THANK YOU MILFORD!

August 14, 2015

Oh what a day yesterday was!  Before we reached the dock, I was ready to throw Elena out the window!  Bodily harm was considered by the other two occupants of the car upon each other!

Elena, for the uninitiated, is my GPS, and she is supposed to know where there are road constructions and detours.  Not this time.  The Bayonne Bridge is under construction, and will be for the remainder of this century, or at least for the next two years.  And Elena did not know that, even though I had followed the manufacturer’s prompts a few days earlier and did an upgrade on all of her systems. 

“Take Exit 13,” she blithely instructed.  And Exit 13 we took.  Two and a half hours later, $28 in tolls for the same bridge twice, and seeing more of the backside of New Jersey than anyone should ever see, we arrived at our parking site, and were transferred to the Liberty of the Seas.

Had we not detoured into the Newark Airport and asked a taxi driver how to get to the cruise dock, we would probably still be on the New Jersey Turnpike, or one of its kin, circling, paying tolls, circling aimlessly down East Brunswick streets, following Detour signs that took us right back from whence we had started, being honked at – loudly and rudely – and telling all drivers within range that they were Number One.

That was not the end of the adventure, dear reader.

We left our baggage with a sidewalk attendant and went inside, headed for the Pier Coordinator to secure our Sea Pass Cards and other permissions to go on board, and arrived at her desk just as she went on break.  We never saw her again, but 15 minutes later another woman came up to the abandoned station and said, “Can I help you?”  And bless her heart she did.  She took our credit card information, photographed us, scanned the photos into our respective Sea Pass Cards and wished us, “Bon Voyage!”

Through security and onto the ship.  Not so fast, Cruise Talk Boy!  My picture was not on my Sea Pass Card but 4 tries later, my still smiling face was electronically stored.

By this time it was 2:30 with the lifeboat drill 45 minutes away.  We took our carry on luggage to our state room, and headed for our drill station.

Drill completed, we returned to 3615, and voila, our cards did not work!  Neither of them.  So it was up to guest relations where we joined 300 of our closest friends in what looked like a 2 hour wait.  I went to the head of the line, asked a kind lady to let me go first because my wife’s medicine was locked in our stateroom.  She waved me on and I got two new cards – the old ones had become mysteriously demagnetized!  And no, we hadn’t placed them near a credit card of an electronic device.

The rest of our luggage was at our door when we returned, got partly unpacked, reserved a spot for supper, enjoyed a great meal, and a good welcome aboard show.  We set our clocks ahead one hour and at 9 p.m. your time, went to bed.  It’s all down hill from here, right?

Oh no mon aimee!  Once again the projector on board will not talk to my Windows 8.1 laptop, so it was back to the room, get the XP spare, and start my first talk ten minutes late!  The technician did say the problem was with their projector – it won’t adjust to the resolution of my computer, but it does match the old one, so the old one is out of storage and 8.1 is hidden away for the remainder of this trip (including this blog).

And now it is time to dress and get ready for our first formal night, after I awake my traveling companion from her afternoon nap.

It is all down hill from here, right?

Oh! I forgot to tell you.  Milford was the taxi driver who did what Elena could not do – get us to the port on time.
TTFN!