At home on the Island Princess

Once on board the beautiful Island Princess, we headed right to the dining room for a quiet lunch at a table for two by a window. The Welcome Aboard lunch menu in the dining room is our very favorite. G always gets beef tenderloins and I get the salmon with lemon dill sauce. For dessert G had a souffle and I had mixed berries (which I've come to look forward to on our Princess cruises.

At 2pm we left the dining room and headed to our BALCONY cabin. It's on Aloha Deck in the back of the ship (how did they know that was our favorite location?). Awaiting us was Choochout, our cabin attendant from Thailand...and our luggage! What a gift that was to not haul those suitcases on the train (although we'll have to on our return).

Although this balcony cabin is slightly larger than our inside cabin, it's not that much bigger, and the storage is virtually identical, with just two small drawers as the only difference. It's notable feature, of course, is the balcony, and we're lucky that there is an overhang provided by the pool deck above. Even in a strong, windy thunderstorm we will stay dry out there.

We were in the side of the ship towards the freight area, but we could see downtown Vancouver and North Vancouver, and every few minutes helicopter tours of the harbor left from the nearby shore.

We quickly unpacked and headed up to walk around the open decks, exploring the ship. Muster drill was held at 4pm; we were scheduled to sail at 4:30pm, but the captain announced we were waiting for 26 more passengers (who must have all been on one flight), and it was a little after 5pm when we finally sailed.

Yoga at Canada Place

The Volendam sailed just before us