It sometimes seemed like the day would never get here, there was just a lot to do the last several days before we left. However, as we all know, time stops for no man, so the day for us to leave did arrive, and it was an early start.
We set an alarm for 5:00 AM, but I was up earlier, thinking about a few things we still needed to check before we were ready to leave. I was up about 4:30 AM, and other than a little early, I slept fine.
I got up and checked a couple of things I had packed several days ago but now I was just not sure about since it had been several days ago. Everything was fine, but that uncertainty had not allowed me sleep in as long as I wanted.
Stephanie was up by 5:00 AM, and we both got ready. Stephanie brought both suitcases downstairs while I got all of our phone chargers and last minute electronics packed into my camera bag.
Our plan was to leave the house by 5:50 AM and drive to the airport. We were a little concerned about there being a lot of Christmas travelers at the airport, and it being crowded at both the check in desk and at security. We left on time and the drive was really relaxing at that time of the morning, we hardly saw any other cars on the road.
It only took about 25 minutes to arrive at the departure terminal area of the airport and I dropped Stephanie off there with the large suitcases. I then drove to the long term surface parking lot and tried to use the QCR code that I had printed for the pre-paid parking to enter the gate at the lot. I tried every way I could to get the code to scan and open the gate, but it would not work. I just went ahead and took a ticket and the gate opened. We will just have to sort this all out when we arrive back here in eighteen days. I guess we will need to go through a manned gate instead of the automated gates when we leave the lot so that thatcan manually use the voucher to pay for the parking.
The only thing crowded at the airport was this parking lot. I had to park quite a ways out from the parking garage I needed to walk through to get back to the terminal. There were a lot of cars already parked here for the holidays. By the time we get back, our car will probably look like it is out there by itself, all of the other holiday travelers will have returned already.
I walked the short distance through the garage parking to get back to the terminal to the Delta counter where Stephanie was waiting with our bags. I had already checked us in online and paid the two baggage fees, so we only had to drop off the bags at the counter. Surprisingly there was no line at all, maybe we were just there too early!
Our suitcases weighed in at 51 pounds, which was apparently close enough to the 50-pound limit and was acceptable. However, it did get us some “Heavy” tags placed on our bags. Maybe since we had prepaid the baggage fee, it was too hard to make any overweight changes to the charges, but more than likely, it was just close enough. We had known one bag was 50 pounds and the other just under that from weighing them with our luggage scale at home, but at the gate, both were 51 pounds. I guess our scale is fairly accurate to only be off by 1 pound.
After checking the bags, we headed to security and even though there was hardly anyone in the line, it was really slow to get through. We were glad there was hardly anyone there because it still took about 15 minutes to get through security. We were worried that the Christmas tree Stephanie had in her backpack would require additional screening, but it went through without any issue as well as my camera bag with all of the electronics in it.
After getting redressed after security, we headed to the gate. Apparently, our Delta flight and one other American flight were the only ones leaving here this morning. Our flight was scheduled for 8:00 AM, and we were at the gate at about 6:45 AM.so we still had some time to wait. At least our plane was already at the gate, so there were no worries about it arriving late.
We boarded on time at 7:30 AM. We had planned on wearing masks at the airport, but since it was not crowded, we were able to sit away from everyone until we boarded, but did put on our KN95 masks before we got on the plane. It was an older regional jet, so the overhead bins were really small, but just large enough for our backpacks. We settled in for the short flight to Atlanta. We did not notice a lot of people coughing, so that was a positive sign, at least for this flight.
The flight actually arrived early in Atlanta but we had a rough landing and then a long taxi to the gate, which was still occupied by another plane, so we had to wait a short time before we could pull into the gate. We still arrived early but now that just added to our already long two-hour layover.
We arrived at the D terminal and needed to go to the A terminal for our flight to Ft. Lauderdale, so that was quite a hike and required us to ride the underground train. We headed to the underground train tunnel and realized if we went to the farthest set of doors away from the escalator, there was hardly anyone waiting there for the next train. When the train arrived, that first car we entered was also almost empty, so it was nice, we were not jammed in with a lot of other people.
