One Ends, Another Begins

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So today the first of our 3 Oceania Riviera cruises ended, and the second began. It was not a smooth finish nor a happy start. Last night in neither of the versions of Currents nor in our disembarkation letter was there any notice of a mandatory cabin vacating deadline. This morning at 7:45 am, the CD's voice came on in the cabin that all passengers were required to vacate their cabins by 8 am. That was 15 minutes away! I found Melissa and told her we wanted to go to breakfast and return before our 9:30 am meet time in Red Ginger for in-transit passengers. She OKed it and assured us we'd be able to do our laundry today whenever we wanted.

The in-transit special treatment for about 100 of us was torturous. Once you checked into Red Ginger you were held and not allowed to opt out. That included an hour and a half later after clearing US CBP screening! They intended to keep us all corralled until they had inspected and cleared the ship and herded us back onboard in a herd. I came off the rails and chewed out the CBP officer that I was a US citizen with Global Entry clearance and he had no right to detain us or prevent us stepping out of the terminal just because we were continuing in-transit. Had the Oceania letter spelled out the procedure as being onerous and time-wasting rather than describing it as a special privilege, we could have just walked off between 8 and 8:30 am with the self-carrying luggage group. We were penalized for following directions. We wound up out on the sidewalk at about 10:50 am. That won't happen when we get back here on 2/14! Hey, Valentine's Day!

We walked directly to the Miami's free Coral Way Trolley stop on the other side of the street and the other side of the park in the port's center. Clay found an app online. I don't know how to tell you to get there. I don't know whether the trolleys ran every 20 minutes or 45. We saw both posted. We never waited more than a few minutes. It looked like at both ends that if you were by the curb and saw one coming and flagged it down that it would stop anywhere. On our return the driver stopped outside Terminal E when the cord was pulled. It was easy. From where we boarded the trolley to get to Bayside Marketplace, you could have walked on a sidewalk across a bridge and been to the mall in 7 minutes according to Google Maps.

We did some shopping, but did not find a CVS or convenience store that would have carried what we were looking to buy actually. We ate lunch from a takeaway window that seemed most popular with local workers. It was Latin American Cuban. We shared a Cuban sandwich that was authentic and delicious and an empanada, followed by ice cream from next door at Mammamia Gelato which was also delicious. Both were better than what we've had onboard Riviera, so it was a worthwhile break. There were tables and chairs under the escalators in front of the shops so it was cool, shady and comfortable. After lunch, we used the restrooms (mens and womens not together so incovenient) and an ATM and went back to the port on the next Coral Way trolley.

We got back onboard Riviera by going through terminal security and showing our through keycards. We skipped the health screen as in-transit by showing our keycards again. The health screen appeared exactly the same as it was on 1/26, just a small paper to fill out. There was no temperature scanning apparent.

Cabins were not yet available to all passengers when we got aboard. We checked and found our guest laundry room empty and decided to go ahead and do it. We ran into a bit of resistance from the workers on the port side hallway who must have been working to keep guests out before the cabin ready call. Melissa offered escort if needed, but it wasn't. We had the laundry to ourselves. Good news since it took 2 45-minute dryer cycles on high to one 24-minute cold water wash cycle!

Clay went to dispute the latest billing on our account per the TV display. It had more than double the number of tour tickets we'd received or booked and prepaid. There's a snafu somewhere but Reception nor Destination Services could explain and asked Clay to return on the first sea day. We knew something was wrong when we didn't receive a hard copy of the first segments accounting. Also when we arrived on 1/26, there was a stack of about 6 pages documenting the accounting, billing and tours. Today on the first day of segment 2, we received nothing. We think something went wrong with book keeping and they just didn't print & deliver. What we don't know is whether it is just us or shipwide or systemwide. We'll have to wait and see.

We sailed away on schedule with no announcements to mark it and no horn blowing. Crystal wins classiest sail away with the ever-present recording of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". Oceania is inconsistent and erratic with their sailaways. Unless you're really paying attention, you'll just miss it!

Dinner tonight is 6:30 pm at Red Ginger again. Tomorrow is Nassau.

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