Ready to Sail!

Wednesday, March 16

Today was CRUISE DAY...and I LOVE to cruise!!

The past four nights in a hotel had just reinforced one of the reasons WHY I love to cruise. I hate living out of a suitcase! I always over-pack...and then everything becomes a huge mess when I have to dig around to find things. Life is so much better when I can unpack and put things away on a cruise. My main focus of the morning was re-packing and getting everything organized before we left for the cruise. (This was necessary just to get my luggage closed!) Pre-breakfast in the room consisted of a cup of coffee and some of the almond cookies from Chinatown as I worked.

By 10:30 am I was showered and feeling sufficiently organized so we decided to walk back to Denny's for our real...but late breakfast. The timing worked out well. When we returned to the hotel it was nearly noon and time to check out. There was a lot of misinformation as to when we were to show up at the pier to board the ship...anywhere from 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm based on different sources. But...once we checked out of the hotel reality was that we had no place else to go (especially with our luggage). Using the Uber app on my phone, we had a car there to pick us up in just a few minutes to take us to the pier.

I was not surprised that when we arrived at Pier 27, the line to get into the terminal ran the whole length of the building. Everyone else was facing the same predicament that we were...where else could they go with their luggage once they checked out of their hotel?

We decided to sit on one of the benches outside and wait for Kent & Laurel to arrive. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day and surely if we just waited awhile the line would start moving and we wouldn't have much of a wait. Ha!

Even after Kent & Laurel arrived we waited a bit thinking the line would get shorter but in fact the opposite was happening...so we joined everyone else and got in line. The frustration of standing in line for so long only escalated once we got inside the terminal where it was total chaos. Numbers were being handed out to help the boarding process, but no one was monitoring the situation. Other passengers arriving did not realize there even were numbers and were immediately getting into the queues for check-in. Kent, Laurel & I are all retired teachers and we agreed...had they put a teacher in charge, things would have been gone much smoother. We sat and waited for a long time and eventually when I got up to question what was going on we were told to "just get in line."

The blue tint in this photo comes from the windows in the terminal...or perhaps everyones' mood from dealing with the chaos and confusion.

It was over 4 hours from the time we arrived at the pier until we boarded the ship...much longer than check-in for any of our previous ten cruises. As we walked onto the ship, we stopped to look at the bins of luggage. While looking over the railing, Kent's cell phone holster fell off, bounced and fell through the tiniest crack below the rail! One of the dock workers saw it happen and made a special trip through the terminal and up the stairs to return it to him!

We went directly to our room and my first reaction to our cabin was...oh my...how small! I was so grateful that we had gotten a free upgrade to a balcony cabin. Having the extra light and balcony space made the room much nicer for our long voyage ahead.

There are shelves behind one of the side mirrors and extra storage below the sink which make the small bathroom efficient.

There were rigid, vertical rods sewn into the shower curtain which kept it in place...and the rest of the bathroom dry when showering. A nice touch!

As part of the drydock in San Francisco, the cabins had been totally refurbished...new carpet, artwork, flat screen TV's, etc.

At 5:00 the mandatory lifeboat drill was held. Our muster station was in the Hollywood Theater rather than outdoors next to the lifeboats as some were. We were not required to bring our life jackets (which are stored in the cabin closet) and the whole procedure was over quickly. Due to the mess in the terminal, many of the guests were still not on board at 5 pm so they were required to attend a "makeup" drill the next day.

Our cabin was in the forward part of the ship on Deck 8...Kent & Laurel were right next door. It was nice being close to the elevators and not having our view blocked by lifeboats below.

The arrow shows the location of our cabin on the port side of the ship.

Following the muster drill, the first order of business was to go to the buffet which was located on Deck 11 at the back of the ship. Until you have been on a cruise ship, you can't really comprehend what a long distance that really is! After filling our plates, we went to the very back of the ship to eat outdoors. The view of San Francisco was nice...but it was very chilly so after a bit we moved back inside.

When it came time for sail away, we looked for an area at the front of the ship where we could watch as we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately the renovations in that area had not been completed and the space was roped off. There were so many people that it was impossible to even find a space at the side railing so we retreated back to our cabins and the privacy of our own balconies...a great choice! Our port side of the ship provided a great view of the San Francisco skyline.

On our Princess Alaskan cruise, we had side-by-side balcony cabins with Kent & Laurel and were able to open the divider between the two to make one large balcony. Apparently this isn't allowed on Norwegian ships. :( Instead the guys went to one balcony and Laurel and I were on the other as the ship left the harbor.

Bob peeking around the divider.

Looks like these two are headed to Alaska instead of Hawaii!

A vew of the Golden Gate Bridge that not many people will experience!

Once our luggage had been delivered, I took time to unpack and put things away. Bob took the drawers and space closest to the balcony and I used the drawers next to the closet. In spite of the small cabin size, there were enough other shelves that we could put away all of the other "stuff" and still have space leftover. The cabin had a coffee maker (a first for us on a ship), a small refrigerator, and a safe. The safe was adequate for things like money, cell phone, passports, etc. but was not large enough for my iPad. Our empty suitcases went under the bed and out of the way.

The evening entertainment was the Welcome Aboard Show in the Hollywood Theater hosted by cruise director, Malu. We got a taste of some of the entertainment that we would be seeing on the cruise with short performances by the ship singers and dancers, comedian Chris Alpine, and the quartet "Oh What a Night" that performed songs from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (outstanding!) The captain and senior officers also made an appearance. 

As we walked back to our cabin following the show, we noticed that the library was open. The selection of books was quite large and included many different guidebooks on Hawaii. Laurel checked out three different ones that we used when we were touring the islands.

It had been a long day, but now that we were on board and settled in, life was good! Before going to bed, I opened the balcony door just a crack and we fell asleep to the sound of the waves and fresh ocean air!

Here are the first three pages of the Freestyle Daily from Day 1. (I posted them at their original size to make them readable, but you will have to scroll from side to side to see the whole page.)