Underway

I was up at 6 and I kept busy cleaning and packing. Dave came right at 10 and we were soon underway. The traffic was pretty good. There was a terrible tie up and an accident in the Langley area, someone died. But the snarl was with east bound traffic so we were not held up

The only really slow part of the journey was in the area of Hastings Street and Howe Street. There were 3 large ships in port and people seemed to be streamingfrom every direction headed to the cruise terminal. It was slow but once we arrived near the entrance traffic police helped and then as we went under Canada Place the Princess personel took over. Soon we were unloaded, said good bye to Dave and began our marithon treck to get to the ship. We were surprised to learn that there were 3 large ships in port and they all had to clear customs. Luckily the lines moved quickly and it took only an hour and 15 minutes and 4050 steps to make it to the Royal Princess . By now we were just dragging, more exercise in one hour than we had had in many years. We found our cabin. It is very nice but not as grand as we expected. I know we will enjoy the sofa, but the balcony is much smaller that the ones on Caribe deck. We hurridly put a few things away and headed for the dining room. It took awhile to find it and by then it was closed. That one closes at one on sail away days. We decided to head for the buffet but soon changed our minds. We were on deck 6 at that time and the buffet is on deck 16. There were dozens of people waiting for the elevators. We did a quick change of plans and headed for the International Cafe. It was full but not too full. We got a table right away and I went and picked up a nice meal for us both. NO COOKING. Then we returned to our room to find that our luggage had arrived and we could unpack. As usual we would have liked more hangers. Our stewards name is Ronoldo. He seems very nice, friendly and effecient. He brought us a few more hangers. After I unpacked I decorated our door and also decorated the inside a little .

Then I headed to the internet cafe and purchased wi fi for the 14 days. Getting it for half price is one of the perks for elites.As I was leaving the area I saw a lady with a marvelous piece of chocolate cake. It was 6 layers high and looked amazing. I had to stop and buy one for Ken, he is such a chocolate addict. He loved it. When I returned to the cabin I learned that Ronoldo had delivered a wonderful bouquet of flowers, thanks to our TA Kim. She is such a sweetie. We learned that the northward journey will not be through the inside passage, we will be travelling on the west side of Vancouver Island. Soon it was time for sail away and we were able to enjoy the sound of the Love Boat theme being played on the ships horns. I did a video, Hopefully I will be able to share it with you. We are both feeling pretty tired after such a long and busy day. We are going to go to dinner at 5 instead of 6. If we can stay awake we will go to the show after that. We had no trouble getting seated even though we were an hour early. I guess we now have a 5 o'clock reservation. It was a table for eight and people came at all different times but our amazing waiter was able to keep the courses coming and no one had to wait.The food was great as usual. I had a greek salad, a pina coloda cold soup, baked cod and then a blueberry crumble for dessert. It was good food and the people with whom we shared the table were very nice. We were the only Canadians. After dinner we came back to our cabin to take our meds and waited until it was time to go to the show.The show was called Bennie and the Rest. It was an Elton John impersonator. I was not impressed because he was so loud. He pounded that piano so hard that it made my ears ache. He really had the crowd singing and clapping so they did not mind the sound . So we are back in our cabin and ready to call it a day. Oh yes I hid three ducks tonight and I actually saw a man attempt to hide one. As soon as he stepped away I grabbed it. So now I can say that I found a duck.

Their information was not on it so I can't report on Facebook and say thank you to the person who hid it. It is smaller that the ones we are hiding . It is a small blue one.This is the first one I have found even though we have hid more than 50. Great fun!! I will try to figure out how to add pictures sometime in the morning but right now I have a date with the sandman. I was up at 6 trying to get the photos into the blog. What I have done is take them from the card and now they are on this computer but when I try to move them instead of the photo I get scads of printed numbers and letters in red and black instead of the photo. I will keep trying but for now there are no photos of yesterday.:-(