We rode several stops to the A Terminal and then headed up the escalator and walked out to our departure gate, stopping along the way for a bathroom break. Once we verified our gate, we thought that it would be a good idea to get something to eat. Our flight to Ft. Lauderdale was scheduled to leave at around 11:30 AM, and arrive at 1:25 PM, right during the normal lunch eating timeframe.
We walked back to the center of the terminal to a Chick-fil-A. Of course, there was a long line, but it moved quickly. We had thought about lunch but realized it was only 9:30 AM, and it was still breakfast time. To us, it seemed much later. We ordered a chicken biscuit for me and some minis for Stephanie, and hers was a “meal”, so it came with a drink and hash rounds.
After eating a leisurely breakfast at a nearby table, we walked back to our gate and sat in a gate area one before ours where a plane had just departed. That entire gate area was almost empty, so we found seats away from almost everyone else. We still had over an hour to wait to board, so we just spent time waiting at that gate, planning to move over to our gate when it was time for us to board.
Of course, we were still wearing our masks and it was a good thing since we started to see many more people who were coughing. We headed to our gate and waited to board our flight to Ft. Lauderdale. Our plane was a Boeing 757, so it was not that large, but boarding seemed to take a long time, there were about 10 people in wheelchairs that needed assistance to board first.
We were in the “Main 2” boarding group, which was second to last to board. At least we still had ample overhead bin space by the time we got to our row to be seated, which was in row 35. We had the middle and aisle seats, and for quite some time, we thought we would have the row to ourselves. There had been one overly large man at the gate who was coughing a lot, and he was now heading down the aisle of the plane toward us and we thought he was going to be our seatmate. Just great, a really large person who was coughing, just what we needed as we started our vacation. Luckily, he passed by and sat in a row about four behind us. and we still had the row to ourselves. Literally, the last person who boarded the plane, a younger woman, came down the aisle and sat in our row in the window seat At least she did not appear to be sick and was a fairly small person, not the overly large cougher we had thought might sit next to us.
We were monitoring the status of our suitcases on the Delta App, and for some reason, even though we had been in Atlanta for over two hours, our baggage did not yet show that it was loaded onto the plane going to ft. Lauderdale. We knew it had arrived on our first flight from the information on the app, but for some reason, it did not show as loaded on this plane, and we were not far off from leaving.
There were quite a few empty seats in the rows behind us, and we almost got the row to ourselves, just not quite. The woman was apparently from an Eastern European country she was constantly talking on her phone through earbuds, and it seemed to be in Russian or something similar. We were surprised that the flight attendants did not say something to her, she continued to talk on the phone even after we took off, but stopped shortly after that.
About the time they were closing the doors, we were finally able to see through the Delta App that our bags had been loaded onto the plane, so we were relieved about that
We left the gate on time, and it was a surprisingly short taxi to the runway and then we took off. For the Atlanta airport, it was about the shortest duration I have ever experienced from the time we left the gate until takeoff. The Captain had informed us that we would only be flying at an altitude of 19,000 feet due to the amount of air traffic heading to Florida, apparently causing, as he put it, a traffic jam in the sky. He said that the normal flight altitude for this route was about 32,000 feet
We both watched a portion of a movie on our individual seat-back entertainment systems, Stephanie watched part of the movie Elf, and I watched part of the movie “A Haunting in Venice” with the detective Hercule Poirot. The flight was not long enough for either of us to finish our movies, we each only got about an hour in after being delayed starting the movies by some announcements and the takeoff events, plus stoppages for snack service.
This flight was also arriving about 25 minutes early, which was good, maybe we would get to the ship faster than we had originally thought. Of course, just like on the first flight, we had to wait to pull into the gate, this time is was because the ground crew did not know we were arriving early, and we had to wait for them to come out and direct the plane into the parking spot and then waited again for the jetway to be put into position before we could deplane. Just like getting on, it was painfully slow to get everyone off for some reason, but we finally made it off and headed to baggage claim.
