Saturday, Getting on the Ship

 After going to bed so early, I got up about 6, and John at about 7. When we went down to find some breakfast, the lobby restaurant wasn't open, and looked like it was undergoing renovations or something, with a ladder and some tools in the middle of the floor. Other guests told us there was a coffee shop down by the entrance, so we went down and got some breakfast sandwiches and drinks and took them to our room. Our phones worked, so John had a long call with a fellow Klingon while we waited to check out. He wanted to call another friend, but realized he didn't have that friend's number. We checked out just before 11, and I sat in the lobby with our luggage while John went outside to take pictures. He came back about 11:15, and we moved out to the driveway, trying not to miss the taxi, which was due at 11:30. We found the taxi, the driver got us to the dock just fine; it was a much shorter trip than from the airport.

We had never gotten luggage tags for the ship, so we had to go inside and find the table set up just to deal with that problem. We discovered our cabin had been changed from 4005 to 8197, so we thought we had gotten an upgrade. Turning over our large suitcases, we could now check in, and we let them take a couple pictures before we got on the ship. Of course our cabin wasn't ready for us yet, so we found our muster station and checked in, went to the buffet for lunch and then to the Pink Champayne Bar for drinks, where a trio was playing Hawaiian music.

About 3, they finally announced we could get to our cabins. Ours was hidden in a maze of hallways in the aft of deck 8, and I almost walked past it. When we walked in, our hearts sank. This was not an upgrade! There were 2 bunkbeds attached to the walls, each sticking into the room about 12 inches. The walkway on either side of the bed was about 14 wide, so we had to contort ourselves to get in and out of bed. We asked for the main bed to be split in two, leaving a larger walkway between them, but it wasn't done before we went to bed. Getting in and out was a miserable as we had imagined.

Getting to the Port & Getting to the Ship

Monday, 11/7 - Getting to the port

Another cruise! And this time, no long airplane ride to get to and from it, for this was a cruise of the Caribbean, where we've been several times. All we had to do was drive about an hour from our house to Port Carnaval. What could go wrong?

Well, we could wander around the city of Cocoa for about an hour before we found our hotel. Our computer-generated directions suddenly degenerated to nonsensical instructions, such as turn left, go 189 feet, turn right, go 50 feet. No street names, no landmarks... But we did have the address for our hotel, so once we got on the right street, and headed in the correct direction, we eventually found it and got checked in.

Once we got checked in and made arrangements for our car to be parked in a near-by parking lot during the cruise, we went to the ale house next door for supper. John was pretty happy with what he ordered, but the cook put chicken in my cheese quesadilla! I had to send it back for a re-do.

Well, back to the hotel to watch some tv. Not used to cable tv anymore, we managed to find reruns of a comedy we used to watch all the time, and watched about 4 episodes of it. At 8:30, John was ready to go to bed. (He's also an early riser.) Since he needs absolute darkness and absolute quiet to fall sleep, that meant I had to go to bed, too.

At 10:28, my phone went off with a severe warning for possible flooding within 36 hours. I confirmed that I'd gotten it and assumed it was due to Hurricane Nicole, which was headed straight for Florida.

 

Tuesday, 11/8 - Getting to the Ship

We got up about 7 and went to the lobby for our free breakfast. John was disappointed, as the only 'protein' available was yogurt, but we ate and made do. Then we took our car to the parking lot about 2 blocks away and walked back to watch a couple hours of tv.

We got another emergency warning on my phone, this one indicated Nicole was within 36 hours of our location. Then we got a text message from the cruise line that the ship was leaving early, and everybody needed to be aboard by 3:30 pm. We went to the lobby to wait for the next shuttle, which would be leaving at 10:30, an hour before we had booked rides for it, but they had room for us, so we got on.

Once we got to the dock and handed our luggage to the porters, we took a couple steps to get in the end of the line going into the building, which was about a block away. When we entered the building, the line split into 2 lines, and wouldn't you know it, the line they put us in didn't go anywhere very fast. Lots of standing and waiting while the other line passed us by. A woman in the other line fainted, and 2 or 3 husky guys carried her to the sidelines and got her some help.

Eventually, we got to the point where they would give us room keys and let us board the ship. BUT despite all the paperwork we filled out online in the previous 2 weeks, they still had one more form for us to sign. And John, being as cautious as he is, insisted on reading it before he signed it. He is not a fast reader, and it took him a long time to get it read, but finally we were able to get on the ship. It was about 12:30.

We only had 1 carry-on bag with us, but we couldn't get to our cabin to leave it there, as the cabins were not all cleaned yet. So we took it with us to the buffet and got some lunch. As we were finishing our desserts, they announced that the cabins were available now.

About 4:30, the ship started pulling away from the dock. Once we hit the ocean, the ship's motion was very unpredictable. At 5:30, we went to a bar to listen to music. At 7, we went to the theater to see 2 comedians. The first one was pretty normal, and fairly good. The 2nd was... strange. He seemed to specialize in extreme movements, if you can imagine what I mean.

About 8:30, we went to O'Sheehan's, which is an Irish pub located right in the middle of the casino. Since we were definitely out to sea by then, the casino was going full blast. We couldn't hear ourselves think, let alone talk. Then we called it a night, watched a little tv and went to bed.