To the port we go

Just wanted to give a little update, the new camera does not play nicely with my iPad, so until I get that solved, it will be text only. :(

We got up after our exciting Duck Victory and found out we will be playing Ohio State in the National Championship! Guess that is what happens when you are on the east coast and it's a late start game, you discover who won after you get up. We did some quick laundry, repacked and left Hobe Sound. The drive was uneventful, except for all the crazy Florida drivers! We all arrived safely at the Hertz return at the FLL airport, and then climbed into the car with Pam and Michael for our drive over to the port.

This was our lucky break - because the ship left on a Monday, we could use the Oasis/Allure terminal (since they leave on Sat/Sun) and it is set up much better than most of the other ones.

We had a few issues checking in, mostly because they were beginning to shut down some of the desks and since we were in Aqua Class, they had to wander around and find our ship cards. It's not a big deal, it took about 25 minutes total, but it was a lot of waiting for things to happen, which can be annoying.

After getting on board, we went to our cabins (1597 and 1508) on deck 11. We dropped off our bags in the rooms and were immediately shocked at the cleaning smell that was in our room....this was not going to be good. More on that later. Since by this point its about 245pm, and muster is at 330pm, we needed to get some food, and headed for Bistro on 5. The food itself was quite good, but I have always found the service to be a bit slow unfortunately, and this was no exception. I think we had 10 minutes to eat prior to walking to our muster station, which for us was in photo gallery.

This was quite the experience, usually they take attendance, everyone stands around for a bit, you watch a video then leave. This was the LONGEST drill I've been in for a while, and most of the time was just waiting for things to happen - the videos are actually dumb because you can't see them anyway with so many people standing around, and they had to take attendance again at the end, which took a while. Not the best experience I've ever had. Now the funny part was, I think every resident of Boca Raton (originally from the NE) was there in our section, and Chris and I brought the age down considerably. Never have I heard so much complaining - just think of Jerry's parents on Seinfeld, and you were there with us.

Back to the cabin and lucky for us, there was our luggage. Started to unpack, then heard from Pam and Michael their keys still don't work for their room, so back to guest services for them. Finally, after the 4th try, they had ones that would work.

Dinner was in Tuscan Grill, the italian style steakhouse onboard. I don't know if it was because it was the first night, or if it was overcrowded, but this was not my best experience. The food was good, but not excellent, and it seemed that my steak had been off the grill for quite a bit prior to being served to us. Not sure if we will be back there this cruise, but we have lots of options.

We did FINALLY get a seat at the Martini Bar, but it was pretty crowded the whole night. They do have some diet tonic available if you ask, although we did bring our own because it's much better.

Oh, and the smell? Apparently the carpets in our room had been cleaned and it hadn't aired out well. We left both the cabin door and the balcony door open for about 90 minutes while we unpacked to air it out, and our cabin attendant also had her assistant do something while we were at dinner. The thing that really solved the problem was a magic ionizer that Pam had, but it's much better now, so that's a relief!

Some pictures when I can get them on the ipad.....!

 

Posted with Blogsy