22 November 2008

(Cruise Day 1) Sailing Away

Posted by BaBa under: Travel .

We awoke in the morning refreshed. Much more refreshed than if we had literally driven all night. We got up and on the road. We stopped for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. We had some Audiobooks to return and then MaMa and Magoo had breakfast. I went and got gas as well as a stop at Wal-Mart along with a couple of Chicken Biscuits from Chick-Fil-A. I just did not see anything on the menu at Cracker Barrel that I wanted for breakfast. I am not a real breakfast type of person. While they ate, I got these few things done and we soon were fed up, gassed up and geared up to make the last push to Fort LaTeeDa. I drove the entire leg today. We made only one short stop at a rest area as we pushed on to the ship. We ran into a bad accident at the end of the drive on the exit ramp to the port. We had almost made it, but it took 20+ minutes to go less than 2 miles as we had to clear the accident scene.

We arrived at 12:30 and got parked along with unloading our luggage and getting to the check in line by 12:45pm. Boarding began at 1pm. Great timing as we were in fact on board a few minutes after 1pm.

Let me back up a minute as Magoo was really excited the whole day. Well he has been excited for over a week, but today was finally the day. We went up the bridge and down into the port. He then began to see the ships and was amazed. He kept asking where his cruise ship was. His eyes popped out when he saw the brand new Ruby Princess. We were able to bypass the going on board photo as the girl had camera problems and so we went around and got on board. We had a little trouble with the photo of Magoo for his cruise card, but it was soon fixed.

Our first stop after going by the room to unload was to try and get dinner seating fixed. Not much luck. We then went to the kid’s club (Pelicans) and toured the facility where Magoo will play and make “new friends” as he calls them. It is wonderful and a place that he will have lots of fun.

These two items accomplished, it was off for lunch as he said he wanted to get food because he was hungry. We were also hungry and so enjoyed lunch. We came back to the room and unpacked the bags. We stowed away the gear and clothing and then it was time for the mandatory lifeboat drill. Princess does this much better than the other lines. You assemble in your muster station (inside location) and listen to the explanation. You then try on the life vest and are dismissed. All of the other ships have had us go outside under the lifeboats and listen to the explanation while wearing the life vest and packed in a line like sardines in a can. One line, Costa also repeats the speech in German, French, Spanish, Italian and English. Way too time consuming.

After the drill, we stopped back by the cabin to drop off the life vests and got a few photos of Sheridan trying out his bunk. We then went to the sail away party on deck 15. You see Sheridan kept telling us that we needed to get on the ship. I can only guess that he thought we had just gone through a tunnel from one building to another building. Even though we had gone up on deck to see the water below, he still seemed to think that we were not on the ship. So, we decided to attend the sail away party and show him that the ship was moving on the water and leaving the port. Well, there was live band there and he began to dance. I got several of the photos below from his dancing to the music. He really enjoyed the music and it moved him. We even got a group shot due to the courtesy of another passenger.

We left the sail away party and went back to the dinning room to attempt to secure a table and dinning reservation for the voyage. As I said earlier I was not too lucky with this as we first boarded. We were 4 hundred something on the wait list for early dinning. Well taking Magoo to dinner at 8:15pm (past his bedtime) would not work. We did get a 5:30pm reservation in the Anytime Dinning Room (DaVinci). Even better, we got assigned a table near by the window and will thus have the same wait staff each night. This will work just fine. Neither of us likes the idea that you show up and get seated anywhere and waited on by anyone. We like having dinner early with a wait staff that soon learns our likes and caters to these. The only ship that we had the sit anywhere that is open and be waited on by anyone free was disastrous. This plus a couple of other factors will keep us from sailing on Norwegian Cruise Line again.

Just as we were sailing away, I checked the phone and had a voice mail. I quickly went up on deck and called. It was darling daughter who was calling to wish me a happy birthday. What a great way to sail away. I made a quick call as the battery was low to Donna. I told her about the over packing and checked in as she is getting ready to leave for China the first week of December. I then joined the other two who were watching a juggler in the lobby and we went to the dinning room. We arrived for dinner and were promptly seated. This worked well and another couple joined us. We had a nice dinner and conversation with the couple from Denver. The meal was fabulous. The only glitch is that they brought me a dessert (size of a soup can) as a birthday cake. Well it was two days early. Later that night, I went back and got this fixed. I ordered a cake for Monday. Sheridan had been signing about eating cake on BaBa’s birthday and he was as confused as we were to see this small dessert creation arrive tonight. I wanted to make sure that he can eat a piece of cake on BaBa’s birthday. We then went to the orientation for the Pelican program. We got all of the information on how this runs and got the paperwork squared away for Magoo to have a good time. We finished the night off with getting a longer bedrail so that rock and roller will not roll out of the bunk. We both were worried about this possibility.

He went off to sleep with MaMa and I watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding. MaMa went off to sleep with this movie and I then watched Sleepless in Seattle while I wrote six pages to catch up on his blog. I am no longer sleepless so I will type good night as it truly was. We are swaying back and forth in a rhythm that will lull us to sleep.

2 Comments so far...