Grandeur of the Seas Tampa - Key West - Cozumel January 5-10, 2009

Day 1 - Tampa, FL My husband and I flew into Tampa the day before the cruise departed. We arrived in Tampa around 11AM and took the shuttle to the LaQuinta Inn. We got to the hotel and there were a few shuttles there taking people to the port for a Carnival cruise. Our shuttle driver asked if we were going on a cruise as well, we told him we were and he told us to talk to the coordinator who was there so we could secure a shuttle ride to the port with them. We did just that, $20 to take the two of us to the port and another $20 to take the two of us to the airport after the cruise. We had been up since 3AM, so we checked in, got lunch at the IHOP next door and then took a nap. When we woke up we were planning to go over to the International Plaza across the way for some shopping and dinner, but we then realized that it was Sunday and that most malls close at 6pm. They did. We went over anyway and there was a lovely outdoor area with all of the restaurants. We ate at Champps Restaurant and Bar. It was a good meal and a good atmosphere as one of the NFL playoff games were on. After dinner we retired to our room to relax and then head to bed, we had another big day ahead of us!

Day 2 - Embarkation in Tampa Thanks to the nap we took yesterday, we were up at 6AM! We decided to head over to IHOP and got some breakfast. After we were through it was about 7AM and we decided to go back to the hotel and to get ready, pack things back up and put the Royal Caribbean luggage tags on the bags. We had to be down in the lobby for 11AM for our shuttle so at 10:45 we went down to the front desk and checked out and then proceeded to wait outside for the shuttle as the weather was so nice! The shuttle arrived around 11:15AM and we loaded the luggage and were off to the port. We stopped at another hotel to pick up a few more passengers and arrived at the port around 11:45. This is where things got sticky! We got our luggage off of the shuttle and had no idea where to put our luggage! This was our 5th cruise, so this wasn't new to us, but there weren't signs anywhere. We saw a porter down the walkway a bit and headed that way. A porter took our bags and we were off to the terminal. We walked right in, through security and into the check-in line. We waited about 10 minutes and were finally next in line! Checking in was painless. We were assigned to group #6 to board the ship; they hadn't started boarding yet so we took a seat and enjoyed some cookies and lemonade. Finally, around 12:15 they started priority boarding. Then, they called groups 3, 4, and 5. After five things grew silent and all of a sudden they made an announcement that they were boarding #7! So we enter the already huge line and continued to wait, and wait, and wait. This was the lengthiest embarkation I have ever witnessed! It seemed like it took hours to finally get our SeaPass picture taken and another few hours to actually get onto the ship. By the time we were finally onboard, it was after 1PM. We proceeded directly to our stateroom. We were excited as this was our first balcony! We were in cabin 7644, it was starboard side and in the aft of the ship. On our way up there we noticed our luggage was already off of the elevators, so we decided to grab a bite to eat in the Windjammer and then come back to the room to see if they had delivered the bags. Sure enough, after lunch, our bags were at our door so we began to unpack. We also met our cabin attendant, Lincoln, who promptly stated that he knew our door wasn't closing right and that he would report it. Muster was at 4:30PM, so we had plenty of time. We finished unpacking and decided to check our dining room assignment. We had requested a two-top but ended up at an eight-top. We hoped that we would have some lovely tablemates! We went back to the room and got our lifejackets and were off to station 9. Muster was pretty painless; there were only a few stragglers, so it was over in a flash. We returned our lifejackets to the cabin went off to get a drink and then settled into our balcony to celebrate sail away. The sunset over Tampa was gorgeous; we knew we were finally on vacation. Around 7PM Captain Hempstead made an announcement that in a half an hour we would be passing under a bridge. We wanted to see this so at 7:25 we went up to deck 9 and we were minutes away from clearing the bridge. It grew pretty silent as the ship started under the bridge, once the tallest part of the ship passed through people were cheering and clapping, it was a sight! We had late seating dinner and the show was before dinner for us. It was the usual welcome aboard show featuring the band, the singers and dancers and a comedian. It ended up running late so we decided to leave at 8:30 and dash off to dinner. Our 6 other tablemates were there and they gave us a warm welcome. We met our waiter Roschman from India and our assistant waiter Rhoderick from Philippines. They were great. There was no bar service in the dining room. Our assistant waiter got us our drinks from the bar and the head waiter was the one to come around with the after dinner drinks. Dinner was delicious and we didn't finish dessert until almost 10:30PM. We were pretty tired again so we went to the casino for a little bit, lady luck was not with us that night; we decided to call it a night. Read more