Rhonda Bracey: At Random

The cruise was all over by 9am today. We arrived in port just after 6am, had our final breakfast delivered by Jemeesh, and after disembarking in groups to better manage the process of clearing Customs, it was about 9am.

Downtown Miami from the ship, while waiting to disembark

We caught the shuttle to the rental car depot, found the hotel after a few shaky starts (luckily it was Sunday morning in downtown Miami!!), and dropped off our luggage in the room. Then we drove down to Key Largo. The traffic was horrendous so we didn’t go any further down the keys.

We had a late lunch at Key Largo Conch House (pronounced here as ‘konk’, not ‘conCH’ as many other parts of the world—including Australia—pronounce it). I had a conch fritter to try, but the conch meat was cut up very finely and, with the curry flavours, I couldn’t really taste anything except something like a deep-fried samosa. We ended up splitting a vegetarian wrap and a spinach and feta salad with a strawberry vinaigrette dressing, so I’m not really sure why we bothered going to this place. The wrap and salad were excellent, but this restaurant specialised in conch, which Sue, who’s a vegetarian, couldn’t eat.

Conch fritter

Once we got back to the hotel in equally horrendous traffic as going down to Key Largo, I felt very woozy and dizzy and lay down for a while (I had ‘sea legs’). We were going to go to Little Havana for a bite to eat, but I didn’t feel right—the room kept moving in odd discombobulating ways.

I watched the Oceania Riviera sail away about 6:30pm from the hotel room’s windows (Sue was at the waterfront watching the ship leave).