On the morning of February 3 Eric and I were up well before the sunrise to begin our 15th anniversary celebratory getaway. We said goodbye to his parents and headed off to the airport with surprisingly no tears (although they were not far off).
By 6:30ish we were on the airplane ready for our first flight to Atlanta. Our flight was almost full and we found that our assigned seats were in the VERY back of the plane. We were seated in two of three seats with another guy taking up the aisle seat. He and Eric began talking right off the bat and we realized that he lives in Menominee, Michigan (near my parents) and is the manager of the gas station that Eric and I usually go to fill up when we are up in the Upper Peninsula. Small World.
The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. We ended up getting to spread out a bit as the other guy found an empty row nearby to move to. So Eric and I enjoyed a little shut-eye, some TV and for me some much-needed Grisham reading!
Once in Atlanta we found our gate for flight number two to Ft. Lauderdale and then grabbed a quick breakfast before taking off again.
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| I really liked this ceiling design in the Atlanta airport simulating a tree canopy complete with birds chirping and flying overhead on an LED screen above the canopy. |
Video: Airport Ceiling
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| For breakfast Eric had a bagel and I had a breakfast sandwich, but if I'd seen these gigantic cinnamon rolls BEFORE I'd ordered, things likely would have been different! ;) |
Once we arrived in Ft. Lauderdale our baggage came quickly, we got a cab to Port Everglades and checked into our ship all in under one hour! Before we knew it we were aboard Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas walking through the Royal Promenade and up to our room on deck 8.
Soon after finding our room (and checking out the Virtual Balcony...because we opted to save the money rather than pay for a REAL balcony) we were surprised by an anniversary gift from Royal Caribbean: Chocolate Covered Strawberries and Sparkling Grape Juice!
Note: If you want to see what our room looked like this video, although long winded, shows almost exactly what our room and the virtual balcony looked like. I did get a kick out of the video near the end though because the guy tried to turn off the balcony with the remote and could not get it to work. Eric had the same problem during our vacation. He couldn't get the remote to work, but every time I used it to turn off the screen it worked fine for me. :P
After getting unpacked and settled in Eric and I set off to tour the ship and pick up a late lunch/pre-dinner snack. We found a nacho buffet and settled in for "nacho thirty".
Soon after Nacho Thirty, it was time to set sail. For this we headed out to find a good place to view as we left the port and ended up on the observation platform above the ships bridge. There we said goodbye to Florida and eagerly looked at the vast ocean for our adventure ahead.
As the Florida coastline faded into the distance, the sky began to darken as night fell on our first day of Operation D.A.T.E. We headed back to our room to change for our first dinner in the Main Dining Room. I'd like to say that the dinner was great, but it left much to be desired. The food was okay but the service was incredibly slow. On the cruises we've gone on in the past we were with a large group of people and dinner in the Main Dining Room was a time for us all to catch up on what we'd done for the day. This time it was just Eric and I with no one else to talk to, after spending the entire day together, and having spent the last five years trying to eat meals as quickly as possible to keep up with the crazy pace of life as parents. This meal took over 1.5 hours for the first two courses and by the time we were finished with the 2nd course we decided to skip dessert and do something more entertaining. So, I won't say it was bad, it just wasn't my favorite party of the day.
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| Favorite party of dining room meals: The bread! <3 |
The 'something more entertaining' that we left dinner early for was TV music trivia in Schooner Bar. Eric and I ended up teaming up with two older guys that were playing cards in the bar. With their help on one or two of the older shows, we ended up getting 13 out of 15 correct, tying us for first place. We would have gotten 14 correct, if we hadn't mistook the NCIS song for CSI (something I should have known!). Since we tied we had to have a tie breaker. The first song was the song from Night Rider and the second was the theme to the Brady Bunch. Both teams easily answered those, so we had to go on to a third round. For this one the British RC trivia host played the theme to BBC News which no one knew. Since we couldn't find a song to break the tie she gave us a ship trivia for how many bar workers there where on the ship. We ended up winning with the best guess even though we were still quite off (the number was 123 I think). Our Prize: A Royal Caribbean keychain (just what I've always wanted!)
After our trivia win, we finished out the day with a stroll around the ship, riding the carousel on Boardwalk and taking a photo opp with Shrek in the Royal Promenade.
That virtual balcony is awesome! We' always get the "obstructed view" rooms on the NCL cruises we've done, but the virtual balcony seems way better! And is probably cheaper!
ReplyDeleteIt was cheaper (only like $25 more than a regular interior room and almost $1000 cheaper than a balcony). I would have preferred a balcony view much more but since we were really in our room we thought this would be a better option. It was ok but I can't say I would pay anything more than $25 for it. The image wasn't the great and the lighting wasn't right. It was much darker than if you were really looking outside. I did like that I could tell when the sun was coming up in the morning though...since we didn't sleep in well.
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