Cruising During Pandemic--Part 2

Thinking back about the plane ride, I forgot to mention that when our Phoenix flight arrived in Newark we had to wait about 20-25 minutes for a gate. 

 The following flight, once we boarded, had to wait for a mechanical problem to be repaired.  Then when we pushed away we were number 23 in line for take off.  It seems Newark is improving (?) a run way and they only had one open.  Despite that we ended up landing about an hour late.

Now back to when we boarded the ship.  You know how you can always feel every ones excitement that the voyage is ready to begin?  There's always a lot of people around the ship, well this wasn't the case.  

It turns out that there were only 400 passengers and 700 crew on a ship which holds more than 2,000 passengers.

I booked the cruise a little over a month before it sailed.  Since Bill and I were cruising without our trusty traveler friends, George and Linda, I didn't pick a cabin.  I let Celebrity find one for us.  We never book the more expensive cabins as we find we only sleep and change clothes in the cabin.  I did get a window cabin. When I received our cabin number, 6000, before we sailed I knew we had one of four cabins across the bow of the ship looking straight out.  It looked like on the deck plans that those four rooms were much larger than the others.  You could have put two king size beds in that room.  There was a nice fruit, cheese, and meat platter for us in the room.

I had packed our swimsuits in the carry on so we wouldn't have to wait for our luggage to come to the room.  I didn't need to do that as the luggage arrived before we even had time to change.

While the room was perfect, it was a very long walk to most places.  We decided to go get something to eat. We hadn't had anything but the hard cookies and a soda since Friday.

When we came back to change into our swimsuits, there was a message on the phone.  It was from guest relations, so we just walked down to see what the message was.

They wanted to know if we wanted to change rooms up one deck to 7 and have a cabin with a balcony.  Well knowing the cost of the balcony compared to the window room, I said yes.  They said I could go look at the room and let them know.  Knowing how far we had to walk, I just said it would be fine.  Our cabin attendant would move everything for us.  

I have to say we were torn after moving to the balcony room.  It was about half the size of the window one, but much more convenient to mid ship.

We drank our champagne on the balcony and that was the only time we used it.  You couldn't see near as much with the panels between each balcony.  Of course, we never thought anything about the humidity and that the loungers were always wet.  I've learned now I would never pay the additional fee for a balcony.

The always dreaded safety drill is entirely different.  Now you just acknowledge that you watched the video  on your tv or phone.  Then you go to the muster station sometime during the day and click your phone and you're done.  Of course no one else was at the muster station but a crew member.

All of the crew members call you by your name.  I'm not talking about your cabin attendant or dining room attendant--everyone.  Bill finally asked them how they knew everyone's name and one bartender said they studied our names and photos before the ship embarked.  Of course at full capacity I'm sure that will change.

The major change we noticed right off was there were only a handful of people at the oceanview cafe.  Normally, there are two sides both with the same food.  Now there are little pods--Indian, Latin, Asian, which change daily into other areas of the world.  You still have the salad pods, meat and cheese pods, sandwich pods, pasta, pizza, breads, desserts, ice cream and etc.  When you enter the cafe instead of the machines for sanitizer they now have an area with sinks to wash your hands.  There's always someone standing at the entrance to show you where to wash your hands.

It looks like the same amount of seating and the drink machines haven't changed.  It seemed like there was no one there.  Of course, they fill your plates for you which is much better.  

Bill and I went to the Whirlpool pool after lunch.  There were loungers everywhere but they weren't occupied.  They were grouped in groups of two.  Only two other people in that giant pool.

We decided we didn't want to be tied down to a certain time for dinner so we did the selective dining.  Same meal as the other dining.  The lower section was for selective and the upper was for the regular dining.

I have to say it was nice not worrying about what time we needed to go to dinner, but we ended up going about the same time anyhow.  Our waiter said we could request him for the entire cruise if we liked.  We did that and sat at the same window table every night.

Now you cruisers know what it was like to go to the theater.  If you wanted to sit with someone you had to go early.  Can you imagine only 400 passengers and not all of them go to the theater in that huge theater.  There were no people in the row in front of us or behind us.  

Well that is pretty much all I can remember for our first day at sea.  We've been cruising since the early 90's and there have been a lot of changes, but this was the most relaxing cruise we've ever been on.

Turtle Safely........