Cruise I

Well, we flew all night, slept fitfully in airports, and arrived in plenty of time to be sequestered in the Princess Cruise Gulag (i.e., the Terminal building, waiting for boarding).

But, we followed the hordes, got our room keys and had our passports checked, and went up to our room to nap until the rest of my family showed up. The room is really nice, and a lot larger than I thought it would be, we aren't cramped at all, and even have tons of closet space! Who knew? We have a lovely balcony and are on the furthest "out" deck on the ship, right over the lifeboats. Nice!

The porters on the pier laughed at us about our luggage when we got it out of the taxi -- I packed a small carry-on-sized LandsEnd bag, and Mark had a suit bag. That's it. We plopped the bags down and the porters sort of squinted at it. "That's your luggage?" Nod. "All your luggage?" Another nod. "Are you sure?" We giggled about it all the way onto the boat.

I crashed like a big crashy thing and slept for two hours or so, before the Adorable Husband returned with ice cream and diet cokes to wake me up so we could see if anyone else had arrived.

We've been trying to fix the flight situation for Nin and Peter for almost two weeks, and have had no luck at all getting different flights -- the cruise line booked her to land at 3:15, and also says that they have to be on the boat by 4. Ridiculous! But - the boat did wait for a bunch of people that were running late because of weather, and she ran up the gangplank at 5:05 and was still there with an hour to spare! One of the security guys at the chekpoint radioed to the terminal to see if they were there yet and the terminal personnel reported taht they had a "couple dozen" people in taxis and on busses on their way to the boat!

So, she made it on time, we all got together in time for dinner, and we're off!