DAY 1 - August 14, 2004 - Miami, Florida

I always figured cruising was for old people.

Before we left on our Eastern Caribbean vacation, Derek had even said that he didn’t feel all that excited about the trip.

But as the days counted down closer towards the day we were supposed to leave, we all started to feel something: anxiety.

Hurricane Charley was cutting a swath across Florida and the Caribbean. Who knew if we’d actually be going anywhere in the end?

When we got to Terminal 2, we ran into another minor road block: it turned out that our e-tickets weren’t allowed. We had to get actual tickets printed out and for some reason, the lady who was going around with the West Jet tags needed to go all the way to Terminal 3 just to have them printed out.

While we were standing in line, waiting, I started to think, “What if she’s not even with Air Transat and we just gave our tickets away to some con artist?”

When I mentioned this out loud, Aunt Ying, Uncle Wei Kuo and Theresa started getting paranoid — especially since we were getting closer and closer to the ticket agent and we still didn’t have our tickets.

“Forget about the hurricane,” Flo said. “Let’s just get our tickets back first.”

Time was ticking away and we were going to need to board soon. And it seemed like the Air Transat woman had decided to take a leisurely stroll to Terminal 3 instead of taking the “quick” shuttle bus like she’d said she would.

The West Jet agent explained that Air Transat charters their planes to take passengers down to certain destinations. The guy seemed a little irritated that the Air Transat woman was taking her sweet time and tried to help us along by having the West Jet people start the boarding process. As we started getting things done, the woman came sauntering back with our tickets.

We wound up being one of the last groups of people to board the plane and we were all split up.

For the most part, the plane ride was uneventful. Daniel later mentioned he felt a little queasy and tired because he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. I think most of us slept through the 3 hour journey because we’d all had to get up so early that morning. Later, Daniel would tell us that he and Derek were both feeling queasy and had to rush to the washroom in the airport, where they tried not to laugh as they sat in side by side in neighbouring stalls, pretending not to hear what was going on next door.

Mid-way through the trip, they served us lunch — which none of us were really expecting. Aunt Ying almost decided to pass up on eating it. I’m not sure if it was in anticipation of the gorge-fest that we planned on indulging in the minute we set foot on the ship, but ultimately, I think the food came at the right time.

Besides, we wouldn’t really have a chance to eat until much later in the day, and when we finally did eat, we’d over do everything and stuff ourselves to the point of not wanting to eat dinner.

When we arrived at Fort Lauderdale, we had to take a 40-minute transit ride to Miami, where the ship was docked. For the most part, there wasn’t much to see during the bus ride and I think some of us dozed off. But as we neared Miami and crossed a bridge, a kid in the back started to get all excited, jumping up and down. (Not a good idea, in general, when you're on a moving bus.)

The excitement was infectious. Despite all attempts to seem blase about the whole affair, it was hard not to feel a sense of possibility pulsing its way through my system.

The port loomed ahead of us and as the driver navigated the twisting and turning streets and over a bridge, we eventually saw the Navigator of the Seas sitting in the dock.

It was a lot more exciting than I expected it to be.

The Navigator of the Seas is the second largest cruise ship next to the Queen Mary and it’s almost three times the size of the Titanic.

As we walked into the glass terminal, tropical music was playing in the PA systems as attendants in bright floral shirts directed us into the right lines.

There was a festive atmosphere to the brightly lit place. Sunlight filtered in through the green-tinted glass windows of the Port of Miami and already, you could sense that the cares of our routine lives were melting away as people looked forward to a week of adventure, rest and relaxation.

When we finally got onto the ship, we automatically went to our cabins to put away most of our things.

We all met upstairs on the eleventh deck at the Windjammer café, which is a buffet-style restaurant.

Later that night, we’d watch a comic named Hank McCauley, who said that the way we attacked the buffet-table, you’d think we’d never seen food before. It was like we were all refugees, eating for the first time in years.

We probably ate more than we should have. You just wanted to try everything.
We sat at one end of the café, eating two full plates of food that had everything from pilaf to pizza to roast beef to French fries to pasta. There were glasses of freshly squeezed lemon juice and iced tea. Aunt Ying, Uncle Wei Kuo and Theresa all had glasses of sweet white wine and the rest of us decided to try out the dessert platters.

