Panama Cruise - Day 1: Embarkation

December 8, 2008

We woke up at 5:30 to see our ship out our hotel window. We watched some more ships come in and then got ready for the day and organized our luggage (we wanted to make sure we had our swim wear in our carry-on so so we didn't have to wait to hit the pool deck). We had too much time to kill since we are not suppose to get to the Cruise Terminal until 1:00 so we went to Starbucks for breakfast and then lounged around our hotel room until we had to check out time at 11:00. We tried to spend more time at the market, but nothing caught our interest there and so we ended up sitting in the hotel lobby until about 12:30.

We had no problems and short lines getting on to the ship. We had been given a complementary upgrade from our balcony stateroom to a junior suite! When we got to our stateroom we had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us (these were the first of many indulgences we enjoyed as part of a romance package). After toasting and unpacking what we had, we went for lunch at the Windjammer Cafe. It was pretty busy, but because of the island layout of the buffet, it was easy to get our food and start eating. Because Miami was actually cold and windy we spent the early afternoon just enjoying our room, which is so much bigger than just a balcony cabin and really worth the extra money, and being on a cruise ship.

About half an hour before we were scheduled to leave port we had our mandatory muster drill. We all had to wear the life jackets that are in our rooms and go to our emergency meeting spot. As it was finishing we started moving so we went back to our room and our balcony to watch us leaving Miami. When we couldn't see land anymore we decided to get ready for dinner and get out and explore the ship, although it was in the same class as our first cruise so we were pretty familiar with the layout of the ship.

Before heading off for dinner, we decided to stop at the casino and play a few slots. We didn't stay too long since tomorrow was non-smoking night in the casino and I prefer to play then. We went to the welcome aboard show, which was the usual introduction of the staff and some sales pitches, then it was off for dinner. Our table mates were mostly from the US and a couple from Panama, who are now living in Florida. The table doesn't look to be a fun one – the rest of the table is significantly older than us and more than half of them will be gone every other night, leaving 4 people at a table for 10. Dinner did not disappoint. As an appetizer they had Michael's favorite watermelon gazpacho soup which he really enjoyed. I had the chef's suggestion, a vidalia onion tart which was phenomenal. For dinner Michael picked the salmon from the health menu and he said it was fantastic (really the salmon was good, but the sauce and onion straws they put with it made it fantastic). I had shrimp ravioli in a lobster cream sauce which I really enjoyed. After dinner, we were kind of tired so we just headed back to our cabin to sit out on the balcony and enjoy some sea air before bed. With our bathrobes (a privilege of suites) on, it was a nice warm temperature outside.