THE BOARDING

Wednesday:  January 5, 2011

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on time—6:20 am.  Sleep deprived and hungry.  We ate breakfast at the airport—don’t ever try breakfast at Chili’s.  At 8:45 we hailed a taxi and reached the port in about ten minutes.  I had no contact person and no instructions on how to board the ship.  However, I did have passes to embark.  The ship had come in, but with a couple thousand people disembarking things were rather chaotic.

So started the waiting game and the rather non-brilliant security guard who gave us wrong instructions.  We weren’t on the manifold because of our last minute status. However, one of the ship officers heard our name and said—we’ve been looking for you. I thought, finally.  We’re going to be taken care of.  But no, she said, “When you got off the plane, you picked up the wrong luggage.”

“No,” Ron and I both said. “That can’t be.”  Ron had picked them up. I went to look and sure enough one of our bags was not ours.  Ron had to take a taxi back to the airport, make the switch and get another cab back to the ship.  The miracle is that the airport people found us and caught us before we boarded the ship.  Whew!!!

Another two hours later we tried to get someone’s attention again.  Once more I showed them our passes to board the ship.  “One of the security guards said, “You can go right on with those.” And so, the delay allowed us to get our luggage.  Finally we boarded and once again we weren’t on the manifest, neither did we have a room assignment. In short order though one of the ship’s officers gave us back our passports and sent us up to the office. 

We are in 3307 and we have a window. We’re on the promenade deck.  We put our things away and at 2:30 went up to the Lido deck to grab some lunch. The restaurant was closing, but we got salads.

Our room keys (cards) are also our method of payment.  Looking over the schedule for the day, I noticed that we were to make dinner reservations or changes by four.  I went to make sure we had 5:30 seating since neither of us like to eat late.  Well everyone else (most people here are older) wanted early dinner as well and since we were last minute…”  So we hung around and did a tour of the ship.  In the Queen’s Lounge we discovered the cruise director introducing the supplemental staff (of which I am one) 

Ron and I joined them and I was introduced as well and received some instructions.  Nice of them to let me know before hand. J  But hey—God had been taking care of things all along, why stop now.  We were to be part of the 9:30 pm show where Bruce, the cruise director would introduce his staff and us supplementals.

More wandering around.  Our ship, the mc Ansterdam was built in Italy in 2000 and had been updated.  There is an internet café/library/coffee shop called Explorations. I found out that the internet costs $250 for 1,000 minutes.  Yikes. 

At 8 and went into the La Fontaine Restaurant.  Very elegant. We were seated at a table by the window  17 with two other couples.  Lee and Ken are from Canada just north of Bellingham.  Ron and Pat (yes, our table mates are Ron and Pat) are from Fargo, ND. Lee and Ken were married in 1963, same as us, and Ron was married in 63 to his first wife.

We had to rush out before dessert so we could attend the meeting prior to show time and be told what to do and where to go so we’d be on the stage in the wings when Bruce was ready for us.  Supplementals included me (creative writing) Marie (arts and crafts), yoga, dance lessons, computer use, 5 male escorts to dance with the single ladies and bridge instructors.  The arts and crafts lady made it on board, but her luggage and all of her supplies didn’t. 

At this point I don’t know where or when my class will be or start. Fortunately, we don’t have to begin our classes until our second day at Sea which is Saturday.  On our first day at sea, we went to bed around eleven after picking up an ice cream snack.  My legs hurt so badly, I could hardly walk so I took some Aleeve.

The beds are comfortable, nice pillows and room for all of our luggage. Oh, and Ron forgot to pack his dress shoes so he can’t go to the formal dinners.  It looks as though he might be able to pick up a pair in the Cayman Islands.