Since we finished before the adults, the rest of us decided to take a quick tour through the boat and check out what was on each deck.

We made our way onto the Royal Promenade on the fifth deck, which is where all the shops and the Guest Relations desk are. On one end is the top floor of the grand dining room (which actually consists of three floors) and at the other end is the Ixtapa Lounge, a bar-style venue with an Aztec motif with hieroglyphics and interesting tiles.

As we roamed around the Royal Promenade, we saw a small band playing steel drums and Daniel decided to stick around and watch while the rest of us walked up each flight and walked around.

On the third deck, you have an art gallery which is converted into the photo gallery after the first day. Pictures taken of the guests at either the dining room or around the ship or at ports of call are displayed and people are encouraged to buy them.

Since it was the first day, all they had were interesting celebrity photographs done in black and white.

Sitting in the art gallery.

You also have the first floor of the dining room, which opens up into a really grand-looking ballroom with an impressive staircase and a statue of a ballerina. The whole motif is the ballet and there are costumes and pictures displayed throughout the room.

When you look up, you see an absolutely huge chandelier, which is anchored by four metal posts that are attached to surrounding columns.

We soon discovered that Theresa, Daniel, Flo and I were booked to be seated at one area of the dining room while Derek’s family were seated at another area all the way across the other side.

Unhappy with this arrangement, Theresa and Aunt Ying went about trying to change our seating arrangement while we sat around and nibbled on some freshly-baked cookies and coffee.

After talking to the head waiters, we did a quick inspection to find another table that we wanted to sit at.

Daniel reasoned we should sit closer to the balcony so that we could still get a great view of the sea but also of the interior, in case there were any performances.

We’d noticed a baby grand piano and a cello set up on the very top of the dining room and assumed we’d be listening to some live music while we ate.

After all of that was straightened out, we continued our tour.

As we walked out, Studio B was directly across from the first floor of the dining room and next to the photo gallery.

Studio B houses the ship’s ice skating rink where you can either do some ice-skating yourself or you can catch their ice dancing show.

Like in most of the venues on the ship, it comes equipped with a bar and stadium-like seating.

On deck four, you have the second tier of the dining room on one end and then a lounge that leads into the Mardi Gras-themed casino.

There’s a staircase in the casino that takes you straight up into the Royal Promenade of the fifth floor. We made our way upstairs ‘cause we heard some noise going on up there and soon realized they were doing the raffle.

Standing up at the bridge in the Royal Promenade was Dave, the shopping guide. As part of the first day, there’s a free raffle where they draw names and give away various things like Sea Trek excursions or dinner at one of the speciality restaurants or a gift certificate to one of the shops.

Of course, we didn’t win anything that first day. Later on, though, Derek would win $133 at Bingo and his parents would score a gift certificate to Portofino’s, the Italian restaurant near the Windjammer.

It wasn’t until we got up to the eleventh floor that there was more to see. Besides the Windjammer Café, which takes up a huge portion of the rear end of that deck, you also have all the pools and the gym.

Right next to the café is the main pool area where you’ve got two small salt-water pools and four whirlpools — two of which have nice little shade covers that make it nice to sit in during a hot sunny afternoon if you don’t want to turn painfully red.

This area was a little more shaded and had a Tuscan-style theme that seemed to cater to older guests. You could walk a little further and come across the gym, which had its own whirlpool inside but also a studio for various aerobics classes. Next to this studio was a wide range of work out machines.

There was a nice view of the sea from the gym and we soon realized that the gym had a set of winding stairs that led up to the spa — a place we didn’t exactly plan on spending any time in considering you had to pay extra just to get in.

On the fourteenth deck was the sports area, complete with a basketball court, a mini golf course, an in-line skating area and the rock-climbing wall.

You had to skip down to the twelfth deck again just to cross over to the other end of the fourteenth deck, which had the Cosmopolitan Club, an intimate jazz club, and also a wedding chapel.

We’d already noticed one couple on board get married.

