Hmm, nice but not the one I'm looking for this morning:
Ahh yes, there she is:
It was just a little windy this morning with storms in the forecast. In case you couldn't tell by the palm trees looking like they were in a wind tunnel in my pictures.
Dad didn't want to bother with breakfast so I started my day with the hearty energy snack known as Chex Mix that we'd picked out from an airport gift shop in between flights the day before. It's kind of like having cereal right?
Mr. I Never Get To Sleep At Night was snoring away so I tried to keep myself entertained by playing games on my tablet. My interest kept returning back to Facebook and Cruise Critic however and reading all the fellow cruisers' reports on our roll calls about already heading to the port. I had tried to share Smitha's email of warning to delay arrival because of the Coast Guard inspection but I was met with the basic response of "I'm going early anyway." Honestly, I would have probably agreed if I was in their shoes. Sit around a hotel room waiting or sit around at the port, no real difference. By 10:40AM, the restlessness (and the housekeeper's blaring radio behind our connecting door) got the better of us and we headed down to the lobby to check out. A light sprinkle had started to fall as I waited under an overhang outside with our luggage as Dad got in line to check out. Being so close to the port, I'd say 99% of the guests staying at this hotel last night were cruisers so I spent the time chatting with a lovely woman who was also heading to the Oasis of the Seas.
Dad was back a few minutes later and we made our way to the front of the hotel. The lobby, the outside bar/pool area, and especially the front porch area were mobbed with people waiting for their turn on the shuttles. To the hotel's credit, we noticed both last night and this morning that they were moving shuttle after shuttle through repeatedly. We, after giving up on a long wait for a shuttle driver to finally leave 2 cruises ago and grabbing the nearby taxi, decided to skip the shuttle line and go straight for our first Uber experience this time. The app told us a driver was under one minute away and I honestly expected to see a car come peeling out of the parking lot over to us. Our driver did pull up from down the road a minute or so later and had plenty of room for our two big suitcases and us in his SUV. Got lots of glares from the people standing there waiting to get on the shuttle and our driver just kept telling them to call UBER instead of waiting as we climbed in his car.
At the port 10 minutes later with the heavy morning traffic. We tried explaining about having to pull up past the crowds of people to the front where the Star Class banner is (or was supposed to be) but he seemed confused. Instead he offered to take us in the back way to the port and after weaving around some tour bus size shuttles, found an open parking space next to the door. He pulled in, unloaded our bags for us and all we had to do was walk around some people hovering by the door waiting and smoking. Turns out the purple "Star Class" banner everyone says to look for was folded up and sitting to the side of the entrance doors. We walked up to the first port employee we spotted and mentioned being Star Class. We'd dug out our sail passes and the Star Class sign Smitha sent us to show them. The employee we first encountered, Debra, couldn't have been nicer and more helpful once we identified as Star Class. There was a couple porters sitting in wait nearby and she immediately beckoned one of them over to collect our luggage. Since we were never sent luggage tags, it took another 20 seconds of effort while the porter wrote ones out for us. He loaded our two big suitcases onto a rolling cart and followed behind us while we followed Debra inside.
Debra used her phone to text Smitha to let her know we were here and assured us that Smitha would meet us inside. Debra led us through a secondary door next to the one being monitored by port staff and escorted us next through security. Our porter followed close behind putting our suitcases through the scanner after we sent our carry on bags through first. I joked to Dad that I felt like I should be doing the royal pageant wave as we were rushed past the throngs of people already seated and waiting. Debra had us wait over to the side once past all the security and another employee came right over. After a few quick words with Debra, the second employee took our passports and passes from her and rushed away. Debra explained that since the Coast Guard inspection was still going on, they weren't technically allowed to check anyone in yet, much less let them board. They were getting around this rule for the Star Class people by taking their info from us and checking us in while we stood to the side so that it didn't look like we were standing at the counter getting checked in. The employee came back a few minutes later to return our passports and handed us our official Star Class sea pass cards.
I could now see why a previous reviewer commented on the now darker purple look to the cards instead of the old black coloring. It really does look super close to the magenta coloring of Sky Class cards.
Once we got our cards, around 11:15AM, Debra led us to the "suite" waiting area which was roped off and guarded by port employees. It's the farthest you can walk into the terminal without walking directly up to the ship and has more couch plus chairs seating instead of the straight back chairs in rows the rest of the passengers get. The waiting area was already quite packed but Debra took the initiative to direct us to two spots together on one of those round cushioned seats you might find in an old movie theater lobby. There was coffee, juice, water, and pastry snacks set up but by then had mostly been picked clean. I grabbed a couple cookies for Dad and cups of water for both of us while he watched our carry on bags. We were glad that we'd taken the time to tip our porter as soon as we all got through security because he took off and disappeared with our luggage by the time we were in the waiting area.
Soon we noticed many lavender shirt attired genies wandering around. I happened to choose a purple shirt at random to wear today and Debra made a point of saying to look out for those "wearing a shirt close to the color of your shirt." Pretty sure the first genie to wander by was the infamous Israel I'd read about in so many other reviews. Soon we noticed a young woman standing across from us in her lavender shirt looking at her phone and then squinting back in our direction over and over. I motioned to Dad that I bet that's our Smitha and sure enough, she soon came over and tentatively asked if we were Al and Danielle. We confirmed that we were and she explained that she'd been trying to look up our photo on her phone to be sure it was us and not finding any photo. Smitha gave us a quick briefing about waiting for the inspection and stepped away to go find her other family she was expecting. They ended up calling her and the two discovered that they were talking to each other from 10 feet away. Around 11:40AM, the genies started gathering their respective Star Class guests to stand in front of the doors to the gangway so that we would be in the front of the line when the call comes to board. As we'd been sitting waiting, we heard several intercom announcements about keeping the middle section clear. Now, as we were the only group standing in the middle section, we just stood there staring at the woman as she stared at us continuing to make announcements about staying clear of the middle section. I guess she was required to make such an announcement every so often because even she was laughing with us by the time she was done talking.
