We are up bright and early – of course – with plenty of time to finalize all the packing and straightening up of the apartment.  The cleaners are coming at 10:30 and then we can leave the bags until 1:30 if we want, but we figure we’ll leave around 11 or so to get to the port.  The cleaners actually show up at 10 – so we rush (Ed was just getting out of the shower) to get our stuff together so we can at least go downstairs for a coffee. 

We end up spending about a half an hour in the outside lobby area, enjoying cappuccino and catching up on anything we may have missed.  This is a great hotel/Apartment complex with just about everything you could want in the way of amenities including a pool, a fitness room, restaurants, a spa and even a wine store in the lobby.  If we ever come back, we’d definitely stay here again.

Once our coffee is done, we scout an alternate route to the front of the building (there are 2 sets of big steps to get into the lobby and we can’t imagine how people do it with lots of luggage, we had a heck of a time with 2 bags), then go upstairs to collect our luggage and say goodbye to the apartment folks.  Our Uber arrives within minutes of pushing the button and we are dropping our luggage off outside the pier by a little after 11am.  Seamless!

Seamless that is until we get inside the terminal and realize the ship is no longer in the first docking position, but has moved further back to allow a Princess ship to take prime position.  It’s odd, because we are the turnaround ship and they are just a day call, but that’s the situation, so we have to board little mini-vans to drive us down to the ship.  We probably could have walked, but they were sort of forcing us onto the van and we’re way early, so what the heck.

Once on the ship we are herded into the Cabaret lounge to await check in.  Apparently this was a big surprise to the ship staff as well, and they had to scramble to get the check in agents set up and organize how to check us in on the ship.  But, from our perspective, the staff handles it fantastically.  Totally organized.  Even to the point of making sure the first people in the lounge are checked in first, and late comers don’t just walk up from a different direction. Impressive.

 All checked in, we walk up toward the elevators for Windows café, and see that the reservations desk is already open for specialty dining, so we make a bee line there and find Nadia, an adorable hostess who helps us with all our chef’s table and specialty reservations.  We’re excited because this sailing has the Rice Table dinner which is basically a smorgasbord of all things Indonesian.  We’ve heard it is awesome and we can’t wait for that.  There is also an Arabic chef’s table which sounds really good and different – so we go for that one as well. That checked off our list, we head up to Windows, grab a table, stow our carry on’s for our first meal aboard.

Later we get into our cabin, find our luggage in the hall so we grab it (saving the stewards from having to deliver it) and unpack in a jiffy.  Muster drill, gym, spa raffle (while we are at the gym, kill two birds with one stone, but we didn’t win) and then a lovely dinner and great evening aboard the Quest.  One sea day, and then we begin our African safaris!