A Grand Welcome and Farewell

As I keep mentioning, we have been stranded in the Bahamas waiting for all the students who were sent to Florida to retrieve their Brazil visas that they never received. It was really sweet actually, at one of our orientation meetings yesterday, the dean called them on his cell phone in front of the whole shipboard community and they were all gathered on the speaker phone on the other end yelling "Wait for us!" and our entire ship got to yell back "We will!"

At 19:30 today the announcer informed us over the loud speaker that the last ten students had finally arrived. We all rushed out to crowd the decks and watched and cheered as the ten of them came running towards the ship.

Although we technically left earlier to circle port for a few hours, this time we officially left. The ship's horn bellowed, the parents who waited around this long waved from port, and the ship cast off its bowlines as we sailed away.

We are the first voyage to leave Nassau twice, and twice in one day at that. And now we are finally off to see the world!