It was not a far walk to baggage claim, and by the time we got there, some luggage was already being picked up by our fellow plane passengers. Of course, it was all of the preferred status Delta frequent fliers that were getting their “priority” tagged luggage first. It was not long before both of our bags came out, almost together, and we picked them up and then headed over to the Viking Cruise kiosk to check in for transport to the ship.
This was where we really had to learn to be patient. We waited almost an hour before they finally gathered up everyone who had checked in with Viking to walk out of baggage claim and over to the bus stop to be transported to the cruise ship. The traffic in the terminal was terrible, and moving really slowly, so even though we could see our bus, it still took about ten more minutes before it arrived at our designated pick-up area. There were already some passengers aboard, obviously from another airline at another location in the airport. The lone bus driver had to load up all of the baggage into the luggage storage area under the bus, it was a lot of luggage for one person to handle, and that took another ten minutes. In the meantime, we all boarded the bus. After all of the luggage and passengers were aboard, it took the bus driver another ten minutes just to get out into the traffic. We passed by an area for some of the budget airlines, and that was the cause for all of the traffic delays, the area was packed with people and cars waiting to pick up passengers, basically cutting all of the lanes down to a single lane for through traffic.
We finally made it out of the airport and headed to the port, which was only a few miles away. By this time of the day, there was hardly any port traffic, most passengers had already arrived for all of the eight ships in port. We had no problem getting to the drop-off area for our Viking Ship and pulled up to the terminal. Our bus driver then had to unload all of the luggage himself. There were about four porters there, but they did not help to get any of the luggage out of the bus, they just pulled it over to the side next to the big luggage carriers used to put the luggage onto the ship. They lined all of the luggage from our bus up into several rows. We had no idea what was going on, but this entire time, we all had to wait on the bus.
Finally, when all of the luggage had been unloaded and put into the rows, we were allowed to get off the bus. We got off the bus and gave our bus driver a small tip for all of the work he had done with all of the luggage. No one from Viking was there giving any directions at all, so no one knew what we were supposed to do. It appeared we were supposed to go over and get our luggage, which was partially true. This was all a ploy to be able to give tips to the porters, who were then going to load all of the luggage up onto the large luggage containers used to load it onto the ship. I had gone over to my bag thinking we needed to get them and take them somewhere to check in, but that was not the case. Stephanie had hers and a porter came over to take them to the container right next to the luggage rows. It was just mass confusion, and not a Viking Rep was in sight. It was apparent we were the last of the passengers to board, and maybe everyone who might have been there to assist us had already left the area.
We did not give the porter a tip, they had done nothing, they could have just handled the bags once and loaded them onto the large luggage containers, maybe they wanted everyone to know their luggage was offloaded from the bus, who knows.
We then proceeded into the terminal and checked in, which was quick, there were hardly any other passengers inside.
We headed onto the ship and checked in with our key card we were issued at check-in. Once onboard, we received a small glass of champagne and were directed to the theater at the bow of the ship for some safety orientation on putting on a life jacket. Stephanie and I received a personal demonstration, there was no one else using that area for their muster station that had gotten on with our bus group, or at least no one that was through check-in yet.
From there, we headed to our room and dropped off our backpacks. We had already decided that we would go to Guest Services first to check on some different times for two of our excursions, so we headed there. Unfortunately, we could not make any changes, but were put on a waiting list in case there were any cancellations.
Next, we went to the restaurant area to make reservations for the two specialty restaurants, Manfredi’s and the Chef’s Table. There was a line and it took a while for us to get to the person making the reservations, but we were able to make two reservations at each restaurant. mainly on sea days, but one for the Chef’s Table was made on a port day since that restaurant changes the menu every three days to rotate through four different food varieties, and we had no choice for the menu theme we wanted.
