Advertisement
Published: August 26th 2018
Edit Blog Post
This trip is going to be like none other that we have taken before. The biggest reason for that, is that we have two additional passengers that we have never taken on one of our voyages. It happened quite by accident a number of months ago. We were driving Talia and Jack home from school one day and the conversation came around to holidays. Jack said, “ Grandpa, now that Talia and I are older do you think we could go on one of your special trips with you and grandma? “ And that’s where it all started. After talking things over with their parents, it was decided that they were old enough to come away with us and we started looking for someplace to go that we thought they would enjoy. With the help of a travel agent , we selected an Alaskan cruise. We kept the location quiet for quite a while but finally shared with the kids that we were going on a cruise ship to Alaska. The day has finally arrived and we took the ferry over from Nanaimo to Vancouver. It has been sunny and hot for the past 2 months but on our departure day,
it was raining! To be honest, it was a welcome relief. We had arranged for a limousine to pick us up at the ferry terminal and take us down to the cruse ship terminal downtown. Even that part was quite exciting.Our limo driver, James, met us at Horseshoe Bay and in a very short time we were at the the cruise ship terminal. The check in procedure took almost 2 hours. The weaving lines were reminiscent of Disneyland lines without the Fast Passes! We eventually reached the front of the line and received our “key cards” and a copy of the days activities. It took us about 10 minutes to board the ship and a further 10 minutes to find our stateroom. Excitement was at a fever pitch by this time. As soon as we got into our stateroom, Jack immediately found his journal so he could write in it to “record his thoughts”! Suitcases were going to be delivered later so we decided to go and have lunch at the restaurant called the Lido Market, which was a huge buffet so there were lots of choices. Jack looked around the crowd and said “There sure are a lot of
grandpas around here” - a most astute observation. Jack found the New York Pizza Restaurant and ordered a pizza. He came back with his electronic order pad that would blink when his order was ready. He watched it carefully and when the red lights started blinking, off he went. At 3:45, we heard a message calling everyone to report to our emergency muster station. This was a mandatory emergency drill where about 60 odd people from a group of staterooms gathered by muster station 15, had their key cards scanned and waited until every passenger on the ship was accounted for. The ship left the dock at 4:30 and within minutes we were cruising under the Lions Gate Bridge. It was quite a sight. Jack and I were on the observation deck 11 taking pictures when the ship's horn sounded. Boy was it loud. It scared both Jack and I. We went for dinner after meeting our room steward, Wally. While we were at dinner, good old Wally came by and made up our beds. Talia had a huge bunk bed above our bed with a ladder going up. Jack had the sofa bed made up with a towel in
the shape of an elf sitting right in the middle of the bed. Everyone took a few minutes to write a journal entry as we
watched out our window at the passing scenery.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 41; dbt: 0.0341s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb