Trip Video https://youtu.be/6okU8vKokDE
Scroll to bottom for the trip story!
So my big 50th cruise! Norwegian Sun going to Key West and then Cuba! Started off a little bit rough. We had to go to Port Canaveral and park the car, and surprise, no charging station for the Tesla anywhere, not even a little plug to plug in, so parking there with only 30 miles left of a charge. It would be interesting to see how much I would have left in five days of the car sitting there and then trying to find a station! After everybody else had pretty much already boarded and after giving up on trying to find a place to charge, I went ahead to board the ship and start the festivities.
The first night we had dinner at a speciality restaurant called Cagney's Steak House. After being there 5 minutes Chelle started to feel terrible again from the wisdom teeth surgery: Extra pain from the grafts that were done and the infection that occurred subsequently but she muscled through it the “trooper ;) “ that she is: She still managed to have a good time. However, on my actual 50th birthday night, she spent in the room alone and waiter had her dinner sent to the room The next day, we arrived in Key West. Mom and Dad (Dad always the worker!) went to see a client. Andy, Susan, Chelle and I had some beers and food at Sloppy Joe's ( Key West Ale I highly recommend). The food was great and so was the service. After that with a nice buzz hit apparently the oldest rum factory on Key West. Wasn't very good, but we did get a few free samples. After that, went on a bit of a shopping excursion : Rechelle got some nice clothes and we also bought an expensive “painting” made out of some sort of metal. After that, we opened Susan and Andy's eyes to the delicious and quite alcoholic sugary slurpees as they call them. They couldn't get enough and had one after the other after the other. We had the grainiator, which I assumed was full of grain alcohol because that surely how it felt after a few sips. After all of that, we managed to find the boat and get back on safely. Dinner at another one of the specialty restaurants, which unfortunately wasn't so special. Chelle still not feeling so hot. Went back to bed early.
Woke up the next morning in Cuba. Must admit it was pretty surreal strolling through the port of Havana in the morning. We spent the day with our tour guide, Nelson. Pretty cool guy. He took us pretty much everywhere you could go in Havana. Pulled up in his blue 1957 Plymouth. We went to a place called Fusterlandia. He's a famous artist in Cuba, and it's pretty unbelievable makes everything out of these tiles. In talking to one of the guys that works there, he expressed total frustration with the fact that Fusterlandia (artist's name is Jose Fuster), had to travel around the world just to get the supplies because they're not allowed to have things shipped to Cuba unless they personally go visit the country and buy it, and then have it shipped that way. And that adds to the expense bigtime. So you could tell there was frustration with wanting to move on economically and also some blame going way back to when they mentioned the Americans forced them to sell 100% of the sugar crop to them, and then in turn they would sell it back to Cuba and everybody else, otherwise they would use that leverage to not potentially buy the crop. Nelson was a good guy. His siblings all moved on : two of them live in Greece and one of them in America. He has stayed in Cuba for his mom and actually went through a religious ritual which involved inflicting physical pain and he showed us some of the cuts and things that were done to him including, having to be on his knees on top of sugar for about an half an hour. And he did it all for his mom. But, you can tell he was not happy about it. We then went to the Havana Forest which is beautiful but unfortunately, it was pretty polluted. Havana overall is pretty but it definitely needs a big face lift. And even at the nice resorts, look very run down. The people were great. Super nice and helpful. Went to Revolution Square, where it all happened many years ago with Fidel Castro. Nelson took us through the Cuban cigar state factory. Bought 10 cigars. He picked them out. In the picture you can see dad acting like he is smoking a cigar and trust me, that have happened! He wouldn't touch one with a ten foot pole other than for the picture. We have the picture of me and Rechelle, in front of the big Jesus statue and it was designed wrong but the Cubans have a quick fix: They say if you take a look at it, in one hand, he's holding a cigar and the other hand a glass of rum, and it actually really looks like that. By the time we got back, Mom and Dad were completed done and decided not to go on the trip to the Tropicana Cabaret, so me, Chelle and Susan and Andy hopped in the old car. We had a different driver, went over to the Tropicana Cabaret, and we did the combination dinner and then the show, which are actually in two different buildings, and it was unbelievable. The dinner was great. The atmosphere was awesome. They had the violin player, and then when you go into the cabaret, it's actually outside and it's magical. Put you at a table. We had the front row. Give you a free bottle of Cuban rum and you just pour your own rum and cokes, and the show was just captivating. Didn't want it to end. Afterwards, it was about midnight, and I was ready to keep going but Chelle was hurting again, so Andy looked at everyone and said, no, we are going home. And the old man gets the call, so we went home!
The last day on the cruise we spent the whole day just chilling continuing to ingest more alcohol. The night ended with finally hitting a casino, and I actually finally broke my losing streak and won. Chelle of course, won as usual! Dad lost a little bit at blackjack, but then disappeared and come to find out the next day he moved on to the slots, and of course won big, like he always does. But he actually ended up losing because Mom woke up, realized he wasn't there, found him in the casino, and let's just say the night did not end too rosy for Dad.
Trip done! Left cruise ship around 7:45 am. But we had a huge problem with running out of juice for the Tesla. And, long story short, because I'm not ready to relive these details yet, it took an extra five hours to get home. I would say, overall, the Norwegian Cruise Line was awesome. It's not the super high luxury type cruise ship, but they were really nice. Everything was clean. The food was good. The ship was beautiful. Everything was included. The drinks are included even if you don't have the package, which I was surprised. So, I would definitely cruise on them again. Chelle commented how it was so smooth and she didn't even need her patch. In fact, she took it off the last day. So she's excited for the next cruise, which is a good thing, because we have the next one coming up to Alaska less than two months later!
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