Carnival Sailabration: Embarkation
It’s embarkation morning. I stayed at the Magnolia Mansion in the Garden District last night. I’m going to head down to District Donuts for breakfast. The weather looks pretty good today.
District Donuts is just a four block walk from the hotel.
I’m pretty sure their outdoor seating came from an old Streetcar.
They used to change their donut selection daily but these are the same options they had yesterday.
Their biscuits are really good. I’m going with the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit.
There’s no line to get parked at Fulton.
I booked the rooftop parking online for about $10/day instead of paying $14/day for the garage parking.
They are offering COVID testing downstairs. This place used to be a sandwich shop.
All of the people in blue shirts are there to load luggage.
We’re taking a different route than on my prior cruises. Restricted vehicles only back here. We’ll avoid any port traffic this way.
We have arrived. It was less than a five minute ride.
The driver unloaded all of the luggage and there was a porter right there to take the bags.
Port traffic doesn’t look bad.
They have everyone in one line today. All loyalty levels and arrival times. It seems like they do it different each time I cruise here.
I’ve seen them have a special entrance for Platinum/Diamond members. I’ve seen them have separate entrances for early and late arrivals. And I’ve seen them do it this way with everyone in the same line.
If you need a lanyard or snacks you can purchase those while in the line.
People who don’t have masks on are being asked to put them on and being provided free masks if needed.
Heading up to security. We should tell Long Beach about these escalator things.
I am all checked in and ready to board.
They did have a platinum, diamond, and suites check-in line but I don’t think it made a difference over the regular line.
It was a 45 minute wait between the time I finished check-in and they started boarding. It felt longer because there were so many people in that room. I think too many people arrived ahead of their arrival time. It was standing room only when we boarded.
I was the first person to make it to Lido deck!
I was was onboard at 11:35am. By comparison I was onboard Mardi Gras at 11:20, Vista at 11:25, and Panorama, at 11:45. Next time we’ll cover Day 1 of Carnival Glory’s Sailabration cruise.
