February 17, 2025 – Ft Lauderdale FL – Mostly Cloudy – 80F

Embarkation Day

I think we both got a little sleep. We went down to the restaurant, which was really just a Starbucks Coffee Shop.  We ordered a Blueberry Muffin, a Vente Mocha, and a Grande Chai Latte – total damage was $23.54. 

The hotel offered shuttle service to Port Everglades at $20 per person.  I instead checked with Uber and ordered a car for 11:00 AM.  Juley came on time with his red Dodge SUV and the total fare was $17.92.  I noticed that our ship was docked at Pier 25 and told Juley that but he still had a little trouble finding Celebrity Eclipse – he turned down the wrong bay where Silhouette was docked.  We eventually got to Pier 25 and dropped our bags with a porter.

As I indicated earlier, there was a glitch in our boarding documents – Ellen was not listed on the manifest (a Celebrity problem since both Miranda and I had sent in the correct passenger information).  After some discussion with a Pier Coordinator, she was put on the manifest and had a boarding number.  They couldn’t print our cards at the agent desk but we did have paper boarding passes.  The Celebrity app only listed me on the folio and I couldn’t get Ellen on her version of the app.  The only way we could see charges would be via printout.  In any event, after about an hour (and the need for a Staff Captain signoff) we were on board Eclipse. (NOTE: Despite several attempts at Guest Relations, our accounts never got merged or straightened out but we managed to track expenses).

I took some photos of Port Everglades - some of the pics had this strange blue patina, a product of the window tinting on some parts of the ship.  Besides Silhouette and Eclipse, there are other ships here today.  A busy day in South Florida.

The Oceanview Café was pretty much slammed when we got there – we did manage to find a couple of seat.  A salad, some tuna salad, and egg salad was lunch. 

We are in Cabin 3129 – Port Side Midships – a pretty good location – lower deck – hallway between Guest Relations and the Theater – a standard passenger stateroom.  Perfect access to the Grand Foyer elevator and the Oceanview Café and the same for the Theater.

The staff for this cruise include Kelly Rose, the Cruise Director, (never sailed with her before – an Aussie), the Activity Manager, Sameer Velaskar (never sailed with him before – from India), and Captain Morfis Passalis, the youngish looking Greek Captain we have sailed with before (maybe twice). 

We found some quiet in Cafe al Baccio, overlooking the Grand Foyer.  These seats are golden when there are performance in this venue.

There was no letter from Sameer in the Cabin so we sought him out in his office behind Celebrity Central.  We actually ran into him outside Celebrity Central as he was off somewhere.  I introduced myself and he handed me the letter.  He told me I would be giving my talks on each of the four sea days at 10:00 AM in Celebrity Central.  I told him that the titles and synopses on the app were wrong and he asked me to email him the information so he could correct the app and make sure that the Celebrity Today was accurate.  The letter also said that there would be a meeting at 6:30 PM in his office and that there would be promo video at 6:45 PM. 

We met in Sameer’s office at 6:30 PM after spending a few minutes with Kelly Rose in her office.  The other speaker, Steve Waller, is an archeologist specializing in sounds (I think).  After the meeting, we did the video up in the Effy Shop (originally supposed to be the Shorex area) – I stumbled through the video but hopefully, no one will watch it.

We had dinner in the Oceanview Café – I had pasta cooked to order – good but next time, I’ll ask for more sauce.  Ellen foraged for her dinner.

Our sail out from the port was escorted by a USCG Gunboat.  Pretty standard for this port.

The Welcome Aboard Show featured our old friend, Steve Cauoette, comedian who can smell money and relies on the audience to provide the laughs.  It was all too familiar so we split about 10 minutes into it. Before Steve came out, Kelly went through the passenger demographics - the largest group was from Canada, followed by the United States.  Just a smattering of other nationalities followed.

There are two bands on board, both with female lead singers, and they are both pretty good – Pocket Van seems like a Filipino band and Strings Attached I’m not sure (they have a black lead singer).  They alternate venues – Grand Foyer and Ensemble Lounge – and both feature light contemporary songs.

Cabin 3129 seems quiet (except for a actuator sound requiring ear plugs) and the seas are smooth. Hoping to get some rest.