Sunday, March 10, 2019, Re-Embarkation Fort Lauderdale

Sunday, March 10, 2019, Re-Embarkation Fort Lauderdale

The transition between the two cruise segments was a bit of a jumble. We ended up saying our farewells to the people we had met on the first segment, and had the ship to ourselves (the 350 continuing passengers) for an hour.  We ended up sitting in the Princess theatre while all the other exiting passengers cleared customs and immigrations. Then we filed into a room and held out our Passports for a customs agent to walk down the line and visually confirm our faces matched our pictures.  That was pretty much the extent of the customs process.  We then filed back on board.  We went up to the pool and found prime deck chairs and an uncrowded pool deck with just a handful of like minded continuing passengers.  It didn’t take long for newly arriving passengers to start filling up the decks and buffet, and as the sun came overhead, it heated up, so we headed inside to use the gym.  We rested up and attended our second muster drill, which we were smart enough this time to sneak into the very back of the theater so we could sneak out first.  

We enjoyed some wine on our balcony while we watched all the crazy boating traffic in Port Everglades as 8 cruise ships and hundreds of private vessels all vied for the channel.  There were several Broward County Sheriff’s boats, Port Everglades pilot boats, and Coast Guard fast boats speeding around directing traffic, reminding boaters to stay in the navigational channel and to maintain the perimeter around all the cruise ships.  When a cruise ship pushed off its mooring, they had to stop all the small boat traffic while the cruise ship pivoted around in the center of the harbor, and made its way out through the main channel. The Celebrity Edge got first clearance, followed by a Carnival ship that must have passed within 50 feet of our bow as it pushed out of its berth.  We could see a lot of shirtless guys and bikini‘d girls on the decks of that boat- quite a different demographic from our ship.  Then it was our turn to go.  When each ship pushes back, it sounds its horn with 5 quick blasts to say good bye.  Ben really loves it that the Regal Princess, and her Royal Class sister ships, have custom tuned fog horns that can blast out the theme to the TV Show “The Love Boat”.  

We hit the main restaurant right at opening, and were able to get seated right away.  It was apparent, looking around, that this contingent of passengers is significantly different than the last batch.  This one looks considerably younger, and is accompanied by lots more school aged children- must be spring break now.  It did take a long time for the food to come out, but Ben had a nice prime rib.  Janet’s pasta ended undercooked, so most of that went uneaten, but she did have a couple of appetizers that had filled her up.  

For our first trivia of this segment of the cruise we teamed up with a couple from W Virginia and another couple from Massachusetts.  We managed 20/24 while the winners got 22.  We didn’t know that Sir Thomas Moore created a fictional island named Utopia, and didn’t know the Byker Grove children’s TV show was hosted by Ant and Dec (We still have no idea who Ant and Dec are, or anything about that show, although at least one trivia team came up with that).  

Next was another Motown Trivia.  They had managed to come up with some more obscure songs and also played several segments from the middles of the songs, rather than the beginnings.  We ended up teaming up with a woman who started off sitting alone who was very attractive and dressed up to the 9’s like a model.  Well, it turned out that she is married to Dr. Byron Lichtenberg, who was an Air Force pilot with 138 combat sorties over Vietnam and two Space Shuttle flights under his belt as a mission payload specialist.  He also happens to be a MIT alumnus.  That was a pretty funny circumstance.  Tamera, his second wife, was a college cheerleader and beauty queen.  They had an adopted teenage daughter from China with them.  Despite the glamour and credentials they brought to the game, they weren’t particularly good at Motown, except for Tamera certainly had her Lionel Ritchie down solid.  We finished with a solidly mediocre score.  Then they had an urban legends trivia that was all True or False, and amazingly, two teams got perfect scores on that.  The tie breaker was how many years ago did Honduras gain it’s independence from Spain.  That was good for wine bottle stoppers.

We had planned on seeing the “Born to Dance” show again, but the late performance was canceled due to technical problems with one of the flying set pieces that was unstable.  We had a snack at the international cafe and saw that the Piazza was pretty crowded with lots of people still out and about at 10PM.  That’s uncharacteristic for our prior Princess cruise experiences, and is probably reflective of the Spring Break effect.  

Tomorrow we return to Princess Cay where we anticipate a relaxing day of snorkeling and eating.