We rose at 7 am and did our best to consume what was left of our food. We had bread, cheese and our mystery meat for breakfast, with a side of peach jam. Instant coffee, too. We didn’t quite finish the bread, meat and jam and bequeathed them to the cleaning girl. She actually seemed grateful.

We had booked a transfer to the cruise terminal via a “shared shuttle” service that gave us a quote of 80 euros. This seemed like a bargain as it was similar to the much less convenient option of public transportation: bus to the train station, train to Civitavecchia, taxi to the ship. And it was certainly cheaper than the quote I had received from the city-sponsored service that we had used to get us from the airport to the hotel when we arrived from China: 130 euros. EACH. The third option that we considered – Uber – would probably cost about 130 euros for the two of us.

The low price concerned me. It struck me as too low. But they didn’t have any of my money – we were to pay the drive – so what would be the point of scamming us?

After breakfast we continued our final packing. The scheduled pickup time was 10:30 am – which would get us to the port shortly after noon. Our scheduled boarding time was 3:30 pm, so there was plenty of time to switch to Plan B or Plan C if necessary.

At 9:30 am – while we were still packing – I received a phone call informing me that the van would be at our door by 10 am. We quickly rushed to finish the packing and started hauling the bags downstairs. We had no sooner done that – and while Marlene went back upstairs to return the keycard – the van arrived. It was 9:50 am.

We loaded the van and away we went. We were the first passengers in the van. We had to fetch 6 more. But before we were a block away Marlene remembered that we had left our insulated cups on the ledge outside the hotel. Back we went. We retrieved the cups. Whew!

There were two other stops. We collected 4 passengers from Tampa at one hotel and two passengers from California at another. We were all bound for the Carnival Miracle. But getting there required all of us to trust that the driver could get us there safely, threading the large van down the narrow streets of Rome.

Fortunately he was experienced and skillful and got us to the ship before 1 pm. We expected that the terminal would be swarming with people, as usual on embarkation day, but were surprised to find it a ghost town. Rather than forcing us to wait for the 3:30 scheduled boarding time they let us right in. We were told that we would have to check our large bags because the X-ray machines for boarding were too small. That was a first and we didn’t like it but had no choice – we checked our bags and headed for the small X-ray machines. I realized that I was carrying a large (half liter) bottle of beer which I had not drunk the night before. So I went out on the sidewalk, knocked the cap off on a trash can and chugged my bottle of Moretti beer. Not bad. Would have been better with pretzels.

Then we had to wait to get through immigration. They were calling by groups. They were processing G2 when we arrived and we were J2 so we figured we would have to wait a while. So we grabbed a table in the cafe and started playing cards. But after 30 minutes or so we realized that they had stopped calling groups. We looked out and the waiting area was empty. An empty terminal on embarkation day? Downright spooky.

Anyway, we went through immigration in a few minutes and were on board by 2pm.

I will be curious to hear how many passengers are on board because I have never seen a cruise terminal so vacant on embarkation day.

We had lunch in the buffet (our first hot meal in a few days), chatted with Louis and Cindy from Sacramento, then went to our cabin, found the big bags had been delivered and spent an hour unpacking. We then took a nap and explored the ship before dinner, which we ate in the buffet.

We were supposed to leave by 6pm but didn’t leave the dock until 8pm. In the interim there were multiple announcements requesting Lisa Williams to report to guest services. My theory is that Lisa checked in and then someone reported her missing. Don’t know, but it was certainly an unusual embarkation.

After the ship got into the Mediterranean we checked out the casino. My luck continued to be on the bad side (lost $50) but Marlene did great, winning nearly $700. If she can continue that for the rest of the trip is will offset the money she lost getting to Sydney.

We played some cards before bed and there my luck was better, winning both games.