Day One - The Beginning

I didn't get any sleep the night before. At least partially, I felt a bit of trepidation taking a cruise. Between the worry about seasickness, was the knowledge that I'd actually have to dress up for at least part of this. Since I generally spend my life in jeans and t-shirts, this would take some getting used to. I dusted off an evening gown, and tried not to crush it in the suitcase. Of course, I had no idea how to properly pack such a thing. After wrestling the latches shut, assembling the bags, the general confusion about where the emergency numbers were, I double and tripple checked my Dramamine, antihistamines and special shampoo, fed and watered the birds and cats, then we loaded the final odds and ends into the truck and went out to the airport. I must have checked the tickets and passports 4 times on the way. Being a pilot, I had called Delta the night before and asked them what type of aircraft we would be flying on our trip from Dulles to Atlanta, then from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale. The aircraft were fine, a 737 and an 1011, but although I was told there wouldn't be problems, I recall being a bit dubious about the Delta agent's refusal to give us seat assignments. She told me that for this fare we would have to wait for seats and boarding passes until we got to the airport. Having paid $350.00 for each of the two tickets, I could only wonder what this fare meant, and make sure we were at the airport well in advance.

Upon arrival at Dulles, it was the general Sunday morning mass of confused bees, swarming one place, then zipping somewhere else before they find where they're really supposed to be, cutting in front of you in the process. Inertia makes it difficult to stop your body weight, plus 150 or so pounds of rolling luggage, garnering many dirty looks as you bump into the person who's stepped in front of you. Of course, the Delta counter was on the opposite end of the terminal from where we parked, so we had to navigate this mess to get the bags to the counter. The agent there was quite pleasant as she took our bags, tagged them, and sent them down the little chute to be loaded onto the airplane. She was also pleasant when she told us that we would not be receiving seating assignments until we got to the gate. She muttered something about "this fare" and "late check in." However, we were checking in one hour prior to the flight. Most confusing.

After making our way through security, and the people arguing about pocket change, and loose keys, we found ourselves in a morass of people, all seemingly bound for the Atlanta flight. We were informed that the flight had been seriously overbooked, and that they had received about 25 volunteers to be bumped. We were also informed that there would be no seating assignments for us until everyone else was boarded. We noticed a few other people who were in the same boat (no pun intended) and coincidentally enough, these people were also booked to cruise on our ship, the Galaxy. It was rather amusing to find that many of the passengers who were boarding had paid substantially less for their ticket than what we paid the cruise company for ours. Needless to say, this did not start our journey off on a confident note.

To Delta's credit, we were assigned seats. They seemed surprised when we said we would definitely accept exit rows. Unfortunately, by the time they got around to seating us, we were assigned separate seats. This was remedied by the usual musical chairs with other passengers. After a total of about 30 minutes delay, we were winging our way to Atlanta, and the prospect of a 55 minute connection time now being cut to 25.

Prior to landing, we were all informed of where to get our connections. Of course, we were landing at Terminal B, and our flight to Ft. Lauderdale and the ship would be Terminal A. Faced with the prospect of sprinting through the airport with my computer bag, purse, and carry on, I was not hopeful of catching this connection. Luckily for us, after finally getting through the people sorting their laundry in the overhead compartments, and racing from B to A, we found that the flight to Ft. Lauderdale would be departing late.

The boarding pass fiasco at Dulles was repeated to a smaller extent in Atlanta. We were called by name and asked if we would accept the exit row in the L1011. Twist our arms. Of course we would. We met a couple on the plane who were cruising with Princess Cruises (of Love Boat fame) where I found that the woman, like me, gets seasick, and spends the week on Dramamine and those silly wrist bands that supposedly press on just the right part of your wrist. This, of course, was not great news.

The flight to Florida was short and uneventful. We arrived, and found the Galaxy representative, who had us wait in the first line of many (as we were to find out). This line was for check in. Yes, we had our paperwork. Yes, we had our passports. As we looked around at our fellow passengers, it was curious to note that the vast majority seemed to be retirees from Florida, with polo shirts bearing huge yacht club emblems, and loud annoying women with 8 rings with stones larger than their long gaudy fingernails. Most were already tanned. We tried to mingle with the few "under 50's", and were soon in another line to board busses to Port Everglades, where all the cruise ships lived. By now, with no sleep and no chance for food, I was decidedly grumpy.

On the bus, we found we had been hijacked by the loud retirees. The sounds of what was wrong on the last "n" cruises drowned out the engine noise of the bus. We were most pleased to find that the bus trip was a very short one, and we were offloaded to Port 16, where our ship awaited. Alas, not so fast, another line to find a place to sit to wait to be directed to more lines. We were herded into a large room full of retirees, families with children, a few people in wheelchairs, and many uniformed types who held signs and looked rather official. One of them gave us a little card with the number "15" on it. We were told we were with group 15, and when it was called, we were to go stand in line at the door to embarkation. People coming in later were assigned to group 16. It was no surprise that when group 15 was called, many from group 16, and those who were not assigned to any group as yet, bolted for the door so they could be first, much like those who try to board an aircraft when they call only the latrine rows or first class. Strangely enough, many of the line crashers were those same loud retirees. Of course, the ships staff did not turn them back and make them wait their turn. I held back the urge to tell them how I felt about this.

