Sail Away - Embarkation

  Bayonne, New Jersey, United States
Sunday, December 23, 2007

EMBARCATION: Smooth. Only snafu was that the travel agency failed to provide luggage tags and we had to track down the porters to tag our luggage. Everybody was friendly and helpful and the lines were short and moved quickly. Tip - pleas be prepared for the metal detectors - no one wants to be behind the person stripping down because they are wearing all metal belts etc.

Once on board: RCI has changed its procedures and blocks off the doors to the cabins until 1pm. So no going to your cabin until then regardless of whether or not it is clean. This was not an issue. Our cabin was nice. A balcony on the right side of the ship. (yes after all my cruises i don't know my port from my starboard) I'm watching the sunset as I type this. Our Cabin attendant, Annoup, is great. He informed us that we were his only Americans - all the other passengers he was working with were from England.

We were continually meeting our fellow cruise critic members as we boarded and met up with them after a nice salad with turkey in the Windjammer. They had an extensive array of burgers, hot-dogs, pasta, soup and other foods as well.

Then we had the obligatory Muster Drill -

Muster drill

was tricky as our station was a bit far away from our room - did not make sense.

We always end up with hundreds of pictures. We will upload a few for you here.

We watched sail-away at Dizzy's - it was GREAT!

First CC Meet

First CC Meet

First CC Meet

First CC Meet

First CC Meet

First CC Meet

First CC Meet

sail away - first CC Meet

sailaway

As soon as the ship started under the bridge, we all leaned up to get pictures.

sail away

The ship made it under the Verazanno Narrows - as always it looked like it would not make it.

makes under bridge

barely

there we go