Going to attempt to start updating what’s turned out to be a nightmare of a trip so far. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong and then some! I, along with some other cruisers, am recovering from a nasty heat stroke.

Before leaving the hotel in Fort Lauderdale, I updated on Facebook, Twitter, and texted Aly. We’ve been Internet-cursed all the way, not that we absolutely need to get online. But the hotel’s wasn’t working and I doubt it would have been all that safe and secure if it had been. The ship’s Wi-Fi has been out as well. On top of that, we forgot to pack my laptop’s charger, couldn’t purchase one onboard, and so my battery, which is currently at 62%, probably won’t survive the rest of the trip.

So here’s the story. We hung out in our room for a few hours, then headed toward the front of the hotel to await the free shuttle that takes people to both the dock and the airport. However, there were so many damn people and the shuttles were taking forever, so we grabbed a cab. Before leaving we talked with a few really nice women and a black guy who was sailing on a much smaller ship we’d never heard of. It was called something like AIDA vita.

The women said I sounded and looked like someone they knew named Brenda, also from the northeast. Yeah, all these years later, I still sound northeastern, LOL.

There were so many damn motorcycles blasting by as well and I could tell that others found it just as annoying. I wish they’d ban the damn things nationwide, especially the thunderously loud ones.

It took us nearly a half-hour to arrive at Port Everglades. “ID’s ready,” said the (Jamaican) cabby as we approached the port, and we then showed our passports to a security guard who asked if we had any weapons. Do they really expect any potential criminals to admit it if they did? LOL

Then he goes, “Who’s the weapon here?”

I laughed and said I was. Tom was confused at first, though, as he’s not used to security guards joking. Usually, they’re all serious and businesslike.

So we get to the port and I thought that just like when we sailed the Westerdam (we saw it docked next to our ship), we would just go into a large room where people “zig-zagged” their way to where they take your picture for your ID/room card after taking your boarding pass and checking your passports and all that fun stuff. I figured at most the whole process would take about an hour.

Wrong! Very wrong.

Instead, we were caught up in a 4-hour nightmare. Not only will we NEVER cruise the highly disorganized, greedy Royal Caribbean ships again, but we’ll never cruise again period! One couple said they’d cruised 14 times and this was the first time what we went through ever happened, but I think we’ll still stick to solid ground and airplanes in the future be it Hawaii, Jamaica, Greece… wherever we go.

Because the ship holds over 4K people instead of the 1500 or so the Westerdam holds, the room where you check in simply isn’t big enough to loop lines of people to accommodate everyone. Therefore, the line extended outdoors and pretty much wrapped around the building. This macho, loud-mouthed security guard made us form loops around certain areas. This meant that a lot of us were exposed to the sun depending on where we were within the line.

We were kind of in this large alley where one of the Princess ships was docked right across from the Independence of the Seas that we’re on, and I was gazing at it, sorry we hadn’t gone with them instead like we almost did.

We also saw the Oasis, which is RC’s largest ship. Thank God we didn’t go on that! There are way too many people on this ship as it is. Just waiting for a chance to get on one of the elevators can be quite a task, and some of these people walk as slow as Californians drive.

I have seen people from every race, color and country imaginable and got to use my Spanish twice. I thought most of the people would be older, but there’s a diverse variety of ages as well as cultures… white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, etc. The couple next to us is Hungarian. It was neat to be able to hear so many different languages spoken around me, and I could understand some, of course. We all got along just fine and it’s sad that the media still exploits and portrays some people as victims when the vast majority of people have no problem with them, and they have just as much freedom and opportunity as anyone else. Maybe even more. I guess it’s just “popular.”

Back to the nightmare. I’m standing out in the sunlight and wishing to hell I hadn’t forgotten my light pink cap with the shiny sparkles. The top of my head where my hair parts, as well as my face and chest began to fry. Tom, being a head taller than me, tried to block me from the sun as he is more tolerant to it having grown up in Arizona, and was smart enough to hydrate himself with plenty of water beforehand. Had I known the damn ship’s computers and scanners were going to cause a delay, along with something pertaining to immigration, I’d have watered up, too. But there was no way to anticipate this shit.