Speaking of turn, we found ourselves in line waiting to be photographed prior to embarkation. We decided to really didn't want pictures of us all bedraggled and grumpy, so we stepped through saying "no thank you", much to the chagrin of the photographer. Next line was the "sign contract and present credit card for onship account stuff" line. I modified the contract as all good lawyers should (especially the venue and waive right to jury trial clauses) signed it, presented credit cards, showed passports, and was directed to, you guessed it, another line on the gangway. Still being grumpy, still not having been fed, and still very tired, this line seemed to last forever. In reality, it was probably about 15 minutes in the sauna like gangway. We were met by a maid in a silly black uniform, complete with apron, who immediately took my bag from me, and told us she would take us to our stateroom. But first, there was a line for the elevator. As with all other lines, the loud retirees were pushing through to be first, separating us from our guide. A few well placed elbows, and we were in the elevator with the woman holding my computer, and off we went to the 10th deck.

Once we reached deck 10, we found that our cabin was the most forward of all on this deck. Reece was a bit worried that might be a problem given my propensity to seasickness. In fact, although we were in port, I was a bit worried to go out on our veranda and look at things. At this point, however, only one overriding concern remained: food. We checked the little blue vinyl portfolio left in the room and looked under "dining." Sure enough, there was food to be had on the ship. Unfortunately, we had a choice of waiting until our "late seating" dinner at 8:30 PM, or attempting to get "cabin service" which was comprised of a few light dishes like salads or tuna. By now, it was approximately 3:45, so we opted for the room service. We were soon informed that we could not get room service until after the mandatory life boat drill at 4 o'clock, and after the ship's crew got back to their stations in order to make and deliver the food. I thought I was going to faint.

Close to 4PM, the ships bells and whistles went off, and an announcement in 4 or 5 different languages directed us to don our life vests and get to our "muster stations." for this mandatory drill. It certainly did seem mandatory as rooms were being checked for stragglers, and crew members were available in the corridors to ensure we were wearing our bright orange styrofoam blocks with straps properly. From there, we waited in yet another line, complete with loudly complaining retirees, and entered the Celebrity Theatre (presumably for Celebrity Cruise Lines since we didn't see any Celebrities) where we were given the fine points of wearing a life vest, and how to get to the life boat stations. We proceeded from there to our life boat stations, and noticed that the other ships in the harbor were doing their drills at the same time, with all the passengers wearing identical orange styrofoam, all pertly lined up on the decks. Once the drill was over, we staggered back to the room, avoided the elevator line by taking the stairs, and called for cabin service. Meantime, the ship set sail, and we watched the Florida coast line slowly get smaller along with a beautiful sunset.

When it got to be around the magic time when you begin to wonder if your order was lost, there was a knock on the door. This was our first introduction to Julio, our cabin steward and personal "fix everythin" kinda guy [tm]. Julio asked us how everything was thusfar. The room itself was quite nice, although smaller than I expected. We had a direct dial telephone (complete with credit card reader for the 9.50 per minute US phone calls that we did not partake of) a television and VCR, two twin beds pushed together that emulated a queen side bed quite nicely, a small couch, small desk and chair, the all important mini bar, and an adequate bathroom with shower, hair dryer, and vacuum powered commode. We told Julio that everything was wonderful except we didn't have our bags yet (the ship was supposed to deliver them) and we were waiting for our room service. Julio wrote down what we ordered, disappeared, and reappeared perhaps 5 minutes later with food, and promises of luggage "soon." We found Julio to be a man of his word, and our luggage was delivered soon after. I was fed. I could change clothes. Life was good.

While looking out over the veranda and searching for the one (count em) 110 volt American electrical outlet that wasn't located in the bathroom, we played with the TV, curious as to how many channels we'd actually get on board the ship. We found CNN, ESPN, a couple of movie channels that the ship ran, some very strange music video channels, some other ship based shopping and entertainment channels, and "the Celebrity Network" which included interactive shore excursion information, in cabin gaming, in cabin shopping, etc. Unfortunately, none of this stuff seemed to work until we were well underway, but it certainly seemed promising. We spent some time on the veranda watching the waves and the shore (and not getiting seasick) and generally hung around.

At about 8:00, we realized that dinner would be served in 1/2 an hour. Unfortunately, we had no idea where dinner was going to be. Being on the second largest cruise ship in the world certainly can get you lost. The Galaxy is also one of the newest ships afloat, beginning its service in November of 1996. After acting confused at the Guest Relations counter, we were given a map of the decks, and we went exploring.

The ship was indeed huge. We found multiple night clubs, bars, shops, pools, observation decks, spas, exercise rooms, lots of "port, starboard, aft and forward" stuff, and generally well decorated (cept for the carpeting) public and private areas. We arrived a few minutes early for dinner, and found (you guessed it) a line to get in for dinner. At the appointed 8:30 and not one minute earlier, we entered with our little table assignment card and were told we were on the wrong floor. This restaurant was a massive affair with strategically placed sculptures, live music, and railings for just in case. There was also an army of wait creatures of all sorts, some of whom would be ours for the cruise. We just had to find them. We went upstairs, stood in line again, and presented the little card with our seat number. This time, we were on the wrong side of the restaurant (told you it was big). One more line (this one shorter) and we were shown to our table where we met our bus boy, Carlos, who immediately filled our water glasses, and our waiter, Svetto, who expertly handed us our menus and welcomed us to the ship. The menu had an excellent variety, and little asterisks next to the "light and lean" items, making it easier for me to pretend to stick to my diet. That first night, we ordered a shrimp appetizer, soup, salad, and broiled seafood. We learned that our bus boy was from Honduras, and our waiter was from Croatia. The wine stewardess, named Anka, was also from Croatia, and she took excellent care of us for the entire week. Although I am allergic to sulfites, she found us wine that didnUt bother me. We ordered a Cabernet that evening, and Anka replaced the white wine glasses that had been sitting on the table, with red wine glasses. Fully fed, and very tired, we crawled back to our stateroom and fell over.