Friday, January 3, continued

We got to the hotel without a hitch and met up with Dee and Aileen at Kelly’s landing for some of the best fried calamari and lobster roll I have ever had.  Good price, too, and best to be sharing with good friends.

Saturday, January 3, 2026 – Fort Lauderdale

It was still dark when I first woke up in the Hilton Marina Fort Lauderdale.  There was a strange looking building across from our window.  It had two columns of cobalt blue lights, probably ten stories high.  I noted it and rolled over.  When we got up I asked Joanne if she knew what it was.  She said she thought it was likely the Princess building.  She knew they had one somewhere around here.  I took a closer look and sure enough, there was the Princess logo – on a smokestack.  It was no building but the Star Princess, itself, the third Star Princess.  Launched in October, 2025, she carries 4300 passengers and 1500 crew. And from the rear, our balcony view, she looks like this:

We got up, got our FedEx delivery, had our welcome letters printed, collated them with the six shore excursion flyers and put them into their packets.   So nice to have help.  I called a couple of friends in the area and made our dinner plans.  Then we went out to load up on lotions, potions and sundries that don’t fit and are not permitted in carry-on, anyway. On the way back to our hotel from the drug store, we passed the real Princess building, and got back to our room just in time to see the Star Princess sail away

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She IS the size of a building. The thing to her right definitely IS one.

Pat Gustafson’s plane got in to Fort Lauderdale pretty much on time, but no Pat arrived.  She wasn’t communicating by text, as she was keeping her phone open for an UBER driver who never showed up and then cancelled.  Maybe he went to the wrong place or whatever.  She did get the odd email through, so we weren’t quite panicked.  When a new UBER finally delivered her to us, she was exhausted and starving.  We met her at the door of the Hilton, she checked in, Joanne whisked her luggage to her room, near ours in the second building, and we were off to the Boatyard in the Quay shopping centre, pretty much next door, but we took a taxi.  We weren’t going to walk Pat another step.

Dinner at the Boatyard, outdoors by the water, was just what we all needed.  We just had a whole bunch of appetizers and a glass of wine and went to bed happy.

Sunday, January 4, 2026 – Fort Lauderdale

We got up, got our acts, and our luggage together, found a shared “third-party shuttle” and were on the Volendam and settled in our rooms by 1PM.  Ordering Pat a wheelchair helped.  I have sailed with Captain Rens before.  He’s great.

 Joanne and I made our meeting with Kumar, the Group Events Coordinator by 2:00PM, but he was still working in the terminal and we had to wait until 3:00PM to meet him.  When we did there were a lot of discrepancies between our manifests, and we would have to meet again at 6:00pm, but there were also a lot of packets that were OK and could be delivered.  We delivered them together, Joanne doing a good ¾ of them and me starting the phone calls as soon as I had a few people that I could call.  That went well and we got about 80% of the people called or seen before it was time for dinner at 7:30pm.  The delivering took a lot longer because we knocked on every door and chatted up anybody who was there.  It saves the phone call and is actually fun.  I landed a repeater from 2023, who almost traded cabins with us to get our walk-in shower.  His was a suite, though, and after sleeping in it one night, he came to his senses and kept it, with its balcony and jacuzzi.

We have a good few repeaters.  The Taiwanese were jumping up and down to see us.  They don’t speak English, so in 2023, I had been sending the newsletters to their son, in Vancouver, who would then talk to them and make sure they got to all the events.  They still don’t speak English but are downright delightful and we’re chatting on Google translate.  We have a total of eight repeaters.

We had dinner with Dee Wescott, and Pat, who get on famously. We have a table for 8 and will be inviting people.   The Mid-Atlantic Boys were on the Main Stage and were pretty good.

For those of you who might cross paths with us in some port or other, or just for the curious, Here’s our itinerary: