Blog

Mar. 7^th: We flew from Oxnard to Miami and spent the night at the Embassy Suites.

Leaving Oxnard Seabridge from the Air

Mar. 8^th: The day started with breakfast at the hotel. The limo picked us up and we had a quick 25 minute ride to the cruise terminal. We breezed through the check in process and headed to our inside room on the Promenade deck (P240). After unpacking we hit the buffet for the first of many meals and toured the ship. There are a lot of pools onboard and we picked out the spot we would try to do our sun bathing at. The sail away was impressive. The residents of Ft Lauderdale come out of their homes and apartments and wave us off, some flying Princess Flags. The Goodyear blimp flew over to send us off. Several ships were in dock and we left 1 by 1. All in all this was the best send off we have experienced.

One problem we had was that our dining preference was messed up. We discovered that a lot of folks had the same problem. We met with the Matre'd and got that straightened out but unfortunately not everyone else did so at our first dinner we were missing part of our table mates. After dinner we got a pleasant surprise. A message greeted us in our stateroom informing us that we were being upgraded to a balcony room. Kathy worked with the stewards to move us up to the Riviera Deck 14 and our new room R520. While she was doing that I played in the Poker Tournament. I got knocked out mid tournament, although I had several good hands, as is always my luck, the winner sat to my left and was always luckier. For example my first hand was pocket queens. He stayed in with a 6 & 8 unsuited (a fold any day). He managed to pair both before the end and I took my first big hit on chips. Oh well, Kathy and I enjoyed another walk of the ship checking out the shops and sampling some of the smaller groups providing entertainment before retiring for the evening.