​We awoke at 8:30am to make our final preparations for the cruise. We were going to be without internet for the next several days and we wanted to prepare. Mainly, we just wanted to make sure we wouldn't have any issues with credit cards while on the trip and to make one final Facebook post.

We took an Uber to the crazy madness that is known as embarkation day for the cruises . Both the Carnival Glory (our ship) and the Carnival Vista ship were departing for cruises today and that made for a bit of chaos. First, we didn't know which terminal to send our Uber driver too so we got out of the Uber only to find out we had to go another couple hundred feet to the other ship. We made sure to actually tip our Uber driver for the added trouble. He helped us with our bags too so that was nice. After exiting the car, we were greeted by a Porter who took our tagged bags on a cart for us to have on the ship. We lugged our carry-on luggage, though (remember this for later).

We went through security, checked in, had key cards made for us, and awaited in the ginormous room to wait for our zone to be called. While waiting, we chatted with a lovely older couple from Utah who said this was their seventh or eighth cruise - so they were clearly pros. They said they haven't done a Carnival cruise yet, though, mostly doing Disney in the past. Alicia called them Bev and Jerry as that's what they looked like . They gave us a few cruise recommendations and joked about the weather and before you know it our zone, zone #11 was being called to board the ship. The entire check-in and waiting process only took about a half hour, I was pretty impressed.

Once we entered the cruise ship, we had no idea what to do. We entered what appeared to be a hotel bar from the 80's with neon lights and an otherwise strange color palette. We had no idea where we were or where anything was. We didn't know if people were waiting in the lounge because they had to or because they wanted to. All we knew is that we were getting hungry and we had a lot of baggage - literally. Well, we only knew where our room was and that they were serving lunch starting at 12:00 (it was about 12:30 at this time). Instead of waiting in line for the elevator, we toughened up and took the stairs with our carry-on luggage up 5 flights (from 3 to 8). Saying we were tired when we made it to the top was an understatement. We were bummed but not surprised to find our rooms were not quite ready yet as they had the cabin hallways locked off . We checked out the map and decided to go up another level to where the food was (9 – the Lido deck). There were literally hundreds of people here eating food or waiting in line for food. Navigating with our carry-on luggage was rather difficult, and finding a table to sit near impossible. We finally found a table for 2 and set our luggage down. Since we did have our luggage, we waited in line and ate in shifts. The food was really good - a lot like Cancun! There was fresh fruit, desserts, made to order burritos, deli sandwiches, pizza, burgers, and a standard buffet line with a little bit of everything. There was also a sushi line but tragically it was extra $.

After finishing our lunch, we decided to make our way to our rooms thinking they would be ready. Yay, they were! We were pleasantly surprised with the size and were impressed with the amount of storage we had. As Alicia later said, she was glad our room was up so high on close to the food :). We didn't have a window in the room, but to be honest that was kind of nice especially for sleeping . It just sometimes made late night bathroom trips a bit difficult. It may have been nice to have a balcony, but honestly we weren't planning to spend much time in the room. Additionally, it was always a bit windy outside so we probably wouldn't have been able to enjoy it very much. And hey, you can't fall from your balcony if you don't have one.

Summary of day so far:

Check in (crazy)

Boarding (crazier)

Finding food (craziest)

Finding room (finally)

After ditching our luggage, we were free to wander the ship and get aquatinted (and lost and overwhelmed) with everything. We found an oversized deck chair to lounge for a bit on the back of the ship. We found the ice cream machines and helped ourselves. We also decided to splurge and order a pair of our favorite tropical drinks - Alicia a strawberry daiquiri and I a piña colada . In hindsight, we should have waited a few hours as we were still charged Miami sales tax (7%), bummer.

There was a mandatory safety/muster drill at 3:30 we had to attend before leaving port. It was a warm and chaotic experience as we funneled everyone into the side of the ship next to the lifeboats. Note to self: don't arrive too early for this as you will be at the back and it gets warm with no airflow.

Afterwards, it was lovely to watch us set sail away from Miami – yay, cruise has officially started! It was kind of incredible how such a big ship was able to navigate it, but we noticed they did have smaller pilot ships that must have been there as guides. The sun was beginning to set at this time and the views were amazing.

On the way back to our room, Alicia spotted my suitcase and we were able to take it back to the room. Alicia's happened to arrive shortly after that . After doing a little re-arranging in the room, we decided to hit up the sports bar to check in on the NFL playoff games. The Skybox Sports Bar was just adjacent to the Camel Club casino, so it was a little smoky. We got just a bit of a score update and continued to wander. We also found "Chef's Tastes", a little bar to sample some of the fancier cuisine on board. There was also a free liquor tasting / sales event which we were able to try some Cîroc Pineapple vodka, Bacardi coconut rum, and Sheridan's fancy coffee liquor. Yay free alcohol!

We started to catch part of the 7:30 show in the theatre before we had to make it for our scheduled 8:00 late dinner. Apparently, we had an assigned table and an assigned time. I believe that 8:00pm was the only time we had to choose from when we booked so 8:00 it was. Getting to the Platinum dining hall was a little challenging with a few of the walkways we used were blocked because of dinner ongoing in other dining halls so we had to go up and around and back down to the dining hall . Also, we were in Platinum Lower and of course we were in line for Upper. As we were herded like cattle (slowly) down the stairs, we finally made it to the right place. Funny, the dining hall sign mentioned if you are more than thirty minutes late you're essentially out of luck and should eat in the buffets (which are open as normal). As we were lead to our table at the very, very back (Aft!) of the ship, we met our fellow table 534 friends - Jake and Elizabeth of Michigan. They were also recent graduates (although one year newer than us) and were a fun couple to chat with. We were supposed to have two other couples at our table but apparently they didn't get the late dinner memo so it was just us.

For dinner, I ordered a chicken quesadilla (with guac) as an appetizer and a coconut swordfish steak with rice as my entrée – the coconut swordfish was so good! I don’t think I’ve ever had swordfish before and it was definitely a success. It was definitely more steak-like than something like Salmon or Haddock . Alicia had a cold strawberry bisque and salmon. I tried a piece of the salmon and it was delicious! When our (lovely) waiter Viktor served Alicia her strawberry bisque, he just gave her a bowl with a tiny fruit in the center and walked away. Stunned, Alicia and Elizabeth (who had also ordered the same thing) were like "okay, I guess this is it!" Viktor snickered and returned with a cup to pour the actual soup part of it out. “Ahh, that’s how it works” we were all thinking. I think our waiter gets a kick out of seeing people’s reactions after ordering that. The bisque was a similar item on that appeared on some other menus in varying forms. It was essentially like eating a light fruit smoothie with a spoon as it was chilled and fruity. For dessert, I had a strawberry parfait and Alicia had this date pudding which was more of a date brownie. We were having such a nice time at dinner we decided to arrange to meet to watch the comedy show together. In the meantime, Alicia and I went to check out the football scores together. We met back up with Elizabeth and Jake and found some seats for the comedy show. The comedian Happy Cole was terribly funny. As an African American, he made some hilarious jokes and often picked on the rednecks. He's doing more shows so hopefully we see him again.

After the comedy show, we parted ways with our cruise friends and went outside to see the stars, moon, and sea at night. It was truly beautiful as we had the whole deck to ourselves. The wind had died down considerably the farther away we had sailed from Miami so it was definitely one of the highlights of the day (and night).

Sleep times - all set for a fun full day at sea tomorrow! We had climbed 77 flights of stairs (personal best) today with 18,000 steps, crazy day.

Our first towel animal for the trip was an elephant.