The day started out really well. Grande Gingerbread Latte from Starbucks at the airport. We boarded the airplane, no problem. Then the pilot came on and said the plane had mechanical problems and they had to bring in another plane. We had to disembark.

Now we were in trouble. If we were on time we would have been on the ship hours before the ship left but now, by the time we got a plane and got to Ft. Lauderdale, we were going to get there right as the ship was leaving. The airline people kept telling us it would be no problem but we could do the math. They wouldn't give us our luggage to get an earlier flight. Bill called the rep that we made the reservation through to let them know we might be running on the ship and we prepared for the idea that we might have to meet the ship at it's second port of call. It was going to be interesting.

We got to Ft. Lauderdale with about 20 minutes until the ship left port. Of course, it took longer than normal for the luggage to come out, it seemed like it anyway.

OK! We had all of our luggage and we were in the taxi! We asked the guy to step on it and he did! He even flashed his lights at red lights to try to get them to turn green as we approached. He was awesome!!! When we got to the cruise ship the check-in center was closed. One woman was standing outside waiting for us. She waved us to the side. We grabbed our luggage, hugged the cab driver, paid him and ran like crazy. People on the ship were yelling things like , "It's about time!" and "Hurry!"

They welcomed us on board and told us they'd never seen anyone cut it so close. We made it with 10 seconds to spare. They closed the door right behind us! Whew! We couldn't BELIEVE we made it! For the rest of the night we were famous. Almost everyone we ran in to knew we were the couple that barely made it on board.

We dropped our stuff off in our cabin and headed up to the top deck to watch the ship leave Ft. Lauderdale.

Everyone was so relaxed. It took a while to for us to unwind.

We were just so happy to be on board. We still couldn't believe we made it.

We got far enough away from land to lose cell signal. We turned our phones off and our vacation began!

Before our cruise officially started we had to go to the alternate safety drill. We missed the main safety drill because we were late.

Arrive   1, 2
Half Moon Cay, Bahamas   3
Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos    4, 5, 6

Samana, Dominican Republic   6, 7
At Sea   7
Kralendijk, Bonaire   7, 8

Willemstad, Curaçao   8, 9, 10, 11
Oranjestad, Aruba   11, 12, 13, 14, 15
At Sea   15, 16

At Sea   17, 18
Ft. Lauderdale   18, 19, 20, 21, 22