Saturday, Getting on the Ship
Aftergoing to bed so early, I got up about 6, and John at about 7. When we went downto find some breakfast, the lobby restaurant wasn't open, and looked like itwas undergoing renovations or something, with a ladder and some tools in themiddle of the floor. Other guests told us there was a coffee shop down by theentrance, so we went down and got some breakfast sandwiches and drinks and tookthem to our room. Our phones worked, so John had a long call with a fellowKlingon while we waited to check out. He wanted to call another friend, butrealized he didn't have that friend's number. We checked out just before 11,and I sat in the lobby with our luggage while John went outside to takepictures. He came back about 11:15, and we moved out to the driveway, tryingnot to miss the taxi, which was due at 11:30. We found the taxi, the driver gotus to the dock just fine; it was a much shorter trip than from the airport.
We hadnever gotten luggage tags for the ship, so we had to go inside and find thetable set up just to deal with that problem. We discovered our cabin had beenchanged from 4005 to 8197, so we thought we had gotten an upgrade. Turning overour large suitcases, we could now check in, and we let them take a couplepictures before we got on the ship. Of course our cabin wasn't ready for usyet, so we found our muster station and checked in, went to the buffet forlunch and then to the Pink Champayne Bar for drinks, where a trio was playingHawaiian music.
About 3,they finally announced we could get to our cabins. Ours was hidden in a maze ofhallways in the aft of deck 8, and I almost walked past it. When we walked in,our hearts sank. This was not an upgrade! There were 2 bunkbeds attached to thewalls, each sticking into the room about 12 inches. The walkway on either sideof the bed was about 14 wide, so we had to contort ourselves to get in and outof bed. We asked for the main bed to be split in two, leaving a larger walkwaybetween them, but it wasn't done before we went to bed. Getting in and out wasa miserable as we had imagined.
