Embarkation day is finally here, and it started out way early when my alarm went off. I thought I turned off all the alarms, but this one I forgot about.

Since the hotel didn’t offer the free breakfast, I guess that is what happens when you stay in upper-class places. They charge you for breakfast. So we ate some stuff we picked up at Smiths, in Henderson, Nevada and some chocolate milk we got from the Wal-Mart in Compton, CA.

We finished packing and checked out caught the shuttle to the cruise terminal. Even if we had the check-in time of 12:00 to 12:30 PM, we were able to check in at 11:15. We waited for the other half of the group to arrive and we showed them what to do.

Here is what I don’t understand about Long Beach

• They have the staggered check-in to help make sure that the people are not all trying to check in at once. Well, where was that today? We were able to check-in beforehand and without our group.
• Why do they check-in outside and then move everyone to the inside at noon? I thought that was kind of odd, but. What the heck do I know? They have this nice space inside the dome terminal, why not use it?
• We brought some drinks aboard, and I carried them all on. We had the following drinks
  • 12 Diet Cokes
  • 6 Cokes
  • 4 Monster drinks (16 oz)
  • 3 Mountain Dew’s

They were all carried on by me. So I am way over my allotment of drinks, but yet no one said anything.

We left them to check-in, on the inside of the terminal and we got on the ship and went up to deck 10 the lido deck.

I watched the stuff while they went and got food. I ate at Guys burgers, my burger was nice and hot. I asked for a burger without cheese and they went and pulled it off the grill. I know I am strange, no cheese on the burger. The others ate blue Iguana and some fish tacos.

The rest of the group caught up to us and they found something to eat with all the options we had.

• Guys burger
• Blue Iguana
• Buffet
• Carnival Deli
• Pizza

If you couldn’t find something to eat, then you weren’t looking very hard or you are very very picky.

Went back to the room and left the people who wanted to take a nap, and gave a tour to members of the group that wanted to explore. Yes, I have been on this ship before and I knew my way around. Yes, I did point some people in the right direction as they looked lost. I am just that way.

We went to the all fun muster drill, that is always fun, but it is a must. We were on the Lido deck as we were group F.

Once that was over, we couldn’t go up to the top to watch sail off,  we could have but, we didn’t as we had the 6 PM dinner time.  Which was fine, we went to eat and the group is having fun. It is their first cruise and all.

After that, some of the group went back to bed and one of my sisters went walking around the ship. We didn’t win anything at the Jewelry auction. Knew it was one about 150 chances.  My sister went back to the room and well, I am up typing this in the buffet area. People are still getting some use cream, most kids from club ocean. That is the 13 to 17 years old.  I don’t honk I will wait up for my son to come in. He will probably be out until 1 AM. I am getting to old to stay up that late.  If I am going to get up and go weight lift with him tomorrow morning then I better get to bed.

Tomorrow is another day.

I did notice that they opened up one of my bags. How do I know this, my stapler was in a different place.  Who notices things like this, I do.