Saturday, August 6, 2011

2011 Cruise Vacation Day 1 and 2









Well, last year I got the first day of our cruise vacation blogged and nothing else. I hope to do better this year. Here is a quick run down and I'll add pictures later.

We left out on Saturday, July 23rd. We flew from XNA to Puerto Rico. The flights were not that great to say the least. The lady at the airport assured me that James had exit row seats for the flights. The first one we did. The LONG flight (5 1/2 hour one) we DID not. So, James was miserable to say the least. We finally landed in PR and got our baggage. We headed to our hotel, The Radisson. I was a little nervous about this because I had read varying reviews. We got there and were told that we had to go to the Penthouse to check in. This made me feel a little better...he he. We went to check in and everything went fine. The room ended up being rather nice. It was a suite layout so that was good. When we got in the room, the phone rang. It was the man that I had checked in with. He said that there was a problem with the credit card that I had given him. Well to make a long story short...after 3 various phone calls to Citibank, I found out that they had placed a hold on it because we were in PR. When a transaction happened from there, the fraud department was alerted. I finally got all of that straightened out...after MUCH stress..

The next morning I got up early and went and had breakfast. I was able to visit with a very nice lady from Iowa. She was a sponsor for a youth group of about 20 teens that were doing mission work in PR. We had a really nice visit and it was very encouraging for both of us I think.

Around noon we headed to the cruise terminal. The check in was smooth and easy here. Although, it seemed like we had to walk a mile with our luggage at this terminal. The VIP room was opened and had air conditioning so we were happy. We had to wait about 15 min. before we were allowed to go on the boat. James and I were the 7th person on the boat.

We headed on up to the Lido deck because our rooms were not ready. We sat and played with our new camera for a little while and then had some lunch. It was very nice to be on the boat and just be able to relax while there were no people bustling around. It was the only time that we didn't have to wait in line to get food all week. We had our choice of whatever we wanted!!

Later on we went on up to our floor and snuck back to our room. It was ready so we went on in and dropped off our carry on luggage.

Around 5 we got a call in our room and it was the security officer. She said that we needed to immediately come down to the lowest level of the ship because there was an issue with James' luggage. I was getting a little nervous at this. I had gotten my luggage very early in the afternoon, but James' had not shown up. So, we immediately went down to the security area of the boat. The officers told us that we had to go back to the pier and talk to the police there. At this point, I'm pretty nervous. They all knew our name, etc. VERY weird.. We get there and they fumble around looking for our bag and finally get it. The man says, well it looks like there is a fan in there and those are not allowed. We had no idea that we couldn't take it with us. It was just a small portable fan. (We are light sleepers so we like to have a fan to make noise and to help us stay cool in case the air doesn't work well, etc.) So, he told us that he would throw it away and we couldn't have it. So, all the commotion was over a small fan. But, the saga continues because we decided since we were already off the boat that we would just head on out to the local CVS and buy some soft drinks to take on the ship with us. You can buy cokes on the boat, but they are 2.50 a drink so at the CVS we could get a whole 6 pack for 1.99. So we went and stocked up. However, in my scurrying to get to the security area, I had forgotten to take my picture ID. I had my boat security card that is usually used to get on and off, but I didn't have anything else. Thankfully we had an officer that saw us come out and allowed me back on with no problem. The second officer wasn't quite as friendly but he believed me and just told James that he would be responsible if anything happened. So, that was the adventure for the first day.

That night we went to dinner and then had our muster drill (Safety drill) at 9:00. The boat set sail and our vacation was beginning!

1 comment:

Frances said...

You guys surely enjoyed the time of your lives at that cruise vacation! Now I wonder when I could avail one of those packages from www.AdoreCruises.co.uk so that I could take some time off from work and relax...