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Scarlet Lady / Live / Solo - Oct 6 - 10 2021...

sid_9169

By sid_9169,
in Virgin Voyages

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sid_9169 "Live from...." Rare

sid_9169

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I'll show you a few of the features of the Virgin Voyages app...

 

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If you click on Lineup, it'll take you to a menu of each day's activities. Sort of like the daily paper that most cruise lines hand out each day.

 

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sid_9169 "Live from...." Rare

sid_9169

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If you click on Eateries, it'll allow you to view all the various restaurants, and make dining reservations. You're supposed to be able to reserve at 45 days prior to sailing, but what I experienced was more like 15 days prior... Hopefully they get this ironed out, as it caused me a good amount of frustration not knowing that I would be able to try out all the venues that I wanted.

 

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sid_9169 "Live from...." Rare

sid_9169

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If you delve even deeper, you can look at the actual menus, including wine, cocktails, brunch, dinner, and dessert.

 

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I've already scouted out the menus at all the restaurants and pretty much figured out what I want each night...

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sid_9169 "Live from...." Rare

sid_9169

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This morning I went and excavated my passport from it's hiding spot... This will be my very first time getting to use it since my renewal about a year and a half ago. I always like to start gathering all of the essentials about a week in advance, so as not to have to go scrambling for them at the last minute. A few weeks ago, the owner of my company was heading to Mexico on a flight from ATL. When he arrived, they asked to see his passport. He had completely forgotten it, and had to rush back home to retrieve it. Luckily, he made it back in time to catch his flight...

 

 

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sid_9169 "Live from...." Rare

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The next couple of months were consumed by my search for a new place to live… A place that I could call “home”... Unfortunately, with my limited budget, the area that I want to live in was looking out of my reach. There were a few older buildings that were half decent, but this process wasn’t just going to happen over night. I tried to look at it as a “project”, and at least it would take my mind off of all the other crazy stuff going on in the World. By this point, I had been at my new job for more than a year and a half, and I grew to hate it more by the day… The owners are good people, and I made decent money, but it wasn’t what you would call a “career” by any stretch. This was the point where all those years I spent goofing off in school came back to bite me on the back side… 

 

To add to my misery, my 51st birthday was coming around, which I always spend on a cruise, and of course, there would be no birthday cruise this year. I just wanted something, anything to start going my way… I got a call one day from my landlord, who lives out of state. She said that she was going to take my place off the market, which came as quite a relief. I would still have to move eventually, but at least I had more time to find the right place. Most of my stuff was already packed by now, and I had no intention of unpacking until I moved. My apartment looked like an episode of Hoarders, with boxes piled up to the ceiling in the corner of every room. 

 

My birthday came and went in late September, and it was pretty lackluster to say the least… I really needed to get away, as I hadn’t had any sort of vacation since December of 2019… I’d been toying around about a trip to Florida, and had even done research into it, but I just didn’t want to spend the money at the time. One day at work, the owner came up to me and said that it seemed like something was bothering me… That maybe I needed to get away… I just explained to him about my depression about getting older, which was compounded by not being able to take my normal birthday cruise. He said that he could see the stress in my eyes, even though most of my face was covered up with this stupid mask… One night after work, I threw caution, as well as my credit card, to the wind, and just booked a trip to Miami for a few days. 3 nights in Miami Beach, followed by 1 more Downtown, where I usually spend the evening “pre-cruise”...

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sid_9169 "Live from...." Rare

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At least this gave me SOMETHING to look forward to, even if it was going to cost me a small fortune. I had never stayed in Miami Beach before, and had only ever been over there a couple of times when I had a late flight home post cruise… Now, I would finally get to try and wash away some of the stress of 2020 in the waves of the Atlantic ocean… Even though it's not quite the Caribbean, it was the next best thing. It was also no mistake that I planned to leave for vacation on November 3rd, election day… I figured that there was no better day to try and “get away from it all” on what would likely prove to be a long and divisive day. 

 

After a long day of travel, including an Uber, a subway train, an airplane, and then a public bus, I had finally arrived at my new home for a few days, Miami Beach!... Since we were still smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, I had been wearing a mask for almost the entire day. When I finally stepped off the bus, I took it off and threw it in the nearest garbage can I could find. Of course, I had a stock of them in my suitcase, since I would be needing another one again just to check into the hotel. The feeling in the air down there on this day was strange, and the streets of normally busy Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue were eerily vacant… 

 

Fortunately, most of the restaurants and bars were open, even if many were outdoor seating only… Adding to the spooky feeling, there was a hurricane looming in the Gulf of Mexico, so it was cloudy and windy the whole time. Whatever the case, I was finally ON VACATION, and my feet were finally in the sand for the first time in almost a year. For the next few days, I sampled all things “food and adult beverage” that I could get in my belly, damn the cost… Pretty soon, I had almost completely forgotten about the election, as well as my life (or, lack thereof) back home… The MetroBus system was running for free, so that helped to keep my “on the ground” travel costs down while I was there. I also walked several miles every day, which helped to keep my weight gain to a minimum, with all the additional calories I was consuming. On the final day and night, I had arranged a different hotel in the Downtown / Brickell neighborhood, where I normally stay “pre-cruise”... That night, I really blew it out in the eating, as well as drinking department, and visited no less than 5 different bars / restaurants for Happy Hour and beyond. Before I knew it, my vacation was over, and I was heading back home to my normal, everyday life… Well, as “normal” as you could get in this long, strange year of 2020. 

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