Next, we wanted to go to a couple of bars and make sure they had the Seagram’s VO on the ship since we had an issue with that on the last trip on the Viking Neptune, they had not gotten all of their supplies before we had done the transatlantic cruise from Barcelona this time last year, and had run out of the Segram’s VO on that cruise. First, we went to the World Cafe Bar and although they had the VO on the menu, they did not have any in stock at the bar, but they did have Canadian Club, which was a close second. They also said there was Segram’s VO on the ship, they were just out. We decided to go ahead and purchase the Silver Spirits Drink Package since it seemed we were going to be able to get the Segram’s VO on this cruise, or at least the Canadian Club. However, the bartenders at the World Cafe Bar said we needed to purchase that from Guest Services, which seemed odd.
We went to the pool bar next since it was on the way back to Guest Services, and they had the Seagram’s VO at the bar. We asked about the Silver Spirits package, and here, they were able to sell it to us. Maybe the other bartenders were new, who knows? We purchased the package but opted not to get any beverage there, we wanted a glass of Pinot Grigio but did not want to drink it out of the plastic glasses they have to use at the pool bar. We headed to the Explorer’s Lounge and had our glass of wine there, and also asked about the Seagram’s VO there, which they did have
We took our glasses of wine back to the room, hoping our luggage might have arrived. Mine was out in the hallway, so an attendant took it to our room and I was able to unpack. We also took care of a couple of room items, we needed more hangers for the closet, and we wanted to change out all of the drinks in the mini-fridge to Diet Cokes and Ginger Ale’s.
I was able to unpack and then we each called our moms while we were still in port and had cell service. It was close to 5:00 PM and that was the time we were scheduled to leave Ft. Lauderdale.
By the time we finished the calls, and Stephanie went to get us another glass of wine at the Explorer’s Lounge, her bag had arrived, so she was able to unpack as we were casting off from the pier. We were able to enjoy leaving Port Everglades from our balcony since we were on the port side of the ship, and that is the scenic side. Most of the other ships had already left except the Emerald Princess, which was docked next to us, and was the ship we had taken for our first Transatlantic Cruise for our honeymoon back in 2008.
There was another Princess Ship in port, the Sea Princess, and of course, it played the Loveboat Theme snippet on the ship’s horn as it was leaving. That was followed by a Disney ship leaving, and not to be outdone by Princess, they also played some Disney Themes snippets on their ship’s horn.
The sun had already set by the time we were leaving the port, and it was nice to see some of the nice houses along the channel going out of the port all decorated up for Christmas.
By this time, we were ready for something to eat and so we headed to the World Cafe Buffet for dinner, way too tired to do anything else. They had the usual nice spread of sushi and fresh seafood which we enjoyed, as well as a few other items.
After dinner, we headed up to the Explorer’s Lounge for a nightcap of the ever-elusive Seagram’s VO with Ginger Ale. They were serving a new brand of ginger ale made by Shasta, and it was in really small cans. Normally, they used Schweppes products, but had just gotten this onboard today during the resupply. Apparently, this ship had missed getting some provisions when they had to skip their stop in Bermuda due to high winds and were having to make up for that at today’s port stop.
We stayed for a few drinks and met a couple of different couples. It was almost 9:00 PM, and we were really tired from all of the travel today, so we called it a night and headed back to the cabin to relax and watch some TV before retiring for the night. We were glad we had made it without any real issues, just a few delays with all of the long layovers and waiting for the transportation to the ship.
I have added two links below. One will be a link to was website which is a periodic 360 degree Panoramic Camera shot from the Viking Neptune Bridge Cam. All of the Viking Ocean and Expeditions Ships have cameras that are available on the panoramic website by each ship’s name. The second link is for a website called CruiseMapper, and this will show our current position when you click on the link.
360 Degree Viking Neptune Panorama
Current Viking Neptune Position on Cruise Mapper
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