Aside from a gorgeous sunrise, seven ships in Port Everglades and a few memories associated with them, the biggest news of this turnaround day for us was that immigration came on board the Emerald Princess to clear the intransit passengers (those staying on for another cruise) into the country.
So naturally, I should be able to cut this off after 30 minutes of typing. Starting....now.
We had hoped to be up really early, so as to see the Emerald Princess arrive in Port Everglades, and, even without setting an alarm, we were. Moving clocks back on hour the night before we arrive in Fort Lauderdale gets most of the credit, but also is the fact that we really do enjoy being outside on an upper deck as the Emerald Princess slowly enters the channel leading into Port Everglades. Today we were docked at Pier 19, and eventually there was a whole lot of shaking going on as the ship turned 180 degrees and squeezed into its berth. Several ships were already there, including the Royal Princess and the Allure OTS, and the Nieuw Amsterdam arrived right after we did. And that's where the memories came from...of the seven ships in Port Everglades today, we had been on four of them- the Royal Princess, the Allure, the Nieuw Amsterdam and, of course, the Emerald Princess- in the past two months. In fact, we boarded the Royal Princess exactly two months ago today. We've been at this for two months, and on one hand it feels like it's been forever, and on the other, it feels like we're just getting started.
We were treated to a really amazing sunrise, which was particularly lucky, considering we never did see the sun today. All the clouds made this sunrise a stand out.
Before it got light, we had a perfect view of the Allure's Captain Johnny's motorcycle that he keeps on the bridge and rides in port.
After breakfast in the Botticelli Dining Room, we did two loads of laundry. We're limiting what we send out to only dry cleaning and G's tuxedo shirt; everything else we do ourselves. We're much happier doing it this way this winter, and our clothes are too.
We had been directed in the intransit letter we received last night to meet in the DaVinci Dining Room with the 505 other intransit passengers at 10:30 to walk off the ship, and pass through immigration. I expected huge delays based on the number of ships in port, but, no, most of the disembarking passengers were off the ship by 10:30. But so many of this huge group of intransit passengers needed wheelchair assistance that, for once, immigration got it right, and came to us on the ship. It was very slick: we were in a continuous line, getting scanned out with the old ship's card, showing our passport to the ICE and then immediately getting scanned back in with our new ship's card. This meant the ship count was not actually zeroed out before starting up again, which we've always been told has to happen. Can't explain it, but I liked it.
From then on things returned to normal. Lunch in the DaVinci Dining Room, purchase new soda sticker, and grab iPhone charging cord and plug in and Internet in Adagio, which is probably the quietest place on the ship on turnaround day.
We were up on Deck 19 for sailaway, as first the Nieuw Amsterdam, and then the Royal Princess (Love Boat themed horn blowing over and over and over and...) sailed.
We were next, but we were wedged in so tightly to the Allure that I wasn't surprised that I saw four officers standing on the bridge wing of the Allure and one on the open deck keeping on eye on things.
And the crew members watching from that door on the hull amused us all by waving a big hand as the Emerald Princess pushed away from the dock.
After dinner with Darko, we went to the Welcome Aboard show (my first time this winter on the Emerald Princess). After the singers and dancers did their high-energy thing, and the cruise director's staff was introduced, comedian Al Katz did a short bit. We have been Katz-free so far this winter, but I guess it was finally our time. My mother taught me that, if I can't say anything nice, to say nothing at all, but apparently Al Katz's mom didn't teach him the same thing. He told us several times that we sucked as an audience, which, of course, always helps strengthen that performer-audience bond. :-|
Ok, it's 10:20pm and I've run over already. We're going to go out to watch a bit of the Cowboys v. Eagles game and then call it a night. Other NFL Football on MUTS today:
1:00pm- Ravens v. Bengals
4:30pm- Packers v. Bears
Finally, I've passed on the Sanctuary this cruise. I enjoyed it immensely, but it falls into the category of "nice but not necessary" for me. I'll tough it out on the open decks where there's no pressure to relax.
;-)