Mardi Gras: Embarkation
Good morning. I was able to get a few more hours of sleep after the scrubbed Space-X launch. My port shuttle leaves in three hours.
Leftover spaghetti–The breakfast of campione.
We are in the hotel lobby waiting for the Radisson Resort shuttle to the port. The hotel charged $6 per person for the shuttle. I am on the 10am shuttle. They said to be here 15 minutes early and I’m here at 9:45.
I heard the shuttle coordinator tell someone we have to wait until everyone has disembarked from the ship before we can even leave the hotel. That doesn’t sound good.
The lady next to me said there’s someone here who was on Mardi Gras already and last time she waited until 12:30 (her arrival time) to go to the port and it took three hours in the vaccinated line. So this time she’s going before her arrival time.
This is going to be a mess. It’s 10:05. The shuttle was supposed to leave at 10am. The inside is full. The outside is full. Nobody has thought about loading luggage yet. When they do I would imagine it’s going be in a trailer. I could see this group taking multiple shuttles. I’m going to check into Uber/Lyft. This looks like a situation I don’t want to be caught up in.
I was able to get an Uber for $7.59. This is much better. I wasted six dollars on the hotel shuttle but I think it’s worth it.
Porters were right here to load my luggage in the orange carts when I got out of the Uber. The elevator that will take me to the terminal is back behind those carts.
Once upstairs you have to cross over a bridge to the terminal.
At the end of this bridge is where they started checking documents. COVID documents and boarding passes.
Before entering the building they want to see your boarding pass and photo ID.
The line wasn’t bad. I got to the front within a couple minutes. Once you get to a table they’re going to want to see your photo ID, boarding pass, COVID test and proof of vaccination.
I bought this on Amazon for about six dollars. I kept my vaccination card in one side and my test results in the other side and put my passport with it. I think it worked good that way.
There were no issues going through security. The process was very quick. I am glad I took the Uber. The people in that shuttle may get caught up in a longer line.
Once you are through security they have all of these areas where you can get your picture taken.
The seating area is to the left. There’s a special screening area to the right. I’m not sure if that’s security or COVID related screening.
It looks like there’s no longer a platinum/diamond lounge. The only special seating area I saw was for people who booked suites.
I’m in the cheap seats with all of the other non-suite guests.
If you snag one of these end seats you get a table with outlets and USB ports.
They called something and everyone got up like the Panorama free for all. It’s really difficult to tell what they said over the intercom. It was like being inside and listening to an intercom that’s outside. You may notice there are no kids in this picture. This wasn’t the adults only section. There just weren’t very many kids on this cruise.
Now people are starting to sit back down but I’m going to try to get where I can hear announcements.
They need to do something about the sound system in here. Workers have to hold up their fingers because nobody can hear the numbers. This is A5.
They just called A7. That’s me. Here we go.
The first thing I did was ask a crew member where my muster station was. It’s by the casino bar. They pulled me up on their tablet and had me watch them put on a life vest. They told me life vests are no longer in the rooms that we would get them at the muster station. That was it. I was done with muster within five minutes of being on the ship.
That was embarkation. Now the vacation can begin!
