For our final day in Quito, we planned a fairly relaxing day knowing that we’d be flying back home late in the evening (after midnight). Indeed, since we were departing so late and the hotel room was fairly cheap, I opted to keep it for an extra evening to give us a place to relax before departing around 9:30 for the flight.

Our day began with breakfast in the Marriott executive lounge. After breakfast, we walked to the nearby Parque La Carolina, which is home to the Quito Botanical Gardens.

The gardens were lovely.

After visiting the gardens, we stopped by a local shopping mall and browsed the goods on offer. As I mentioned in my previous post, some items (locally produced or cheaply imported) are more affordable here, but I’d imagine one would sacrifice much of the lower cost of living savings in Ecuador if they continued to purchase major American or foreign brand goods that are multiples of the price back home.

After the mall and lunch, we returned to the hotel where Emerson and I went swimming in the lovely, heated pool:

Pretty nice on a cool-ish and windy day at 9,000ft of altitude!

For dinner, we returned to our favorite Crepes and Waffles. Emerson and I shared a delicious dessert:

Unfortunately, the journey home was a little less than ideal. Our already late flight out of Quito was delayed by a late arriving aircraft. The flight was also a bit turbulent due to weather in the Caribbean, making it a little more difficult to sleep on an already short flight. We landed in Ft Lauderdale to be greeted to chaos and delays at immigration, which seemed to be undergoing some sort of renovation. Blah!

Ultimately, we made it to the car and drove home with minimal hassle. I felt surprisingly good despite the lack of sleep. And, all in all, it was a fine ending to what I’m sure will be a memorable trip.

The drive was surprisingly pleasant, as we were unhurried. We stopped at Sawgrass Mills for a little shopping (including to get Libby a better lightweight rain jacket), and I drove Emerson over to see the campus of NSU, where I earned my doctorate in information systems. This meant that we arrived at the Ft. Lauderdale airport with plenty of time to check-in, grab some dinner, and hop on our free JetBlue flight to South America (I’d cashed in some points that I’d accrued over the years), which departed a little after 7:30.

The flight was a fairly short 3 hours and 45 minutes. Libby and Emerson slept most of the flight. I took a nap for maybe an hour before we started our approach and landing into Quito, which was remarkably smooth despite the high mountains and thunderstorms clearly visible in the area.

Quito’s airport is nice and new (looked much better than Terminal 3 @ Ft. Lauderdale). Immigration and customs was a breeze. And, we managed to get an airport taxi to take us to the JW Marriott for $25, which pleased me as I hadn’t managed to arrange a car service in advance.

We arrived at our hotel by 1am and were asleep again a little after 1:30.

P.S. Emerson is writing her own blog entries for this trip. You can follow her comments on Emerson’s Ecuador and the Galapagos page.

The customs/immigration line was a bit long, but it didn’t take too long for us to pas through it. From there, it was smooth sailing to and through the airport. All told, we were sitting in the JetBlue terminal’s food court sipping coffee by a little after 10:00.

We happily passed two hours playing with Emerson and then boarded our plane on time for a roughly 3 hour flight back to Tampa.

Here’s a cool photo from over the Bahamas:

While it might seem like a hassle, I actually think San Juan is a fairly ideal cruise port. The cruise fares usually seem to be a bit cheaper, thereby offsetting the cost of the flights. Plus, with direct flights on a good schedule from Tampa, it’s not much more time consuming than driving down to Port Everglades and Miami. What’s more, the itineraries are usually better. By “better” I mean a greater variety of ports and fewer sea days. San Juan: two thumbs up.

For this trip, I’ll skip writing an in-depth cruise review. Overall, it was a good cruise. We like this class of ship (having sailed on her sister ship, Brilliance, twice) and the large balcony was awesome with the little one (as I expected). I think our cruises aboard the Caribbean Princess (itinerary, food, and truly “escaping completely”) and Norwegian Dawn (duration, family, Freestyle dining) were a bit better, but it’s been our best RCI cruise in the Caribbean.

The goal for this trip is just to relax and have fun. We don’t really have anything planned… just hitting some beaches and chilling out. Sadly, the rest of the family is at home… but, we have a New Year’s cruise planned with Mom and Pop, and then we have another cruise on the docket for March with the entire clan (sans Pop, who ain’t up for flying to Rome).

We flew JetBlue today. It’s my new favorite 2nd rate airline. I paid $35/pp extra for “even more space” seats. They were pretty comfortable for our two and a half hour flight.

Arrival at the ship was uneventful. Quick taxi ride, check-in, drop off our stuff, and go grab lunch. When we returned to our cabin, our luggage was already upstairs. We unpacked, took a nap, and then went to the kids pool to let Emerson play.

Dinner tonight was at the Windjammer.

Here’s Emerson enjoying our al fresco dining, as well as a photo overlooking the Celebrity Summit:

Heading to our muster drill now… then we’re setting sail!