EMBARKATION

In the three cruises I have taken, I have only ever sailed out of the Miami port terminal, and it is always the same chaotic and disorganized mess. When we arrived, there was no one to greet us, and it was difficult to find someone in charge. So we just wandered around with our suitcases until we were able to catch up to one of the guys wearing a white helmet. He asked us our ship name and informed us that "now is the time to tip your porter." But as we dug into our pockets for tip money, he disappeared, leaving our suitcases lying in the middle of the street among several others.

The question now was: Do we track this guy down and tip him? Or just walk away and assume our bags will make it to our room eventually? We chose to look for the guy, and handed him a few bucks. I have no idea if it made any difference to the level of care our bags received. Read more