Carnival Paradise - Embarkation Day!

Sunday, June 13th – Embarkation Day

Bob, Kent & Laurel walked across the street to a Burger King to get breakfast. Knowing how much food I would be consuming in the following week, I opted for a granola bar and cup of coffee in the room. The three came back talking about some guy who had “appeared out of no where” wanting money from them. Laurel was sure they were close to being mugged, but nothing came of it, thank goodness!

  

I was anxious to see my “Paradise” so as soon as the rest of the crew returned from breakfast we all headed up to the 21st floor once again for a view of the port. Besides the Paradise there was also a Royal Caribbean ship in port, but that was it. 

At 11:00 a.m. we gathered our stuff and went downstairs to get a cab to the port. Once again the bellhop suggested we use the hotel shuttle. I don’t think we really saved any money since it was $4/per person but it did enable the four of us to travel together. There was no way we would have fit into a regular cab with all of our luggage!

The trip to the port was a breeze, especially when compared to our last cruise when the traffic was horrendous!! As we were getting the luggage unloaded from the shuttle I was shocked to see that no one else was around! It sort of gave me a weird feeling like maybe I had gotten my days mixed up or something! But no…there was the Paradise sitting there in all of her glory just waiting on us to board. The porter looked up our cabin numbers on the manifest and even though we had booked "guaranteed cabins" it was no surprise when he said we had cabins R6 and R8. On the back of the Sail & Sign page of our documents was a long code number. The first few digits was our booking number and it was followed by the cabin number. Thanks to the advice of fellow Cruise Critic members, I was able to “break” the code! The porter gave us brown “Forward Riviera” luggage tags to replace the gray TBA tags that we were using.

Heading into the terminal, we sent our carry-on luggage through the x-ray machine and then walked right up to the desk where agents were waiting to check our documents. This took all of maybe 3 minutes and then we were sent upstairs where again we walked right up to the desk and were given our Sail and Sign cards. Immediately I checked to see what dinner time we had been assigned to. Yeah!! We would be eating at 6:15 p.m. in the Elation Dining Room…just what I had requested. A quick check of Kent and Laurel’s cards showed that they would be sharing our table so all was well.

One large room was already filled with waiting cruisers and we were directed to a second room of chairs. We settled in expecting a long wait but soon a staff member came and started dismissing us by rows. First we had a picture taken for the Sail and Sign card and then onto the obligatory “welcome aboard” picture. I looked at my watch and we were walking onboard the ship at 11:50…not bad considering we had left our hotel less than an hour ago!

Kent, Laurel & Bob

It was fun to see Kent and Laurel’s reaction as they entered the impressive atrium of the Paradise…they seemed to be in awe of it all! 

Paradise Atrium 

Glass elevators in atrium.

The information we had been handed requested that we wait until after 1:30 to go to our cabins, but we hoped that maybe we could just drop off our carry-ons before heading to lunch. Having been in the forward part of the ship on our last cruise, it was easy to find the cabins although I was a bit surprised to find out how far forward we really were! It was quite a hike from the elevators through the zig-zagging hallway at the front of the ship! Our cabins were the third and fourth from the very front.

Our cabin steward, Yusef, was just finishing up the cabins when we arrived and said it would be fine to drop off our stuff. This was my first glimpse of a porthole cabin and I was surprised at the large “ledge” that was under the two portholes. This area was probably 3’ by 4’ and was easily large enough to sit in. 

Kent and Laurel had an even bigger surprise in their cabin…a flying fish had landed in their porthole and died! He remained with them for the entire cruise. We joked that some night he might end up being the “catch of the day” for dinner!

We wandered around the ship a bit and eventually ended up in the Paris dining room for lunch. Kent made it through the buffet line but the rest of us headed to the back of the dining room for pizza. It was still as good as I remembered and I enjoyed every bite! Besides the pizza, I also got some Caesar salad from the “pizza man”. He prepared it while I waited and it was fresh and tasted wonderful!

The rest of the afternoon we gave Kent and Laurel a tour of the ship and Bob and Kent managed to get in a quick game of shuffleboard while we were on the sports deck. 

I was curious where our table was in the dining room but when we went to investigate, we were told that they were still in the process of putting numbers on the table. The gal we talked to assured us that we would be sharing a table for 8 by the window and that was good enough for me. We had requested seating at a larger table, but I didn’t want to be at one of the round center tables…I wanted to be by the window! I was looking forward to an ocean view while we ate!

