Last March I booked a cruise for this March.  I knew the pandemic would end or we would learn to live with COVID by this year so I felt pretty confident booking.  Plus they offered a guarantee where we could change our booking if needed. 

I started watching flights as soon as they became available.  I never saw any for this week for less than about $350 a person and that was on a budget airline where you have to pay an additional $70 for a carryon. 

About a month ago, we decided to drive down.  Not ideal but the cruise is Monday-Friday over the kids spring break which left some nice time before and after for a relaxing 21 hour drive.

For the sake of the girls we decided to drive overnight on the first day. It makes for one heck of a day for Nole and me as the drivers but for the girls 8 hours went by in the blink of an eye. The boys slept a little less, more like 6 hours. I got two hours and Nole got a tight 1 hour. We drove a total of 12 hours with almost no stops so the 12 hour drive took us 12 hours–amazing!

I had hoped that we could check into the hotel early…like really early. We had a hotel booked just north of Atlanta. No such luck because they were at capacity the night before and they said they wouldn’t have any rooms ready until the afternoon. So when we arrived in Atlanta at 830am, we decided to go to the Atlanta Zoo. It was kind of pricey but we had a good time. I drove the last leg and was starting to go road blind. At our visit to the zoo I got my second wind. They had a lot of animals that we recognized from the Milwaukee zoo and a few unique ones.

Warthogs and Cal’s reflection

We had a nice lunch there and then the lack of sleep hit me and Nole again.

We decided to go to the hotel and try our luck with an early check-in. We were in luck and got a room pretty soon after camping our big family in their lobby, haha. My brain fog caught up with me when the hotel clerk sneezed and said “Excuse me” and I responded “That’s okay”. Although maybe, “That’s okay” is an appropriate post-COVID response to a sneeze!

Nole and I took naps while the kids played in the room. The kids got some pool time as well. I always make sure to book a hotel with a pool on these long drives so the kids can get some physical activity.

Our clocks were all off and we were all hungry for dinner at different times but we decided to walk to a teriyaki chicken place around 6pm. Nova and I then walked to Baskin Robbins for a treat. We spent the rest of the night watching cable TV (a novelty!).