Leaving Vancouver on a big ship

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Geo: 49.2605, -123.114

Today is embarkation day! Jeff and I really do like to cruise. I know, it's weird for two pretty independent (and frugal) travelers to get into cruising, but we love those days at sea. And this cruise is right up our alley as we get on the ship today in Vancouver and get off on Wednesday in Los Angeles. Three glorious days of watching the ocean go by!

We are up around 9:30 and have made coffee before we hear our host and hostess stirring. We're having black coffee because when Jeff opened their refrigerator it was empty. Empty! How strange; and he couldn't find the sugar so black it is

Touseled haired and pajama clad, Ashleigh and Aldo appear - looks like they could use some coffee. Aldo goes outside on their balcony and retrieves a container of milk from a small cooler as Ashleigh explains that their refrigerator has been non functional for two days. She then opens the only cabinet Jeff hadn't checked and produces sugar. The four of us have some cookies (these are my kind of people!), and chat. They are very interesting, engaging conversationalists and it was great to spend time with them.

This experience was like staying with the "friend of a friend" and comfortable for us. If anyone is interested in staying with them, drop me a line ([e-mail]) and I'll send you their info.
Jeff and I left to go to breakfast at a nearby local place and afterwards returned to the apartment to drop off the keys, say goodbye, pick up our suitcase and backpack and walk to the port.
Happily it does not rain on us during our walk. Our weather app shows rain all day in Vancouver with a few blocks of lower percent probability...we chose one of those blocks and it paid off.

Embarkation is a riot! There are THREE cruise ships in town and all three are leaving around the same time this afternoon. Imagine 12,000 people coming and going from Canada Place - the taxis, shuttle busses, people walking in from the train all dragging luggage. Get rid of those who have just gotten off of one of the ships. Now sort the remaining 9,000 or so by ship, have them fill out health questionnaires, now check them all in, next send them through Immigration, through Customs and finally, board them by numerical groups. We are group 44. Surprisingly, it takes us only 45 minutes to make our way through the system to get to our room. Of course it helps a lot that we are Platinum members (this is our 10th cruise with Princess) and have a separate, quicker check-in desk than most of the other passengers.

Ahhh...here we are. We are three hours from setting sail, so we go to the library to get a couple of books for the trip, unpack, request bathrobes and (free - yeah Platinum!) glasses of champagne from our room steward and basically relax.

It is very windy and has been raining off and on. The lifeboat drilled scheduled for 4pm is postponed until 4:30. This is VERY unusual. We learn that there is still a crowd of people working their way through the embarkation process.Finally, everyone is aboard, we have our safety drill after which Jeff and I grab our champagne and head to the top of the boat for the sail away.

One of the other cruise ships has pulled out - it looks like a city block has broken loose from the land and is floating away. That one is headed for Alaska. The second ship, heading for Hawaii, begins moving into the harbor, massive, but now our attention is caught by a float plane starting to land...it looks like it is going to come down between our ship and the other... this is not going to work. There isn't enough space yet. He keeps coming, people are pointing and cameras are appearing. The plane zooms right behind the departing ship. From our angle it looked like he was very close to clipping the back of that boat. A man next to Jeff turns and says " That pilot must have had a better angle view than we had." No doubt, but it was still scary!

Holy crow, it is cold up here and the wind is fierce. It's our turn now to leave Vancouver. We stay up top for about 45 minutes and then scurry back to our warm cabin. I stash our champagne glasses so the steward doesn't take them. We've brought a bottle of wine and a bottle of champagne on board with us.

The captain comes on the intercom to announce that during our first 24 hours of sailing we should expect high winds and high, rough seas. The ship is expected to be pitching and rolling. Please put glass items in drawers and anything else you don't want tumbling to the ground safely down. Visions of sailing in Victoria dance in our heads...

Dinner was just wonderful - the food was good and the company was particularly enjoyable. There were 8 of us at a table for 10. I sat next to Kathy, an 82 year old retired French teacher (who spoke Spanish as well) and her 90 year old husband, John. Neither Jeff nor I could believe either of them were those ages! They talked about wanting to get to Venice soon before climbing stairs and walking on rough cobblestones became an issue for them! John is English and the last time he was on a boat was in 1958 when he sailed to the US. He is a retired Boeing engineer. They were so much fun. Kathy, like myself, loves to play Scrabble. I told her that our next trip is to Costa Rica and I'm learning Spanish. She immediately switched from English to Spanish talking about kids and grandchildren. Turns out her daughter teaches Spanish so Kathy is near fluent in that language as well. Amazing.
We exchanged room numbers and I do hope we get a chance to see them again on this trip.

Back to our mini-suite after dinner, we are reading and relaxing when, I kid you not, I hear a car horn. Toot toot! "What the hell?" I ask Jeff as I jumped up and ran to the balcony. "What the hell was that??". A quick look outside made it all clear. We had a Vancouver pilot on board to help our crew work their way out into the strait. A pilot boat had followed along to take him back to land when his job was done. He had transferred to the pilot boat and as it pulled away they tooted their horn. Sure surprised us!

The boat is rocking a little when we go to bed.

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Comments

[Kareen Turner]

Wow, I loved Vancouver, so beautiful.