Wednesday 25th Nov. Ship ahoy

The El Cubano turned out to be a ham, pork and cheese baguette  😬. After a quick peep at the pool, we went to bed as by our body clock time it was nearly 3am. This morning we are having coffee round the pool while we wait for the shuttle to Fort Lauderdale to board the Island Princess.

 We need the coffee to recover from the earlier panic when Sandra could not find her passport. To say we were panicking was an understatement.  Sandra had returned to her white face status while we looked everywhere, at least three times!  Went down to reception, the bar, the pool but no luck then Sandra remembered she had heard something drop behind the sideboard thingy last night.  We squinted sideways and saw it but the sideboard wouldn't budge. So we removed the fridge from its housing and reached in through the gap at the back.  Sandra then changed her trousers and we left.

We have been told that the cost of wifi on the ship is eye watering, so I will write the blog each night but may not get round to publishing till we go ashore the next day and find a cafe etc with wifi. See you later!

Just had a little walk down to Walmart supermarket.  Here are my thoughts. No one walks. Most of the buildings were either eateries or banks  so as there was no one on the street, I went into the eateries to get directions. Had to ask several times and no one spoke English as the first language, so after a while I just asked in Spanish which was a bonus for me.  Liked this road sign though. 

Bit of a wait to board the ship as there was a US customs inspection in progress but once the queue started moving the embarkation was pretty quick. Jerry, the embarkation clerk, wished us Happy Thanksgiving (tomorrow) and Happy Holidays ( 25th December) 😁 Our cabin is very comfortable and the balcony is great for sitting and watching the sea go by.  Got to say it was a bit blowy and therefore choppy but still warm. After a buffet lunch, we explored and tried to locate the areas of interest to us Ie the pools, spa, gym, theatre, outdoor cinema, our allotted restaurant and shops.  Sorted, unless we get our fore/aft, starboard/ port, odd number side/even number side mixed up which is highly likely on a ship of this size. Our cabin is aft, starboard, odd number on Aloha deck. There was a Life Boat Drill shortly afterwards so we mustered on deck 7 at the Bayou Cafe, carrying our life jackets.  We were shown very clearly how to put them on so I have no idea how I managed to put mine on back to front. Sandra insisted on recreating my moment of shame in the cabin afterwards and photographing it

After unpacking we went for a preprandial cocktail, which was so nice we had another followed by a glass of wine with our dinner. We bumped into Alan, travelling on his own, who had collared us at the hotel in Miami. Do you know what?  Alan knows everything about everything, cruising and otherwise so we were pleased to see him again😬. Apparently he suggested that we make up a quiz team and I agreed though I have no recollection of that, so we are now dodging him.  Finding our way back to the cabin was a bit of a struggle but we did find it eventually and collapsed into bed.