ALL ABOARD!!

The morning we were scheduled to board the ship we had breakfast together. Okay, to be honest most everyone else had breakfast together. Karen, Shiane and I were late...this was to be a pattern for the rest of the week.

We finished our breakfast and left out of the room via the back doors. As we did my daughter leans over and says "Mom I think those women are talking about you because they kept staring and whispering" and Karen said "yeah I noticed that too!". I looked around to see who the heck would be staring at me and suddenly a woman pops around *okie won't admit that it almost scared the chit out of her* and holler "OKIE!". I look at her and say "yeah" and she says "IT'S SCRAPDEE!" Of course then I immediately give her a hug and then another lady pops aroud and says "SJOX44!" And I have to give her a hug. Well that was it for us! While we had several others we did spend time with we for the most part spent most of our activity time together and have declared the 5 of us are now BFF's for life!

Everyone gathered in the lobby with their luggage, some folks had enough to fill the lockers of a football team, I am just sure of it! *okie cracks up laughin*. We got to meet more people and it looked like total chaos with everyone making sure they had everything. The afternoon before we had gotten checked in at the Renaissance hotel and I met Dan Larsen and his wife who were an absolute hoot! I did feel for Dan since he had several boxes that he and his wife were having to tote around. Luckily they had one of those rolly things that hotels offer.

Pretty soon they called us to go out and meet the buses. Well once again we were at the back of the line. The bad thing about this was that one of the buses got held up at customs and while the first bus filled up there were quite a few of us standing out on the curb waiting...and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...Finally the first bus left. And were stood there and waited....and waited...and waited...and waited. At this point I told everyone if they could find a screwdriver I would hot wire the hotel van and take us to the port. No one seemed to think this was a good idea *okie thought it was a fabulous idea*. I wasn't too worried since I noticed that we were the only cruisers left behind, and the others left behind were the ProvoCraft staff and the travel agent. I figured we had a better shot of getting on that ship than anyone else at this point.

Our travel agent Rusty was getting a bit hot under the collar by this time. Someone finally called for some cabs to come and get us. This is when I soon discovered that when you go on a trip with ProvoCraft, THEY DO TAKE CARE OF YOU! Well there were like 3 cabs that drove by, and then 2 van cabs...none stopped. At last a cab turned around. Mike (from ProvoCraft) had Karen, Shiane and I get in that cab. We also took a lot of luggage that was on the curb in the trunk of our cab. I have no idea whose luggage it was but since I didn't see any naked people on the cruise I guess the luggage found it's owners!

Shiane was excited and said "THIS IS MY FIRST CAB RIDE!" Cindy (from ProvoCraft) had give us bottles of water as a consolation prize of having stand on the curb and we were very grateful to get it!

Our cab driver was super nice. He pointed out some of the ships to us and pointed to ours, the MS Eurodam. He also pointed out the FREAKINGLY HUGE ship and told us it was one of the largest cruise ships, MS Oasis of the Seas, that exists today. I could not believe something so big even existed!! I swore I would remember our cab drivers name, but ya know what? My memory is not what it use to be! *okie wonders of some of that ginkgo bo bango or whatever it is would help her memory*. Anyway I did get his picture! I informed him he would be blogged and scrapbooked. He didn't seem too impressed with that, but he did like the tip we gave him, and yes I mean money! *okie shakes head knowing some readers are such smart azzes*

We had to laugh when we realized we arrived at the port before the bus that left almost 30 minutes earlier. The check in went smoothly. Karen had a passport and Shiane and I had our official emboss sealed birth certificates and state issues photo id's and we didn't have a problem. Right now if you are going on a closed port cruise an official birth certificate and driver's license will work in place of a passport. But with that said I do plan on getting a passport soon.