Backing up And Spinning in Place

I had watched a cruise ship special while I waited for my trip. It was filled with fun information and it was about turn over day for the Oasis of the Seas. Freedom of the Seas was in port and it is the Oasis’ Sister Ship.

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Also the Disney Dream was in.

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The Disney Dream did a similar route to the Carnival Sensation. It did a four day cruise and then a three day. The Freedom of the Seas does a 7 day.

Both of these ships are much larger then the Sensation with twice the passengers. We had a light load with only a bit over two thousand people on board. With fewer passenger’s we where the first out. I got to see one of things, that to me, is coolest about a cruise ship.

They back up, spin in circles, and parallel park like a car. I had watched the Monarch of the Seas dock on a television special. They spun it in a circle when they went to port. Being on the ship as it spun around was very cool

You saw the photographs above. We parked on the rear upper deck and watched our ship back out of dock and spin around to open water.

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And off we went. About this point we lost cell reception from land. The Florida coast line was attractive.

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Later, the Dream came up from behind us and passed us moving a lot faster.

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And then the Dream passed us.

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We unpacked our clothing. I’m not used to unpacking when I travel but Tim is. I took the closet and he took the drawers. There was more then enough room. Our room could easily hold four people and all of their luggage without anyone tripping over anyone else.

Heading to Port Canaveral

It was about ten when we left. We stopped at CVS along the way to get some drinks. On the ship, soda costs extra. Or you can buy a soda card. Well, for a 4 day cruise a 30 dollar soda card for each of us seemed excessive. You can bring up to 12 nonalcoholic beverages on board. You can also bring a bottle of wine or champagne each. I grabbed a selection of drinks for the two of us and hopped back into the car.

I’ll say that Florida’s roads are well marked. However, I would expect there to be more signs that say CRUISE SHIPS THIS WAY then there were. We did not see any signage until we were three miles away on the road that leads to the ports. A bit after the signs we start to see the ships sitting at port. They loom up over the trees and they are enormous.

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The Disney Dream has the red stacks and the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas is the other. My ship, the Carnival Sensation, is smaller and tucked behind them.
The Hertz place was right past the ships. We had barely stopped weaving all over the road as we ogled the cruise ships and then Hertz place appeared. It was not even a mile past the ships. We parked and started walking towards the building. Two employees approached us and asked if we had our mileage. We gave it, they grabbed the keys and told us to hop on the shuttle and enjoy our trip. We blinked and bam, we are on the shuttle and on our way.

That is what we had been looking for. Organization and coordination.
The driver for Hertz was fantastic. He gave some facts about each ship docked. The Disney Dream was at dock with the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas and the Carnival Sensation. The Sensation is the smallest of the ships by far.

We got dropped off. I did not have to pay the porter for my bag. He did not ask and I did not give. We will see if our bags make it. We printed our luggage tags out in color. I then folded them as instructed and taped them up with clear packaging tape. Then, we stapled them all around the edges and in the center. It will take some effort to remove them. We also have luggage straps around the bags and nothing valuable inside of them.

At the terminal, we have VIP boarding. It means a super short line and a direct walk to the ship. I kept managing to get into the wrong lines. There are signs and the signs have arrows. There is normally a path by the sign. Yet, it is the next path over that I am supposed to take. How, I am supposed to know this I am not sure. Don’t walked by the sign, pick the unlabeled lane one line over instead.
I then got yelled at for taking a photo graph as we walked up the steps to get to the gang way.

The first glimpse of the ship was neon.

From Bahamas - 2011

It was hard not to stop and stare around us. While boarding a ship is not an accomplishment, it felt like it at that moment.