Derek decided then and there that he wanted to get married on a cruise, too, and would say every day that we would all be invited, but we’d have to pay our own way.

“Just think of it as a vacation,” he said.

“If we go, though, you’d get no gift. Us coming would be gift enough,” I told him.

As the ship left the port of Miami, it seemed like everybody on board went up to the 12th deck to watch the Florida coastline slowly drift past as the Navigator headed out to sea.

We had to head back to our cabin to get ready for the safety drill at 4:30 p.m. Our life jackets had been laid out for us on our beds and we had to strap them on and check out where we were supposed to head if the boat hit an iceberg and went down like the Titanic.

They were bulky and uncomfortable and felt like we were wearing neck braces. As we all waddled uncomfortably onto our designated areas, we were told to line up while someone read out our cabin room numbers to make sure everybody was there.

“7487!” a black staff member who looked like Morgan Freeman yelled.

You were supposed to yell back the number of people in your cabin and he’d mark it off. We were instructed on where to go and which lifeboats to get into. The key, they said, was to stay calm and move in an organized manner.

Yeah right.

If something really happened, it’d be mass pandemonium and we’d all be running like crazed lunatics or even leaping straight off the boat.

Theresa had booked all of us in for the early seating at 6 p.m. in the dining room.

We were all feeling too stuffed for dinner, but when our head waitress, Hera, presented us with our menus, we decided to go all out and order appetizers, entrees as well as dessert.

Derek had actually gone back to the Windjammer café for a “snack” right before dinner, yet still managed to wolf everything down.

After dinner, around 9 p.m., there’s usually a show in the Metropolis Theatre, which is sort of reminiscent of some of the Broadway theatres that you get back home. It was more along the lines of the Princess of Wales theatre back in T.O., with a huge stage and a second tier.

We met our cruise director, Becky, during the show.

Becky is a British woman who would come out each night in a great gown and kick up her heels as she cried out, “Hello, luv!” It got to a point where everyone would automatically shout out, “Hello, luv!” (like the slap happy seals we are) as soon as we saw her — no matter where she was.

She tried to rouse the crowd, but she only got a lacklustre response at first. (Like, how lame do you want to seem?) That would soon change to enthusiastic applause and hooting and hollering as the week wore on. (There was something in the food. I swear it. Some mad chemical that would make us behave like the garish idiots that we eventually became.)

The Royal Caribbean singers and dancers came prancing out to give a sneak preview of the two Broadway-style productions they would be putting on later in the week and then they had “The Gentleman Juggler” do an opening act. The guy is from Budapest and is in the Guinness book of world records. We watched him juggle all sorts of things and the most interest bit was when he kept tossing these hats up in the air and having them land neatly on his head.

After the juggler was done, the first comic of the cruise was introduced.

The guy, Hank McCauley, was hilarious.

“So, you’ve all checked out your rooms?” he asked. “Do they look like they did in the pictures? Bet you didn’t know the picture was the actual size of the room.”

He made some crack about how there were tons of little old white ladies on board and that when he got onto an elevator with two of them; they looked at him worriedly and clutched their purses a little tighter.

“Where the hell would I have gone if I’d grabbed them?” he wondered aloud. He pretended to snatch the purse and ran around in a little circle, acting like he was in the elevator. “I got your purse! I got your purse!”

After the show, Flo and I wandered upstairs to the Ixtapa Lounge to check out the ship band, Adam’s Rib.

Daniel was already sitting there; one of the few people who’d bothered to turn out to listen to them.

It turns out Adam’s Rib is a Canadian band from Mississauga.

When the band took a break, we noticed a commotion outside and we wandered out of the lounge to find a parade was kicking off. There were several people in costumes and on stilts standing right outside of the lounge.

After the parade, we headed back to our cabins. Flo and I always tended to head in earlier than the rest of the crew and the three boys would stay up the latest.

There was no clock in the room. You had to program your wake-up call through the phone and we soon realized that without windows in the room, the darkness that envelops it is so complete that you could go 24 hours in a coma-like state and still wake up exhausted, feeling like it was still the middle of the night and you’d only had a couple of hours of shut-eye.

The next day, we were headed for our first port of call, Nassau, Bahamas.