Saturday, June 1, 2013

Friday 17 May - Day one- boarding the ship


All packed except for the last minute items. I would, very bravely, be checking my bag through at the airport so that I didn’t have to crush all my clothes into a smaller space for carry on size. Actually slept pretty well considering how excited I was.
Our trip has begun. I was up at 530. and got the garbage ready to go out, made the beds, packed up those last minute things and took my time about it too. I didn’t have to leave until 7. The plan was to take the LRT to Century plaza and than catch the airport bus from there (Only $5) by 6 so thought I would call a taxi to get me to the U of A Lrt. The cab showed up about 5 minutes after I called so I was rushing a bit to get things out. Got to the LRT by the Hospital and the Train came right away. Got to Century park and the bus came right away. Got to the airport, checked in, converted my cash and it was only about 645 so had a bite to eat and downloaded a few books into my new kobo and read. Diane was there about 730 and did all of her checking in and we met around 8.We had a lovely cuppa tea, both being very excited about the whole trip.
We wandered around the new airport expansion after security and were very impressed by the living wall.
The flight went well and I even caught a 15 min power snooze. Shirley and Dorothy met us at the baggage claim and we were like little catholic schoolgirls, all excited about the trip. Got our luggage and caught the sky train to downtown Vancouver. We were given directions to walk two blocks to Canada place where the cruise terminal was. But when we got outside we did not know which way to go being faced with three directions and no sight of water. A young man asked us what we were looking for and guided us there. I gave him 5 dollars for his able assistance. I would have given him more but he didn’t offer to drag my bag.  
We were getting closer and more excited. Our goal was in sight. as we walked toward the entry way which seems to be located in an underground parade next to the bay. a gentleman walked toward us and said “don’t hurry, the line is very long” ... I did not see any line at all so was puzzled by this seemly cryptic statement. We continued on and came to the location to check our bags. there were several attendants assisting people to label their luggage with the proper information. One attendant helped us out by writing our tags out and affixing them to our bags that were then taken and put on a cart destined for our ship. We continued on with only a few articles. 
I had Waldo, my most lovely leather and multi coloured plaid rabbit fur bag given to me by my good friend Brenda for my birthday just the week before, which I kept in the luggage rolly cart with my laptop computer which is very old and heavy. We entered the building and stanchions funneled us into line. the line appeared to go forever but I saw lights and thought (turned out mistakenly) that there was the finish line  for our journey.
 ..not allowing our enthusiasm to fade by the sight of ‘the line’ which snaked around the very large room into about 15 lines with what could have been easily 1500 people. We maintained our happy demeanor. Chatting with and laughing and meeting the people around us. I met Fred and Janet from Newark NJ. They were going on the other cruise that was embarking at 6 for a longer cruise and then onto a land tour to end up in Fairbanks where they would fly home from there. they had been up for a long time.
There were people from all over the world in that long line. South Africa, Australia, all parts of Asia and Canada and US and Europe. Extraordinary.. we stood and shuffled and walked and finally got to where I could see that the lights I had thought were the check in was really a store to buy souvenirs.  The line dance continued. chat, shuffle, chat shuffle, turn around, pull the cart shuffle shuffle shuffle!
 There was a kiosk in the middle of the line selling binoculars. Derek, a lovely gentleman assisted me with my purchase. they are nice and I will be able to see all those unknown things I am expecting  to see very clearly now. I saw Derek on three different occasions as the line snaked around again and again. We were getting closer to the glazed glass wall and the door through which looked like security. surely after that we would be on the ship.
Wrong. After security we went to US customs with a line holding about 500 people.
We had found that the two ships being boarded today were each at about 2400 people so if they started boarding people at 11 and they had to board 4800 people and for us it was 230 they must be loading people very slowly. We chatted with Fred and Janet each time as we passed each other. Once we went through customs, which took quite a while and the customs agent told us a cute but rather off color joke about computer passwords, we thought yea we are here! But no. There was a moment of quiet with no line of people in front of us but that did not last long. Then we were in line again to check in to the ship. Met a nice lady from North Carolina who was with a couple who were celebrating their 50th. Nice. 
It was finally our turn. We checked in and each received our own card which we would use for paying for things on the cruise, our room key, and now we were really going to go on the ship although we were definitely deflated  and ready to sit down. We went into the ship finally around 3 in the afternoon and we were greeted in the main foyer on the 3 deck with champagne which was very tasty. Shirley had to sit down so we found her a chair and drank our champagne, Diane had two glasses and then we went to our rooms. 
We were side by side and the room was loverly. Initially our beds were together but our room attendant came and while we were at the Fire boat Muster drill orientation he changed it to two beds. We went to dinner and had a lovely dinner. After dinner we decided to go and poke around the ship a little bit. Found lots of things. Shops that were not open yet as we had not left port and they could not open until we set sail. 
We found other cafes and restaurants and got totally confused as to where we were on board. When we got back to our room around 830 we discovered that we did not have our luggage. We asked our room attendant if he could find it or us and we waited..... and waited...... and waited. Then we called him. He came back saying that he could not find it..... He does not have a phone and so had to come all the way back to our room. I felt bad. He went away again and a little later came back and told us to go and report it to the customer relations as he could not locate our luggage anywhere. Diane and I went up and talked to the people 'up there'. 
The gentleman was not very supportive telling us things like sometimes people don’t get their luggage back until the last day as the people who took it into their staterooms (by accident?) just hang on to it until the last day! or just being seemingly very passive about our dilemma. “ it is on the ship,  it will turn up”. Then he said “ some people get very impatient about receiving their luggage” !!?? well yea!  a young lady gave us some things to tide us over: 4 celebrity T shirts, 4 combs, 5 toothbrushes, 5 toothpastes and 5 razors? What.... we might need an emergency leg shave? We told them maybe it got on the other ship and they said they had to check our ship first before calling the other ship, like with missing persons you had to investigate the disappearance for 24 hours. Diane thought that was just ship pride but nevertheless that was what we had to do. We gave them a description of our luggage and went back to our stateroom with our emergency supplies..
at around 1030 we called it a night and tried to get some sleep in our new t-shirt PJs. luckily I fell asleep right away but poor Diane woke every hour and checked outside our door for our poor lost luggage.