ON THE SEA AGAIN!

Fort Lauderdale / Regal Princess

Sunday, January 24, 2016

45-52 F / sunny

This morning we awoke in Fort Lauderdale. We had breakfast in Horizon Court with friends, omelets made to order, lovely croissants and other pastries, so many choices from oatmeal and grits to English bacon (I think that is a kind of ham) and lox. A huge variety just for breakfast. Many sad passengers were leaving the ship.

Our job today was to go to the Princess Theater to go through customs as passengers “in transit.” The process was a bit touchy as there were 704 passengers staying on the ship for the 2^nd or 3^rd week. The requirement was that NO ONE could go through customs until all 704 people were in the theater. Apparently two weeks ago a fight almost broke out on the Regal because someone held up the process and did not show up for an hour.  When the last few people came in about 35 minutes late today others starting booing. I do think Princess Cruise Lines needs to revisit this process.

Because the weather seemed so cold today so we could not really enjoy the ship like we planned. It was great to talk with R and B and text B2. It is not easy to be offline without communication for a week! Internet circumstances prevented leisurely reading of emails until today. I cannot even access my Gmail account during cruises because it interferes with my blog and uses up so much time. I cannot imagine the ship’s crew and how little they can communicate with families far away. We see crew members in the ports looking for free Wi-Fi. The crew has to pay for their Internet usage onboard minute by minute just like we do. We think nothing of “googling” information anytime, any day—not an option for anyone on board a cruise ship.

Anyway, after an examination of the blog I realized that I have no trouble putting people to sleep and I better start spicing things up or I will have no readers! After dinner (prime rib) we went to the “Welcome Aboard Showtime,” a show we did not see last week. This week’s comedian was quite funny, mostly joking about plenty of old people on the ship—ha ha!  The cruise director said there were about 3500 passengers onboard this week. That means 20% are repeating from last week.  The top five countries of origin are the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, and China.

I hope this week is a little more exciting. Weather and cancelled tours made a difference last trip. W still had fun though. We have a tour planned in St. Maarten with the gang---a beach near the airport with planes swooping in. Shopping is planned in St. Thomas.

TK’s Takes: Today we saw the most passengers ever staying on a cruise ship for a second week.