Instead of taking a cab back to the Miami cruise port (like we took to get to the hotel), we decided to give the free Trolley Shuttle a try. It turns out there are several free Trolley shuttle services in and around Miami, so we thought to take advantage of one. After first getting on the wrong one (but only momentarily) - we found the correct one. It was about an hour's ride on "quaint" wood-slat seats - but the ride was interesting, and picked us up just a couple of blocks from the hotel and dropped us off right in front of our cruise ship. Easy. We had another beautiful, sunny warm day for our second sailaway out of Port of Miami, heading south once again. The last port of call on this cruise would be an overnight in Havana, Cuba. Havana would turn out to be the highlight of the trip.
This was our first time on MSC Cruises - a subsidiary of Mediterranean Shipping Company. "MSC Cruises is the world's largest privately held cruise company." We were on the Armonia, one of their older and smaller ships, but Havana cannot take the larger, flashier cruise ships.
On the top deck of the Armonia. One nice feature of this ship is the long, wide walking path on top. It gave a lot of people the chance to be on deck when we arrived or left a port.
The Miami skyline in the distance.
A floating sign, with a brightly lit LCD panel that was easy to see from a distance. I do not know what "THE REAL LIFE" referred to, so maybe it wasn't all that effective.
Lots of room up top, with a good sized pool, a couple of hot tubs, and a kid's water park.
This kid's water park was added when the new section of the ship was added. Kids loved it - when it was on.
The Armonia had one of the best high-energy cruise staffs that we've experienced. As we started our sailaway, the gang was on deck with the music blasting. This guy was also on deck - and didn't really appreciate the music blasting. I'm not sure who outlasted who.
A Carnival cruise ship headed out ahead of us.
With the Carnival ship having sailed out, Royal Caribbean's Mariner of the Seas headed in the other direction to turn around.
At the end of the channel, Mariner of the Seas did a 180ยบ turn so she could sail out. Ships execute this maneuver either coming in to dock, or on their way out.
As the sun started to set, Mariner of the Seas completed her turn, and sailed past us. We left once she had cleared our side. And we were on our way!
NEXT: (Day 3) Montego Bay, Jamaica
Prev: Coral Gables, Miami, Florida
Caribbean-Cuba (MSC) - 2019
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