Today we are boarding the Norwegian Escape for my birthday celebration cruise. It’s wonderful not to have to travel a day before.
Travel and Check-in
We had a couple of errands to do on the way to the port so decided to leave our home at 9 am. One stop at Publix and another at Kohl’s in Port Orange and then an hour’s drive to Port Canaveral There is good signage for the ships and their respective terminals as you get close on A1A. Also boarding today was the Disney Fantasy, Carnival Freedom, and the Carnival Mardi Gras.
We went to terminal 10 and parked in the garage. Well, we drove through the garage to park outside. Everyone had to stop and pay $145 before entering. We walked across to the porters and dropped luggage before finding the terminal entrance.
First, we had to show our boarding passes and passports to enter the building. There was a line to get through the metal detectors but it went quickly.
Inside the terminal was a big mess! Instead of having one line there were several queues and would randomly send people to different ones. Each queue had assigned check-in counters.
Naturally, ours was the longest and had the least open counters. Nevertheless, we eventually made it to the front and got checked in. Boarding had started shortly before 11 am. It took us about 40 minutes to get through the check mess and on board the ship.
Afternoon Onboard
My first destination onboard was to book entertainment. This was being done at the box office and the line was out the entrance and then wrapped around inside. Steve wasn’t enjoying it so I sent him to the atrium bar to have a drink and wait for me.
I finally made it to the front of the line and booked Choir of Man, supper club, one comedy club show, and a tender for Great Stirrup Cay.
Then I went down to six to Le Bistro to change our specialty dining reservations. Steve saw me pass through the atrium and thought I couldn’t find him. I moved Cagneys reservation to Sunday so we could see Choir of Man Monday. Then changed our Le Bistro reservation to Bayamo. Not a fan of the new menu for Le Bistro (primarily the up charge for filet mignon).
Then I found Steve and got a drink (mojito).
Lunch
We then headed to lunch at Savor which was a nice respite from the crowds.
I enjoyed everything even though the exact same items were presented and tasted different than from the Epic last month. Our starters were crustless quiche…
Roasted tomato soup…
Not sure what that foam was on top! Last starter for Steve was cobb salad.
Steve’s entree was the fish and chips.
I went with the cajun chicken pasta.
It definitely had more seasoning than on the Epic last month. My dessert was the chocolate mousse.
Steve had the creme caramel.
We both enjoyed lunch and the peaceful atmosphere. Afterwards we did find a place to sit in the atrium bar where it was very crowded. We went and looked at other bars (mojito, Tobacco Road but no seating. Lots of people waiting for cabins to open.
Decided to go the pool deck where we found loungers in the shade and enjoyed the people watching and live music. Around 2:40 they announced some decks of cabins were ready and all cabins about 10 minutes later. We headed to our room after the big rush and unpacked our carryons and rested a little.
Cabin
Here is the extended balcony.
The bathroom is a good size.
The shower was narrow but longer than Royal Caribbean so that was a positive.
We heard noises after an hour and I figured out it was our bags. When bringing them in, we met our cabin steward, Janes, and I was able to ask for a coffee setup.
I got to unpacking and noticed we were leaving port.
Watched that and finished finding a place for everything
At some point we had a phone message from Cruise Next advising me of the time/place for the Latitudes party as well as a perk new to me. Apparently Gold members get priority tendering (wonder about priority checkin?) and I could go with group 1 or find cruise next rep by supper club if later.
Embarkation Evening
We went up to 17 to the bar to get a drink and after waiting 10 minutes ( and having line cutters who were shameless) got one. Decided to go ahead and eat dinner in the garden cafe since they were having prime rib.
It was surprisingly empty at 5:45 and we were the first to get slices from the roast on the starboard side.
We both enjoyed our meals. I loved the display of peanut brittle and chocolate bark in the desserts area.
Yummy! Steve said it’s as the first time he’d had rocky road in a cruise ship buffet.
We went back to the cabin to take medicine and relax until time to go to the 7 pm comedy show.
Once there we ordered drinks (my mudslide was good).
After a welcome video the cruise director welcomed us and then we had two comedians. The first (Cory) was better than the second.
Then we went back to the cabin to read a little before hitting the hay. It’d been a long day. I had 30 minutes of exercise from just walking around and 8000 steps.
Here is today’s Freestyle Daily. Click the image for the full PDF.
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