I wrote this on Sunday, Dec. 9, but I'm posting it up on Tuesday the 11th.
We are on board the Carnival Valor today. I must say that this was the
longest embarkation procedure we ever experienced. We had received an
email saying do NOT, under any circumstances, arrive before 1 p.m. That
was surprising because usually we arrive around 11 or so and are eating
lunch on board by noon. The cabin might not be ready, but at least we
are enjoying the ship. So we got out of the van at 1 p.m on the dot.
The line was about the length of a football field. It took us fifty,
that’s 5-0, minutes just to go through security. It took another
forty-five minutes to get checked-in and receive our room keys. The
girl who checked us in did not seem happy to see us. She said, “Welcome
to Carnival cruises” without looking at us or cracking a smile.
Whatever. Once we had the room keys, we skipped the embarkation photo,
finally got onboard, and went straight to our room, because since it was
now 2:45, the room was ready.
We had overheard the girl checking
in the people next to us saying that the safety drill was 3 p.m. We
were starving, having had a small breakfast at the hotel at 8 a.m., so
we dropped our stuff off in the cabin and ran to the buffet. We
grabbed the first thing we saw that was ok to eat (fish) and found a
table outside in the sun, wolfing it down in order to be ready to
muster. We thought we had only fifteen minutes. Wrong. We finally
noticed that the Fun Times paper said the drill was at 3:30. We relaxed a
little, found the fish and chips spot, and ate a second lunch! LOL!
The fish and chips were awesome and no one was up there. As it turned
out, they didn’t call for the drill until 4:10.
Sail-away was at
4:30. I sat by the party on the LIdo Deck and drank a rum punch in a
souvenir glass. I was so tired from standing in line for nearly two
hours and running around the ship, that all I wanted to do for awhile
was sit. It was lovely, but it was also the first sail-away that I did
not stand on a railing watching the ship move out to sea. Oh
well...I’ve already sailed out of the Miami port three times before.
I’m pretty sure it still looks the same.
Mark noticed that the
Fun Times called for a menorah lighting at 5:30, so we went to Deck 3
for that. It was AWESOME! They had a huge menorah set up in the main
lobby. There were about a dozen other Jews there ready to go. The
asst. cruise director asked for someone to lead the blessings, which
were provided on a piece of paper. A lady volunteered, and we all sang
with her. Then there was a piece of paper with three songs: “Oh
Chanukah”, “S’vivon”, and “I Have a Little Dreidle”. The asst. cruise
director asked for a volunteer to lead the songs on the mike, so I
volunteered. It was fun. Then the best part....they gave us latkes!
Every night at 5:30 they are going to do this, so we are looking forward
to that.
We went back to the room, lit our own little menorah, exchanged presents, and dressed for dinner.
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