Buca Thanksgiving:
We decided to dinner with my parents as they were staying
the night with us before the cruise. Ken and Cindy were also able to join because
they were in the area to pick up the dogs. We had coupons for Buca di Beppo so
it turned into an Italian pre-Thanksgiving dinner of sorts. It really felt like
a Thanksgiving meal as we all experienced “food coma” by the time the dinner
was finished and we still had plenty of leftovers to send on with Ken and
Cindy.
Day 1:
The trip to Fort
Lauterdale was pretty
uneventful. We had a home-cooked breakfast of potato pancakes courtesy of the
hubby. We then loaded up the car and started the three hour journey to the Port of Everglades where we would board our ship
the MS Eurodam. Once we arrived, and dropped off our luggage and parked the
Highlander it was less than 30 minutes before we got on the ship itself! We
first went to our respective cabins to drop off our carry on items and get
settled. Our cabin was pretty spacious and included a king sized bed, a couch,
a HD tv, and a balcony. My parent’s cabin was similar to ours except my mom
pointed out that that it had a mini pretend waterfall atop their dresser. I’m
sure Chris was very jealous.
We regrouped at Deck 9 where we got to check out the pool
area and get some food at the Lido Cafe since at this point we were pretty hungry. They had all
kinds of options at the buffet including a Cuisines Around the World section
which my Dad and I tried out while Mom and Chris went for the sandwich bar. We
wound up playing it safe too and did a simple pasta with a salad. After
spending some more time exploring the rest of the ship and going up and down
many flights of stairs we got ready for the most exciting part of the day: the
lifeboat drill.
This nice thing was we just had to show up and did not have
to bring or wear our life vests. This was okay by me as our meeting location
was on the outside deck. After following through the standard procedure we were
finally free to enjoy ourselves and start our vacation. We enjoyed going up to
the higher deck for the Sail Away Party and watching the beautiful sunset as we
pulled out into the open sea. Chris and Dad especially enjoyed watching the
Captain blow the horn at the boats and yachts that wound up in our path which seemed unconcerned that a major vessel was literally fifty feet away from them.
Once we had gotten all the sights and wind that we could
stand we spent a little downtime in our cabin before regrouping for dinner.
Dinner was our first chance to get an idea of what the cuisine would be like
during the course of the trip. The food on the cruise lived up to the high
ratings and was superb! My parents both played it safe and ordered steak for
the entrée while I had an eggplant dish with risotto and Chris ordered the
lamb. Chris was very pleased with the dessert options as it had his favorite
listed on the menu (red velvet cake!).
Following dinner we attended a Mainstage Performance
highlighting the featured musician and dancers of the week. There were a lot of
talented performers aboard the ship and already it was starting off to be a
really great cruise!
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