Before we knew it, it was time to don our life jackets and take part in the muster drill. I could feel the sweat dripping down my back as they pushed us closer and closer together on deck, but at least the process didn’t last too long. Knowing the ship would be pulling out shortly, Laurel and I conned Bob and Kent into taking the life jackets back to the cabin while we found a good spot for “sail away”.

By the time the guys got back, Laurel and I were at the extreme front of the ship on the sports deck. What a wonderful feeling to be headed out to sea knowing that the week-long cruise stretched out before us. Laurel even spotted two dolphins swimming alongside the ship as we cruised towards the open water.

As Miami slipped away into the horizon, we headed down to our cabins. The stewards were in the process of delivering the luggage and it wasn’t long until all of our bags were safely in our possession. The great thing about a cruise is that you unpack once for the whole week. The cabins on the Paradise have plenty of storage and it’s easy to find a spot to put everything. There are two closets…one is open with a shelf at the top. The other closet has double doors…one side is designed for hanging clothes and the other side has shelves. This is also where the safe is located. The safe is not very large, but we had no trouble fitting our travel documents, my purse and the digital camera inside. Any card with a magnetic strip can be used to lock the safe. I brought along an old Wal-Mart gift card and it worked fine.

I knew “outside cabins” were supplied with bathrobes on the Paradise, but I wasn’t totally sure if the porthole cabins were considered “outside”. They must be since there were two terry cloth robes hanging in the closet. I guess getting the robes wasn’t as big a deal as I thought. Bob never had his on once and I rarely wore mine. The robes were very heavy and were just too hot to wear, especially when I was running my hairdryer.

I had brought along a small hanging shoe holder that I bought at the Dollar Tree and hung this by the desk. It had a coat hanger type thing at the top and I just slipped this through the grate on the light above. The individual pockets were great for storing stuff like hair products, suntan lotion, sunglasses, etc. The desk itself had several drawers for additional storage.

A bowl of sample sized products was sitting on the sink in the bathroom. It contained things like hair conditioner, disposable razors, Rolaids, Listerine breath strips, toothpaste, etc. Since our last cruise on the Paradise, soap dispensers had been installed in the shower…one was for body wash and the other for shampoo. Small bars of Levor 2000 soap were also provided by the sink. The shower was actually just one end of the bathroom. There was a shower curtain and a small metal strip on the floor to keep the water from overflowing. 

Toilets on a cruise ship are unlike anything I have ever seen before. It is not a chemical toilet like on an airplane. The suction toilet flushes with such force that you definitely don’t want to be sitting on it when you push the button! 

Once unpacked, it was time to head up to the Elation dining room for dinner. Our table was located on the port (left) side of the ship and was near the back of the dining room. Our tablemates were a couple from Kentucky and their 16 year old son and also the wife’s sister who was from Minneapolis. As we talked we discovered that the sister had been on the same flight as us from Minneapolis to Miami. Throughout the week we constantly made an effort to engage them in conversation but all that ever developed was small talk about the day’s activities. Usually they just talked among themselves. I was glad that we were traveling with Kent and Laurel. We had a great time at dinner each night!

Our headwaiter was Chiranjeev from India and assistant waiter, Roberto, was from the Philippines. They made sure to learn our first names that night and called us by name from then on.

Following dinner we explored a bit more and then went to karaoke which was held in the Leonardo Lounge. They were just getting started and Jenny, the girl running the show, was having trouble getting people to sign up to perform. Eventually things got underway and we stuck around to hear several of the singers (who were actually pretty good!) 

The Welcome Aboard show was scheduled for 10:30 so our next stop was the Normandie Lounge. Cruise director, Jeff Bronson, chose several participants from the audience and did humorous interviews with them. Not great entertainment, but not bad. Kent and Laurel learned quickly what we had learned from our previous cruise on the Paradise…there are very few good seats in the Normandie Lounge. We decided to make sure we got there early the next night to get good seats for the first musical production show. None of us wanted to watch around a pole or other obstruction.

Afterwards we checked out the midnight buffet in the Paris Restaurant on the Lido deck but ended up just grabbing a slice of pizza instead. The day ended on the outdoor eating area at the rear of the ship with us enjoying the good food, good friends and a beautiful night at sea! Before going to bed we followed the instructions in the Carnival Caper and set our watches back one hour. We were now on Central Daylight Time just like at home!