Bon Voyage!

We woke up in Tampa the first day of our trip to a very chilly 59 degrees. At the suggestion of our concierge, we had breakfast at Samaria Cafe which was a short walk from the hotel. It was typical diner fare, so of course Brad loved it! After breakfast and getting our stuff together we hailed a cab outside the hotel and headed to the port. The cab was 3 dollars per person because we were only about a mile away. We pulled into the terminal and were amazed how many people were getting on the boat. Four lanes of taxis and cars dropping people off. We tipped the porter 10 dollars in hopes that our bags (and our smuggled liquor) would make it to the ship safe and sound.

The check in process was relatively painless. We showed our passports and fun pass paperwork and got in line. The line snaked around the terminal and up a escalator where we continued to wait while they x-rayed the carry-on bags. Then we moved onto customs. They checked our passports again and gave us our sail and sign cards. Mine was gold because I am return guest, and Brad's was blue (we found out later that the gold card sometimes gives you extra discounts for raffles and bingo). All in all, I would say the process took about 45 minutes to an hour.





Once we got on the Carnival Legend, Brad was impressed with the sheer size of the lobby. The closest thing I can describe the decor is that it looked like a Vegas hotel. We wandered around and checked out the ship, got into our balcony cabin (#8111-much smaller and older-looking than I expected), and headed to the Lido for lunch. The food at the buffet was "OK". There are a lot of choices and everything looked good but it was just kind of standard ho hum lunch fare. Brad had a few drinks of the day and I had a Malibu and Pineapple juice (a change from the usual martini but I was feeling tropical). We were summoned for muster at around 3:30. Basically you gather at your muster area and stand there crammed in like sardines for about 10 minutes as they test the sirens and go over lifeboat and jacket procedures.









At sail-away, we went to the back unicorn deck bar to meet some people from cruisecritic.com, a message board I am a member of. It was nice to finally put faces with names and everyone was SO nice. Here is a short panorama video as we leave Tampa.



We waited on deck until the boat passed under the Tampa Bay Bridge, which the boat just clears by about 10 feet.



The Super Bowl was on, so we headed to Follies Lounge to watch it on the big screen. The visibility is not great in there, especially on the ground floor, lots of pillars and the balcony jutting out on either side. Brad watched the game and I read a book, they had some tailgating snacks out like hot dogs and chicken fingers. At 8:15 we headed to the main dining room for our late seating dinner. Our table mates must have stayed to watch the game, because we dined alone. Our waiter Raymudo, was very nice and although he seemed to think it was weird I did not want an entree, he was very accommodating. We finished the evening with chocolate melting cake, which really is THE BOMB dessert. At this point the boat was really rocking and we were having trouble walking straight. We took some more motion sickness pills and headed to bed.