Monday, February 7, 2011 - Embarkation day
Wow, that was a good game. And just in case you think there was some post game editing going on here, I took a picture of me wearing my Packer shirt. I am a Packer fan and have been for 44 years (I saw the Packers play the Rams at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1966. It was a good game even though the Rams won. The Los Angeles Coliseum was also the site of the first Super Bowl, where the Packers beat the Chiefs.
Nonetheless, today is embarkation day. It’s 9:00am and I’m packed and ready to go. I’ll check out a little before 10:00am, head over to the pier and turn in the rental. Then meet the rest of the roll call group on board. Until then, I’m hanging out in the room killing time (hopefully they will not realize it was me until after I am out of the country).
Checkout contained a surprise. Parking cost an additional $50. There was no warning about this on Hotwire. That aside, I checked out just before 10:00am and with only about fourteen miles to get to the Avis rental office at the port, I expected to get there around 10:30am. However, it was closer to 11:00am because I took time to set up my GPS (this is my first cruise out of Fort Lauderdale) and stopped to fill up the tank.
Then I was hoping for a quick ride to the port, but that was not going to happen. First of all the first shuttle (free) to the port doesn’t leave until 11:30am. Then the draw bridge that we had to go over was open to allow a sailboat to pass underneath, or, because of the mast, the bridge was open to allow the sailboat to pass through.
There were four ships in port (Celebrity Equinox, Navigator of the Seas, Silversea Silver Cloud and Carnival Miracle), and passengers on the bus wanted to go to three of the ships. I was the only one going to the Carnival Miracle and I was the last one dropped off.
So now it is about noon and I arrived about the same time as three buses, which means, for the first time today (so the Carnival people claim) there is also a line. Nonetheless the line moved fast and after about thirty minutes I was checked in, my embarkation photo had been taken, my security photo has been taken and I was looking for my room steward so that I could drop off my carryon luggage and start taking pictures of the ship. One concern I had, there was no ice bucket in the cabin.
By the time I finished photographing the ship, the cabins were available for the passengers to occupy. This emptied out the buffet enough that I did not have to wait in line to get my food and there were open seats so I could sit down an enjoy it.
The Carnival Miracle leaving Port Everglades.
I then headed back to the cabin and find my luggage is waiting for me. I guess there is one advantage to not being the first on the ship. In the past, being early on the ship meant not getting my luggage until after the muster drill. So while I was putting everything away the room steward shows up with the ice bucket full – good! I made a point of telling the room steward that I liked having ice, and I told him I had late seating.
Cabin 5129.
Cabin 5129.
An extended balcony.
The shower and water closet.
The bathroom. As you can see from the reflection, the picture was taken from the shower.
After putting everything away I wanted to relax for awhile. However, I was in for a rude surprise, because no sooner had my head hit the pillow than we were informed that in ten minutes the muster drill would begin. One nice thing is that we don’t have to bring our life vests to the muster drill. About 4:00pm the drill was over and soon after we departed to the sound of one of the other ship’s call to muster.
After the muster drill our roll call group agreed to meet at the aft pool bar. It was nice to put a face to all the people I had been corresponding with for the last year. After the roll call meet and greet I decided to do the relaxing that was denied to me before the muster drill.
Apparently because early seating was so popular on this cruise, dinner time had been moved up. Early seating was now 5:45pm and late seating was now 7:45pm. I showed up at 7:45pm and there was a line forming. So I decided to look for my embarkation photo, which I ended up buying. The line was getting bigger so I decide to take the picture back to the cabin rather than keep it with me at dinner.
On my way back to the cabin one of the passengers noticed my shirt. Because it has the word critic on it people assume I am a professional writer. However, I can’t complain since the shirt kept me out of trouble once while photographing one of the ships docked in San Pedro, California. A security guard saw me photographing the ship and began asking some pointed question, but stopped when he read my shirt. It was clear he thought I was photographing the ship for a story I was about to write. I said nothing to make him think that way and I said nothing to make him think otherwise. All I said was I had photographed lots of ships, which is a true statement.
So I told the Miracle passenger that I belonged to an online forum and answered a few of her questions. Then I headed back to the cabin to drop off my embarkation photo. I managed to make it back to the main dining room in time to join the end of the line, which had just reached the entrance to the dining room. I don’t know what caused the delay, but things were obviously running a little late tonight.
My tablemates are three women all wearing the same dress. There are typically four of them that cruise together, but for some reason one of them could not make it to this cruise. The one thing we all noticed was that we were sitting at a table with nine chairs, five of which were empty. According to the waiter, there should be eight people at our table (the other four never showed up).
For dinner tonight I had the lasagna, which was excellent. After dinner I decided to check out the shopping. And once again my shirt attracted attention, and once again I explained who I was. When I returned to my cabin it was obvious that the room steward had not been in the cabin. I wonder if it was because I forgot to put out the make up my room sign. Since I wanted ice, I headed to the buffet and the ice machines. Then back to the cabin to finish watching a move that I had started watching before dinner.
Then I typed this. It is now early Tuesday morning, and so it is time to say good night. At least tomorrow is a sea day, so I don’t have to get up early. See you later in the morning.
