Kevin and I were both awake before the sun arose and went outside to watch it come up over the horizon.
I really missed seeing the sunrise (used to almost daily when I was able to walk my dogs early in the morning).
Kevin went to the front desk and asked for late check out, which we were granted. This meant we could have a more leisurely morning before packing and checking out.
Being a Sunday morning there seemed be a lot of dogs out for walks. These were just 2 that I spotted.
We had mini bagels for breakfast, gradually packed and got ready for the day. Just before 12pm we collected our luggaged, check out of the hotel (which we have loved staying at) and got an uber to the port.
It’s always exciting to get that first view of the ship. Our uber dropped off right beside bag check in. We then had to go through security – which as usual took quite a while – maybe 30mins or so. But then check in was so easy because we had done it all online and using their new app. Less than 5mins later we were done, had our photos taken and were walking on board. Since the cabins aren’t ready until 1pm we went straight up to Windjammers for lunch.
Unfortunately there wasn’t much at all in the way of vegan food and I wasn’t feeling up to asking one of the chefs so I just did the best I could – I had some salad to start and then this plate of carbs.
Just as we finished lunch we got the announcement that the cabins were ready so we made our way to ours. It’s all very much as expected and a nice decent size.
We spent time outside on the balcony and actually got to see a Mummy & Baby manatee swimming past. I was so excited !! Later we saw another one – but he disappeared pretty quickly.
I unpacked the bags we had and at 3pm it was time for Muster. Always fun – not !!! After muster we had a little wander around the ship (it’s an elderly crowd on this cruise so the lifts were busy for quite some time). I didn’t fancy walking from deck 5 to 9 – though we ended up doing that anyway !! And it was a struggle so not again ( 2 -3 flights UP maximum).
We headed back to our cabin sailaway. Luckily since it ended up being delayed by over an hour.
This did mean we were late for our 5.30pm dinner in the dining room as I really wanted to see and record sailaway. We were quite surprised to see the coastguard chase after a boat that had come too close us – and the M60 on the front of it !!!
Finally we left the dock and headed out of the harbour.
and we raced to the dining room. I was really happy to find they now have a vegan menu that I was able to order from. I had soup and a portabello mushroom with edamame. Both were lovely. Kevin, as you can see, ordered soup and steak.
We were seated at a very internationally diverse table with people from Finland, Sweden, Russia and Belgium. The downside being it was bit hard to understand at times.
I was seated next to the lady from Russia who, though lovely, was rather hard to understand I just responded based on her own facial expressions.
Since we were late for dinner we ended up missing tonights Welcome aboard show so we ended up just heading back to our room for an early night.