Captain, please don't hit Catalena

We were able to sleep in just a bit – we slept until about 8:45. Then dressed, packed and headed to the lobby at about 10 am. We were meeting a couple from our facebook roll call to share a private car to the ship and we wanted to get some starbucks before we left.

When we arrived in the lobby, Rich and Elizabeth were waiting for us. I grabbed the starbucks drinks and we chatted while waiting. While we were waiting, another couple from our roll call stopped by.

At about 10:30 Glen went out to the front of the hotel and found our driver. Glen said he’d been trying to call me, but I had nothing on my phone. No matter, we found him. We got the luggage loaded into the van (turns out they had a lot of it), and headed out. The ride took about a half hour, but the time passed quickly with pleasant small talk.

The porter we gave our bags to asked if we’d pulled out our passports and boarding documents. I asked him if it was a problem, and he said that they often had to go dig up bags. The worst was when somebody told him the wrong ship. It took him an hour and a half to find it.

There was a short line for security and no wait to check in. We’d been given priority boarding cards, but the checkin staff exchanged them for Elite cards, which meant walk right in. We had a bit of a wait getting onto the ship, but we were on by noon.

We’d booked another suite, but this time midship. We noticed the room itself was a bit smaller, but the balcony was bigger, and less crowded. It contained two lounge chairs and a table with four chairs. We might have to do a balcony breakfast one day.

Our steward, Eli (Elizardo) came by to introduce himself, tell us about the muster drill, and find out our special requests, etc. I asked him about dining in the room, and I’m still a bit unclear about the current policy. I’ll worry about it if I need to.

After that, we went to explore the ship. While we’d been on the Sapphire in 2005, she just finished an extensive dry dock to add some features. On the top deck, we noticed a couple of the front areas are now the Sanctuary, and the Horizon court has a new case where desserts are now served.

The atrium, in addition to Vines and the International Café now has a sit down pizza restaurant. The menu is simply about 5 different pizzas and you order one. We tried it and enjoyed it.

After that Glen wanted a brief nap, so I met up with one of my facebook friends, and kept her company while she ate lunch. After that, it was muster drill time. This one was different in that the captain read the announcement, not the guy who sounds like (maybe is ) John Cleese..

Following muster was our facebook meetup. It was nice putting faces to names, and hopefully we’ll spend some time with these folks throughout the cruise. We watched sailaway together, and noticed that Catalina was visible from the breakwater. Glen spent a lot of his time there as a kid, and was amazed at how clear it was.

Following that, we headed up to the Elite lounge for a snack. While there, we met Sherry and Tom, who are on cruise critic with us.

Then it was back to our room for some down time, and getting ready for dinner.

We are again at late seating dinner. We usually get seated at a table near the entrance to the dining room, but this time we were seating in the middle. We’re at a table for 8 with three other couples. Dinner started slowly, but people got warmed up as it went on so it should be fine.

After dinner we looked for dance venues. The rock band was playing at explorers, and they were good. We did some swing and a two step. During their break we went to the Wheelhouse, where there was another band playing. We didn’t think they were as good, but they did play traditional ballroom music. We danced. We saw another couple there doing Argentine tango trick type dancing. Maybe I’ll get their story later.

After dancing we wandered around the upper decks, not much to see since we’re heading across the Pacific. We got Secretariet for the DVD player in our room, so we watched the first part of it and went to bed.

Overall, a very good embarkation day, and looks like two weeks of great dancing. It will indeed be a trip to paradise.