Next we went through security like an airport then we had to go upstairs and this is when we found out why there was a major delay….the two escalators and one of the two elevators were broken! We were the next people to take the elevator upstairs to be processed onto the ship when several wide eyed carnival employees ran up to us and said, “Evacuate the building immediately!” It didn’t matter to me that I had been standing in that line for 3 whole hours; I grabbed our carry on and walked really fast out of that building and across the street. I told Bobby I was going to stand near an ally so I could get totally out of the way if it blew up.
One of the friends we were with had his niece on the ship. He was able to call her and found out they weren’t going to evacuate the ship. We thought it would only be a short time but by 4 pm, an hour later, they brought in bottled water. Outside they put yellow tape around everything like a crime scene, the street was blocked by about 20 police cars with their lights on, the FBI, Homeland Security, Bomb Squad and local police were everywhere and the little bomb robot was there as well. If you walked outside with your camera, they’d immediately say no pictures, no pictures – DARN!
We were so lucky because one of our friends saw a vendor truck on the corner about a block away. So he and Bobby walked down and got the last four hotdogs. Bobby knows I really don’t like them but we had not eaten for 9 hours. Walking back he spotted four friends that had not had breakfast yet. Since it was around 3:30 he gave them one of our hotdogs to share. When he walked back into the building with the hotdog, everyone asked him where he got it. He probably could have sold it for $20.
By 5 pm they started bringing in fruit – things weren’t looking too good for us! We found most of our friends so we had lots of catching up to do! Unfortunately, they only had about 100 seats in the building so you had to stand or sit on the floor.
6 pm they brought in skimpy sandwiches – either cucumber and tomato or shaved turkey and coffee or hot tea. It was several hours before they told us anything at all and when they did all they said was they were securing the building as quick as possible. At 6 they only said they found suspicious luggage. Finally at 7:45 pm they started letting us back into our terminal starting with deck 1 – we were on deck 6! After 10 minutes they called deck 2 and 5 minutes later they called decks 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7! It was back through security but this time the escalators were working so it went lots faster. By 8:30 we were processed and walking on the ship – YEAH!!! Needless to say, we were all starving and exhausted! We went to our room and were so happy to see our luggage outside our door! We threw it into the room and went to the buffet for a delicious dinner (really, anything would have been delicious!). Bobby then talked me into going to the 10:30 floor show, which I think I may have slept through. We finally fell into bed at 12:45 am!
While we were in line for dinner, we were talking to a couple who was behind a man that was handcuffed and taken away for having three suitcases with bomb making materials in it! Scary!!!
It turns out we were upgraded twice. We thought we had the smallest room on the ship according to the floor plan we saw on the internet. We were pleasantly surprised to see that it was much larger then we expected.
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| From The Adventure Begins |
February 1, 2009
Today was dull compared to yesterday – mind you, I’m not complaining! We ate, explored the ship (I’ll send photos later), ate, unpacked, ate, Bobby watched the Superbowl on the big screen by the pool while I checked out the shops with the girls. What a nice day!
