No pirates found from Caribbean

30.10.2010 | Day 92 | 39 414 km | Miami, Florida, USA

All aboard! Carnival Destiny, not the smallest
cruise ship we've seen...

I’m pretty sure something bigger is against us. As we were waiting in line for Carnival Destiny cruise ship boarding, we were informed that there is something wrong in the ship and it needs to be repaired. So apparently no matter where in the world you are in, no matter in how “civilized” country you are in, things can go wrong just when you won’t expect it to happen. But, eventually we got into our cabins but the itinerary had changed: Cayman Island was replaced with Key West, Florida with $65 added to cruise account per person as an apology. Well, me and my girlfriend Siiri didn’t mind too much about the change as we still got to see something new, but man… Some people had driven from Key West to take this cruise and one woman standing in line behind us said she was going to meet his brother in Grand Cayman. And I can tell you that those people were mighty pissed about the itinerary change!

But as always, after the rain comes the sunshine and the 5-day cruise was just what we hoped for. Key West was fun to visit and Jamaica’s Ocho Rios had amazing park called Dunn’s River Park (Cheers to Alistair and Katriina) where we spent time to watch the views and swam in the ocean. Rest of the cruise was pretty much relaxing, eating free and surprisingly good food and winning money from the slots at the ship’s casino. Still, 5 days was just enough to spend in a ship - no matter the size and we were glad to get back to Miami.

Dunn's River Falls in Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Typical sight on the Ocean Drive at Miami Beach...

Miami itself is a strange city… Maybe “shallow” would be the right term to describe it, with all the supercars cruising the beach roads and moviestar-looking people getting their trimmed bodies even more tanned. The shopping is also, well, ridiculously big thing in Miami. We went to Sawgrass Mills Mall, the biggest mall in Florida. It took more than 20 minutes just to walk from one end to another without visiting any stores, so… Yeah, it could take more than a day if you’d want to see everything there! But, as the rest of our stay in Miami was just enjoying the views and spending some quality couples time (which was Great after 3 months of sharing a room with another guy), there’s not much interesting for a blog entry. Girls flight departed back to Finland today, so us boys still have one more day before the end of the whole trip. One lousy day, but we’ll try to make the most of it!

And hooray for 50 000 km's travelled, which we accomplished on the last day of the Caribbean cruise!