Turnover

Saturday, January 31, 2026

Zuiderdam arrived in Miami at dawn.

7:00 a.m.

7:00 a.m.

7:01 a.m.

7:01 a.m.

7:05 a.m.

Today is called Turnaround Day. About 90% of the passengers on Zuiderdam will be disembarking this morning. That’s just a guess. I don’t know the exact number. Their replacements will begin arriving two or three hours later in a carefully choreographed water ballet. By 4:00 pm, ships will begin to sail away from Miami and nearby Fort Lauderdale.

We are staying onboard for the next cruise segment. We could get off for a few hours, but we decided not to for two reasons. First, the port traffic is so chaotic. We didn’t know how hard it would be to get a taxi or Uber into central Miami. There will be about eight ships turning around today at the port of Miami, so we would have to compete with the departing passengers and the new arrivals to get from and to the ship. It didn’t seem worth it to spend two hours sitting in a taxi in order to spend two or three hours on shore. The second reason is the weather. Much of Florida is experiencing an unprecedented cold spell. It was in the 40’s this morning and may not reach 60° by afternoon. It’s windy. It just won’t be very enjoyable walking around outside.

We will have a couple of hours between the time when the last passengers leave and the first crop of new passengers boards. The ship will be extremely quiet and nearly deserted during that interlude. Yes!

After a relaxing morning we decided to visit the library to see if any new books had become available. on the way back we discovered a bar we hadn’t really noticed earlier. The bar wasn’t open, but we chatted a bit with the bartender and perused the menu. The bartender said he would make us a drink if we wanted something. We thought it would be fun to try the Pirate Punch:

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

We drank about 25% of it and got the rest “to go.” It lasted all day.

When it was time to sail, the Captain announced that the weather would be unpleasant. Once we are 20 miles out, we will hit rough seas and wind. He called it a “bomb cyclone.” The forecast calls for this weather to stay with us for the next two days, or longer. The Captain was right. It was quite chilly in the evening, and became very bumpy as soon as we moved away from the coast.

The ship seemed more crowded tonight at dinner. Maybe we didn’t sail at capacity last week. I think there may have been people on last week’s voyage who planned to arrive on Saturday and were prevented from doing so. Many flights were cancelled last weekend due to snow storms. These passengers were notified that they could join the ship at Amber Cove if they couldn’t get to Miami in time for last Saturday's departure. That would have been nearly halfway through the 7-day cruise. I suspect a lot of these passengers decided it wan’t worth it to spend their own money to get to the Dominican Republic to meet the ship for what was left of the cruse. This scenario illustrates why we always arrive at the city of embarkation at least two days early.

We left Miami in a spooky fog around 4:45 p.m. The ginormous Icon of the Seas was right behind us.

Icon of the Seas is in the center of this photo, taken from our aft-facing balcony

I forgot to mention that the show last night (January 30) was very good. It was called “Hey, Mr. DJ” and featured the ship’s resident singers and dancers. 

Today’s fabric is Cruise Ship Forward Facing Grid with Seabirds and Waves by sueshormanart for Spoonflower.