Looking Back on the First Day

FIRST DAY ONBOARD

I’m now chilling with a few others on the back deck of the ship. I’m going to talk about our first day on the ship.

I met up with Dave (from Pittsburgh), Katie, and Jason (from PA) at 8:30 AM in the lobby of the hotel, as we all decided to take a taxi to the ship together. We arrived to the dock to discover a VERY long line going around a building that we had to wait through. About 2 hours later I made it to the front, handed them my passport and my bags, and boarded our gorgeous, cruise ship: The Explorer.
I went through the lines of paperwork, found my cabin (the student cabins are located on decks 2-4, and I’m on deck 4, cabin 4017). I filed a missing luggage report at the Pursers desk (the main desk on the ship), and then me and the small group from last night left the ship and walked back to Senor Frogs for our last meal on land for a few days.

It was a beautiful day in the Bahamas, yet I still left the meal early so that I could try to make a few more phone calls and desperately try to find ANY way to get my final missing bag to the ship. Upon my return I entered my cabin and BAM…THERE WAS MY MISSING BAG! The people on this ship at the Pursers desk REALLY know how to take care of business.

I spent the rest of the day meeting more people, and then we had our first lifeboat drill before disembarking. By the way, everything is completely safe on this ship…we actually weren’t even allowed to leave until we performed the lifeboat drill perfectly (which took about 40 minutes or so).

I also met my roommate, whom I had previously met online before the voyage. I think we’re going to get along just fine; his name’s Matt.

Parents were allowed to board the ship until 4:30 or so; the ship’s crew basically kicked them off, but they still hung out around the ship to wave goodbye to us all (if I can I may post a photo or two). By 5:30/6:00 we were on our way.

The rest of the night consisted of an introductory meeting in the Union (the largest room on the ship), a great dinner (the food here is great by the way), and then the coolest part was probably when me, Matt, and this other girl snuck out onto the bow (the front of the ship) by ourselves and experienced the intense wind of the seas. The wind literally prevented us from walking forward…but unfortunately that part of the ship has been closed off since then, ironically due to “high winds.”

Alright, that’s enough of writing for now. We have a mandatory port meeting tonight, for we’ll be entering San Juan, Puerto Rico early tomorrow morning. I’ll update again within the next few days with more details of concerning the journey. If anyone has any questions OR if I must be more specific, please let me know! Thanks for reading.