The Valiant Lady debarks from Virgin Voyages (VV) Miami Terminal V and, as cruise ships typically do, sails during the night to dock the following day at the next port of call.
Cuban Spoken Here
But first I needed to get from my airport hotel to the ship. This short ride turned out to be unexpectedly different than I anticipated. I “hailed” an Uber and when the driver arrived he smiled, said “hi” with a heavy accent, and then displayed his cell phone screen to me and said something in Spanish. It took me a bit to understand what was happening but I figured out he, like my airport-to-hotel shuttle driver, had arrived from Cuba and did not speak but a smattering of English but instead used his mobile phone translation app to communicate with those of us only capable of communicating using English. No matter, we had a blast and laughed all the way to the port “chatting” through our devices. Welcome to Florida, John!
JLo is on the scene
Virgin Voyages wanted to use the opportunity the ship was docked in Miami to film marketing videos with their celebrity spokesperson, Ms. Jennifer Lopez. So they pushed all boarding times out two hours from the originally stated times. No one ever actually saw JLo – only her racks of clothes – or Richard Branson either, but apparently they successfully accomplished what needed to be done so we could finally start boarding the Valiant Lady (VL) – a mere two hours past the originally assigned boarding times but for some simply too long to wait.
Bayside Marketplace Visit
As my boarding time was pushed from 2 pm to 4 pm and my hotel check-out time was noon, I had some hours to kill. I was able to drop off my large check-in luggage at the terminal (later to be found in front of my cabin) and then catch a shuttle back into Miami from Portmiami to Bayside Marketplace. It was a Saturday so the locals and tourists were both out in force. Bayside is a huge shopping, eating and entertainment facility and a perfect place for me to adjust to Miami warmth and humidity, and get my Eastern time zone legs under me. Besides the bay being busy with a variety of tourist boat offerings, two very large things stood out: the huge Hard Rock Cafe building and the impressive Skyviews Miami Observation Wheel.
Look closely and you can see the Valiant Lady in the distance to the right of the Observation Wheel and to the left of the Wheel an edge of the Hard Rock Cafe guitar sign can be made out.
Time to board the Valiant Lady
Soon it was time to take the shuttle back to the ship and join the mass of cruise tourist humanity. Even though all Valiant Lady Sailors had been sent constant and multiple reminders to NOT show up early for their new scheduled boarding times the anxious VL cruisers were determined to not follow instructions. After spending too much time standing in line while in the Army I refused to stand in this line. It was obvious many had already stood for hours with their carry-on luggage. Instead, I wandered about taking photos and then found a place to sit and wait it out. The photo below only shows one of many lines of many hundreds of people waiting and waiting and waiting.
After suffering through a seemingly endless wait my 4 pm group – the last group to board – began the process of finally being allowed to be on the ship. We stopped at a number of stations (passport control, wristband issue, security screening, etc.) before actually getting on board the Valiant Lady. I wandered about the ship just trying to get an early and very basic “lay of the land”. I was pleased to discover that I could look back from the Valiant Lady and see the Observation Wheel and the very large lettering on the next door Hard Rock Cafe at the Bayside Marketplace where I had been just hours earlier.
Departing Miami
Most cruises have some sort of celebration to start off the cruise while watching the departure port skyline slowly disapper. Virgin Voyages is no different. But, because of the late boarding process our “Sail Away Party” would have to wait until we departed Bimini. Plus it was dark and raining steadily when we finally pulled away and headed out to sea so any party would have been pretty damp.
Nonetheless, I ventured out into the warm rain and evening darkness to capture a bit of video of our steaming out of Miami harbor.