Fall Foliage Cruise: Embarkation Day

October 8

Had a good night's sleep (actually went to bed at12:15) and woke-up at 8:13. As I was going down to get juice I met the gang coming back from breakfast.

We all met in the lobby at about 9:45. The limo driver arrived promptly at 10 although we did not realize who he was until a few minutes later. It took almost an hour to get to the port due to traffic (we were only a few miles away). Another ten minutes to get through security (which, unlike most of my previous cruises, was before check-in).

As we were waiting, I realized I did not have the same paperwork as the others. When I finally got to the front of the line, it was not too big of a deal - I just had to fill out a form with my name and address. We all got through within a few minutes of each other and about two minutes after that, our boarding number was called.

Cabins were due to be ready at 1 pm so we headed to the Windjammer (buffet) for lunch. We finished around one and decided to meet up again at 2 pm. I checked out my small cabin (which can actually hold four people).

We met on windy and cool deck 11 but didn't stay long, just long enough to get a small ice cream cone.

I always like to get to my muster station early and was their about 20 minutes before the drill started (3:15). It was all over by 3:30. Back to my cabin to get my jacket for sail-away. We left promptly at 4 pm. I was standing out on deck 12 when Carolyn and Barbara came walking by (they were doing their laps and were on their next to the last one as we approached the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Five o'clock was the first scheduled trivia game. Tommy said he would play but the others were not interested. We got 11 points and the winners got 14 (out of 15).

Q1. If the strongest member of a wolf pack is the Alpha Male what is the weakest called?
Q2. Who had his first hit in 1965 called "It's Not Unusual"?
Q3. Which group released the album "OK Computer" in 1997?

We had decided to meet for dinner at 6:30, so after trivia I had about an hour to unpack and get ready. We met about 6:25 and thus began my first experience with "My Time Dining". For those not familiar with this, you can eat when you want (in reality, not really) between 5:30 and 9:30. If you want to, you can make reservations for a certain time. This is where there seems to be a major problem. When you get to the dining room there are two lines - one for those with reservations and one for those without.

When we arrived there were maybe 25 in the reservations line and about 15 in the non-reservation line. Those who had reservations were getting beepers, we in the non-reservation line were just standing. It became very apparent that they had made way too many reservations for the same time as both lines continued to grow until there were dozens of people just waiting.

Gary talked with one of the people in charge and we got a beeper. About 50 minutes after getting in line we finally were shown to a table.

Dinner was good - two of us had prime rib, two salmon, and one pork chop. Most of us had the blueberry-peach crumble with ice cream for dessert which was excellent.

We decided to make reservations for dinner tomorrow night but the closest to 6:30 we could get was 5:45. We'll see how it goes.

Because of being seated so late and not finishing until almost 9, we missed the show. We walked through the shops area and decided we were too tired even for trivia. So a very early night tonight (I may be in bed by 10:30).

I am glad I bought the unlimited internet package because it is really slow. I can't get my pictures to upload at all and it took 25 minutes just to get my blog to load so I will try to add pictures tomorrow.

Trivia Answers
Q1. Omega
Q2. Tom Jones
Q3. Radiohead