The minutes turned into hours. My feet began to blister. People began to try to cut ahead in line. Some even began to shout and I didn’t know if they were going to start fighting or what. One of the idiot crewmembers told us 2 hours before we embarked that were finally boarding, inciting a round of cheers all for nothing.

I started feeling worse. I was hot, weak and dizzy, like I was going to pass out. I finally ran down to the bathroom, which I was afraid to do at first because I didn’t want to lose Tom in the crowd if God forbid the line actually started moving. But I eventually had no choice and I ran for it only to find that the water fountains were fucking broken. I complained to one of the security guards but they pretty much didn’t give a shit or do anything to help me.

I then ran into the bathroom, heart booming up a storm, and struggled to run water in the sink which had a motion sensor. I couldn’t get the damn thing started and it would only run for a few seconds at a time. I have come to pretty much hate anything motion-censored! I finally managed to bend over and get a few sips of water into my rapidly dehydrating body.

Then I ran back through the searing sun to find Tom, which wasn’t hard. The line hadn’t moved and so he wasn’t in one of the inner loops of people, which would have made it much harder for me to spot him as I would have had to struggle to see over people’s heads as short as I am, and then squeeze through the crowd to get to him.

I really thought that after experiencing a cold winter in NorCal I would enjoy soaking up the sun, but instead, it soaked me up. I hoped I’d be okay and that we’d board soon, but instead the line remained still and I began to pass out. Several people were kind enough to make way for me to sit down on a curbside. I was forever grateful but also feeling too shitty to care about the scene I knew I was making.

A middle-aged woman stepped forward and advised me to put my head down between my knees, saying she was trained in first aid, CPR and other things. If that didn’t help, she’d have had me lie down while she held my feet up. But it did help enough.

Then someone else handed me a bottle of water as well as a banana and that helped even more. Again, I was thankful as hell. I was so damn dehydrated that when I overheated my body couldn’t even sweat to cool me down. I will never forgive Royal Bastards for this, and yes, I am going after them. I learned the hard way years ago… turn the other cheek and you’re giving people the wrong idea. In other words, you’re saying it’s okay to screw you over, intentional or not, and they most certainly will if they can.

I wasn’t the only one to suffer a heat stroke. Oh no. Far from it. Paramedics came for someone else, but they must have recovered because they didn’t take them away.

Finally, Tom decided we should get out of line and stay in the shade. Then we would jump in at the very end of the line if that time ever finally arrived. Thank God he at least stayed hydrated and with it as I never would’ve thought of this. By that time I’d “gone Dureen.” Well, heatstrokes sure do leave you confused and disoriented so now I really get why they call them heatstrokes.

Many people called and bitched to the cruise line and a couple of crewmembers finally came and passed out bottles of water to people, including some Broward County police officers that I guess must have been called to the scene. Pretty sad that it took two hours for the crew members to care enough to offer water, while it took just two seconds for someone to hand me a bottle of water AND a banana which they very well may later have come to regret giving me since it took so long. I hope not, though! Especially since the other passengers cared more than the crew.

We went around the corner of the building where several carts containing our luggage stood and saw some guy finally dragging fences to set up rows for people to stand in who were out of the sun.

After what seemed like an eternity, the seemingly endless line of people finally ended and we were FINALLY indoors! After checking in we walked up the tilted gangway and onto the ship and I thought of how hard that would be for Tammy. Not only did a part of me wish I could grab our money back in one hand and our luggage in the other and just forget it, but I remembered how she said she and Mark wanted to go on a cruise. Personally, with her health issues, I think that would be a bit much for her. Even on a smaller ship you still have a lot of walking to do.

This isn’t the end of the shit we’ve had to deal with. I’m just too out of it to write anymore right now.