rose let go of Jack, we headed out to run some last minute errands at Target and Dollar Tree (which we discovered in the strip mall behind the Target) and we set out for Panera for a quick dinner and ended up at Pei Wei instead. McDonalds…Grand Lux…Pei Wei…this trip was a failure of my own self-imposed rules about eating at chains we have at home while on vacation.
After dinner, we gassed up the car and headed back to the hotel to take showers and relax. We went through my cruise binder, we watched YouTube videos of the Allure and we amped ourselves up to finally get to experience the ship we’d spent so long anticipating traveling on the next morning.
