Embarkation Day

Embarkation Day

Everything went very smoothly today. We didn’t need to get up very early. We ate breakfast at the hotel then gathered up our stuff and checked out. The hotel offers a shuttle to the cruise ship port, so we took that around 11:00. Once again we were very glad that we are sailing on a small ship. Several people were dropped off at the berth where one of the big ships was boarding, and the line just to get inside the terminal was as long as the building and doubled back on itself a couple of times. There were easily several hundred people queuing to get on that ship. Then the driver took us to the berth where the Pearl Mist was docked. We found a number of helpful people hanging around out front with nothing to do. They took our bags and directed us inside. There we walked almost up to the gangway before we encountered anybody else. After a very short wait in a very short queue we were checked in and on the ship.

While we were eating lunch we sailed out around 13:00 into a calm sea on a bright, sunny day. It seemed like we sailed past Miami for an hour or so. In the afternoon we had a briefing about how the cruise will go, and then a welcome cocktail party before dinner.

Tomorrow we will arrive in Havana around 10:00. We have lots of things planned for the two days we will be there. It should be quite an adventure.