The construction between the airport and the terminal was crazy and somehow we ended up at Port Everglades before we had turned in our rental car. Chris had to hand the agent his drivers license, drive forward a little bit to turn around, and then stop to pick up his drivers license again. We made it back to the airport after filling the gas tank. We had a lovely Hertz agent who said that we could leave our bags in the car and another agent would drive us back to the Port. We were happy to comply rather than try to find a taxi.
Our fairly non-talkative Hertz agent dropped us off at the terminal. We tagged and dropped off our luggage and proceeded to stand in the first of many long lines. We zigzagged back and forth outside the building and when we finally arrived inside the building and saw the ten plus zigzagging lines, we knew we were in for a bit more of a wait. That was the line for security. We were then in line for checking in until they had us separate according to deck. More lines.
Once we were finally on board the ship, we climbed stairs from the 4th to the 10th floor. It was a bit of a workout. We checked in to our room at 1318 and then went to explore. Our luggage wouldn't be delivered for awhile. We found ourselves in the Windjammer Cafe for lunch. It was packed. Packed. We were thrilled to run in to our friends Nathan and Polly Doyel. We met them on our last Couple's cruise and had a lot of fun together.
We explored the ship until it was time to meet for our Opening Social. We immediately reconnected with Kevin and Laura Brotherson. Laura is the headliner for the seminars and put the cruise together. Seriously, if you want a really fun cruise to attend, this is the one. We have developed friendships on these cruises that will last a lifetime. Plus we learn how to make our marriage better. There is always something to improve upon, ideas to glean from other couples, and new ideas from Laura to work on. Our kids should just know right now that we plan to attend the next cruise to Alaska in September 2016.
Muster. Probably the least fun part of the trip, but it was required. We left from our B15 muster station and climbed stairs back up to our room. Our luggage had been delivered so we spent a little time settling in for the week. Our dinner time was set for 6 pm for the week in the MacBeth dining room. It was impressive to say the least. We were supposed to have assigned seating for the entire week, but there were three different groups within our Couple's cruise group that wanted to sit together. That meant that we were displaced for the rest of the week. Not our favorite part of the event, but I can understand how they wanted to be together. The drawback, I think though, was that some of them kept to their group and never really got to know many other people in the group. The first night at dinner though, we were with Kevin and Laura and other couples who had been on the last cruise.
We spent so much time talking that we missed the opening show. Instead, we decided to meet up after dinner at the Cupcake Place on the Promenade. Chris and I waited for awhile thinking that no one else would come and just as we were about to leave, a couple of other couples dropped in. We stayed in the Cupcake Place for a bit chatting but our group was overtaking the shop and it didn't allow for many others to come in. Chris had fun talking to the girls in the shop who were Filipino. He always loves surprising Filipino's by speaking to them in their language.
We moved to the Champagne Lounge. I think the servers weren't too thrilled when they realized that we were taking up space in the lounge without drinking. We chatted for a couple of hours with Kevin and Laura, Nathan and Polly, and Taylor and Sarah Giles.