Boarding the Ship

   

John enjoying our state room on the ship.

     In the morning we woke up to church bells ringing around the city.  It was Sunday and they would be reminding people to attend Mass.  We got up and did our final packing as we would be leaving to board our ship around ten in the morning.  It would have been great to attend Mass at St. Marks but quite impossible to do on this busy morning.  We went down to the cafe next door to get a coffee and a scone.  The charge was three euro for a cup of coffee with milk if you stand at the bar.  If you want to sit, it would be another euro.  OK, we decided to stand and share a pane dolce.  All the chairs were empty in the little cafe except for the lady owner who sat nearby. She seemed to be  enjoying the joke with the servers about the "Americans."  We were all in good spirit and laughed along with them. We knew that this day would begin the feast on the "magic" ship where you can get what ever you desire and food never ends...!
   

The ship sat like a large cake in the harbor.

     We checked out of the hotel and reminded the desk clerk that we had ask for a porter to cart our luggage to the taxi at the Piazzale Roma.  Soon we were following the cart over the bridge and out  to the waiting taxi.  The taxi drove us to the dock where a line of people had already began queuing to get on the ship.  We were given our "Sail and Sign" cards and had our pictures taken.  This card is like a credit card when buying anything on the ship.  It is also used to keep track of people leaving on excursions as it is scanned when leaving and boarding the ship.  We were told to go and check our rooms then attend the orientation meeting in the Liquid Lounge.  The luggage would be delivered to the rooms by noon.
      We took the elevator to the eleventh floor near the spa to our room 11032.  We entered the state room and noticed the ample space and the lovely balcony.  Soon our luggage arrived, and we were greeted by our room steward,  Miguel from the Philippines. He gave us a commemorative book about the ship.

 We thanked him and he made us feel at home, unlocking the mini bar refrigerator and bringing out our special white bathrobes!

Our wonderful room steward, Miguiel

     We quickly went to work taking our clothes from the suit cases and hanging them up in the closets.  We organized our toiletries on the shoe carry that we brought from home and hung on the door.     John claimed his side of the room designating his essentials in his cabinet under his lamp and I did the same on my side.   Now, that we were settled in, we planned to get some lunch and visit the St. Marks Basilica. Tourist are able to enter the church after Mass is over on Sundays, so we planned to spend the afternoon visiting Mark Square.