Day 1 – Sunday. Up at 4:00am and to the airport by 5am for our 6am flight. Our flight down went almost perfect. While Delta cancelled over 400 flights, the only problem we had was our flight from Atlanta into Ft Lauderdale was delayed about 45 minutes.
Interesting, for this trip, we have 4 flights and our seats
are the same on all four flights, 2C & 2D!
We arrived at the airport about 1:30pm, collected our bags
and after a ½ hour delay, the shuttle picked us up and took us to the hotel
where they let us check in early.
Dinner was about a mile away so we took an Uber to the
Rustic Inn Crab House – a very large place on the canal where we had an entrée
of 20 very large cold peal ‘n eat shrimp with boiled potatoes and cold slaw.
After dinner we went to bed early.
Day 2 – Ed had breakfast while Barb got ready and we took an
Uber to the port and started boarding at 10:30am. Since we were early, we waiting in a waiting
area until 11:00am when they let us onboard.
It actually took us about 5 minutes to go through all the paperwork
checking and another 5 minutes to get on the ship and up to our cabin. Everything you have to board a Celebrity
ship is done via their app and they simply check your papers as you enter the
boarding area – checking your passport, your rapid Covid test and your vaccine
card. That’s it and you are on your way
to the ship and your key is at your door with the room ready.
We started out with 4 other couples going with us and only
Barb and Tim Freeman made it. Since they
were concerned about flights, they flew their own plane down and got here
yesterday. Jeff & Vere cancelled on
Saturday when Vera tested positive for Covid.
Barb and David didn’t want to take the chance and John and LuJean are
just starting a new job and moving so they also cancelled.
This ship is the newest in the Celebrity fleet and it is
amazing. It is a sister ship to the
Celebrity Edge which we sailed on in January 2020. The bones of the ship are the same as the
Edge; however, almost everything in the interior decorations is different. The most amazing difference is the number of
green things in the common areas. Every
plant is living. In one area called
Eden, there are over 500 living plants.
This ship is the most beautiful ship we have every been on – no question
about it.
Once we got to the cabin, we unpacked our carry-on and went
to the back of the ship to meet Barb and & Tim and have lunch. The food on Celebrity is always good and we
sat for a couple of hours just enjoying each other’s company.
Then we walked around the ship and for an area in the theater
where we would meet for the first show and then go to dinner and then the
casino.
On ships, the staff starts with the Captain. Below him are the Head Engineer and the Hotel
Manager. While we were looking in the theater,
we ran into the ships Hotel Manager Camron who we had met on a couple of ships
before and have had several dinners with he and his wife and two boys. Camron used to be a Casino Manager, they
Guest Services Managers before he was promoted to this top position.
His family can’t be with him because his 7-year-old son has
not been vaccinated. They are from
England.
We found out from Cameron in the afternoon that there are
going be a 2000 people on board, roughly 70% of capacity. At 4:30pm when we were to sail, they held the
ship for a couple of hours and their final count was 1600 guests. Apparently, a lot of guests didn’t show up
and didn’t cancel.
Dinner was great and the first show was a comedian who was
pretty funny, but not great.
Then we went to the casino and it is amazing all of the
casino staff that we knew, including the Manager, the Host and the lead
supervisor plus a lot of the dealers.
The casino was very crowed when we arrived at 10:30pm and
there was not a table for the 4 of us to play together so we asked the
supervisor to open up a table for us and she did.
After 2 hours, Ed was down $25, Barb did not play so we
called it a night at 12:30am.
Tomorrow is a sea day so it will be a fun, relaxing day.
Night from the Apex, somewhere on the ocean.
