To Fort Lauderdale and Boarding

As we did last time, we waited until after we had our negative Covid tests before we started packing. J. R. got his in the early morning and Janie in mid-afternoon, so we got our stuff together Thursday night.

We ended up leaving the house earlier than expected Saturday morning for the drive to Ft. Lauderdale so we stopped again at Panera for a bagel before driving t the port. After the surly guard let us onto the port, we drove to the terminal and dropped off our luggage and parked our car. We waited around for a little while and then headed to the terminal and got in the long line for 10:30 arrival. Celebrity was letting in people with 11:00 and 11:30 times which made the security area crowded. Also having to show your papers, then put them away for security, then pull them back out again was cumbersome.

The terminal was full of hookers when we arrived -- a large group of crochet enthusiasts wearing bright blue "hooked on cruising" shirts had booked this voyage. We waited around with most of them until we were allowed to board around 11AM. We headed straight to the buffet for lunch, then dropped off our backpack in our room and then took care of our muster visit. Then it was off to the martini bar for the first drink of the day.

Sail Away

We went back to the room and our luggage was there so we unpacked, which we would later regret. We noticed there was water on the floor near the bed, and we assumed someone had spilled something cleaning the room. We put a towel down and figured that would get the steward to look at it and we would talk to him later.

After that, we went to the Solarium to wait for sail away and watched us head out to sea.

Showtime

The show in the theater at night was comedian Robbie Printz. We had seen him on our previous Apex cruise and enjoyed his comedy then. He had picked on Janie on that cruise so maybe that was why she decided to sit in the balcony this time. Some of his material was duplicated but he also had some new stuff we had not heard before.

Martinis, Dinner and Dancing

Every night in the Grand Plaza, they do a light show with the large chandelier and the bartenders twirl drink bottles, culminating in a bartender doing a pour of multiple martinis at a time. We caught part of this on our way from the show to dinner.

Dinner was in Cyprus, the vaguely Greek inspired main dining room. Our service was spotty tonight, with the assistant server missing our drink orders and then a different assistant coming over to get them later. The food was good, but not great. J. R. had the lamb shank tagine but the lamb was overpowered by a heavy gravy. Janie liked her sea bass, however. The head waiter talked Janie into a carrot cake that he said was the best on the Seven Seas, but she was not impressed with it.

After dinner, we went to the martini bar for a few drinks and then the dance party in the Club. We wrapped that around midnight and went back to our room, which was hot and humid, and were greeted with the sound of an air dryer pointed at the wet carpet. As we got into bed, J. R. saw the blinking light on the phone. He almost ignored it because he assumed it was the usual canned welcome greeting but he listened to the message and found out there was a 'plumbing' problem and they wanted us to move. He called down to Guest Relations who asked us if we were packed. Of course we were not. So we had to hurry up and pack everything then call back down. It took 15 minutes for them to send a steward to help with our luggage and give us our new keys. We were upgraded to an Infinite Veranda stateroom, which was nice, but weren't happy with all Guest Relations handled this, since they could have paged us, or sent a note to the restaurant where we had dinner reservations or messaged us through their app rather than leaving a message on the stateroom phone.