M Bowlan 2004 click to enlarge
Going aboard! Wow, we are getting close!

Uuugh... The wake call, just rang. It was 3:15am and I had been sleeping for just 60 minutes. I was able to get work stuff done tonight with the high-speed internet connection in the hotel room, but still took a little longer than hoped. Thanks to Gary for hitting the shower first, which gave me another 30 minutes of much needed sleep. We were up and at'em pretty quick and had checked out of the Airport Hilton (Toronto) and caught the second shuttle bus to the airport at 4:30am. Our flight to Miami was at 6:50am and we were there with over two hours to spare. With the huge lineup and slow security, we needed every minute. Take off was smooth out of Toronto and after 3 hours, a breakfast and some sleep we were in Miami. Wow, many feet of snow at home, and palm trees and convertables here! Balmy 19C. It was pretty cloudy and looked like a rain storm was coming but it held off and before long it was quite sunny and warm. We took a 20 minute shuttle bus ride ("maniac driver", Rhonda) to the cruise terminal and were boarding around 11:00am. It was neat to see the cruiseships (five in a row) looming large in the distance, many miles before we arrived at them. They are very large! We are sailing on the 1,029ft Voyager of the Seas, a Royal Carribean ship, one of the largest in the world. Check in at the cruise terminal was much like an airport with scanning of luggage and photo ID taken to match with our "Seapass" cruise cards. The cards are used for tracking everything. It was very exciting to actually step on the ship, and took a while to sink in (no pun intended!) that you were on a floating city. The next trick was to find our room while wandering around with our mouths open at the enormity of the ship and its features (pictures are worth a 1,000 words...). After finally finding our "stateroom", we dropped off our carry on bags and headed to the 11th deck to the "Windjammer" for a buffet lunch. The food was fantastic and the choices were endless (they have nive big plates). After eating we wandered around, trying to get familiar with the ship and how to navigate around it. We spent some time on the upper deck, with its 360deg view of Miami. The view was beautiful and amazing. We realized that to live in Miami, you must own a boat! :) We then went back to unpack our luggage which had now arrived, and were soon watching four of the other ships start to head off into the horizon. It wasn't long after (6:00pm) that we realized we were moving as well, and the real journey had just begun. The view leaving Miami was pretty, as the sun setting behind us and dusk appraoching many lights were coming on throughout the city. We spent some time setting ourselves up with "Drink Cards", internet access, and planning an excursion to our surprise destination for tomorrow - The Bahamas! We were supposed to be visiting Labadee, Haiti on Tuesday with tomorrow being our day at sea. With all the politial unrest there these days, the cruise line decided to cancel that port of call, and we expected just an extra day at sea. We were quite suprised to find a letter on our bed when we arrived saying that the change now was that we would be visiting Freeport, Bahamas tomorrow and Tuesday would be our day at sea sailing into Jamaica. Gary and I will be doing some fishing and the girls will be touring and shopping. Dinner tonight was great with a nice four course meal, and after that we enjoyed watching the "Bon Voyage Parade" before heading back to our rooms. We are all pretty tired as it has been a long day. It is now 1:00am with a busy day ahead of us...