It has officially started

We are officially started on our cruise.  For those of you who have been following along this may come as a surprise since the boat does not leave until tomorrow night (except I didn't get this finished until today).  Having been registered for and planning for 2 1/2 years, shopping and ordering cruise things for much of that time, packing for months, sending our main bags almost two weeks ago, and having flown to Florida almost a week ago it may seem strange to say we are officially starting may seem strange.  We decided that when we made contact with our cruise line Monday afternoon and they were responsible for the transfer to the hotel etc. that marked the official start of the world cruise.  

We drove back to Miami from Orlando using non-toll roads which took a little over four hours.  The toll roads would have saved about forty minutes.  Are we really that cheap you ask.  Sort of.  For those of you who have not traveled a toll road recently having a human in a toll booth to collect money is going the way of the dinosaurs.  Everything is done by transponder.  If you go on the tollway without a transponder they search for you by license plate and charge you the toll plus a $25 dollar administrative fee.  The rental car company has transponders   attached to the windshields of all their cars.  They charge $14.95 a day to activate the transponder for the duration of your rental.  We only need the access for two days.  We have the transponder we used to get into Chicago.  It will work but they won't let us use it on their cars.  It occurs to me later that they can't activate and deactivate their transponders.  It is always on and if we go on a toll road with our transponder the toll will double collect.  Of course if you use a toll road without paying the daily fee the rental car company looks at their bill, bills you for the toll and happily collects the $25 administrative fee for themselves.  So, no toll roads for us.  

We drove back to Miami sans toll roads using our phones.  Having learned on the way from Miami to Orlando that the phone keeps offering a faster route but doesn't tell you the faster route is the toll road, we automatically dismissed the offers.  Why our phone told us to exit the interstate, go a block, make a u-turn and get back on the interstate we have no idea.  And we trust these things to get us to where we need to go.  What we did not realize is that when the phone reroutes because you go off route, this time to fill up the rental car before returning it, the phone automatically reroutes to the fastest route without mentioning you will now be using a toll road.  There is a nice, very easy entry via toll road to the Miami Airport.  Fighting the phone all the way we managed to get there without using the toll road, but I suspect it was not the fastest non-toll route.

We arrived at the airport at about 3:05  and located our flight which was supposed to arrive at 2:49 but was actually listed as arriving at 3:03.  Our flight?  Didn't we just ;write about driving? Read onwards for an explanation.  We went to baggage claim and found a desk for our cruise company.  We checked in and were told to wait nearby.  A little while later the cruise greeter came over and asked if we had flown in.  I sheepishly smiled and said we had planned to originally, but had changed our minds.  You see the cruise company wanted to know when we were flying in so they could meet us and arrange our transfer to the hotel.  We flew in a week ago and that was not going to be helpful so our cruise planner specialist found the appropriate unbooked flight from Orlando and that is what we sent in to Oceania.  It is not our fault we got there before the airplane.  We expected to wait for some more passengers before being sent off to the hotel.  I think our early appearance produced consternation because it produced a wait.  This is a different class of service than we are used to.  We waited all of five minutes before being escorted to our own private shuttle bus to the Mandarin Oriental.  Look at a map to see it's location.  Exclusive location.  Very posh.  Have to tap your room key to use the elevator (forgot the first time) Way above our standard hotel and room.  We are on the 8th floor with a balcony.  Huge bathroom with deep bath and separate shower and separate room with toilet.  Super soft robes.  Massive pillows.  Very nice.

Bags were picked up this morning and taken to the ship.  We are in the first group to leave the hotel for the ship  11:15  eastern time. We will have a Covid test before being allowed on the ship.  We have used our masks virtually the whole time we've been on the move.  Pray for negative tests for both of us.  As Jennifer said, it is the only time on this trip we want to be negative.

What better to do on the shortest day of the year.  If everything goes well it will seem even shorter. Will update this post later today.

We are aboard ship. Our bus to the ship was scheduled to leave the hotel at 11:15.  We checked out at 10:40 from the hotel room and mustered at the gathering point at 10:45.  Bus started loading at 10:50 and left at 11:05 once everyone was on board.  With this group the mantra appears to be: Be early or be left.  Started pouring rain as the bus left the hotel.  Arrived at the port at about 11:20 and made our way to the covid testing site.  Jen had registered us yesterday with her phone so we went in, got a card, got tested and waited in the waiting area for our results.  That is a pretty intense fifteen minute wait.  About 80 chairs in the waiting area post test, not all filled.  We both found our negative selves and tested negative for covid.  We left the testing area a little before 12.  Got a wrist band and a sticker.  On to the boarding area.  Those of you who have cruised before may remember huge lines pushing together.  Not this time.  Into the boarding area we waited for about a minute before a spot opened at the counter.  Standard entry stuff took about five minutes and we boarded the ship.  We have discovered that many of the passengers boarding today are only doing the first leg of the trip from Miami to Los Angeles.  The 180 day world cruise starts in LA and technically the first 16 days is a tack on and not part of the advertised world cruise.  Last year's 180 day cruise started in Miami so we tacked on the extra section so we could still go all the way around the world.  Apparently 78 people are doing the whole thing.  Another 180 join us in LA to do 180 days.  The rest of the passengers will be doing chunks of varying length.  This is the first sailing of this boat in two years.  

It is 5:30 and we were supposed to leave port at 5:00.  Watching for movement on the bridge cam but we are still tied in and no movement towards untying is apparent.  I will see if this is a bridgecam you can connect with on the internet.  We will let you know.  

Well, bon voyage.  Can the people leaving say that?  I'll have to look it up.

We left at about 6:30.  No shorts or tennis shoes for dinner so had to dress up a bit.  Dinner in the formal dining areas does not start until 6:30.  It is much like a restaurant in that you show up and ask for a table.  The tables are not preassigned.  We chose to dine by ourselves on our first night.  Ordered a bottle of wine with the meal.  They will keep the remaining wine and bring it out for the next meal we request it for.