Steve and Cathy's Blog

Special note: This is another post written for our memories. While we happily share our thoughts, readers may find most of this ossifyingly dull. Feel free to skip it. But, should you wish to, we would be honored as always if you would join us.

We awaken, look out the window, and there she is: MS Insignia. Our ship awaits us – us and 682 others, assuming she’s full. We will board at 1:30pm today, so we have the morning to spend doing whatever. 

The first order of the day is breakfast. After “getting ready for the day,” as we like to say, we head down to Ole’, a smaller restaurant off the lobby. Several of the banquet rooms are filled with folks dressed in coats and ties and dresses. As enjoyable as we found these conferences when we were working, we look at them now as torture. But we are retired. We served our time. It’s their turn.

It takes a couple of minutes to find the place, but we do. Entering, a friendly young lady greets us and guides us to a table. The breakfast menu is classic Intercontinental Hotel expensive. But whatever. It’s only one meal. Cathy has eggs over easy with wheat toast and tea. Steve has Eggs Benedict and coffee. 

Back to the room. Steve needs to do some shopping for both of us (Cathy’s hip is still giving her trouble). We have a list of all the things we forgot to bring. Forgetting essential stuff is unusual for us, but we have an explanation. We each packed a full suitcase for the cruise and shipped it with a. company called Luggage Free two weeks ago. We left out of those suitcases all the stuff we would need for the trip to Nashville. Unfortunately, that threw our packing organization off bigtime. So we need to replace this stuff this morning.

Steve looks up the nearest Walgreens, which is a ten-minute walk away. Off he goes. He’s back at 10:15 with everything he and Cathy could think of that we need. No doubt he will board and regret not purchasing this, or that or something else. But we think we’re ready.

We won’t be checking out until almost noon, so we watch television. The last time we were here and waiting to board the ship, Cathy found several bizarro court shows on some network. So we have decided to make that a custom. This time we watch a show on A&E of videotapes of defendants going wild in the court. Crazy stuff from all over the country. If this show ever makes it to European television, folks there will think we are all mentally ill criminals. So much profanity; so much disrespect, and so much violence. It’s entertaining, but awful to think that our society has devolved to this extent.

After an hour of that stuff, it’s time to go. As mentioned above, we will board at 1:30pm, and it’s only a ten-minute Uber ride to the ship, so we hang around the lobby reading and blogging. We call Uber at 12:50, and someone is there in five minutes. A bellman knows the Uber drill better than we do, and spots the car immediately when it turns the corner. This driver has a black SUV, and he actually can speak some English. Our bellman loads the stuff in the car and off we go.

It is indeed only ten minutes there. The driver doesn’t say a word, but we point out our ship and say “Terminal J.” He finally repeats that, and we make the turn into that terminal area. 

The reason for our concern was that we got a real runaround from an Uber driver delivering us to that same pier back in January. His English was practically nonexistent, and he was insisting that we booked a trip to a different terminal. He took us there and refused to move, despite us telling him that he was at the wrong terminal. Eventually, he relented because Steve said – and he finally figured out – that we weren’t getting out until he took us to the right terminal.

All’s well that ends well, and we enter the terminal. We happen upon Julio, the concierge from our last cruise. He remembers Cathy, and this chance meeting bodes well, we think. Check-in is smooth and we are on the ship in less than ten minutes from leaving the cab.

They’ve eliminated the safety drills on the first day. Everyone used to actually have to go to your assembly station on the ship at the same time, listen to all the safety information, then trek out to your muster station underneath your lifeboat, listen to more information and all that. In other words, a real practice drill. Now you just go to the assembly station to get checked off and go to your room. Before you can tune into anything whatsoever on the ship’s television, you must listen to all the information, which takes 17-18 minutes. Then at around 4pm, the cruise director comes on the ship-wide audio and reads all the same information again. Steve still thinks a real practice drill should be held, especially because of the vintage of most of us. An actual emergency would be like herding cats because half of us wouldn’t remember half of what was explained in the video. Oh, well, thankfully a real emergency is incredibly rare, and the crew is trained in the procedures constantly.

Ok, where were we. Oh yes, we go to our stateroom 8024, leave the stuff we were carrying and head for Waves Grill. Thankfully, the ship keeps it open until 4pm so that everybody boarding by that time can get some food. The place is certainly busy, but table 5 is open. We know the drill, of course, and as soon as we are served water, we get up and order. Cathy has teriyaki salmon and, as Cathy predicted to herself, Steve has a hot dog and a strawberry milkshake. Ahhh, we’re home.

Back to the room. We meet Ricarda Alvarez, our room steward and her assistant Paul. She is from Honduras. We chat for just a few minutes. This is her busiest time on a cruise, of course, and it was made more hectic because there was a Coast Guard inspection and drill for an hour earlier in the day. We tell her that we are very predictable: up early and in bed early. She has an enormous number of staterooms to deal with (which is why she has an assistant), and it is useful to her to know this kind of information. Now Cathy and Steve have to actually live up to our commitment. We’ll see.

When we first got to our room, we found the usual bottle of champagne on the table, chilling in a bucket of ice water, compliments of Oceania Cruises. AND there is a bottle of The Widow! With a note from CEO Bob Bingham saying that we received this because we are now Platinum Level guests, have accumulated twenty points for all of the time we’ve spent on their ships. It’s a nice welcome, and, as has become our custom, we sit out on the balcony at Sailaway and enjoy the chilled bottle. We will drink The Widow on Thanksgiving

 The weather in Miami was sweltering today, but now it’s 6pm, and the sun is down behind the Miami skyline, so being on the balcony is bearable.

We note that we didn’t spend one minute on the balcony on our previous cruise in Northern Europe because the temperature was so low – in the 40s and 50s for much of the cruise. Such a contrast, but one that we look forward to. Insignia pushes away from the dock, does a 180 so that the bow is facing the open sea, and slowly make our way out of port past the container docks – always one the highlights for Steve.

We pass the APL New Jersey container ship, and we think of Margaret, Keith and the kids.

Cathy is now lobbying hard for us to go to dinner.

So around 7:15pm, we head for the Grand Dining Room. The place is packed, and we ask for a table alone (rather than sharing with other guests). Jasmine, the maitre’d, seems disappointed, probably because it’s easier for her to place us, but we end up at a table for four right near the entrance. 

We always ask for a table by ourself. When we first began cruising, we sometimes opted to share a table. Invariably, we were seated with people who talked of nothing but other cruises they had taken and places they had visited. Never does anyone talk about family, which is of great interest to us. After a few excruciatingly boring dinners, we opt for each other’s company. We know this sounds snobbish, but eavesdropping on the conversation of neighboring tables confirms our experience. 

Back to 8024. Of course, the room is made up beautifully. We’re already feeling some “motion of the ocean.” Sleep will come easily. We’re on our way to a new adventure.