Ahoy Mateys! Day one of cruise

We got up way early to hurry to the airport.  5 am to be exact.  We got to the airport only to find that my bag weighed 55 pounds.  5 pounds over.  “I’ll just pay it”  “$125”….oh, hang on, we’ll put some in Lacey’s.  Instead of opening the whole suitcase, I just unzipped the top and ran my hand down inside to fish something out.  I came up with a tennis shoe and an empty water bottle.  2 oz.  Wheeee..   next I grabbed the Chi straightener and my computer cord.  10 oz.   “Oh, mom,” Lacey wailed, “Dig deeper!” I  bravely pulled my suitcase over and zipped it open and pulled out my Lifechurch hoodie.  Success!!!!  Who knew a hoodie weighed 3 pounds??   No one was mad in line because they were too busy laughing at us.  Great start.  

Waiting on plane and Lacey exclaimed to me, “Ooh, I hope no one coughs in the airplane, because it has no where to go, and it just gets in our pores”.   This coming from one of the worst germaphobe’s I know.  I laughed until I hurt.   WHO thinks of that??  I don’t even think that way at all. 

Ironically, we are about to be delayed 8 hours getting on our ship because it had an outbreak of Norovirus the prior week.  “Don’t become friends with ole Noro”, Tyler entreats as we bid him adieu.  

We were one of the first passengers to arrive in LA.  On the way, Lacey & I are plotting a trip to Disneyland, because we know we don’t get to board the ship until 7 pm and are arriving in LA at 8:30. 

The Princess cruise line lady freaks us out, warning us, if we miss our transfer, we are in a “boatload” of trouble.  We flush our Disneyland dreams down the toilet, and get on the shuttle to the hotel down the street, where we are to stay holed in a room for 8 hours.   The princess people have considerately left out pastries and a deck of cards.  ONE deck of cards.  Good thing I brought my own.

Lacey & I head out to Manhatten beach (a street shuttle takes us there) and forego the fun beach and boutique shops on the beach, in favor of Lacey getting to see her very first Container Store (on the 9^th stop on the shuttle).   She walks into, what I call an OCD person’s version of heaven, and straight sings a little happy song.  I’m walking around going “I don’t get it”, and she has found her happy spot on earth.  

We eat some pizza and browse around, and head back to the holding room with an hour to kill.   You had to be freakishly tall to stand in the bus, because Lacey had her arms straight up in the air and could barely hold on to the railing!

We beat each other in Las Vegas Rummy, and because of our early arrival, we are one of the first people to get to transfer to the boat. 

When I say boat, I have to tell you, I had no idea.  It is bigger than anything I have ever seen, and it’s just stunning.  They have been cleaning the ship from top to bottom, ridding any lingering norovirus germs from the 5000 people about to board.  One friend described the boarding process as “Herding cattle”, and that is about right.

What I do notice is the age group of the group of people in our shuttle bus to the ship.  I think if you added Lacey & my ages up together, that might be the average age of the octogenarians on that bus.  I’m thinking “This is going to be sooo fun”…envisioning line dancing with the small Asian man with a walker and his oxygen. 

But when we get to the ship, all ages appear, lots of kids and younger people.  AND WE GOT TO BOARD!  Walking up that ramp, feeling overwhelmed at the sheer magnitude of the size of this boat.  WOW.

And yep, herding sheep.  We boarded at the front of the boat, and our room is just about as far in the back as you can possibly walk.  5 room behind us, MAN OVERBOARD.  We are in the butt of the ship.  On the 12^th level (ALOHA!) with a balcony and twin beds, a shower for much smaller people than we are, but we have landed in our new HOME SWEET HOME for 7 days.

We find some food, a random smorgasbord of pasta and salad, a crab cake, some French fries and a roll.  I guess I was carb loading for sleep.  We head to our bunks almost delirious with exhaustion, have just settled down for a long winters nap, when the loud speaker comes on, and beckons us to Level 6, Club Fusion, with our life preservers and our room cards. We are NOT happy. We learn the ship emergency drills, and yawn our way through putting our life jackets on and off and manage to find our way back to our room.  I fall asleep in the process of Lacey filling out our form for fruit and breakfast in our room, and wake up in a full allergy meltdown, seems I’m sleeping with feathers.   After a quick exchange of pillows, and twenty seven Kleenexes later, we are sawing logs.

Wake up at 7:30 am to nothing but water.  The gentle lull of the boat is soothing to me, kind of urpy for my motion sickness girl, but we are armed in our sundresses (only looking for a high of 66 today, pretty disappointed in that), and heading to one of my only company functions this morning.  

Hoping it warms up so we can spend some quality time on this balcony!!!! And praying Lacey gets over her initial seasickness.  She's always been a motion sickness lightweight, and this is no different!

More tomorrow............BON VOYAGE!