EURODAM-DECEMBER 26, 2009- JANUARY 2, 2010 HALF MOON CAY, ARUBA, & CURACAO

EMBARKATION DAY: We arrived in FLL the day before the cruise and had dinner at a wonderful restaurant near the beach called The Casablanca Cafe. The seafood entrees were excellent. We spent the night at the Renaissance Hotel in the downtown area. The Renaissance is a beautiful hotel and very convenient to Port Everglades. We were able to see the cruise ships from our window. We arrived at the pier at 10:30 and were quickly checked in and were onboard by 11:20 AM. This was the easiest embarkation we have ever had. We were very happy that the MDR was open for lunch and enjoyed eating there away from the chaos at the Lido. We later found out that lunch in the MDR on embarkation day was only for Mariners, but we weren't told that when we boarded. As a matter of fact, HAL staff was directing everyone to the Lido for lunch. We went to the MDR on our own without knowing that it was open & it was a pleasant surprise. After lunch we dropped off our carry on bags in our cabin and walked around the beautiful Eurodam before we went to our informal Cruise Critic "Meet & Greet." Quite a few people showed up & it was a great way to begin our week. It's always fun to connect names to faces since we had been chatting online for months. We had scheduled a tour in Aruba later in the week with 3 other CC members & our Meet & Greet gave us an opportunity to meet them. We always feel that friendships develop much faster on a cruise ship than on land & CC is a wonderful way to meet others. We went to the muster drill at 4 PM & that evening had reservations at the Tamarind which we had booked online before the cruise. We had high expectations for the Tamarind, because we read so many wonderful reviews on CC and it was as terrific as everyone said it would be. The Tamarind was well worth the extra fee. It was a great way to begin our week with many excellent meals to come in the MDR.

We had an air conditioning problem in our cabin & we contacted Guest Relations to get it resolved. After numerous phone calls to them, we decided to contact the Hotel Manager, Mr. Stan Kuppens, to attempt to get the problem resolved. He handled the problem immediately & followed up to make sure everything was in working order. We appreciated his personal attention to our problem. Read more