4 May
2007:
The
car to take us to the airport arrived at 4:30 am, so not much sleep was had last night. The flights to Fort Lauderdale, by
way of Atlanta, were relatively uneventful....except for the incessant hacking, coughing and sneezing of the disease-ridden
people who were clustered around us on both flights. I may have to resort to prophylactic doses of grain alcohol to ward off
some dreaded communicable malady from those people.
The highlight of the travel day was arriving in Fort Lauderdale and being greeted
by the Princess Cruise Line representative at the baggage claim. It seems that we were the only Princess Cruise travelers
on our flight (probably because no one else would agree to get up as early as we did)....so, we had our own private, personal
assistant to help us get our bags and get our transportation to the hotel. And here is where the next pleasant surprise occurred.....what
was the transportation provided? There were just two of us going to the hotel.....I expected the usual 7 passenger shuttle
van. But, what appears is a full sized 50 passenger bus. We get on and the bus is empty except for us. We have our own private
bus for the drive to the hotel.
After checking into the hotel (Marriott Renaissance Hotel on 17th Street near the Cruise Terminal)
I needed a walk to work the coach seating cramps out of my legs, so I took a walk along part of the Yacht Basin to look at
the Rich People’s boats. While I was walking the “Thunderbirds” precision air team was practicing aerobatics
overhead.....there is an Air and Sea Show here tomorrow as part of “Fleet Week” in Fort Lauderdale. I managed
a little exercise and got some free entertainment, so it’s not a bad trip so far.
A note for future cruise travelers: The Marriott Renaissance Hotel
is very nice and it is very close to the Bimini Boat Yard restaurant which is a fine place for dinner or drinks.....and much
less expensive than the hotel’s Bistro.
5 May 2007:
While
waiting in the hotel lobby for the transfer to the Cruise Terminal I face a cacophony of foreign tongues – French, German,
Italian and the ever present Spanish...but spoken here with a fast, musical, Cuban cadence. While Princess Cruisers are mostly
Americans, this voyage seems to be a bit more International than others.
Prior to boarding the bus to the Cruise Terminal we are given a medical questionnaire.
I must certify that neither me nor anyone traveling with me has experienced any nausea, diarrhea, vomiting or other gastrointestinal
distress in the last 2 days.....it is an intelligence test.....if you said “yes” to any of those questions you
would be denied boarding and your vacation would be over. So, of course, no one answers “yes”, not even those
people so weakened by gastrointestinal distress that they have to be carried onboard on a stretcher.
But soon we are at the Cruise
Terminal checking in........with just one teeny-tiny problem: when they scan my passport their little computer thingy keeps
flashing a red light instead of a green light. It seems that something is amiss with my passport.....consultations are held....is
it that obscene email I sent to the “Hillary in 2008” committee? Or, could it be the suggestion that I sent
in to Teddy Kennedy about what he could do to improve the species by claiming one of the Darwin Awards? Whatever the
reason, it appears that Homeland Security may want to speak to me before I get to board the ship.....but at the last minute,
the lady behind the desk decides to stop trying to scan my passport and just scan my credit card......the credit card works.....it
seems that I’m good to go.
Once we’ve found our stateroom, the first order of business is to prepare for the “Muster
Drill”. This is a little rite-of-passage that every cruiser has to endure on every cruise. The muster drill is a dry-run
for an emergency evacuation of the vessel. Preparing for the muster drill means getting a large glass of something containing
alcohol to take with you to the emergency drill so that you have something to do other than listen to the emergency instructions.
I succeed in preparing for muster. During muster, you have to listen to a long, not very interesting set of instructions about
emergency preparedness from the Captain. In our case it’s not too bad. Our captain is Tony Herriott.....who I haven’t
seen yet, but he has a deep, rich, booming voice that sounds just like God....but with a British accent. I happen to
mention this to a lady sitting near me and she says “...but of course Dearie, what sort of accent did you think that
God would have.” That was said, of course, with a British accent.
Next comes Sail-Away from Fort Lauderdale. As we leave Fort Lauderdale
we are surrounded by boats large and small....although none are as large as us. But there are many large yachts....and many
of those are in the $2-5 million range (one modest boat in the yacht basin was priced at $2,144,000). Ladies, please don’t
take offense, but I am a trained, scientific observer and I notice these things: Just an observation......I’ve never
seen an ugly woman on a 70 foot yacht.
Our first dinner is ‘interesting’. This is where we meet our dinner companions for the next
17 days. I’m not sure that we (or they) will be happy with the luck of the draw. One couple seems pretty reserved....the
other couple seems like they should be reserved. The latter couple mentions (several times) during dinner that they have a
5000 bottle wine cellar in their house....that they’ve taken more than 25 cruises....that several of the wines in their
cellar sell at auction for $10,000 per bottle....that they only cruise in full suite staterooms....and on...and on....well,
you get the idea. I am about to categorize these folks as nut-cases when the guy mentions that he is a chemist and has his
name on the patent for surgical glue (used to close incisions instead of stitches) among other things....then his wife mentions
that one of the “other things” he has a patent on is Super Glue. OK, maybe he does have a 5000 bottle wine
cellar.....and maybe I should be nice to him in case he wants to put me in his will.
Tomorrow I’ll see if I can negotiate the new wireless internet
process and send this out, but for now I think I’m done for the day.
