Miami (again)

When we woke on the 8th Explorer had resumed her place in the long row of cruise ships in Miami’s cruise terminal on Dodge island. We headed up to the cafe to sip coffee and listen to waiting cruisers discuss various minutiae of Trek. The disembarkation was really quite confusing, with barely intelligible PA announcements calling people to disembark by decks; we left at the call of ‘all remaining passengers’ unsure of whether we had missed some previous call that should have hastened us down the gangplank.

On the quayside throngs of Star Trek cruisers queued for their various coaches and taxis, mixed in with the incoming 80s Cruisers. Among them the delightful Max Grodénchik, of Rocketeer and Deeps Space Nine fame queued for a taxi with his family. A relatively short coach trip found us at Miami International airport, wandering the massive horse-shoe shaped terminal building, Trek fan spotting, sipping coffee and eating Impossible Whoppers. The hours before bag check seemed all the longer coming on the heels of such a packed fortnight.

Once we were through security the building layout put a spoke in our plans to meet up with Kimberly hatched earlier at the cruise port, the airport having been remodelled so that her gate was not reachable from ours. Kimberly very kindly went through security two extra times to join us for a few last games of flux against the backdrop of mighty A380s preparing for trips across the wide Atlantic. All too soon, it was time for a hug farewell at the gate, we were sorry to part ways.Read more