only be about the first 2 days, before we even started classes or docked
in our first port.
Day 1:
Dain had a work study position, so he got to board the ship a day
earlier than most everyone else to train for his job. So, the last day
in Nassau I was more or less on my own where I became super nervous
about the whole thing and the upcoming days. On Thursday, the 19th, I
struggled to the lobby of the hotel with my two suitcases, duffle bag
and backpack (struggle is an understatement, I stupidly brought luggage
WITHOUT handles to roll them, poor choice. I don't recommend it) and
found two other SAS-ers to share a cab to the dock with. My check in
time was second to last, at 11:20, which is weird since my last name
falls in the middle of the alphabet, but it went in a very random order.
When I got there, the check in line was really long but moved fast.
After waiting outside for about half an hour, I got to the check
in-booth were I was able to drop of my big luggage and go through
security with my carry ons. Next I went to a booth to get my shipboard
ID, but for some reason mine totally hadn't been printed. So I was taken
to the purser's desk with an MV Staff member to get it all straightened
out, and lo and behold, the ID they printed had the wrong cabin number
and wouldn't work on my door! So I went back for take three, and got a
working ID (the lines at the Purser's desk was huge - so apparently
non-functioning IDs were kind of common). Then I went over the Union to
go through a series of stations about classes, payments, registering a
shipboard credit card, FDPs, medical stuff and a whole lot more. I was
also assigned my global studies discussion group, group 2. This whole
process from start to finish only took a few hours and then I was free
to explore on my own until 8pm that day. So I went to my room and met my
roommate, Robin. My parents surprised me and upgraded me from economy to
deck 4 inside (ah!) so I only have the one roommate. We walked around
the ship for a while and grabbed out first meal, then came back to
unpack our room once our suitcases had been delivered. The afternoon was
spent mostly trying to find our way around and introducing ourselves to
countless other voyagers. Sometime during the day, I ran into Dain on
the ship too, which was great since I had absolutely no idea where his
room even was. Turns out, he's on my floor! On the complete other end,
but still on my floor! He got super lucky and has a deck 4 outside cabin
with 2 other roommates. Not all economy students got something that
nice, and from what I have seen they are all very different, with some
being great and others being crap. At 8pm, we had a mandatory meeting to
introduce us all the the voyage and our staff. Our ship was supposed to
sail off at 5pm, but it was delayed until the next day because of
students STILL having visas issues from Pinnacle (I repeat: upcoming SAS
voyagers, DO NOT USE PINNACLE TO OBTAIN VISAS). After that we had sea
meetings. The ship is divided into 10 seas based upon room number, and I
am part of the Adriatic Sea. Our team color is black, and almost all of
the dependent children on board (lifelong learners can bring their
kids!) are on my sea! After that we were all exhausted and slowly made
our way to sleep in preparation for orientation all day.
Day 2:
Day two is filled with orientations pretty much from 9am to 9pm. I
managed to stay awake all morning, but i'll admit I totally fell asleep
during the second half of the day. Something really interesting did
happen this day though, and I believe it's a first for an SAS voyage. We
got 3 of the missing visa students on board, and were told we were going
to leave at noon. Well, it turns out the remaining 10 students had
driven to Miami that morning and gotten duplicate copies of their
passports and were on their way to Nassau! Therefore, we were going to
wait for them to complete our shipboard community! However, we had been
docked in Nassau for too long and actually had to leave the dock for 4
hours, only to return to pick up the other students. So we left and
sailed around for 4 hours, literally making it almost to Florida, and
came back to the Nassau dock to load the rest of the students. Everyone
on board got outside and cheered and screamed, so excited for these
students to be able to join us! It was truly the first moment where I
realized this WAS a family. It absolutely astounds me what ISE did for
these students. To sit in port, to sail around for 4 hours without
purpose, to have to fly double speed to make it to Dominica, our first
port, twice as fast, must have cost SAS a complete fortune, but it was
the right thing to do and something that truly shows how amazing this
program is. As far as we all know, too, this is the first time a voyage
has actually left, and then returned to the embarkation dock ;).
Updates hopefully coming in the next few days:
1) Days 3 and 4 - aka first days of classes
2) Days 5 and 6 - aka our first port, Dominica!
3) Descriptions of life on the ship, food allergies included.
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