DAY 3 - EMBARKATION

​As many times as we have cruised embarkation day is always special.  It starts in the morning after we wake up, have breakfast, get organized and all packed up and place the Crystal Luggage Tags on the luggage.
 
 

We were picked up at the hotel by the same woman driver who we had in September named Shelly.  She is very nice. Once again, this transfer is through Crystal Cruises. We drove mainly the same route which Keith ran yesterday.

At the pier we dropped off our one checked bag, had a temperature check, went through security, turned in forms, showed proof of vaccination, filled out a health questionnaire, had another temperature check and took the Antigen test and waited patiently for the results.  

There is a saying there is no place like home. For us we feel we have two homes; one where we live on land and one (multiple Crystal vessels) where we have spent the equivalent of several years sailing the world.  This was evident today.

As we made it over and onto the ship our smiles came to our faces even though no one could see them with our masks on.  LOL.  Once again, we are back home and with our extended Crystal family.  In short order we saw so many familiar members of the crew including people we saw a few weeks ago, in July with the restart of cruising and some who we hadn't seen since January of 2020.  This included Butler Rao.  

The suite category we are staying in has four rooms on Serenity.  In July we stayed in one room. We stayed in another room on the September and October voyages.  In 2017 when we renewed our wedding vows and had our family on board with us and in 2019 when we celebrated our 100th Crystal Society milestone we stayed in another room.  We didn't do this intentionally but when we booked this cruise while on-board in October the only room available is the room fourth room.  So we have now been in all four rooms.  They are all the same.  The difference is the colors of some artwork.  Also two of the rooms the bedroom area is to the left of the entranceway and in the other two suites it is on the right side of the entranceway.  

One of our traditions on embarkation day is Cobb Salad and a flute of Champagne for lunch.  This is another reminder that we are back home with Crystal Cruises

These photos show the different colors from the last suite we were in.

Today's Reflections.

We are so excited to be home and look forward to seven wonderful days on-board Crystal Serenity.

The Muster Drill was similar to July when we could go by anytime from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

We will post more about the afternoon and evening tomorrow.

Cheers,

Anne Marie & Keith