Sail Away Traditions

[DennisNV]

My wife and I were just  talking about our usual chill sail away tradition of ordering a bucket of beer and sitting on our balcony. Having taken eight cruises now the thing we enjoy the most is just quiet down time. We arrive later to the ship to avoid the crowds, unpack our bags, and just put our feet up and watch the coast line fade away in the distance.

 

What are your favorite things to do on this day?

[cruisingpeople]

After dropping off the carry-ons in the cabin, we head up to the upper level bar at the main pool and have our traditional "And So It Begins" vacation cocktail. After that, we usually head for Crooners and introduce ourselves to our "New Best Friends For The Cruise" bartenders. By then, it is time for Muster Drill. For sail-away itself, we like to be on top of the Bridge (depending, of course, which ship and departure port) or just plant ourselves along one of the sides of the ship and watch the scenery go by.

 

Joe

Edited December 1, 2018 by cruisingpeople

[paul929207]

A drink on the balcony at sailaway

[Anubi]

We get a bottle of wine and sit somewhere on the back of the ship and watch land slowly disappear in the distance.

 

[releck97]

It depends on the port of embarkation. We normally get a port side balcony for Port Everglades and enjoy the sailaway from there. NY departures are best from the top of the ship. Southampton found us with friends on our massive "obstructed view" balcony above the bridge on the Royal. Regardless, a drink is in hand!😎

[skynight]

With over 40 voyages still enjoy the upper open decks with a cold drink in warm weather or a warm coffee in cold weather. I never seem to get tired of the live music and dancing at the sail away.

[neverbeenhere]

In stateroom rendezvous. 

[KevintheIrishDJ]

We took a cruise that was supposed to leave the day the Sandy hit the east coast.  After being delayed by 2 days, we sailed past Lady Liberty.  It was in complete darkness.  I started singing God Bless America from my balcony and was joined by other passengers.  Now, I sing it every time I pass Lady Liberty.

[Happy2cruise]

If a ship has Alfredo's, we go there after the muster drill, get a window table and enjoy the sail away with a pizza to share and a glass of wine

[MrSchwump]

We always take a selfie and post it to our family Facebook page with the caption, "Bon Voyage, bitches!"

[knittertwitter]

We have a sail away party in our cabin, with wine and a few canapes.

[CRLess]

On ‎12‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 9:35 AM, neverbeenhere said:

In stateroom rendezvous. 

 

I like your thinking!

 

After we get settled with lunch, dining arrangements, Sanctuary chairs etc, our first cocktail is always a 24K Margarita up on the Lido deck!

[TheRabbit]

On 12/2/2018 at 4:00 AM, Anubi said:

We get a bottle of wine and sit somewhere on the back of the ship and watch land slowly disappear in the distance.

 

We also like the back of the ship on sail away. As someone else pointed out, the 24K margarita for me and a glass of wine for the DW, usually a good one we brought on board. 

[OCruisers]

Varies, depending BUT always get to the MDR for lunch and stop by Crooner's.  

Especially love the 24K Margarita at Crooner's.  

For us the cruise will actually begin when we get the Muster Drill over and our luggage has arrived.  

[satxdiver]

We always board early in time for lunch in the MDR.  For sailaway we have a bottle of wine ordered and some munchies from the HC that we enjoy on our balcony as the ship heads out to open water.  It is nice to relax, put our feet up and enjoy the solitude while thinking about the carefree days at sea ahead.  

[jagoffee]

18 hours ago, OCruisers said:

Varies, depending BUT always get to the MDR for lunch and stop by Crooner's.  

Especially love the 24K Margarita at Crooner's.  

For us the cruise will actually begin when we get the Muster Drill over and our luggage has arrived.  

We do enjoy lunch and a cocktail, but our cruise relaxing really starts after we unpack.  What a great feeling.

[TheRabbit]

26 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

We do enjoy lunch and a cocktail, but our cruise relaxing really starts after we unpack.  What a great feeling.

We do late seating, so we just wait for all the luggage to arrive and unpack before getting ready for dinner. That way the room steward can store the luggage while we are at dinner. (And we do tip well!)  As for the carry on, it has all the power cords, laptop, chargers, etc, so I set that up in the room in a few minutes after arriving to the room the first time. The DW has her things that she stores in a few minutes and we are off for the adventure.

Also carry on a Bose blue tooth speaker so we get that hooked up and ready to play (Blue Tooth rechargeable). It allows us to take music out on the balcony.

At that point the relaxation begins!

Someone mentioned lunch in the MDR, that is something we always do if we can get to the ship on time.

[firecrewcapt]

On ‎12‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 8:44 AM, DennisNV said:

My wife and I were just  talking about our usual chill sail away tradition of ordering a bucket of beer and sitting on our balcony. Having taken eight cruises now the thing we enjoy the most is just quiet down time. We arrive later to the ship to avoid the crowds, unpack our bags, and just put our feet up and watch the coast line fade away in the distance.

 

What are your favorite things to do on this day?

 

Pretty much the same for us, nothing better than a bucket of beer to get the cruise started and relaxing.

 

[voljeep]

16 minutes ago, TheRabbit said:

We do late seating, so we just wait for all the luggage to arrive and unpack before getting ready for dinner. That way the room steward can store the luggage while we are at dinner. (And we do tip well!)  As for the carry on, it has all the power cords, laptop, chargers, etc, so I set that up in the room in a few minutes after arriving to the room the first time. The DW has her things that she stores in a few minutes and we are off for the adventure.

Also carry on a Bose blue tooth speaker so we get that hooked up and ready to play (Blue Tooth rechargeable). It allows us to take music out on the balcony.

At that point the relaxation begins!

Someone mentioned lunch in the MDR, that is something we always do if we can get to the ship on time.

A speaker on the balcony ??? - why not headphones as to not disturb the other balconies close to yours ???

[Seadog & Sea Hag]

We regularly use a Bluetooth speaker on the balcony also

[XBGuy]

Burgers and fries from the Trident Grill or, on our very recent Ruby Princess cruise, the Salty Dog Grill.

 

After the muster drill we go to our balcony, open a bottle of sparkling wine and sip that along with some noshes as we are sailing out of port.

[GUT2407]

Most of our sailaways are around diner time, so a meal somewhere on deck, be it the grill or the buffet if it has an outside area

[TheRabbit]

2 hours ago, voljeep said:

A speaker on the balcony ??? - why not headphones as to not disturb the other balconies close to yours ???

I doubt you can hear them on the next balcony. Set between us, it is great background music. If you want loud, you got to get another type of speaker.

[c-boy]

5 minutes ago, TheRabbit said:

I doubt you can hear them on the next balcony. Set between us, it is great background music. If you want loud, you got to get another type of speaker.

what genre of music do you listen too?

[Optotronics]

1 minute ago, c-boy said:

what genre of music do you listen too?

Bring your boom-box and crank up the polka:)