We woke up fairly early for getting to bed so late the night before. The hotel included breakfast but it was pretty slim pickings. Basically some waffle machines, cereals, yoghurt and juice. No eggs, sausage or fruit.
Our check in time for the ship wasn’t until 10:30am so we walked over to the Walgreens next to the hotel to have a look around. We didn’t bother getting anything.
At 10:15am, we arranged an Uber and made it to the port around 10:35am. Baggage drop off and check in was pretty quick. We thought we would be able to walk onto the ship right away but they weren’t ready for us yet. They held us in a waiting area until 11:15am and then finally let us board. We immediately found our muster station and checked in with them. The cruise industry uses an e-muster system now where you watch the safety video on their app on our phones, which we did while we were sitting in the holding area.
This was my second time on this particular ship and it was Eduardo’s first time but he has been on one of their sister ships before. We walked around checking out many areas and many decks before deciding to go for lunch in the Windjammer Cafe, which is the buffet restaurant. It was pretty busy but we still managed to find a table fairly easily. During the height of the pandemic, Royal Caribbean had stopped allowing passengers to serve their own food from the buffet. However it looks like they have returned to normal as the Windjammer is self-service again.
Around 1:15pm our staterooms were ready so we headed down to deck 6 to check out our room for the next week. A few weeks before the cruise they sent me an email offer to bid for a room upgrade. The minimum bid to an ocean view balcony room was reasonable so I placed my bid. About a week before our departure, we were fortunate to win.
The room was a decent size and lots of storage in the closet and desk area. And having the balcony is a nice perk, even though I suspect we won’t use it too much since it’s hot and humid out. But the views are great.
We didn’t get up to too much other than exploring and eating. After dinner we ended up going to the comedy show which featured two comedians. I think the first act was a little better than the second.
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