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..
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