Crusan with Susan

Sunday, December 7, 2014

2014-12-7 embarkation day for our girls' Carnival cruise:

My son-in-law, Josh, drove us to the Everglades cruise port and dropped us off---it's so nice having relatives who live in the area. We thought by going later in the afternoon---after 2, we'd get in right away. But there were some flaws in that thinking! Not only did we still wait over an hour to board the ship, but all the food venues on board were closed by the time we got on (except 24 hour room service). We walked our luggage on board, so unpacked and waited for the muster drill. Angie and I had room 1256, an oceanview cabin. It was a good sized room and pretty quiet.

cabin 1256

Turns out the porthole room my sister and sister-in-law had (1217) was very noisy. They would hear very loud bangs most of the night. We figured it was from the bulbous bow slapping the water. Angie and I could barely hear it, but we were 5 or 6 cabins farther towards the center. We both could hear the thrusters in the morning when we were coming into ports, but that was ok with me.

Angie and I were on the port forward side of level 1 and Carolyn and Jane were on the starboard forward side of level 1, so we had different muster stations. We couldn't find them after the muster drill --- called, went by their room---so just wandered around a bit and watched as we pulled away from Fort Lauderdale.

another ship leaving in front of us.

Bye Bye Fort Lauderdale!

By now we were really hungry. Again we tried to find the other gals. Finally did, but they had already eaten! They went with us to the restaurant anyway. We had anytime dining and lucked into a great wait staff the first night. The head waiter, Andrew, even showed us a couple magic tricks. His team was very friendly, efficient and quick. After having dinner in another section the next night and service taking forever, we asked for Andrew's section from then on and always got it.

Ahhh---our table awaits!

Did I mention the ship was decorated for Christmas? This was by the entrance to the restaurant.

After dinner it was time to head to the main theatre and check out the show. First the cruise director introduced himself----Weeee Jimmy. A very different kind of cruise director then I've seen before, but a good one.

The singers and dancers were very good!

Only thing missing was the live band that was there last year when Angie and I were on the Freedom for a 4 night cruise. Missed that band!

I'm a sucker for laser shows!

The backgrounds thrown up on the screens were really interesting, too.

After the main show, we checked out the movie playing on the big screen by the family lido pool. I forget what it was, but it was the only one that we cared to watch the whole 6 nights. But we did stop by there many nights for the free popcorn!