Paul and Sandy on holiday: Saturday 6 October - day 46

I knew that by the time we got to Fort Lauderdale - after two weeks on a coach tour with 'motel only' accommodation - I'd be desperate to stay in a place with a kitchen. So, we had a room at the Candlewood Suites last night. $123 for the night for a room with a decent bed, a table big enough to put two laptops on (at last!), at least 8 available power points (some of the hotels have something in the room plugged into every single power point!), separate bathroom, and a full size stove, fridge, microwave, dishwasher etc. Best value room for the whole trip.
They have a regular shuttle for the cruise port at 10:30 each day at $8 each, but that's a bit early for us - the port is less than 2 miles away and boarding doesn't start until 11:30. And when it does, the cruise line starts with their 'priority' customers - which we aren't :-). However, the hotel will also organise a shuttle at any time you want - all apologetic because it has to cost more - a grand total of $10.00 each! So, we're staying in the comfort of the hotel room until 11:30 or so (American hotels seem to all have much later check-out / check-in times than Australian ones).
Turns out that the shuttle company only wanted $8 each for the shuttle anyway. It's all good.
Getting on-board the ship was a bit stressful but only because it was so quick - usually you expect to have to wait in the queue for long enough to get sort yourself out (eg find your passport etc) but we were straight through security and then check-in really quickly. We had been given our SeaPass cards and were having our welcome photos taken in no time. At 12:05 we were still sitting in the shuttle at the hotel, but even with a drive of a couple of miles to the cruise port, we were on board by around 12:35 - I think we were lucky with our timing, but it was also very well managed.
The ship - Wow. It's huge. Royal Caribbean's way of getting people onboard means that you can't go into your cabin until it's ready, which is usually about 1pm. We found a spot to wait and got into our cabin without any drama.
We then started our exploration of the ship - there's just so much to see and do that there's no way I'll be able to mention it all. However, I will say - we were a bit hungry by this time so we went to Johnny Rocket's for a late lunch. For a $4.95 cover charge you can have as much as you want to eat - we got onion rings and chips (you get them as soon as you sit down!) plus I had a hot dog and Paul had a burger. Unlike normal American food, these were quite small - I guess on the theory that if you want more you can get it anyway. But, they were both absolutely delicious. We also had a milkshake each - so thick that they offer to give you a spoon to eat them with! and again, delicious. Later in the cruise, we found out that Johnny Rocket's is actually an American burger chain, they've been around since 1986 and have a couple of hundred on-shore outlets.
After this - for obvious reasons! - we both did two full circuits around the walking/jogging track on Deck 5 - about 1.3 kilometres altogether.
After some more wandering we have seen large chunks of the ship, but we're still not really certain where anything is. They have a pretty good help system though - huge touch screens near all the lifts where you can search for places and even get directions on how to get there from where you are, plus a 'what's on now / for the rest of the day' display if you're looking for things to do. The TV in the cabin (a huge LCD screen) also has a fairly good - although somewhat slow - interactive display, including really useful things like an indicator telling you how busy it is in each food outlet so you don't traipse all the way to a particular restaurant only to discover that there's a half hour wait to get in.
That's all for today - we're on our way!!!
The somewhat uninspiring view of Fort Lauderdale from the balcony of the cabin:

The view down to the Aqua Theatre from deck 11. The blue area where the people are walking is a cover over really deep pool which is the 'aqua' part of the aque theatre. The small area further back is the stage - a large chunk of it turns over during the show to reveal a large trampoline that they use in their shows:

Our balcony:

Central Park - this is on deck 8, so we're one deck up. You can see some cabin balconies above, but we chose one that overlooks the sea rather than the park:

Back of the ship, the big screen and the platforms you can see are also part of the Aqua Theatre - they dive from those platforms into the pool during the show!