Miami

Yesterday, Colette and I began our trip by driving 6 hours to Minneapolis. It was a long drive, but we made it safely to our hotel. This morning we woke up early to take a shuttle to the airport. (Right - me at the Minneapolis airport) The flight was long, too. I didn't realize the flight to Miami was such a long one. When we arrived in Miami, we stepped outside to wait for our ride to the pier. It was so humid, you could SEE the moisture in the air. It was crazy. Of course, it looked like it had just rained, and shortly after we arrived, it started to rain again.
The ride to the pier wasn't too long, and even the lines to check in and get on the ship were not too bad. After we stepped on the ship, I was a little overwhelmed. I had no idea which direction to go. Luckily, once I got used to it, it wasn't so difficult to find things.
Colette and I had an inside stateroom on deck 2. (Left - Colette and I on the shuttle to the pier) We went down to our room to drop off our stuff. Then we decided to get some lunch. We went up to the Windjammer where they have a buffet of food. It was pretty good.
After lunch, we walked around the ship a little, taking pictures, getting used to the layout, and waiting for the meet and greet set for 5:00. Before that, we had a muster drill. I'm not sure what muster means, but everyone had to be on deck and accounted for. (Right - me inside our stateroom. I slept in the bed on the left. In the foreground on the left you can see the door to our bathroom which was tiny. Still, it's not like I spent much time in this room . . .)That was rather boring because we had to wait until all 2600 passengers were on deck. Then we walked around some more.
At 5:00 we met some of the other LDS singles traveling our our cruise. Supposedly there are 60 people in our group, there were maybe only half of that at our meet and greet.
After that, we watched the boat pull out of harbor before heading up to dinner. Colette and I dressed up in skirts for dinner. It was very fancy. We have 6 other people at our table besides the two of us.
(Left - me on the deck of the ship with Miami in the background). After dinner, we went to the welcome show. That was good. I learned that who ever wants to will have the opportunity to learn and perform a dance before the entire ship. I think I'm going to do that. It'll be fun. After the show, we walked around a little before running into some people from our group. We went to see the end of Finish That Tune. It was a fun game to watch. Right after that was a salsa dance class. Naturally, we participated. We learned three steps: (excuse the spelling) kumbiya, singer, & mambo. After we had learned, there was the chance to actually dance. (Left - Colette holding up our fancy restaurant's menu. For the most part the food was good. But if we didn't like it, we could always send it back) We stayed for a bit, then went up to a different party to dance. That was the Top 40s dance. It was fun.
We stayed out late, and on my way to my room, I walked with a friend through the Schooner Bar. As we walked through, a group of people called out to us. We didn't know them, but joined them for a bit before we continued on. (Left - Buddy, Diane, Colette, and I at the Welcome Performance). It was fun.