Day 4: Leaving Miami and Boarding the Cruise Ship
In the morning, we woke up and I took a shower. We were going to try the beach one more time. At about 10AM, the housekeeping lady knocks on the door. I told her that we are checking out today and that we should be out of the room between 12 to 1. We asked for a late check out at the front desk last night and they gave us till 1 instead of 12. How generous of them! We went down to the beach and it was sunny and warm. The water, on the other hand, was still pretty cold. Nevertheless, we went in. It took me about 10 minutes just to get waste deep. It was still pretty windy from the storm that went through the Caribbean a couple of days ago which made it pretty hard to swim out very far. After about 30 minutes in the water, we both decided to come out and relax on the beach chairs for a while. Another 30 minutes of lounging and we went back to the room to clean up and head out. I called the cruise line to see how soon we could board and they said we could board as early as 1pm.
While we were in the room, the cleaning lady comes by again. Keep in mind that I told her we would be out between 12 and 1. It was just after 11. I told her to give us another hour and we would be out. 10 minutes later, there is a knock at the door. I told her that my wife is still in the shower. She gets all ticked off and walks away. She has a whole floor of rooms to clean. Unless she is really really fast, she couldn't have cleaned all the rooms just yet.
We pack up and check out. We still have an hour before we can board the ship and my wife needs her coffee. We start walking down the street with our luggage in tow. Taxi drivers honk at me every couple of minutes thinking we need a ride to the airport or something. I know there is a Starbucks a couple of blocks away. No need for a taxi to get us there. On our way toward Starbucks, my wife sees a little bakery/coffee shop and we decide to go there instead. After about 30 minutes, we look for a taxi. We find one fairly quickly and he takes us to the port. We get through security and board the ship. We find our stateroom and I have to admit that it's a lot smaller than I had expected. The most important thing is that it's clean. Outside of that, I don't really care. I don't plan on spending that much time in here anyway. They serve us lunch buffet style and then we head back to our room to prepare for the "muster drill".
The Muster Drill is required before we can leave the port of Miami. We get our life jackets from our rooms and go a our assigned areas to be counted. It was pretty organized but annoying that we had to wait for so long for everyone to be accounted for before we were dismissed. We were dismissed and went back to our room. After a little exploring of the ship, we got ready for dinner. I quickly learned that cruises are 90% about eating. You eat just about every 2-3 hours. I am used to eating once per day. We were first seating for dinner so dinner was set for 6PM. We were escorted to our assigned table. I didn't realize that at cruises you are assigned to a table for dinner and you might not be the only passengers at the table. In our case, we had another couple sharing our table with us. They are a very nice couple from Canada. We made casual dinner conversation with them but it still felt a little awkward when we had those silences when no one really had anything to say.
After dinner we went to the welcome aboard show. It was kinda gay with the singing and dancing. My wife didn't care for the cruise director because she felt that he was trying to hard. I agree with her somewhat but didn't think that he was that bad. He was followed by a comedian who was actually quite funny. Afterward, we listened to some people singing karaoke. I tried to convince my wife to sing something with me but she wouldn't. We then went back to the room and I watched the Monday Night Football game. It was pretty disappointing to see the 49ers lose on the last play of the game but such is life. Our next stop, Nassua, Bahamas.
While we were in the room, the cleaning lady comes by again. Keep in mind that I told her we would be out between 12 and 1. It was just after 11. I told her to give us another hour and we would be out. 10 minutes later, there is a knock at the door. I told her that my wife is still in the shower. She gets all ticked off and walks away. She has a whole floor of rooms to clean. Unless she is really really fast, she couldn't have cleaned all the rooms just yet.
We pack up and check out. We still have an hour before we can board the ship and my wife needs her coffee. We start walking down the street with our luggage in tow. Taxi drivers honk at me every couple of minutes thinking we need a ride to the airport or something. I know there is a Starbucks a couple of blocks away. No need for a taxi to get us there. On our way toward Starbucks, my wife sees a little bakery/coffee shop and we decide to go there instead. After about 30 minutes, we look for a taxi. We find one fairly quickly and he takes us to the port. We get through security and board the ship. We find our stateroom and I have to admit that it's a lot smaller than I had expected. The most important thing is that it's clean. Outside of that, I don't really care. I don't plan on spending that much time in here anyway. They serve us lunch buffet style and then we head back to our room to prepare for the "muster drill".
The Muster Drill is required before we can leave the port of Miami. We get our life jackets from our rooms and go a our assigned areas to be counted. It was pretty organized but annoying that we had to wait for so long for everyone to be accounted for before we were dismissed. We were dismissed and went back to our room. After a little exploring of the ship, we got ready for dinner. I quickly learned that cruises are 90% about eating. You eat just about every 2-3 hours. I am used to eating once per day. We were first seating for dinner so dinner was set for 6PM. We were escorted to our assigned table. I didn't realize that at cruises you are assigned to a table for dinner and you might not be the only passengers at the table. In our case, we had another couple sharing our table with us. They are a very nice couple from Canada. We made casual dinner conversation with them but it still felt a little awkward when we had those silences when no one really had anything to say.
After dinner we went to the welcome aboard show. It was kinda gay with the singing and dancing. My wife didn't care for the cruise director because she felt that he was trying to hard. I agree with her somewhat but didn't think that he was that bad. He was followed by a comedian who was actually quite funny. Afterward, we listened to some people singing karaoke. I tried to convince my wife to sing something with me but she wouldn't. We then went back to the room and I watched the Monday Night Football game. It was pretty disappointing to see the 49ers lose on the last play of the game but such is life. Our next stop, Nassua, Bahamas.
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