Monday, January 17, 2022 - Embarkation Day (AKA The Day We Have All Been Waiting For)
We had set the alarm for 7am so we could shower and last-minute pack AND have breakfast in a leisurely manner. We figured we'd leave for the port by 9:45 for our 10:30 PAT (port arrival time). It helped that it was MLK Day, so there wouldn't be typical rush hour traffic.
We woke up before the alarm went off. Peter did because he just wakes up early, and I did because my sleep was very restless and was looking at the clock probably every half hour. The housekeeper hadn't left us coffee the new coffee supplies the previous day, so I went down to the front desk to request some. Enough for 1 cup each was delivered pretty much immediately, so we went through the process of making coffee over the toilet as we showered and dressed and packed.
By 8 we were all packed and ready to go, and we left our stuff in the room to run a few blocks south to Crema for breakfast. We had two black coffees, and I ordered the croissant breakfast sandwich.
Peter went for a Greek omelette with spinach and feta and sliced multigrain bread. It was supposed to come with strawbery jam but they forgot to give it to him and he forgot to ask for it.
We were pretty stressed out this morning. We both felt pretty great, but we really wanted to get on that ship, and there was a chance, a low chance but not zero chance, that we wouldn't be able to board. I reassuring Peter we'd be fine; we'd been careful, we felt well, we tested negative at home...but I knew we could still test positive. I kept reassuring him (and myself) that odds were in our favor.
We went up to the room, summoned the Lyft and walked outside with our stuff. This was aroun 9:45. I texted the Circa39 staff that we had checked out. The Lyft driver was just a few minutes away. At 9:48, he pulled up...to the hotel across the street. We waved to the valet who alerted the driver he was in the wrong spot. The problem was there was all this construction on Collins, and when the driver drove off to go around the block, he had to go way out of his way to come back to us. It would have been much faster for us to just cross the street (though a little difficult with the construction barriers), and we were getting edgy and impatient, but it all worked out fine. We were in the car by around 9:56. There was little traffic and soon we saw this beautiful sight:
We were out of the car by 10:17 and in the line for the 10:30 PAT. On check-in night 30 days prior, I had been on-line with the FB group and EVERYONE who wanted the first possible PAT seemed to get 10:30. I think there was a glitch in the system. The people with the scanners even made a comments at how big the 10:30 group was.
Once we entered the building and were about to walk through the x-ray, we got pulled aside because of my answering "yes" to one of the health screening questions. I had read the question a bunch of times. I'm pretty sure it was something like "In the last 14 days, have you been exposed to, or have you cared for, anyone with Covid-19?" So yeah...I'm a nurse working in a hospital. Yes, I have cared for someone! I was in full PPE so I wasn't technically exposed. Caring for someone and exposure are two different things, and it was a terrible question! But I had to say yes and this delayed our boarding. First a nurse and then a doctor came out and spoke to me, meanwhile, we watched hundreds? of people pass us in the line.
When the interrogation was finally over (in reality it probably only cost us 7 minutes but it felt like an hour because it was stressful), I thought that they should have escorted us directly to a tent for testing. Instead we had to get on the end of the line, which took another 15 minutes or so of winding through the pre-testing area. We turned in our tests at 11:13 and headed to the terminal waiting area. This sign pictured below was at the bottom of the escalator that led up to the terminal/waiting area where passengers waited for results.
Top of the escalator:
I wish we had taken photos here, as I know everyone is interested. We were too nervous! Neither of us even thought about taking pictures. There were already a lot of people waiting ahead of us. We watched the board even though we knew it would be about 45 minutes before we'd know. The board has reservation numbers columns next to "Proceed to" columns and the "proceed to column" has either "terminal" or "Inspire agent." Results came up in batches. There were maybe 4 batches that we waited through before our turn was up. I imagine that if we hadn't had the interrogation, we would have been in an earlier batch. We kept watching the board and I was refreshing my e-mail, and before our reservation number appeared on the board, I got an e-mail that our results were ready. Checked the Inspire website and saw this at 11:55...We were "cleared to sail!"
Guys...I CRIED! I shook and cried with relief and Peter laughed at me and also with his own glee.
We didn't wait to see our reservation on the board, we just headed straight to check-in and boarded the ship! It was as we headed up the walkway to the ship that I remembered to take the above screen shot, so the crying only lasted about 2 minutes.
Up next...on the ship!
We had a great cruise...an awesome time. There was an incident with somebody's shoes...
We leave on Saturday on the 5 night double dip cruise. It is my 7th grade daughter and I, cannot wait! please keep your review going, it has been awesome!
We are getting close enough to be excited and think about it but far enough it still feels like forever.
