Departing Bayonne….on to the Caribbean and Florida

I boarded the ship at noon on Saturday; it was good to be back onboard. The weather looked a little (or a lot) iffy in terms of going to the pool. Besides being very windy and cold it was OK. I first went to my cabin (5035), my home for the next two months. I met my cabin steward, Victoria Alberto, from the Philippines…her mouth about dropped when I told her I would be in this cabin for two months. She seems very delightful. I hung up my shirts and Tux and went to the Cova Café to get my soda package so I could get my diet cokes. I then headed up to the pool deck to check out the conditions. By this time I had started running into a lot of people I knew, crew and guests. I decided that if I stayed out of the wind and in the sun and oiled up, I could catch some rays. Went back to the cabin, changed and went back to the pool deck. It felt a little strange seeing all these people walking by bundled up in their winter gear while I was sitting there only in a bathing suit. Apparently I was the only one that determined it was warm enough to sit out. Guess they looked at me like I was an idiot (albeit a bronzed one). We sailed a 5:00. Dinner was nice except a few restrictions (no shrimp cocktail, no rare/medium rare prime rib…) had been put in place. Apparently they had some illnesses aboard last week. It’s back to sanitizing and bleaching everything like we had on the Mercury (not as bad though). Dinner was nice, my friend Gail was there with her friends Earl and Ryan along with a nice couple from Scotland. I was pretty tired so I went to bed about an hour or so after dinner.