Sunday-Day 8: Ft Lauderdale/Turnaround Day/In-Transit

We woke up around 4:45am this morning.  With the help of the Princess security system.  Inside each cabin and throughout the ship, the "ding-dong-ding" bell sound was being broadcasted repeatedly.  It was quite loud.  It must of ran for 15 minutes or so.  Hubby went out to the balcony to sit and read.  I got up and called down to Passenger Services to let them know.  My was call was not being answered and then passed to "Reception" and continued to ring.  I guess I was not the only one on the phone.

It was hard to go back to sleep and I eventually grabbed my camera to see what the world looked like this morning.  We were already in the channel and approaching Pier #2.  There was already six (6) other ships in port:

I automatically turned off airplane-mode on my iPhone and was getting lots of LTE bars.  I received lots of emails and a few text messages that were waiting for me.  It was wonderful to be up so early and see the sunrise:

We nixed going up to the gym and decided to hang out in our cabin until we were required to leave at 8am.  I quickly tidied up our room so Shiv did not have to do too much.  Like other cabin stewards, he has enough to do this morning.  We saw Shiv a few cabins down and gave him extra tip money for the past week.  He was a bit overwhelmed and very thankful for the gift.  We thanked him for going out of his way to take care of us and always anticipating what we might need.  Plus the extra tip money is his to keep.  The standard daily $12.95/day/pp onboard tip is shared among the waiters, food and beverage staff, cabin stewards, and others who support the daily activities on the ship.  If you do the math...that's not a lot of money to us, but means a lot of money to the staff who send their earnings back home.  

After breakfast, we lounge in the Terrace area at the back of the ship.  Around 9:45am we make our way down to deck 5.  I drop off the "You Make a Difference" card for Marvin and also a review card for the "The Voice of the Ocean".  We go up one level to deck 6-Fiesta and wait in a quick line for those of us "in-transit" and doing a B2B (back to back) cruise.  I walked by one of the officer who mentioned there were 900 fellow cruisers doing a B2B.  Wow!  That's a lot of people!  As we enter the doors we are scanned for the last time.  We are seated in the Princess Theater with our cruise card, passport, and Immigration form waiting for our turnaround:  

We hear an announcement that all passengers (2700+) have disembarked.  We are next and the last group to "disembark".  During this time, they are checking those who were scanned at the door and their system lets them know who is missing.  Thirty minutes later there are a few stragglers arriving into the theater.  Another announcement is made that all passengers have disembarked and the ship is ready to start the embarkation process.  Yay team Princess!  As we leave the theater, an Immigration rep is reviewing each passport.  We are back onboard at 11am to start our next cruise.  

We stop by the Passenger Servics desk to get our new cruise card that says (Elite).  This will help to easily identify us later in the cruise...you'll see later what I mean.  

I stop by to see Marvin and give him his pictures.  Now, how did I manage to print them?  I have a Fujifilm Instax printer that prints mini Polaroid-like pictures.  Way cool technology!  Another post for another day in regards to my photo workflow.  

I am now caught up with my blog.  Hubby and I are sitting at the top deck near the midship pool area watching the Seattle Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers game.  Oooooops!  I had to stop typing to ask Hubby who was playing:

Here's Ming waiting for us to get to our cabin:

BTW, Ming is also enjoying our new Elite status:

Hubby, myself, and Ming would like to thank you for following along with us on our cruise.  We will continue blogging on our next cruise to the Western Caribbean.  Remember, the same Disclaimers I had for the Eastern Caribbean apply to the Western Caribbean.  Yes, I'm now blogging from my iPad.  Yes, I will be using Hubby's free minutes as there will be lots of pictures to post.  Stay tuned!