Disembarkation Day!

I woke up early in the morning and took a peek out of our balcony and saw the lights of the Florida coast.  I went back to sleep and when I woke up again I saw that we were entering the channel of Port Everglades.  Hubby and I made our way up to the Horizon Court buffet for our last breakfast.  My last smoked salmon and capers and my last chocolate croissant.  Sigh!

We went back to our cabin to do a final quick pack.  Good thing Hubby followed behind me as I would have left a few things behind (e.g. electric toothbrush charging stand).  I had him double check the cabin safe to make sure it was empty.  We had to be out of our cabin by 8am.  We saw Robert in a cabin a few doors up from ours.  We gave him a gift (big tip) and told him we enjoyed his smile and wonderful service.  He was two months into his 8 month contract with Princess.  We wished him well. 

We made our way up to Club Fusion where the Elite and Platinum members could enjoy coffee, tea, juice, and pastries and relax while waiting for their disembarkation number was called.  We were light blue 4, the last group to disembark.  We noticed the disembarkation process was slow going.  We suspected that the bottleneck was going through Immigration. 

I left hubby in CF and wandered around the ship one last time.  I stepped out on the Promenade deck to check out the weather.  The large barge from this morning was situated against the ship, refueling for the next cruise. 

Finally our number was called.  I noticed there were still several cruisers hanging out.  Just like us, not wanting to leave.  We made our way down to deck 5 and exited the Emerald Princess with the sound of our cruise card being scanned one last time. 

It didn’t take us too long to locate our luggage in the terminal.  One advantage of being the last group off the ship, we don’t have to contend with the thousands of luggage lined up in rows and in sections.  We stood in a long line to go through Immigrations and then made our way out to find our Princess rep for the transfer to the Embassy Suites.  After five minutes, we were loaded onto a bus and on our way.  This was the first time where we didn’t have to wait.

At the Embassy Suites, we saw a small crowd gathered.  They were waiting for a bus to take them to the Emerald Princess!  Hubby was adamant that I head straight to the front desk and be the first one in line.  I was and they had a room available for us.  Wahooo!  We dumped our luggage in our room and headed back outside to enjoy the Florida weather and to get some lunch at Bamini Restaurant. 

After lunch, we went to the Ft Lauderdale dive shop to check out their masks.  I decided on the original mask I saw a little over a week ago and purchased the display model, their last one. 

Dinner consisted of a trip to the Publix grocery store behind our hotel.  We had salad, fruit bowl, and juice.  Yes, a drastic change from our cruise diet.