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Anyone who thought Starlink would be a major improvement for at sea internet I’m not seeing it yet, at least here in the bowels of the ship. Struggling to get pictures posted right now.

We’re on deck 5 in an inside room.

Maybe 5:20 to 5:30. We just prefer watching from the lower decks because it’s less crowded, you’re closer to the water and it’s easy to go from the back to either side of the ship to watch.

Some sail away pictures from the Waterfront.

Staked out a spot mostly alone at the back of the ship on the Waterfront for sail away coming any minute now? Watched the Glory make its u-turn and start heading down the Mississippi about an hour ago. Supposed to set sail at 5(1 minute from now) and the lines are still in place. I think we’re going to be late.

Call was made around 2:30 that cabins were ready. Turns out it pays to be on deck 5 since everyone else is trying to go up to their rooms and we’re the only ones going down. Not only that but we get a double wide hall down here. Our cabin is certainly not double wide. One of our bags has arrived with three more to go. Haven’t been to the buffet to see if there are any there but the studio lounge has easily accessible cookies. Just need to find a solo friend to travel with or a stranger you can bribe to get access. Found a quiet spot on the shady side of the Waterfront watch things go by.

Currently sitting at the front of the ship relaxing. Nice and quiet here with only a few people around. Our first glimpse of the ship while on the shuttle. I’m taking the stairs while on the ship so I might as well take them to get on the ship, even though I don’t have the same beef with escalators that I do with elevators. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone. First step on board. New Orleans. My view at this exact moment.

The second group seated and service was kind of slow but it’s not like we have much else to do until the rooms are ready. Lunch with a view. Cobb salad. Turkey cottage pie. Orange chocolate mousse.

Called group 3 at 11:10. Onboard, mustered and waiting for Taste/Savor to open in 8 minutes at 11:30.

10:56 and special assistance guests have been called to board.

In the interest of being very thorough in my posting here’s what the carpet in the waiting area looks like, in case anyone was curious. Or maybe I’m just bored and now y’all(a couple days in the south and I’m already picking up the language) have to suffer too.

Once we found our way through the masses getting off the ship that was fast and easy. 10:05 and we’re already checked in and waiting.

Short drive to the terminal became longer with a train stopped on the road. Made it up the parking garage and on the shuttle bus. NYC is much easier.

Looks like the Breakaway is pulling into port at 6am.

Got an email this morning to watch the safety video again. Got an email yesterday morning to watch the safety video again. Got another email yesterday morning to let us know that our upgrade bid was being reviewed and to keep checking my email up until 0 hours before the cruise to see if we get upgraded. Got another email the day before yesterday morning to watch the safety video again. Since I can only watch it so many times and NCL is clearly desperate for YouTube page views, enjoy.

As planned we drove just down the road a ways to check out the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge. My wife would have better pictures of birds we saw since she has a real camera instead of just a cell phone but we did see a bunch. We did get to see a small gator in the water. And lots of rabbits not in the water. And I really appreciated the specificity of this sign just around the corner from our motel.

We’ve made it to New Orleans. Well I’m sure it’s actually a suburb of some sort. We’re like 8 miles from the cruise terminal. Overcast all the way here but no real rain. Random road in Mississippi. There was no welcome to Louisiana sign so this was the best I could do. Crossing the Lake Pontchartrain causeway. A random street near our motel.

Turns out the problem with a 2,000 km road trip on the way to a cruise is you totally forget about the cruise while doing it. It’s very weird at the moment to think we’ll be getting on a cruise ship tomorrow. I assume that will change once we make it to New Orleans today.

Not much in the way of tales to tell for today. I drove the first half so didn’t get any pictures from then. It was nice seeing the countryside sticking to the backroads but it did rain most of the day. There must be nearly one Dollar General and one Baptist Church for every household down here, or at least so it seems. In West Point, Mississippi for the night. Tennessee was nice enough to welcome us because Alabama didn’t. Some court house and church somewhere. This was somewhere in Alabama. I don’t remember where. I had a brisket sandwich for lunch and my wife had turkey. At least with the rainy day we got a free car wash out of it. Almost missed this welcome sign but at least it was better than Alabama.

Not taking the time for comments but just a quick picture to satisfy everyone.

Finally made it to Cave City about half an hour before sunset. Sun goes down pretty early when you’re on the far eastern edge of a time zone. Fairly uneventful drive once we got past the bit of snow. Stopped for lunch at the McDonald’s in Wapakoneta, Ohio which was right next door to the Armstrong Air and Space Museum. Might have been an interesting place to check out if we had more time. A 52 foot tall Jesus seems like a good way to tell you’ve officially entered the Bible Belt. Crossing the Ohio River from Cincinnati entering into Kentucky. Our poor car in Kentucky still showing off what the roads in Ontario did to it. Figured I’d better post this for some reason. Sadly no time to do anything in and around this area as it looks like there are plenty of tourist attractions nearby. May have to consider a future trip just to spend some time here.

My mom lives about an hour away from us and most of the way she was apparently driving in near blizzard conditions. She almost turned around but things cleared up by the time she got to our place. Ran into one snow squall along the way that lasted about 15 minutes. It was enough to muck up our car pretty bad. Crossing the Ambassador Bridge into the US. Detroit, Michigan on the left, Windsor, Ontario on the right. Some imaginary line in between. Welcome to the USA. Border guard asked a bunch of very random questions. Welcome to Ohio. The skies have cleared up nicely. Still 0° outside but driving doesn’t get much better than this.

Up and getting ready. I’m sure we forgot something but the cats have food and water so anything else we’ll have plenty of time to buy along the way. Looks like some light flurries out right now and radar shows them off and on from here to, of course London. Hopefully nothing too serious and only for the first hour or so of the drive. Hope to be on the road within a half hour or so.

Only a few small things left to pack and the car is mostly loaded to leave tomorrow morning. It’s weird when it feels like you’re not really overpacking at all and still end up with 5 bags to bring. Had the brief moment of putting on the new luggage tag before removing the one from the last cruise. The four months between these two cruises has been by far the shortest we’ve had thus far. I think I’d have preferred a little longer like maybe six months instead. While I’m looking forward to this cruise it doesn’t have nearly the same level of pent up excitement as our previous three did. Still haven’t heard anything about a room upgrade, so while I know it can technically still happen the ship looks pretty much sold out so it seems very doubtful. This will be our second time in an inside cabin and we’re fine with that. Weather started out at 12° this morning but then dropped to around freezing half way through the day with strong winds and snow squalls off and on. Supposed to be around -7 when we start in the morning but they’re not expecting any serious snow, so it should hopefully be a good driving day. High in Cave City, KY is supposed to be 9 so there’ll be no concern of snow at that point.

My wife works at a vet clinic less than two blocks from our apartment so she usually has a few co-workers openly volunteering to come check on our cats while we’re away. We do have a fourth cat who still qualifies as a kitten and certainly acts like it, so we don’t trust him to not destroy the place if left unsupervised. That means he gets to spend a couple weeks boarding at the clinic. The other cats will enjoy not having to deal with him. There’s all four of them making sure to claim the couch as their own. Somehow the one second from the top who is pretty much the biggest of the four is still less than a year old. And in this picture, likely about 5 seconds from deciding which other cat he wants to pounce on to see if they want to play. Which they of course don’t.