We soon got to meet the other occupants of the 8th deck 2 BR ATS on the opposite side of the ship as their large family with several children were our embarkation buddies all going onboard at once with Smitha just before noon. Within a couple minutes of walking toward the gangway, one of their children started to get a little too excited as little ones do and wanted to go everywhere but where Smitha was trying to lead us. She quickly took his hand to walk with him and I think in his eyes it was love at first sight. We entered via the Promenade deck and discreetly, Smitha asked if I minded being left to wait while she got the other family settled in their cabin first. I of course understood and agreed. We all piled into an elevator together and the young boy who'd been holding Smitha's hand immediately got upset because he'd been led to the back of the elevator to stand by his parents. He pushed around everyone until he got back in front to stand by Smitha. His parents assured him that she wasn't going anywhere but he shot back a look that showed he definitely didn't want to take that chance.
The nightclub Dazzles is the central point of deck 8 so Smitha left us waiting there while she walked the family to their cabin. If you ever want to experience the fun house mirror effect, look straight out toward the boardwalk area of the ship through those windows behind the stage in Dazzles. We might as well have been in rough seas with the distorting effect it made me feel as I was trying to point out all the things I'd seen in vlogs to Dad. Dad opted to take a seat in the empty nightclub with our bags and I wandered out to the corridor to look at the artwork. By the time I returned to take a seat myself, Smitha appeared from the back of Dazzles to rejoin us. She thanked us for waiting and we assured her again that we understood how a family of little kids would not be as willing to sit and wait like us.
We followed Smitha into the stairwell where she opened the big door marked with that "rooms not ready till 1:30PM" sign and led us down the hall. We passed several open cabins still being cleaned and one crew member who turned out to be our steward Ann Marie, tried to stop us with a warning that the cabins weren't ready. Smitha asked if she was the new replacement and explained that we were Star Class passengers. The 2 BR ATS is literally the farthest down the hall on deck 8 you can go. Our cabin door was on the right and a crew door/closet was perpendicular to it marking the end of the hall. We headed inside and Smitha had already set out the menus and extra Compass editions I'd requested across the coffee table. She went over the paperwork in our folder explaining our reservation schedule, our internet codes, and all the perks we could enjoy on board. She mentioned reserving seats for the shows and we took the time to ask about modifying that to get seats on the aisle with a spot in between as Dad likes to be on the aisle. We also asked to sit more toward the back for the comedy shows and usually find that seats in the 1st balcony level for regular shows are better views than the front row we'd read they automatically reserve for you. That was no problem according to Smitha and she made a note in her paperwork. Smitha pointed out how she'd gotten me a bag of gummy bears and would be getting Dad his M&M candy when the shop opens tomorrow. I had expected the candy would be more like a bowl that got replenished but a bag each is all we ever got. No big deal as we didn't eat any of it until we got home anyway.
I was pleased to see that my request for Vitamin Water in the cabin was granted even though Smitha said she would simply "try" to get them. They are included in Star Class and available for purchase at the Vitality Spa Café so I was a little surprised that it was even a question. What surprised me even more was that my request for root beer (expecting to have to settle for the Coke product of Barq's even though it tastes like licking a carbonated sugar cube) was granted with a supply of Diet Mug Root Beer, which is technically a Pepsi product! My favorite root beer is the regular Mug version so I was very pleasantly shocked by that. The extra waters and soda cans were left in the living room cabinet under the safe and we soon took to swapping out a few of the beers to the cabinet to make room for more sodas in the fridge. They did come routinely to replenish and were always great about bringing exactly what we were running low on. We would leave them a note with specific refill requests and always found more of what we wanted left on our countertop by the afternoon.
Note the slight spill along the bottom of the fridge. One of the sodas sprung a leak it seems as we discovered the pooled liquid 2/3rds into the week. I think with our pattern of always putting something new in to get "cold" when taking something out means we never found the less full culprit. The Fanta orange soda pictured was a flavor Dad asked for pre-cruise but it wasn't delivered until we asked for it in addition to the first replenishment of Diet Coke cans.
We also noted the tray of several extra plates and silverware wrapped in napkins left for us. It became quite the running joke because not only did we start with extra but each room service snack delivery brought another couple rounds. If you were also on this sailing and ever felt like you couldn't find a fork, I apologize because we had enough to supply our whole corridor. I joked near the end of the cruise that I was going to set up a yard sale booth out by the elevators and sell back the cutlery. Got to pay for these cruises somehow right?
This was our supply near the end of the week after we'd taken to leaving several sets on the tray of dirty dishes we had to leave in our entryway in order to make Ann Marie remove the extra dishes and food we no longer wanted:
Cabin photos and the two skating shows we experienced this day to come in the next installment. Stay tuned!
loving your detailed review. keep on writing~~
ReplyDeleteThank you! Working on the rest of embarkation day and hope to have it posted soon.
Delete