Cruisin'

Our last night in Vancouver, looking out the hotel window.

Greetings from onboard the Coral Princess, cruising toward Ketchikan, Alaska, where we will arrive early tomorrow morning. Yesterday we had a very smooth and easy embarkation in Vancouver, no long lines, no issues, and we walked right to our cabin on the Dolphin Deck on the 9^th level. We have a good sized room with a balcony; the shower is tiny but otherwise we have plenty of space. We sat on the upper deck of the ship while a band played, everyone enjoying the sights as we sailed away from British Columbia, waving to the people peering over the rail of the huge bridge overhead. We have discovered that this is an old-fogies cruise, which suits us just fine. We are some of the younger people aboard, which means that everyone is riding the elevators so we get the stairs pretty much to ourselves, and when we went out walking around at midnight this morning, we thought we were on a Ghost Ship. LOL This is in sharp contrast to the Caribbean cruise we took with Rich’s brother George and wife Nadine a couple of years ago, a Carnival ship that seemed to be filled with very young people with nothing but partying on their minds. I know, my age is showing. We kinda like being the 50-something youngsters with the retirement crowd rather than the old folks on the party boat. Haha

Instead of our dining room dinner last night, we decided to eat at one of the specialty restaurants. We were told to make reservations because it would fill up fast. Much to our surprise, there was no one else in the restaurant when we arrived. J We had a nice dinner and lots of attention from the bored staff.

The ship is huge and we are still learning our way around. We are climbing all 14 flights of stairs and getting our exercise. There’s a work-out room but we haven’t made it there yet, though it’s definitely in our plans. We did stop in the casino when we were walking around at midnight and it was almost deserted at that hour; guess everyone else was in bed. Rich lost a little money and we moved on. LOL

This morning we had breakfast in our room and Rich went to a meeting to find out about some photo editing classes that are being held on board. Basically, the meetings are to sell you on taking the classes. :) After the lunch buffet, we walked 350 steps to the very end of our deck to the Laundromat—we have been carrying dirty laundry with us since Colorado. While the clothes were washing, I went to have a massage that I pre-ordered from home (on our last cruise, I was not so well informed and by the time I got on board, there were no empty slots). It felt SO good and completely relaxing. Nice! Rich had put the clothes in the dryer so we then went back to get them and to iron our dressy stuff for the formal night tonight. Okay, we do NOT have formal clothes and are not about to go get any, but we will be presentable and not embarrass ourselves.

The water has been smooth so far; I took some Dramamine yesterday but I haven’t had any trouble today. The temperature outside is only in the 50’s so I feel like I am back home in Alaska already. :)

I started this earlier today so I could just cut and paste and not waste precious internet minutes typing. Internet is $.75 a minute! Well, that's if you pay as you go. I bought a plan for a bunch of minutes which whittled it down to $.40 a minute. What a bargain. LOL Anyway, we have been to our nice formal dinner and chatted with some folks from Toronto. I'm now in the "card room" using my laptop and Rich has gone to the casino to see if he can win enough money to pay for my internet habit. LOL