Bahamas Cruise Days 0 and 1 - Ft Lauderdale and Embarking

As is becoming the annual tradition, the adult folks in the Saunders house fled the cold Ohio winter for warmer shores on a big boat. This year, I (Rick) found a last minute cruise for a too good to pass up price.

We were not thrilled with the destination as we were there last year, but the Bahamas would certainly be warmer than Toledo.

My schedule had been quite busy leading up to the trip and Audrey had also been stretched extra thin. The result was that we did not get to start packing until about 11:00 pm Saturday night with a 12:00 noon flight the next day. After a flurry of clothes, toiletries and suitcases, 4 bags were miraculously situated in the hallway.

Emma had already been dropped off with some friends that would be watching and playing family for the week. Jacob was to be picked up by another surrogate family before church on Sunday.

After actually getting up at our planned time (I know, right???) we still ended up running late getting out of the house. We made good time to the airport and scrapped our offsite parking plans in exchange for actually making our flight. We flew through Chicago en route to Ft Lauderdale. So far, our plans seemed to be going well. Then came the hotel transfer…

Apparently the shuttle service our particular hotel for the night offered only ran hourly. Of course that is not advertised. We watched shuttle after shuttle come and go but had to continue waiting in the frigid 70 degree Florida weather. We powered through it and eventually ended up at our hotel. Since this was the beginning of our cruise vacation, we had food on our minds. We called a recommended Chinese restaurant and had it delivered to our hotel room. It wasn’t half bad.

In the morning, we walked to Chipotle and had lunch. A different shuttle came to the hotel and took us to the Port of Miami here we boarded our ship. It was uneventful.

Royal Caribbean has the process down to a science and it was smooth. Once on board, we unpacked. We like to get inside cabins midship to limit motion and allow for a VERY dark room. Our cabin was quite small but adequate. Of the criticisms that I’d read of this particular cruise, cabin size seemed to be the most often cited.

While I continued to unpack, Audrey graciously offered to try out the bed. Apparently, it was adequate because she was out like a light.

This was the first time we have selected the earlier dining option. It ended up suiting us well. We were fashionably late for our first dinner. It took a little longer getting ready because Audrey received a special gift that she’ll have to tell about.

We were seated with 2 other female couples. They were both mother/daughter pairs. The sea was angry, my friend. It got to Audrey a bit. I had brought some phenergan and she took 1. It made her stomach feel better, but she was high as a kite. She made it through dinner fine but kept saying how weird she felt. Pretty cheap date……

Then, it was off to the show. It was kind of an intro” show with a variety of the performers doing a few minutes. After the show, Audrey was still feeling pretty tired and “off” so we headed off to bed. Day 1 was deemed a success.