Day 1 – Boarding and departure in Tampa

Normally I’m the crazy person who decided to catch a redeye flight the day before my cruise departure but this time I decided to fly out a whole day before. And am I glad I did! The flight I would have caught was cancelled due to mechanical problems and I would have missed my flight. If you’re going to do this long of a trip either come out the day before or book with the cruise line so they’ll hold the boat, should anything go wrong with your flight.

Tampa has to be the easiest port to get onto a ship. Miami, Ft Lauderdale, etc are all a circus. With Tampa you pull up to a small terminal, quickly go through security, and are on the boat within an hour max. My luggage even made it to my room within 3 hours. Try getting that from the other ports. I’m doing the canal on the Radiance of the Seas. Roughly 2500 people will be doing this trip with me. Given the boat is 13 stories I’m not expecting to feel like that many people are actually on here. Rooms are of average size. Enough to put your stuff away but not enough to really feel spacious. Closets are very nicely done and you should have no problem putting away all the items you brought with you. All-you-can-drink soda cards are $103 after gratitudly which isn’t bad seeing as a single soda will run $2.12. Here’s a little trick to save money on this cruise: bring your own water if you don’t like ship water. You can get it on as a carry-on bag IF the bottles are in a package and are shrink wrapped in the original bottler’s packaging. Water bottles are $3.79 each onboard.

We set sail at 5pm with first dining tonight at 6 and second dining at 9. Normally it’s either 5:30 or 8:45. Not a lot more to do tonight but relax and check out the boat.