May 4 - Sail Away Day

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Hello. Today we actually start our cruise.

We began with a fairly good night's sleep last night in the Fairfield Hotel on Griffin Rd. We were so tired we probably could have slept in the hall, but we had a room. Then we got a "breakfast included" meal this morning, with scrambled eggs, sausages, and waffles - not bad. We had reserved 2 slots on the shuttle bus to the ship, with a departure at 12:30, so we had plenty of time to repack the suitcases and get down to the lobby. The bus was not too crowded, and we were delivered to the cruise terminal right in front of our ship.

At Port Everglades, the luggage was taken from us and worked its way through the terminal and eventually was brought to our cabin. Meanwhile we had to wait a little while for a wheelchair, but then it was pretty prompt getting on the ship and to our cabin. Our steward is named Danny, and we gave him a couple of things we needed, but it's mostly been taken care of. We went to the Muster Station to complete our "life jacket" drill - most of it was done just by watching a 5-min show on the TV. Afterwards we went up to the Lido Deck and got hot dogs and fries from the grill.

This was getting to be mid-afternoon, so we didn't eat too much, but we did have enough room visit the ice cream stand - the Swirl Girls were guys, but the ice cream was good. Then we went down to get a couple of issues resolved with our Medalian Phone App. This is the main tool for doing things around the ship - Janet's was working fine but David had some problems. They also explained how to get on the Internet, so that is good. The sailing was supposed to be at 4:00 but it was delayed until almost 6:00 because they were still loading supplies for the long Atlantic voyage.

Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of sailing out to sea because we were in the dining room at 5:45. We got pictures of another ship - maybe nobody will notice the different name of the stern of the ship. Dinner on the first nights is always a little confusing with everyone learning how things work. A "reservation" actually means they have some place for us to sit, but not at a specific table or with particular people. So, we were at a table for 10 and one end can't really hear anything from the people on the other end. But the food was good. Janet had a Ceasar Salad, Garlic Prawns, and Fried Chicken with Fries. David had Greek Salad, Shrimp Cocktail (remembering Tessa), and Pork Tenderloin. For dessert Janet had Bananas Foster and David had New York Cheesecake.

We did not get back to the cabin until 7:45. The evening show in the theater started at 7:30 and the late show is not until 9:30. We are not going to either one, but that gives us time to write this short note. Tomorrow we will have more cruising activities to report. Good night.

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