Porting

We were supposed to go on a cruise this weekend.  It was a small family cruise with my mom, sister, brother, sister-in-law, husband, and daughter.  We were supposed to leave out of Florida and go to the Bahamas.  As you might have guessed from the tense of the first few sentences, these things that were supposed to happen, did not, in fact, happen at all.

Here's what really happened.  We left on Thursday morning and were over 1/2 way to the airport (quite a trek in our neck of the woods), when I realized that I'd ruined the cruise before it had even started:  I left our cruise tickets sitting on the floor next to our bed.  Visions of my mother handing me the neatly organized "AAA" packet including the tickets and saying, "Just be sure to pack this!" flashed through my mind.

We called our friendly and supremely helpful AAA travel agent who assured us (after making a quick phone call to the cruise line) that it was no big deal.  We could still get on the ship as long as we had our birth certificates, which we did.  *Whew!*  Crisis averted.

We flew to Florida on two very uneventful flights (Lily was the best baby on the plane - napped in the Moby on the layover, played adorably on the flights).  We spent the night in a nice hotel, ate breakfast and boarded the shuttle to the ship.  This is when the story gets interesting again.

Enter Tropical Storm Sandy.  Why did she have to come?  *Sigh*  When we got off the shuttle at the cruise line's terminal, we were pelted with warm rain at 40 miles an hour.  Lily's nap in her Ergo ended quickly thanks to Sandy's blustery breath.  We raced into the terminal and avoided getting totally soaked.  We checked in and boarded the The Monarch of the Seas.

Once everyone was boarded and mostly unpacked, the captain came on the speakers and announced that thanks to Sandy-dear making 30-foot waves, we would not be leaving port until at least morning and that docking at Nassau and CocoaCay were out.  They were looking into other itineraries.  Boo Sandy.  We still enjoyed a delicious supper and a restful night's sleep.

At 8 this morning our friendly Norwegian captain came back on the speaker to announce that we would not be leaving port until at least tonight and if we left port tonight, we would have nowhere to dock tomorrow because we couldn't get anywhere.  He finished his explanation by making it perfectly clear: "So, we will go out and do our best to find the smoothest waters possible, but it will be a cruise to nowhere."

Our waiter at lunch today told us this never happens.  The captain offered us a small on ship credit (which couldn't be used in the casinos or any of the duty free shops because the ship couldn't open them until it was 1/4 mile off shore...) OR a voucher for a cruise of equal value at a later date.

Given the options, you can imagine which one we chose.  After 1/2 an hour on the phone with the travel insurance to confirm that the insurance would pick up the cost of a hotel for 2 nights until our flights home, and 1 1/2 hours on the phone with our new best friend "Tripple A Thomas," we hopped a shuttle to a lovely hotel.  We ate complimentary dinner served by the hotel, sat in the hot tub, showered, and are now enjoying the Husker game.

We have plans to entertain ourselves tomorrow at Universal's Island of Adventure - specifically at the Wizzarding World of Harry Potter!  My only regret is that I didn't know we were coming here so I didn't bring my wand.  :(  A small price to pay, I suppose.

Everyone has had a lovely time despite Sandy's best efforts to thwart our fun.  It turns out she's helped us get a 2 for 1 on cruises.  We were debating earlier today if we will still be considered "virgin cruisers" when we come back to redeem our vouchers on a cruise at a later date.  We got on the cruise ship, stayed over night, but the ship never actually left port - did we cruise or not?

Chase put it quite well:  If a normal cruise is going all the way, and never cruising before means you're a cruise virgin, then we made it to third base.  Better luck next time!    


(If any of you got to this in search of reviews of the Monarch of the Seas, I thought it was a nice ship - a little worn in that I could tell it wasn't a new ship by the wear you could see on the carpet and such, but still nice.  I felt like we'd have had a great cruise with my 13 month old had we actually cruised.  The staff was patient, positive and generally fantastic in our unusual situation.  I felt bad for the Customer Service reps who got yelled at by various cruisers who picked CS as the target to express their anger at the real problem: Sandy.  When we settled our account right before we disembarked, we received a note stating that we would be mailed a voucher for the amount paid for our cruise to be used on a future RC cruise.  I thought they handled it and the 2,300 other guests as well as can be hoped.  We are still in FL waiting to fly home, so I'm not sure how that will all work out, but so far so good.)