Day 01 - Saturday, 11/09/24 - Embarkation Day
Embarkation day was finally here. We enjoyed a crowded breakfast buffet at the Rodeway Inn & Suites and then lounged around the hotel until our scheduled 11am shuttle to the airport. There were over 350 guests being transported and the shuttle service had it pretty well organized with departures grouped by ship. Our shuttle was the last one to depart and we left about 11:15am. With 8 ships in port, there was quite a bit of congestion at the port entry. Once we were through the gate the congestion reduced. We made a stop for a couple of passengers who were sailing on the Celebrity Beyond but missed their shuttle's early departure and around the corner the Volendam was waiting for us. We arrived just before noon and our luggage was dropped off and handled by the porters without us having to handle it. While checkin was supposed to start at 1pm, it was clearly already in progress and it took about 20 minutes to accomplish that. We then had a brief time in a holding area, but we were on the ship just before 1pm. We were warmly greeted by Florin, our Hotel General Manager, and we shared mutual warm greetings. We also got to meet Nick, our Cruise & Travel Director (CD) whom we've never sailed with.
We found our inside stateroom #3399 noting the new carpet in the hallways and room. Also it appeared that the bathroom walls and floors had been refreshed. There was an addition of USB type A and B sockets at the desk, but none unfortunately at the bedside. We watched the safety video and then enjoyed a first meal in the LIDO Marketplace before walking around the ship to refamiliarize ourselves with the layout. Prior to this cruise we've sailed on the Volendam nearly 150 days. Much of the layout is the same, but we could see improvements in the LIDO pool, the new Library and Game room. The ship appears in fine shape, but there are still some ship wide issues being worked on particularly with bathroom issues.
All throughout the afternoon, we observed luggage and provisions bing unloaded. We completed the safety drill by going to our muster station and then listening to the Captain's safety briefing. My luggage came mode afternoon, but my wife's showed on our AirTag tracker as still being in the terminal (and both of our luggage arrived at the same time. Our scheduled departure time of 4:30pm came and went and the Captain made several announcements about departing. We watched the Sun Princess, Disney Wish, Freedom of the Seas and several other ships depart and still my wife's luggage hadn't arrived. Finally, around 6pm in the dark, the mooring lines were dropped and the ship's thrusters propelled us away from the dock. The ship pivoted 90º clockwise and began its slow departure from Port Everglades headed on a northeasterly course to the Azores which we are scheduled to arrive at in 6 days.
Our first dinner meal was a very nice prime rib dinner in the LIDO Market and finally around 6:30pm my wife's luggage was delivered. We could observe there was still lots of luggage to be yet delivered. From my perspective as a passenger, it appeared that there was some issue in how luggage loading and distribution was handled. We've never had it delivered that late even on ships of triple the size. I'll try to speak with Florin and see if I can learn what might have been the issue. It's frustrating not having one's luggage in the stateroom before we depart.
For us, the only evening entertainment we participated in was the CD's presentation on an overview of the cruise. Nick has a crystal clear engaging voice and gave an excellent presentation. We were introduced to some key staff members including Ron, Food & Beverage Director whom we sailed with last year on the Grand South America cruise. Samantha, Entertainment Director, and Leanne, Entertainment host were also on that cruise. The Protestant Chaplin, Dean, we've sailed with on the Westerdam to Australia in 2022. Since we were tired we didn't take in any of the music venues, but we did do "walk byes" and like what we way in the Ocean Bar and the Mix. We also learned that there is a Classical Music trio that will be doing 3 sets per day. That should be nice and starts tomorrow.
Because we are heading east, we need to do a number of clock time changes. Tonight and tomorrow night we lose an hour and that will occur 4 more times over the next 6 days. Nick cautioned everyone to change the settings on one's phone time updating from automatic to manual. As you'll learn tomorrow, at least one person didn't get the message, and I'll write about that tomorrow.
Our inside stateroom is clean, comfortable and quiet. Sleep came easily, and we're highly anticipating a good sea day tomorrow with a number of lectures and a Cruise Critic Meet & Greet. For those who are new to reading my blogs, these are composed on my iPhone 13 using a Bluetooth keyboard and occasionally I simply peck it out using the onscreen phone keyboard. Questions are always welcome and particularly if there is something about the ship you want to know about, feel free to ask. There will be a few pictures in each day's blog post, but most will be shared on Facebook or. In my thread on Cruise Critic's website.
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