So happy to be here

After a short sleep, we were up around 9 to grab breakfast before leaving the hotel, just in case we can't get food for the next week. (ha).

The hotel had a very nice buffet for their elite members, and after enjoying juice, coffee, an omlette etc, we headed over to the CVS next door so that we could get sunscreen and Beth could pick up her sea sickness bands. Perhaps the world's best placebo.

Following that, we went back to the room to pack up and grab an uber to the port. She wanted to send letters to her daughters, so, as we were checking out, asked the front desk if they had stamps. They did not, but did mention that there was a post office next door. So we left the bags, and found the post office. Of course it was closed, since not all are open on Saturday. And this was one of the few post offices that didn't have stamp machines outside. So back we went for our bags. Beth summoned Uber and we were on our way.

Not long after, we pulled up to the pier. Last year, there were two ships in, this year there were 4. Two Carnival and the MSC Seaside. We quickly gave our luggage to the porter, and heading inside. As we were checking in, wearing our Mardi Gras beads to identify us as Cruise Critic, the couple behind us introduced themselves as members of our roll call. They were another of the several people who had taken advantage of the last minute price reduction to move to a mini suite.

Check in went smoothly and we were shortly on the ship. With our welcome drinks in hand, we headed to Michael's club to wait for the rooms to be ready. We sat at a corner table, and a crew member brought us a small plate of appetizers. I stopped to chat with fellow roll callers Ann and Greg, and Beth soon joined us, so we moved ourselves over with them.

At about 1:10 I asked the suite manager if the rooms were ready, as it was getting close to restaurant closing time. She confirmed that our deck was ready. We went to the room, dropped our bags and headed out to lunch. On the way out, our butler Jo introduced himself. He mentioned that he'd be bringing appetizers to our room each night and a few other things.

We headed down to Luminae for lunch and met the hostess, Maitre'd and some of the wait staff. We settled down at one of the window tables. For lunch, I ordered one of the famous Luminae burger. The jam on it was great, but the burger is way too thick. I had to take it out of the bun. Beth had the risotto and pronounced it very good.

We were starting to push uo against muster drill time, so we decided to just stay around the lower decks to wait for it.

Our muster station was Michaels club, and I noticed that this one was taken a bit more seriously than our previous drill. There was a life jacket demonstration, and then the silly movie. After that the station leader went through some of the safety information.

< By this time, it was pouring rain. We were planning to do the usual Cruise Critic mast bar meeting, so we headed up. Too wet to get there, so we went to the Cafe Bar instead. No one was there, so we grabbed a drink. Eventually, the rain let up a bit, so we went up to Sunset Terrace Bar. No one there either, so walking under the overhang we headed towards the center of the ship. We then ran into Bob and Vicky from our roll call. We chatted with them and some of the other CC folks for a while, and headed back to the room to get ready for dinner and the show.

We decided to go see A.J. Jamal, a comedian. I've seen his name around cruise ships a lot, so thought it might be fun to actually see him. He was basically funny, although he had three very embarrassed boys on stage with him, so that was honestly more painful than funny.

After that, we headed to Luminae for dinner. We had our soon to be usual waiter, and enjoyed the first night dinner. It was nice that Yun, the Sommelier, did base our wine on what we were eating. I started with Burrata cheese and a steak for dinner.

After dinner, it was back to room, since it has been a very long couple of days.