Got a good night's sleep. Sunny and cool morning (but still a lot warmer than when we left Seattle). Rain had been predicted but did not appear, thank goodness. Continental breakfast was free with the room (bagel, banana and coffee) so we joined the throng of other cruisers and paid $3 each for scrambled eggs, hot cakes, bacon and fried potatoes. Not bad at all considering the price.
We packed up and joined the rest of the cruisers outside waiting for their assigned vans and trailers to haul them off to their respective ships. It all ran really smoothly. Off we went to Port Everglades. It was farther away than we thought from the motel's position on the map we had. We went through the "cattle chute" luggage check-in at Holland America, then filled out paperwork to let them know if we were sick or had any diseases they should know about. They took each of our pictures to use onboard ship to match up with us when we embarked or disembarked. We had our pictures formally taken at the top of the escalator on the way to the ship. Before we knew it, we were getting on the MS Eurodam, one of the newest of the Holland America line. We stopped to take pictures of all the other ships in the half dozen ports that make up Port Everglades. They were all full this day.
We somehow ended up at the aft (back end) end of the ship in front of the main dining room (Rembrandt). Since we couldn't get in our stateroom for awhile, we had lunch with 3 other couples, 1 from South Carolina, 1 from New Jersey and 1 from Long Island. I had a corned beef sandwich, coffee and a bit of Mike's cake. Mike had a pasta dish and chocolate mousse cake. A good time was had by all. Then we were off to find our room. But before we tried to do that, we headed to the medical center to pick up some freebie motion sickness pills. They keep them in a big box that you can just come dip into any time you need some. We then took the elevator up to deck 6 where our cabin was and wound our way through the long halls to the forward starboard (right) room, number 6001. It was a relatively big cabin with a very nice "verandah" as Holland America refers to it, or a balcony in more common terms. Very cool. Room for 2 chairs, a small table and foot stool and floor to ceiling solid separators between our balcony and the balcony on the right. On the left was nothing. Since we were in the front cabin on that deck, when you poked your head around the balcony separator on the left, you could see forever. Like I said, very cool.
The room has 3 small closets with fold out doors and 1 with a full length mirror. There were more than enough wooden hangers for both of us. One of the closets contained shelves for things like sweaters or folded shirts. The 2 bottles of liquor that we had pre-ordered were in the room. Along with them was a very unexpected but wonderful surprise. Corre and Nick had sent us a bottle of champagne as an anniversary / bon voyage gift. Before we left port, Mike sent off a quick thank you text message to both of them.
The room also contained a large green leather sofa which could convert into a sleeper with pillows. It also contained a DVD player with a booklet containing hundreds of DVDs that we could choose from any time we wanted during the trip. The trip turned out to be so interesting and kept us so busy that we never took advantage of the DVDs. Outside the room was a box on the wall next to the room that was used as our mail box during the cruise. In it were copies of reservations that we had made to various restaurants on the ship before we left Seattle plus a daily itinerary provided each evening and a newsletter of daily world news events.
As we were getting comfortable in the room, one of our assigned room stewards knocked on the door with our bags. Off to a great start with what turned out to be 2 of the nicest, most attentive, thoughtful and efficient room stewards anyone could possibly want.
The bathroom in our stateroom had a European style floor with a slotted floor separating the shower from the toilet sink area, no sill around the shower. Just a shower curtain separating the shower from the rest of the bathroom. You'd think the water might run all over the bathroom floor but the design worked very well and kept the water running through the slots without ever spilling over into the rest of the bathroom. The tiny sink area had 2 tiny glass shelves in the corner. Just enough for a few days use. All in all a very efficiently layed out bathroom and main living area. Almost forgot, the main living area also contained a small safe, locking drawers in bedside tables and a complimentary fruit bowl. But of course our favorite area of all was the verandah. We dropped into the cushions sitting atop the rattan chairs and sipped on champagne, enjoying the late afternoon sun before we began our cruise.
At 4:30PM we had a mandatory lifeboat drill. Not like the old days, or so I'm told. No longer do you have to put on your lifejacket and make you way to your lifeboat. Now you just go to your appointed lifeboat (as defined by a number on the card you're given when you board the ship) and stand around while instructions are given about how to put on the lifejacket and get in your lifeboat if it's ever needed. That lasted about 15 minutes. This was the first time we had seen most of the other passengers on the ship. Several people were apparently already bombed and having a hard time being quiet so the crew could give their lifeboat instructions.
After the lifeboat drill we headed back to the cabin but stopped by the pizza bar to grab a couple pieces of very bland, tasteless pizza. Along with the pizza we had a couple of the 'special' drinks so we could have souvenir glasses. The drinks weren't any better than the pizza.
The biggest ship we saw pulling out was the Oasis of the Seas. What a gigantic floating hotel that is. A police boat guarded each ship as they pulled out, to keep small boaters from getting too close to the ships.
By the time we pulled out of port it was getting dark. Around 8:00 we decided to look for some place to eat dinner. No problem right? Seems everybody else wanted to eat at the same time and a lot of them had sense enough to make reservations for the first night after coming onboard. We eventually went to the Crow's Nest bar all the way forward on the top deck. Beautiful view from there. We had a pre-dinner drink and then headed for the dreaded Lido buffet BBQ dinner. We were too hungry by that time to care much about how good the dinner was. It was okay but typical buffet food. After dinner we went back to the room to unpack and wind down a bit. Time passed quickly and at 11:00 we went back to the Lido to see what they might have for a late night snack. Nothing. But there were desserts. We had a few and found out quickly that desserts in the Lido buffet were also very bland. Oh well, grabbed a couple cookies and went back to the room to crash after a very long day.
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