Day 15 West - 01/16/22 - Ft. Lauderdale Turnaround

Well, this day certainly didn't start like any other cruise ship day we've experienced!  Around 12:15am I was awakened from a dead sleep by a woman's screams and sounds of objects hitting walls and more yelling.  It sounded like a full on domestic argument.  I reached for the phone and dialed 90.  After many rings, a sweet Philippine voice asked, "How may I assist you?" I reported what we were hearing and the response was that somebody would be sent up.  The noises continued and about 10 minutes later two fellows showed up (as viewed through our peep hole) to deal with the issue.  They must have said the magic words as there was not a peep the rest of the night.  This was definitely a first for us.

 

8am came and I finally awakened and my wife had been up for a while and the bow camera was turned on on the TV and I could see we were docked.  So I got ready for the day, and headed up to breakfast.  We were berthed at #21  facing the exit with the Rotterdam's bow 90° to our stern on the Port side and a RCCL ship berthed parallel to us with all 3 ships forming a U.  Across the pier from us at #25 was the Celebrity Edge and in front of the Edge was the Eurodam at #26.  The lonely Caribbean Princess was at berth #2.

 

We ate our leisurely breakfast listening to all the luggage tag colors being called.  There was one final plea from Ian for embarking guests to disembark before he called for the collector voyage and in transit guests to disembark.  And here's where things got a bit strange, not that the day hadn't started a bit strange.

 

We cleared security on the ship and headed out the gangway and turned left into a hallway where suddenly we were stopped and forced to wait with no sitting arrangements.  This holding pattern went on for about 15 minutes until we were allowed to proceed downstairs where we had chairs to sit in.  During that time all of our cell phones received a tornado warning alert lasting until 3 pm. That's another first. A terminal representative then gave a short speech on how the remaining procedure would be executed.  Essentially all we had to do was open our passport, walk about 75 yards down to immigration, remove our mask and hat,  flash the passport at the officer, and walk back the 75 yards, take the up escalator, and reboard the ship.  One couldn't later exit the ship as the immigration personnel wouldn't be there. The whole process took about an hour.

 

We spent most of the rest of the day lounging in the Crow's Nest catching up on videos now that we had our Tmobile cell service. Since we had a bunch of shipboard credit, we added video capability to our ship internet plans.  It was only $20 each for the remaining 14 days. It seems too cheap, so we'll see how it works.

 

 We also booked shore excursions in Puntarenas, Huatulco, and Puerto Vallarta.  It'll be sloths and snorkeling for us.  Nothing was available yet for Panama City which is a new stop for us. I also called cruise friends and received a call from a cruise friend to update them on our cruise as they are cruising  vicariously through us.

 

We ate a very light Lido  lunch and attended a 4-5 star Mariners Reception followed by more Crow's Nest time.  The Captain announced that our 4pm departure would be delayed until 7pm due to additional fuel bunkering.  He indicated that our 2 day sail to Cartegena would be a high speed run averaging over 19 knots.  And all day the weather had been blustery.

 

Our Canaletto dinner reservation was at 5 and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  We watched the Edge leave first in the daylight and replaced by the Nieuw Amsterdam, followed by the RCCL ship, the Eurodam, Rotterdam, Caribbean Princess, Zuiderdam, and Nieuw Amsterdam.  After dinner we watched the sail away from the Crow's Nest before enjoying a Latin America music set  at the Lincoln Center stage. We ended our evening watching wild card NFL football. 

 

 

 



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