Caribbean Cruise...Day 1

Day 1 – April 3, 2008
Locations: Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami
Distance traveled: 2400 miles

First of all I don’t know what possessed us to get a red eye flight to Miami. Well, I guess I do...Kerry couldn’t get Thursday off so we had to fly out late Thursday night in order to be at the port in time on Friday. So we headed out to the airport about 10pm shuttled by the services of my cute mom. She was so nice to come and get us and take us to the airport. We ended up leaving way early, so we made a pit stop at Denny’s on the way and had a quick snack. Soon, we were at the airport, dropped curbside by my cute mom, and in line to check our bags. We got all checked in, and luckily we were flying first class, since our bags were 3 and 4 pounds over the limit of coach. So we didn’t have to pay anything!! We headed to the terminal to wait for our 1230 am flight.

Time to board the plane. Finally!!! The anticipation of finally being able to go on vacation and have the reality that it is finally time to start hits. They call us to bard and we head on the plane. First class, here we come. It was cool. We had little bottles of water, a pillow and blanket sitting on our seats. This was definitely going to make the almost 4 hour red eye flight a little less brutal. Each seat had its own little tv screen with tv/movies on demand. It made the flight go by so quickly. I watched Dan In Real Life and part of Juno. Both so so flicks. I didn’t even realize that it was almost time to land until the overhead announcement was made. Ok, now we just had a 2 hour layover in Atlanta. But you would have never guessed we were in Atlanta by looking out the window. It was hazy and fogging and 46 degrees!! It was cold!!!

By this point of the day, I was starving. I didn’t eat much the day we left because I was too busy doing stuff and kind of forgot. So we grabbed some breakfast at Chik-fil-a and hunkered down for our layover. Once the food coma set in and the realization that I haven’t slept in almost 24 hours I hit the wall. With a vengeance. Luckily the flight was ready to board, so we got on the plane for the second time. I think I barely made it through the safety presentation and I was out. I had my little blankie and pillow and I was sawing logs. The next thing I know, the almost 2 hour flight from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale was almost landing. Wow …how refreshing can a little catnap on plane be!!

Now the adventure can begin!! We have to find the people from Norwegian Cruise Line who had arranged for our transport from Fort Lauderdale to the Port of Miami. Us and 45 other people. We gathered our luggage, which made the trip without incident, and we were herded out to the greyhound bus that was waiting to take us to the port. We had a lively bus driver that gave us a nice little tour on the way.

We got to the port, saw the massive ship that was going to be our home for the next 9 days and proceeded to start the process called embarkation. I have never even heard of this word until about 3 months ago, when I started researching going on a cruise. Basically, it means the process of loading the ship!!! The process was relatively painless. A few lines here and there, showing your passport a few times, singing a few things, and we were headed to the magnificent Pearl. It was huge!!!

By this time it was about 1pm and staterooms were not ready so we headed to the Grand Buffet to get some lunch. It was a bit of a madhouse, since it was the only place open and everyone on board was there eating. But we managed to find a table and got some good food. As we were finishing up with our lunch, they made the announcement that our rooms were ready. We went on the search for our room

We booked a mini-suite because it was only about $200 more than a balcony room. The difference between the two is a little more room in the room and a shower with a tub. Definitely worth it. We found our room with no problem and checked everything out. It is a cozy little place to call home for the next 9 days. Our luggage wasn’t delivered yet, so we decided to just lie down and take a little lap before the lifeboat drill. And we had no problems falling asleep!!! We got up about a half hour before the drill and read the directions on our door for our emergency exit pathway. Then they announced the drill and we grabbed our life jackets and headed to the planned meeting spot. About 15 minutes later, the drill was over and we headed back to the room. Relatively painless. Our bags had been delivered, so it was time to unpack and put away everything. Once that was done, it was time to get cleaned up and ready to go explore the ship.

Once we had explored a little, we headed to La Cucina for dinner, the Italian restaurant, on the ship. Dinner was ok. Not the best Italian faire I’ve had, but it was decent. They had an odd choice of desert, okay, not so odd, just not anything we really like, so we headed to the Grand Buffet to scope out the offerings there since we knew they had ice cream. After getting a little dessert, we headed up to the 13th deck to enjoy the night. Of course we picked a terrible time to go on a cruise...the new moon phase. So not really any moonlight to enjoy. Whoops! Oh well...I think I live.

WE headed back to our room and passed one of the lounges on the way back. Kerry happened to spot a tv that was showing the Jazz game, so we stopped in there to watch the last quarter. What a cool thing. Hanging out in the middle of the ocean, somewhere between the US and Cuba, watching a game we would normally be watching from our living room. But instead, we are watching it on a cruise ship!!!

We made it back to our room and we were beat, even with our nap earlier. So it’s off to dreamland for the night. What a great day. I was worried that with the time of our flight, the hour it took to get to the pier and the whole checking in process that something would be horrible about today. But it was pretty good overall and now it’s over. Big sigh of relief! Now on to enjoy the next 9 days!!!