Day Four: "All Aboard!"

"Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, 
A tale of an amazing trip 
That started from this Palm Beach port
Aboard this tiny ship."

      We learned a lot in the hot tub the night before. One, while everyone else was sitting through another "optional" sales presentation to earn a VIP pass to board, we could actually be on our way to the port checking in an hour earlier than our Noon-4:30pm boarding times. Several of our ship-mates were planning to hit some Palm Beach tourist traps before going to the ship but we had learned that free meals and plenty of ship activities would be available as soon as we boarded at Noon. 

Bahamas Celebration

     We took our time sight-seeing on our drive up to the port, arrived at 11am, walked through all the check points: valet parking, luggage drop off, security, forms, checked in and got our boarding passes which would also be our on board credit cards, pre-boarding photo booth, the excursions sign up table, and made our dinner reservations while waiting in zero lines. We sat in the pre-boarding waiting area talking to ship-mates and reviewing our excursion options for about thirty minutes until the gangway doors opened at noon. There was a little bit of a line there as excited cruisers crowded around to hear our boarding instructions. I looked behind me and tried really hard not to laugh out loud at