August 17, 2019 – Dayspring Disciples

We didn’t need to set our alarms for Saturday morning, and we all enjoyed a solid night’s sleep after the overnight drive the day before. Nonetheless, we were up early-ish. We got ourselves together and packed up and headed to the kitchen area of the hotel for breakfast by 7:30 A.M.. It wasn’t awful or remarkable. I DID have the best cup of coffee I’ve had in a while!

We hoped to find some NOLA type items in the local Walmart around 9:30 A.M., but left empty handed. We also tried a drug store nearer to the city and port, but again had nothing to show for it. I figured we’d certainly find something in shopping center around the port, but as we approached the parking garage the signage was just so convincing to head into directly into the parking ramp and before we knew it we were parking the van!

This is one of the most fun ports I’ve ever arrived at. You can see the ship in the Mississippi River as you come over the bridge.

Pulling into the garage, porters come directly to your vehicle and unload your tagged luggage. For us, however, with such a large vehicle and so much luggage, our porter directed us to an emptier area of the garage and walked over to meet us there.

The older four kids took their documents and John and the little girls and I took ours and we split into our two cabin groups to navigate the boarding. My group finished a bit before theirs and we held on just past security until they caught up. We arrived to the terminal about 30 minutes before our pre-scheduled boarding; but remarkably, we were ushered right onto our lovely vessel. The gangway was the most convoluted one I’ve been on with lots of twists and turns, but that just built the enthusiasm for me.

We got on board AND…

sat?

It took me a moment or two to start collecting my brain and make some decisions about which way to go first. It was just after 11AM and our state room wouldn’t be ready until 1:30PM or so.

We headed up to the Lido deck and made our first stop at the fro-yo. There were two fro-yo stations on opposite sides of the ship and many-a-Butler visited often.

There were many dining options available in and around the buffet, and I made my first of many visits to the Blue Iguana.

We split up again to explore the ship.

We visited the Camp Ocean and got the girls their bands. We weren’t sure at that point how often they might visit, but we were glad to get band assignment taken care of.

It was finally time to find our staterooms and unpack. This is the last time their stateroom looked clean…

They were plenty big. We were on deck two, starboard, with connecting ocean view staterooms. They were perfect for our family.

I got my hacks working…

and we hung our still wet swimwear from the night before and change into our other suits.

We missed our chances to get drinks before our muster drill (the thing where they tell you what to do in an emergency) and we were all hot and cranky…

BUT

THEN

We set sail at 4:00 P.M.

Out on deck and hydration finally underway, we found some loungers and saw the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 come out.

So we went down to dance with them a little.

Marie and Tab tried out the one slide. It was actually very entertaining as I would find out a few days later.

They were willing to make us some non-alcoholic “mocktails” with our soda packages. Because the first 7 hours of the cruise actually take place in the Mississippi River, we had to pay taxes on all our drinks until we hit international waters. One weird thing about sailing from NOLA. It was a few cents per person.

Lots of lounging and hot tubs and a little bit of swimming and somehow it got to be dinner time.

We really do like dressing up for dinner on the cruises, but I admit I was far less creative in coordinating our clothes this time around. At least they were all clean. I think.

Table 656 was our dinner zone for the next five nights. Our head server was John Alex and he helped Stewart order meals for the following night after dinner each evening.