The cruise - Part 2

It was about an hour drive to the cruise pier and we made good time, no traffic issues. We had been assigned a boarding time of 11:30, but our friends airport hotel shuttle was getting them there around 10am and we didn't want them to have to stand around waiting by themselves, so my goal was to also arrive by 10am. At 9:30 friend texted me that they were still waiting on their shuttle bus (a half hour late), so we arrived a good half hour before them. 

Holy cow - this is a big ship!

We would later learn that there was almost 5000 passengers, plus 1500 crew. More people than our whole county has.

A bit chaotic at the drop off. It appeared there were still people who had disembarked sitting with their luggage waiting on their pickups. All the benches taken, to sit and wait for our friends. There were a couple of porters, but hard to get their attention, they were buzzing around. Finally, we got the attention of one who was just starting to load on some luggage and he added ours. Of course then dh needed to use a restroom. We were pointed in the direction of the big building next to the ship. 

At this point we just kept getting pushed along to check in at what felt like at least 3 check in points. The first was just outside the building. Go just inside and there's a check point. "But our check in time isn't until 11:30 and we just need a bathroom". "That's ok! you can check in anytime" ok....So, we went through a checkpoint, then went to the bathroom. Only to get over to the stupid bathroom we had to go back out of where we just passed to check in and then go through that checkpoint again. There really wasn't a line for it, so no big deal really.

Then up some stairs to another check in. The "main" check in, I guess. It was all just moving very quickly. Everyone working there very friendly and welcoming. After that we got into a larger area with a waiting area (they weren't letting anyone on the ship yet anyway), so we sat down and about 10 or so minutes later our friends showed up. They started calling groups to board and not much longer later we got to board, and I think it was about 10:30 or 11, at the latest.

After our friends arrived we felt less "lost" LOL. They knew the ropes. After boarding we saw the table for "key" members to drop off their carryon's if they wanted. We wanted to drop off the 2 bags holding the mountain dew. They said our luggage wouldn't be at the room until later this afternoon, but we were welcome to go see our rooms, so we did that first.

As "key" members one of the "perks" was a lunch in the dining room, away from all the masses at the buffet. It was very nice. Quiet. I had the filet mignon. It was probably the best steak I've ever had. The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the ship. Our luggage eventually showed up (much to dh's amazement LOL. He thought that porter took them and we were never going to see them again, haha). We pulled out of port late afternoon and we found a fairly quiet spot at the bow of the ship to watch.

I think then we all decided to go back to our rooms and take a bit of a nap. Our dinner reservation time wasn't until 6:45.

We made our way down to the main dining room where we had "My Time" dining, so our time was 6:45. There was a long line for "no reservations" and we started to walk past that towards the front, but there were still quite a few people waiting in front of us, outside the line. Suddenly a tall maitre d type of staff walked up to us (past all the people in front of us) and asked how many? 4. "Follow me" and we walked right past all the other waiting! Ok! LOL. He sat us at a table and and told us this would be our table for dining each night. We were all still wondering why we got pulled out from the others waiting, LOL, but we weren't going to complain.

Dinner service was amazing. The food was delicious and our head and assistant server were wonderful. More on them later.