March 8, 2009 - Sunday
This morning Penney and I departed Nashville for Fort Lauderdale, WAY TO EARLY, but she insisted. Good flight, but the woman sitting next to us must have had a late or bad night, she was a grump, so I took the opportunity to listen to some tunes while Penney did... what else? pulled out the laptop and worked. We arrived safely in FLL, went to baggage claim and stood back watching these crazy people running to the carousal to get their luggage. I mean they were pushing and shoving to be right there almost on top of the conveyer belt. Well we were in no hurry so stood back and waited for the crazy's to get through and we walked right up and got our ONE medium sized suitcase. Penney is pretty proud of herself that she is learning not to overpack :)
Next it was out to the taxi stand to head to the pier, I am not sure if our driver didn't speak English or he too had had a bad night/morning as he never said one word either. Hmmm it couldn't be us, it must be that these people were rude right?
So we get to the pier, terminal 21 and we see the ship... The Costa Fortuna. It is a mid size ship, very clean looking and then we see the line to enter the terminal. Oh my, after dropping our ONE bag, we proceeded to the line and it took every bit of 90 minutes to get through the outside line, then the inside line, security and oh yes, did I mention the line to board? whew... we are finally on the ship.
Our cabin is not ready yet, so we take this opportunity to visit the buffet, it is important to be able to tell our clients what choices and the quality right? HEHE Overall, I would say that the variety was average, but Penney found the flavor of the food very good. Then she picked up her laptop and again decided to get some work done before leaving port. So here we are, sitting on the deck of this nice cruise ship and she is working... come on, lets go explore! Oh good, she is ready, so I will close this entry and write more later this evening,
So here we are in our stateroom... overall very spacious, clean, and good layout. The bathroom is adequate for a cruise ship bathroom, here I am in the huge shower (yeah right, this is one of those that you can soap down the walls and then spin around to get clean :)
We were pleasantly surprised to find not one but two nice bottles of champagne in our cabin. One from the vice president of Costa, Scott Knutson and another from an agent friend, Patricia Liebau, along with some nice fresh fruit.
Well we are about to head out for the life boat drill and then set sail so I am going to upload this entry...
Bon Voyage!
Good Evening, we were unable to upload this entry as the Internet connection was not strong enough so I will continue to write and will upload we we arrive in San Juan on Tuesday.
We attended the cocktail reception this evening and met most of the S@S participants. Very nice folks. After, we had a great dinner, (well Penney did, while I got to watch) our table mates are interesting and fun. After dinner it was late and has been a long day so we came back to the cabin to call it a night. Penney pulled out the computer to review her presentation for tomorrows workshops she is facilitating while I read my latest issue of Agent at Home magazine.
March 9, 2009 - Monday
The alarm came pretty early this morning, but after a nice nights sleep we awoke rested and ready for the day. Penney showered and got out of the cabin early to meet her group and begin their educational workshop, I had room service breakfast in our cabin before joining her. When I arrived there was a room full of professional travel agents learning and sharing with one another. Typically Penney's sessions are about 2.5 hours long but these agents were so excited they kept going and at about 3.5 hours they finally broke for lunch, but many of them continued the discussion in the dining room. Lunch today was in the Michelangolo's dining room and of course i was not served but the selections looked great. Penney said her salad and fish were very good.
Next we went back to the conference room and Costa BDM, April Freeman, did a seminar on selling Groups with Costa. Her presentation was very informative.
This afternoon we walked about the ship, meeting and talking with many passengers. Here are some photos we took...
the band was playing at the pool the water slide was very busy today
Beautiful Chapel
The Atrium is beautiful with a unique display on the ceiling
We also checked out the Disco and the game room, i love air hockey!
Then we did a bit of window shopping...
The selection of perfumes was amazing, as was the beautiful Murano Glass and of course the Rum Selections
I also mad ea few new friends, can you find me?
Bingo anyone?
OK, it is time to get ready for the Captains reception and Gala Dinner, I will write more later.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Today we are at sea, but are due to arrive in San Juan Puerto Rico at about 5pm. Penney is hosting a conference call at 7pm tonight, so we will not have much time in port, but may go to dinner ashore or do a bit of shopping. Today onboard there is a lot happening... arts & crafts, art auction, bingo, Italian lesson, dance lessons and even a horse race. After breakfast we went out to the pool area, but the rain spoiled our relaxing in the sun so we headed to the theater to listen to the SHOPPING GUY, Trey. He shared where to and where not to shop in our next several ports. We then visited the internet cafe
, 
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because of high winds the connection was down, so i think we will take this raining afternoon to get some rest. Penney keeps saying she has some reading to catch up on, but i think a nap is in my future :) More later...
This evening was quite adventurous... there was a storm here in San Juan, so the internet connection was low... Penney tried to connect to do her by-weekly conference call but could not get a good signal, she called in from her cell for a few minutes but as she was standing under an aluminum cover and it began to lightning she said adios. I spent time people watching, which is always alot of fun. Later we went to the show, which was really good, had a nice dinner and called it an evening.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
This morning is a bright and sunny beautiful day in St. Thomas. Many of the folks from our group are doing tours today, but as Penney has been here many times we (well she, you know how she is :) made the decision to go ashore and do some shopping. There is a great mall area here at the pier, 
There are jewelry stores, electronic stores, and of course many novelty shops. It is a short walk to the skyride mall, which is a cable car that takes you to the top of the mountain and to a beautiful view of the port as well as many other nearby islands including St. Johns.
This afternoon when we got back to the ship, Penney connected to the internet and had a video conference with her family. It was nice to see the smiles of Kevin, Andrea and her mom, Winnie. Also present were Andrea's friends Waide and Heather. How fun, we showed them around the cabin and out the window to the port of St Thomas. Here is a photo from my window, the Freedom of the Seas leaving port.
Later we enjoyed dinner, it was Italian night... the food and company were great. The waiters sang and danced for us, several folks in our group got in to the action too...
After we went to a pizza toss contest, fruit carving demonstration and dance lesson. What fun.
Another enjoyable evening, but we called it a night about 12:30AM
Thursday, March 12, 2009 - Dominican Republic
Today we are in the DR, but at a port that we have not seen before, there is really nothing here at the port, but some soccer fields and a terminal with buses, cabs and tour operators. As we had not booked a tour we decided to just get off the ship and explore a bit.
I was right, not much here but the local bus/cab takes you to a small fishing village where there are some shops and restaurant/bars.
We came back to the ship and met some of our new friends for a nice Mexican Buffet... yum. Penney has some meetings and work to catch up on so I will probably just do some more people watching :) to be continued...
