Although we sailed on Sunday the 4th of November we flew from Pittsburgh to Orlando in Friday the 2nd. We were meeting a group of our cruising friends for an extra day and a half of fun in the sun. My Dear Wife and I stayed at the Country Inns & Suites in Cocoa Beach Friday and Saturday nights, after renting a car at the Orlando Airport. This, very nice, property is close enough to Port Canaveral that you can see the funnels on the ships as they prepare to sail. Friday evening the wife and I went searching for dinner and Wal-Mart for needed supplies. Saturday I met Cruise Critic's Radio at NASA and we toured his favorite place on earth. The Shuttle Atlantis was moved to its new home on Friday and we at the opportunity to visit it at its new site, as well as other space related displays. We made a stop at Port Canaveral Locks and saw a manatee and a slew of pelicans and other birds and fish in the canal. Off to dinner at the Port to watch Disney Dream and Carnival Splendor (I think) sail away.

A few more of our friends joined us for dinner and we turned in a little early in anticipation of sailing on Sunday. I woke at 5:30, but it was really 4:30 since it was "clock day" so I laid my head back down for an hour and then got ready for the big day, sail away. After breakfast, complementary, at the hotel, we jumped in the car and drove to the ship. I wound up dropping the luggage, and the wife, off at the terminal and took the car back to the rental office and Radio picked me up for our trip back to the port.

Check-in was one of the worst we have ever experienced. Supposedly there were computer problems, they got them fixed but we still were not moving onto the ship. My wife, who uses a scooter and needed a wheelchair for boarding, found none in the terminal, they were all on the ship. And the ship was on hold for boarding. At one point there were about 200 people waiting outside the building, including the father of one of the cutest little girls who was inside with her Mom, Grandparents and Aunt. Because we know that the Wind Jammer gets a bit crazy on embarkation day, we asked the escort to leave us at Sorrentos. While the crew grabbed some cookies, I went to our cabin to retrieve the scooter, yes it was before the opened the cabins but I was on a quest (no not that one), and I left the carry-ons on deck 5. The cabins soon opened for occupancy and we went to see our accessible balcony on deck 7. This is the same cabin we had in February 2009. As we approached the room we noticed our bags were waiting for us, a very nice surprise. So we unpacked and got ready to do some re-discovering. We were dinner guests of a fellow cruiser at Portofinos. It was fabulous. We decided that this was going to be a total relaxation cruise so we didn't do too many activities during the week. We did play a fair amount of Gin on the pool deck and a whole bunch of not much else. Read more