Today started with breakfast in the hotel. It was quite good. We then had to check out and catch the bus for the cruise. A very helpful lady – who we found out was also on our cruise – helped us get checked out by walking right up to the front of the line and telling the person at the counter she needed to check out, and then once she was done, she told the person at the desk our room numbers and got us checked out as well. To her, I say thank you.
So, the bus ride was faster than we thought. It took just a little over 2 hours to get from the hotel to the ship. There was an interesting group of individuals on our trip. For the first part of the trip, they were very quiet, then all of a sudden, they all got their second wind and just talked for the rest of the trip. All I am going to say is thank goodness the dining is not set up so that they sit you with other parties because if I had to dine with them, I would likely just eat in the room for the entire cruise as I think that I might hurt any one of them if they asked questions or made comments like those they did on the bus. So, please allow me to share a couple of the comments that were made.
- “I think that we are heading toward the water.” To this I say, really, we are heading toward the water? Say it isn’t so. Here I thought we were going on a land cruise.
- “I hope that that is our ship, as it is the only one there” (as we approach the dock). “Check to see if it says Royal Caribbean.” Are you kidding me? What other ship would it be???
Now for the check-in process…it was amazing and fast. They had different stations to check our Covid test results, one station to check the vaccination records, and another station to check the passport and boarding passes. Since we are in a suite, we were able to bypass the longer lines for check and go straight to a location with no line, and we were on our way to the ship in no time at all. We made it to the “safety briefing,” if you want to call it that. They asked if we did the online training, and we said yes. They said if we hear the signal to get our life jackets and meet at our muster station. Check – got that out of the way. We then made it to our room, and to the surprise of Cindy and Dawn, there were happy birthday signs on the door, chocolate cake, and chocolate-covered strawberries in the room waiting for them. Our travel agent also sent us chocolate-covered strawberries and a fruit plate. We were missing some items, but the person at guest services was able to address the issues.
Before dinner, we decided to hit happy hour in the concierge lounge. From 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day there are hors d’oeuvres and free drinks. It was very nice, and we met the concierge while we were there. After the lounge, we took a look at the shops before heading to dinner. We ate in the main dining room, and all of our meals were great. After dinner, we took a stroll of the ship. There is a lot going on each day.
Tomorrow we dock in Kotor, Montenegro. We dock at noon local time and have to take a tender to shore. Tomorrow is a short excursion day as the last tender leaves Kotor at 5:15 p.m., thus giving us more time to explore the ship and plan for the evening.
That is all for today. Unfortunately, there are no pictures today as the ship’s Wi-Fi is SLOW tonight, and I do not have the patience to wait for them to load. As always, thanks for reading.