March 13-14th

Caribbean Cruise
March 13th/14th

The beginning of our trip was quite interesting. We left home at 8:00pm for our 11:00pm flight to Fort Lauderdale and then onto San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Daniel took us to SFO 3 hours early (just in case) and boy were we surprised at the long check-in line.
Apparently all flights in and out of JFK were cancelled so that caused major chaos with every check-in counter. We waited in line for over 2 hours until we were actually checked in. Even then the printer wouldn’t print our boarding passes. At least our luggage was going to San Juan!

By the time we finally got our boarding passes we rushed through security (I had to ask if we could cut to the front of the line) we were running to the gate in socks with our shoes in hand! Now SFO has a full body scan of both of us! We boarded the plane at last and were happy (temporarily) that we got the exit seats………until we realized that the seats didn’t recline. So, we spent the next 5 hours overnight trying to sleep sitting in the upright position. I tried to catch some shut eye laying on my tray table but no luck since the lady behind me kept kicking my seat and eating the whole night.

We started to stress a little because we left SFO an hour behind schedule and only had a one hour layover in Ft. Lauderdale. This was short lived as we found out the plane we were on was also the plane that was going to San Juan. Hard to miss that connection. For some reason even though we were flying on the same plane, they had us all get off so that they could clean it and change the crew. We sat in the Ft. Lauderdale airport for about 30-45 minutes and then re-boarded. At least this time we got row 3A &B. When we got on they told us that the free Direct TV channels won’t work on this flight so they were going to give us all free access to the onboard movies. So, we picked “Up in the air” to watch. It was a good movie even if the plane landed right before it ended! I guess we’ll have to watch it again sometime.

We got our luggage and grabbed a taxi and headed to the pier. The taxi driver told us that the ship was already boarding so that was cool since we thought we’d have to sit in line for another 2-3 hours. We got on the ship and went to the Purser’s desk to see if they would upgrade our room. She put us on the wait list…..so…..fingers crossed. She said if someone cancels they will let us know in a day or two. Our room A640 is a nice room with a nice balcony. We went up to the Horizon Café for lunch while we waited for our luggage to be delivered.

So, first thing first……….we went and checked out the gym. It is really big and has lots of equipment and no time limit on the cardio machines!!

Now Mike is officially taking his first nap while I’m writing this blog and we haven’t even left the dock yet. We passed our Mustering test and are official cruisers now.

After getting ready for dinner and trying to figure out where we wanted to eat tonight we decided to go to the Coral Dining Room. We sat with 3 other couples that were very nice. One from LA, one from NY, and the other couple were from Virginia.
We had a nice dinner and good company. Then Mike and I went to the shopping seminar (as if I need help with that)! We learned where to go to buy the goods tomorrow in St. Thomas.

Now we are finally up in our room (11pm) waiting to set sail. Boy are we tired. I better set up that wake up call for the gym before crashing.