Florida Summary

Late in 2009 Eleanor received a mailer for a vacation package from Caribbean Cruise Line, the one with the commercials featuring Carmen Electra, for what appeared to be a pretty good price. It's important to realize that this isn't the reputable Royal Caribbean cruise line (I wish I'd have known then they were an impostor piggybacking their brand). Intrigued, we gave a call to get more details and to see what the "catch" was. The rep did a good job convincing us there wasn't one: we were to get a week long vacation with 4d/3n in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 3d/2n on a cruise to the Bahamas, then finish with 2d/2n in Orlando, FL. They'd give us a rental car for the trip and free food and drink. We'd just have to get down to Florida. We'd also get a second hotel stay for 3d/2n in one of three cities that we could use or gift to someone. Sounded damn good, and I chalked the price up to introductory discounts used to get a new company the satisfied customers and word-of-mouth buzz to develop a customer base. However, our critical thinking caps weren't on and we didn't ask about the fine details. Never do the rationalizing for the company.

Cut forward 18 months and it's time to jump on this thing, enjoy some Sun just when Pitts is getting hammered with snow and cold. Elle scheduled it several months ago so it would overlap with her b-day so she was excited. The materials we got said we'd have to pay port fees and hotel fees, neither of which was mentioned in the initial advertisement or conveyed over the phone. I'm already getting upset about how duplicitous the rep was on the phone; tell the customer what will make the sale, save any "negative" details for after. My previous job contract had recently expired so we were tight on funds, but it was already too late to reschedule or give the trip to someone else, so we set some money aside for these fees. It was gonna be tight, but hey, the beach and Sun are free, so no worries, right?

We get in and go to pick up our rental. That was a debacle I won't even get into. Suffice it to say that we're worn out and many hours past schedule. We get to our hotel, a Ramada, that looks like a NY slum. Come to find out that the complementary food that was part of our trip also has fees, both levied taxes and gratuities. That puts a bigger damper on our night, but at least the food was decent. Day 1 is a bust.

Day 2 we have to attend some stupid timeshare sales pitch presentation to get our cruise tix. At 0830. We barely have two nickels to rub together and we have to get assaulted with more deceptive marketing. It was a painful four hour process, made somewhat tolerable by our pretty cool tour guide Fernando, a realtor with Vacation Village. He's from Cuba and tells us funny stories about the four countries he's lived in. In the end, his manager made a compelling argument on the value of a deed back timeshare that we might not have passed up if we could afford a luxury greater than food. I did glean an interesting fact in how much Caribbean Cruise line was paid for bringing us in as potential customers, though.

So I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation to figure out what they're making. I've no doubt CCL is getting discounts from the hotel and car rental company for bringing in tourist income to fill rooms (I mean just about everyone I saw, overheard, or talked to in both Ramadas was here on the same or a similar package), buy alcohol, get percentages of the mandatory gratuities, etc. They also got ~$300 for bringing in potential customers to Vacation Village who might buy a timeshare. Figure they're paying ~$50/night for the Ramadas (~$250), ~$30/day for the rental (~$210), and ~$12 for each meal for two (~$204, but it's actually cheaper than this for missed meals and different meal prices according to the receipts). They save money by putting taxes on the customer which, all told, was about $200-$220. I estimate a 2d/2n (since the ship doesn't disembark until nightfall, a day is lost) cruise on their lower-end ship is around $300 sans taxes and port fees. So a roughly $1160 vacation, as they booked it, was about $(1160-300-800-200) = -$140; they brokered a profit plus whatever additional profit they get from their pricing.

Fortunately, the weather was most excellent. We spent a couple of days in the Hollywood Beach area, go for an airboat tour of the Everglades via Sawgrass Recreation Park, which I highly recommend. The staff was very considerate and knowledgeable, and the animals they had were well tended. The speed with which they conveyed facts and answered questions, and the wealth of information they presented displayed the passion and care with which they approach their work.

So it was time for the cruise. We were informed beforehand that the ship would disembark from West Palm Beach and we'd have free parking in the port. Well, we drive 40 minutes to get there, are told that we must use valet parking, which is $15/night, and that we might have to pay some fuel surcharges of $9/person/day while on the ship. At that point we'd taken all we could of the nickel-and-dime'ing and just left. The area of Palm Beach near the port looked depleted, like an area suffering from the blight of casinos or bombs. We high-tailed it back to Ft. LauderdaleDelray and Hollywood, and a trip out the amazing Miami Zoo followed. We walked the entire zoo and it must have been 5 or 6 miles long because we there there just about from opening to closing and just saw everything there. It's grandness was certain counter to the highly personal experience I got from the much smaller Sawgrass Recreation Park. It was a good way to prepare for the impending boredom or Orlando.

To get our vouchers for the Ramada in Orlando, we had to go to some Welcome Center attached to a Ramada. After we pick them up, we're told that we have to drive another 15 minutes to get to our Ramada, it isn't the one we're already parked at and standing in. Really? I just shake my head and we head off to a quaint but somewhat dilapidated Ramada elsewhere. The area simply blew;  the rampant commercialism was an affront. We basically enjoyed the remainder of sun and heat in the pool area while reading. Best part were the couple of stray cats we found in the pool area that we snuck a ton of food to. Had we driven to FL we'd have a couple more furballs to feed.

I won't even rant about the many other annoying aspects save to mention that driving in Florida is horrible. Every street is basically a 4-7 lane highway, and the drivers are mostly incompetent, failing to even change lanes when driving my emergency vehicles. Never before have I seen a multi-lane stop sign, either, which lead to quite a chaotic intersection. It's no wonder their pedestrian fatality rate is so egregiously high.

-m