Birthday 2013 - Embarkation Day

My intention at the start of the cruise was to do the write-up for each day at the end of each day.  But I didn’t actually get to writing this one until after the 1st sea day. I was just too tired after the 1st day. Now there won’t be many photos for this day. I forgot to charge my iPhone the night before so it didn’t last long. Then when I went to take a photo with my real camera, I found that both batteries were dead.

I wake up obnoxiously early. I was just too ready for the cruise to start. I went ahead and got going to get the rental car. The nightmare of the Atlanta public transportation the day before was evened out nicely by the wonderful ease and simplicity of the Orlando public transportation. For only $2, I easily got from downtown to the airport, and enjoyed some fun people watching on the bus.

We had found a really good deal to get a convertible for only like $20 more than a regular rental car.

It was a lot of fun to drive in the nice Florida weather down to Port Canaveral, and this smile on my mom's face was well worth the extra $20 for the upgrade.

We had an errand to run and so once all was done we didn’t get to the port until around 12:30 (much later than I would have preferred).


First ship view

Embarkation was easy and fast though. Since it was so late, we went to the room first and dropped off our stuff. We were pleased to find that our special requests to the accessible department had been done. We then went to the Windjammer for lunch. There was a crowd, but it wasn’t actually too bad.

What we did between lunch and the Welcome Aboard show is a total blur at this point. I think we explored the ship a little, and enjoyed the hot tub in the Solarium.


I love this metal bulldog on the Promenade.  I could see him from my roon.

I have minimal pictures for this day, since I discovered on the shuttle ride to the port that the batteries for my real camera were dead (fortunately I had brought the charger).  So the handful of photos are all before my iPhone battery died.


One sail away photo from a window on the pool deck

The Welcome Aboard show was fun. The cruise director Richard Spacey was quite a trip. The aerial show was awesome. The comedian was okay. He has some funny lines, but wasn’t really funny enough that we wanted to his adult show late on the next day.
We had dinner scheduled for 8:15 that night. For the appetizers, I had the shrimp and the grilled cheese from the kid’s menu, and mom had shrimp and the salad. For the entrees, I had the prime rib, and mom had the grilled fish. For dessert, I had the crème brulee and mom tried the sugar free offering of the night. Overall, the food was good. Our waiter was okay but somewhat non-existent (rarely smiled). The assistant waiter was great and very friendly though, but we still decided to ask for someone else the next night.

We then went and watched the Majority Rules gameshow. This was a gameshow I had never made it to on the previous cruises, and was curious about it. Mom retired to the room part of the way through this. It was kind of fun, but I doubt I’d go again. After this I watched the Move it Move it parade from the end of the deck above it (or most of it anyway). It was cute.

As I was about to leave the parade, I stopped to look at the "What was happening" on the interactive board.  King Julien scared me while I was concentrating on the board.  He was apparently running from one end to the other.  It was fun.  Whoever was in that King Julien really liked his job and always seemed to be totally in character whenever I saw him even if he wasn't really interacting with anyone at the time.

I then went back to the room intending to retire for the night. I found mom in the window of the room, where she had watched the parade from there. I ended up going back out to grab us some snacks. I got mom a cookie from Café Promenade. I tried two of the little pudding cup things from Sorrento’s. I went back to the room, and shortly afterward collapsed asleep.