The Cruise 1

Okay - we got to the Port of Tampa and boarded the ship. As soon as we boarded the ship, we knew we weren't on a Disney cruise. The atrium was all done in black marble and decorated with neon tube lights in red, green and blue - very gaudy, very Las Vegas-ish (is there such a word?). Besides the black marble and neon, the first thing we saw was a bar in the middle of the atrium. You can't avoid seeing it. Apparently that is the way they wanted it because there was a line waiting to be served. We made our way down to our stateroom which was very nice. The ship had just come out of dry dock and all of the staterooms had been refurbished. After we unpacked some, we headed up to the restaurant deck (Lido) to see if we could find something to eat. When we got there, it was another reminder we weren't on a Disney cruise. Most of the tables had dirty dishes sitting on them and the floors looked like people had taken plates and dumped them upside down on the floor - not an auspicious beginning at all. We managed to find a clean table and sat down and ate. The food was okay - definitely nothing to write home about. After the requisite muster drill, it was time to cast off so we went topside to watch. We thoroughly enjoyed sailing out through Tampa Bay. We never realized what a busy port Tampa was. We thought we might reach the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in about an hour, but it actually took us 2-1/2 hours to sail under the bridge and get out into the Gulf. By now, we were hungry again so we went and found something to eat. During the cruise, we ate mostly at The Brasserie which offers buffet service for all three meals.

After eating, we had a check-in meeting with the scrapbooking group we were traveling with. We found out that there were about 60 in our group. Julie (our leader) divided us into 4 groups for classes. Most of the women traveling were traveling with girlfriends. Only a few had their husbands along. After the meeting, we went topside to watch the water go by (one of our favorite parts of cruising!) and then headed to bed as I had class at 8:00 AM the next morning.