We hit our first snag of the day when we went to the Princess counter after going through customs. They no longer accept luggage from passengers not purchasing Princess transfers. Frankly, it never made sense that they did, but they did anyway, for at least a couple of years. It would be difficult to take the train, as we had planned, to the waterfront hauling all of our suitcases. G walked outside to survey the taxi situation and returned to report that they were all Priuses, not nearly adequate for all of our luggage. That sealed the deal: we purchased Princess transfers ($29pp) left our bags and walked down to the shuttle area with just our carry ons. The bus arrived quickly, left immediately and we received a nice narration of the city sights along the way. Roughly 40 minutes later, we were at the cruise ship pier at Canada Place and by 12:15pm we were walking on the Pacific Princess.
Is there anything better than walking on a ship on the first day of a cruise?
It's always interesting to note how many familiar faces we see among the crew from one year to the next. It's less than we might imagine, as they do move around among the various Princess ships. But it's also more every year, as we've cruised more often with Princess and met more crew members. Several times today we recognized (and were recognized by) crew members and officers, not all of them from the Pacific Princess last year. That really adds to a cruise, but it took us ten years of cruising Princess to reliably encounter familiar faces.
We dropped our carry ons in our cabin and made a beeline for the Club Restaurant for embarkation day lunch (beef tenderloins and salmon...our favorites!), and were thrilled to see three favorite waiters. At 2pm we had to meet with the maitre de (names will be noticeably absent tonight, as G is already asleep and I don't want to turn on the light to find our Welcome Aboard Patter listing all the senior officers). We had requested a table for two for early dining and had moved up to position #1 on the waitlist just last week (G kept chanting, "We're #1! We're #1! ;-)) Unfortunately, we moved no higher, and were assigned a large table at late seating when we checked in today. The maitre de asked that we come to the Club Restaurant at 6pm tonight, when he would try to accommodate us.
Returning to our cabin, our big luggage had not yet arrived. Thankfully, we were appropriately dressed for today's weather (mid-60s and sunny) and so were comfortable wearing the clothes we had traveled in. We unpacked our carry ons, and it was then time for muster drill. When it was over, Captain Lubrano announced that we'd be leaving early, and we barely had enough time to return our life vests to our cabin when we went up on Deck 10 to watch the beautiful Vancouver sailaway. Cruising past Stanley Park and under the Lions Gate Bridge is always a thrill, and we met three of the production show dancers who double as cruise staffers on this small ship while they were on deck mingling with passengers, one of the best parts of sailing on the Pacific Princess. Just like the cruise staff last year, they were very friendly and welcoming. We love this intimate atmosphere!
Sailing out of Vancouver, there is land on both sides of the ship for several hours after the ship leaves, and so this cruise to Hawaii has a bit of an Alaska cruise feel, at least in its early hours. We had to pull ourselves away from the scenery and return to our cabin to see if our luggage had arrived. It finally had, and we started in on my second least favorite part of travel: unpacking. G went first, then showered, and I unpacked what I could before we needed to rush to the Club Restaurant at 6pm. We are still not organized, and it will take us at least 24 hours to find things and move them to where they make the most sense. But we managed to get to dinner on time, hoping we could be seated. We will move our clocks back three hours over the next five days en route to Hawaii; with the time change we've already encountered flying to Vancouver, a 7:45pm late dinner seating would soon feel like dining in the middle of the night.
Luckily, we have now been assigned a table for two at the early seating, and are quite thrilled with that. Even more exciting (Andrew, take note)...the first headwaiter we saw when we walked into the Club Restaurant was Antonio from Portugal. We've had Antonio as our headwaiter for at least two winters on the Emerald Princess. It was so great to see him again! And waiters Ricky and Romeo and assistant waiter Edmund...as hard as it is to leave home, we felt instantly comfortable today on the Pacific Princess.
I am fading quickly here, so I'll wrap this up early...
We listened to the Pacific Princess show band perform in the Cabaret Lounge, then stayed for the Welcome Aboard show with comedian Cary Long. We sat in the same seats in the tiny theater that we did last year and, while we were waiting for the show to begin, G looked at me and asked, "Did we really go home?"
We did, but now we're back home again. And in our lives, that statement makes perfect sense.
Today was good, and tomorrow, after eight hours of sleep will be even better