We woke up bright and early and enjoyed coffee (tea for David) and newspaper on our balcony overlooking the Fort Lauderdale Marina. It was interesting to us to see how integrated the homes are with the water - everyone seemed to live on a peninsula, with a road in front and a boat dock in back. We could not see the ships in Port Everglades because we were at the back of the hotel and the front looks toward Port Everglades.
We made contact with the Holland America personnel in the hotel lobby, and they told us that it would be possible to board the ship starting at 11:30 . A bus was scheduled to take all the people that were staying at the hotel as Holland America guests (pre-cruise package) to the ship at 11:30, so we went down at 11:15, checked out and got in a taxi to take us to the dock. We had to turn around because there were two Holland America ships sailing, and the cabbie overshot the pier for the ms Amsterdam by mistake.

When we got there we found that lots of people were already there ahead of us, but the lines moved fairly quickly. As we came in we got cards with a number on them. First we checked in downstairs, handing in our health forms and the visa checklist. Our passports were taken (we got a receipt) and we were told they would be given back near the end of our segment, which for us means near the end of the cruise. We got a shipboard key card which will get us on and off the ship, as well as access to all the services and amenities of the cruise. Our first chance to use it came about 15 minutes later, when our number was called for boarding the ship . We got in a big Disney-world type line, passed the photographers taking our official boarding picture, crossed a ramp onto the ship and had our cards swiped. It was shortly after noon, about an hour after we got into the taxi - not bad at all.

Of course the rooms would not be available until 1:30, so we all went up to the Lido Deck for a welcome-aboard lunch, complete with complimentary champagne. The Lido Deck is pretty interesting: it has one of the two pools on the ship, and has a cover that can be closed in event of rain. For some reason there is a statue of two bears in the pool. I feel a need to find out why, but I can do that later.
The Lido Café is a buffet, but we were not allowed to serve ourselves. I saw Gary and his wife Jeanne as I was checking out the buffet, and they told me that for the first 3 days of a cruise, Holland America requires everyone to be served instead of serving themselves, in case someone comes down sick. After that, if no one has gotten sick, they take down the shields and let people help themselves . Gary didn't say what they do if someone does get sick.

A little while after 1:00 the announcement was made that the cabins were now available, so we went to our cabin. It was nice to find that it was bigger than it seemed from the online pictures; it seems like we can spend the next four months in it happily. One of our suitcases was there, so we unpacked it and started wondering where the rest of them were. Over the next few hours two more showed up. I went and toured the gym and the spa area, went down to the Internet Café to find out how to connect and then back to the cabin. About 4:00 the loudspeaker announced an embarkation party up on the Lido Deck. That sounded like lots more fun than waiting for the rest of the suitcases, so up we went. We had to be careful not to eat too much, because we have a table at the 5:30 seating so dinner would be in only an hour. Dinner was quite good. Our tablemates were very interesting people - they were Cubans who left when Castro took over (50 years ago!). They have cruised with Holland America several times before, and had many good stories to tell. The captain came on to say that they were a bit behind getting the luggage on board, so embarkation would be delayed an hour. That made us feel a bit better about not having our last suitcase yet, and sure enough, when we went to the cabin after dinner, there it was.