1-18-15 Sunday (Cruise – Day 1 – Port Canaveral)

Good morning!  As I said in the last post, I awoke refreshed.  The hotel had a breakfast of waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy as well as items found for a continental breakfast.  Good enough. 

Here’s our view out of the hotel room.

Above: It’s one of them there swimmin’ holes.  We ain’t got enough time to swim.

It was a 3 star hotel we got for $55 a night via Priceline.  It turned out to be a very nice hotel room.  Better than Disney for sure.

3 more hours on the road and we arrived at Port Canaveral.  The line to drop off people wasn’t very long but was annoyingly slow.  Once we got close enough to see the holdup, we found they only seemed to allow for 4 vehicles at a time to pull in and unload.  People moved at the speed of pause as they unloaded luggage and passengers.  It was as if they were still packing their suitcases or something.  We unloaded the car quickly.  Jim parked while I waited at the entrance to the check-in building.   Jim was able to park fast.  Once inside, the whole embarkation process went fast. 

Here’s our itinerary:

We made it onto the boat!  We found our cabin, dropped off our carry-ons and went up to the Windjammer (their buffet area) for lunch.  I caught an old man touch and squeeze 2 rolls with his hands and leave them there.  I called him out on it but realized there was something wrong with him.  Be it dementia or Alzheimer's, he didn’t seem all there.  I got a crew member who was very polite to the man to help him and move him along.  The nice crew member then discarded the handled rolls.  It was all done so discreetly unlike me who was embarrassing Jim.  Why wasn’t anyone with this man every step of the way?  Sheesh.  I know, some of you are saying “that’s why I don’t like buffets.”  It’s all they had going at the time.

Above: One end of the Royal Promenade.

After lunch we returned to our cabin to unpack our carry-ons (luggage would arrive later).  We explored the ship a little.  We’re on Explorer of the Seas which is a sister ship to the Navigator of the Seas which we’ve been on twice before.  So we’re pretty good navigating the ship.

Later in the evening, we went to dinner in the main dining room.  Jim wanted escargot but it wasn’t on the menu.  The waiter sent over the head waiter and they weren’t able to accommodate him that evening but they would have it available for him on other nights.  Fantastic service, as usual.  They gave him some type of scallop in butter thing that he said was good.  I had mushroom soup which was amazing.  We both had prime rib which was awesome. 

The theater show was “Welcome Aboard Show” which featured highlights for the week coming up mixed in with tidbits of entertainment.

We finished out the night on the Royal Promenade, where we watched the “Bon Voyage Parade”.  It wasn’t all that great of a parade so I didn’t bother with photos.