Finally Aboard

After a nice smooth plane trip, we got to the airport in Fort Lauderdale only to wait for about an hour for our bags to come from the plane. We forgot that the Notre Dame-Alabama game was in Miami and there were a ton of people coming. Also, there were 3 or 4 other ships leaving on the same day including the huge Oasis of the Sea. After our bags came out, we found out that the bus we should have been on had already left and we waited another half hour for another bus to the ship. At the port, there was a very long line of people checking in and it took another hour to get to the check-in desk. Finally on board, we went to the cabin and then out to the back deck to visit with several of our friends from previous cruises and wait for the mandatory life boat drill. Some of our bags were delivered to the cabin and after the drill, we went up to the sail away party and did more visiting. We had a very nice sunset before going back to the cabin to unpack the bags in the room before dinner. More bags were delivered while we were at dinner and we did more unpacking, wondering where we would put everything. We went up to the Crow's Nest until 11pm and came back to the cabin to unpack some more. At midnight, with two more bags to unpack, we went to bed. It had been a very long day, starting at 4am in Dallas.