Home Again

Well, it is now the second day since we returned from our cruise and I'm still having withdrawals. I have had to get up and make my own coffee in the morning instead of lifting the handset on the phone and having it delivered. That's a pretty drastic change, you know. I guess we just have to start planning another cruise so I can be pampered some more. Before I get into writing about our cruise, I want to tell you about a couple we met on the cruise.

We were at one of the shows and sitting next to us was a man and his wife, both in their early eighties or there about, and we were commenting about how pleased we were with the cruise and especially about the Princess Cruise. I asked the woman if this was their first time on Princess sand she replied,"No, this is our 77th time." Her husband chimed in that they were going "back to back", meaning they would not leave their stateroom in Ft. Lauderdale, but would be sailing for another 10 days. He then said after they get back, they will be home for 3 days and then it's on another cruise. This was their 15th cruise this year and their 138th overall. They took their 1st cruise in 1960. And as they said, it's cheaper than a retirement home, with better facilities and service. It was really interesting talking to them.

Anyway, on to our adventure. I don't know where I will go with my narrative, but I'm going to start at the beginning and as the days progress, I will follow our itinerary as close as possible. Of course, photos will be included. So, here goes.

Everyone was ready to head to the cruise ship by 8 am on the 29th. It takes about 4 1/2 hours to drive to Ft Lauderdale, so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time in case of traffic. We couldn't board until 1 pm and the cruise line suggested not getting there until 2 because of the rush to board. Well, we made great time and got to the ship a little after 1. We dropped off the luggage for all of us and Mary & Keith left to park the cars. I was anticipating a long wait when se started to check in and had been told by the others (Mo, Skip, Mary & Keith) that even after we are on board, we would not be able to go to our starterooms until later. What a shock. The check-in was so efficient we were on board within 20 minutes of arriving. You actually checked in by which deck your room was located so there were not long lines. In fact, we didn't have to wait more than a minute. After we checked in, we went on board and were told we could go to our staterooms, if we wanted. So, since I had carry on, I wanted to get rid of it before we did anything else. The crew was very helpful and informative as to how to get to our stateroom it took us no time at all to find it. What was nice is it was by a set of elevators which made it very convenient for us. We brought Betty's power chair, as well as a manual chair, so she was able to get around pretty easily (more on that at a later date). We also had a handicap room, which was really nice with a roll in shower, etc. The following photos are of our stateroom although they were taken on our last day, they still show how spacious the room was.

This was from the entry looking toward the balcony.

These two photos are taken from our balcony door looking back to the entry. In the left picture, you can see there was plenty of closet space. The first two doors closest to the TV were one closet, Betty's, and the one closest to the entry was mine. The one between had a safe and shelves. So, as you can see, storage was not a problem.

These photos are of the bathroom, which was also very roomy. Betty was able to get around very easily, except for one day which is another story.







Can you believe I've rambles this much and we still haven't finished the first day. I have some great photos taken from the balcony while we were still in Ft Lauderdale, but they will have to wait until tomorrow. Until then . . .