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Old 14 Oct 19, 08:45 PM  
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Melanie R
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Glaciers & Glowtinis - Day 2 Embarkation

In what was now becoming a habit, I was again awake early this morning (another 5am wake up!) but just to add to my woes I had raging toothache – not what you need when you are about to set off on a week-long cruise with only expensive access to healthcare!

I knew I had an issue with a filling and put it down to the effect of the flight, popped some ibuprofen and tried to get back to sleep for another couple of hours, but this was just not happening! A combination of excitement, jet lag and toothache meant I was wide awake and my day had now started, so I got out of bed, showered and dressed and by this time the toothache had eased, so I finished off the biscuits from the previous night (can’t beat a healthy breakfast!) and started to pack up the few bits and pieces I had unpacked for my short stay.
I chilled for a while with my kindle, watching the city start to come to life again, and then at around 9:30 decided to head out for a coffee. It was a glorious sunny day today in complete contrast to the rain of the previous day, so I headed to the concierge desk to leave my luggage for a little while, checked out of the lovely Blue Horizon and headed to the Blenz coffee shop on the corner. I ordered my latte then took a seat at a table outside to enjoy the sunshine and the hustle and bustle of Robson Street.





I know I have already said this, but the hotel was perfectly located for what I had needed in Vancouver and I will definitely return! (note to self, lack of forward planning doesn’t always mean disaster!)

Once I had enjoyed my coffee, it was approaching 11 so I decided that was late enough that I could consider heading over to the cruise terminal at Canada Place to see if they were boarding. I collected my luggage from the concierge and hopped into a waiting taxi for the short journey. Within 10 minutes we were pulling into the parking area of the terminal, I had handed over $10 CAN (including tip),and my luggage was unloaded. I had not printed off any paperwork or luggage tags, but there was a stand by the luggage drop off where you could collect them so within minutes I had a tag for my case attached and had handed it over to the porters, I was then heading into the queue for check in.

The check in process was very smooth – there was a small queue ahead which moved very quickly and I was at the desk within 5 minutes of joining the queue. I handed over my passport and asked what other information he needed (I had no paperwork, but all my documents were on my phone). He said he didn’t need anything else, scanned my passport and my info must have come up on his screen as we welcomed me back to Princess. At this stage I was slightly confused as I have never cruised Princess before, but then remembered they are part of the same company as P&O who I do have loyalty points with, and they had linked my account to make me a gold member despite it being my first Princess cruise 😂

The very friendly guy wandered to the desk behind him, returning with my cruise card and verified I had completed an ESTA before passing it over to me. I confirmed that yes, my ESTA was current and he wished me a pleasant cruise – all done and dusted in under 10 minutes from joining the queue! I couldn’t fault the efficiency at all😊

I followed the signs through to security which was also very quick and painless, and soon was heading out to the ship. There were only 2 ships in the terminal today, the Coral Princess which I was on and a Holland America ship which must have been doing a very similar itinerary as I saw it regularly throughout my cruise.

I was very quickly onboard and made my way straight to my stateroom – I was actually pleasantly surprise to be able to head there straight away as it was still only around 11:40 and from experience they are not usually ready until around 1pm as a general rule.

I was on deck 11 (Baja Deck) and I found the ship very easy to navigate and found my room straight away – I find that some ships you get on are so easy to find your way around, yet others you can still be getting lost at the end of your cruise (as I found later in my trip on the Golden Princess! ) I was pleased that the Coral Princess was one of the former I had booked a junior suite for this trip, so had to take lots of pics of the room to send home to make my sister jealous







I had a great view from the balcony too 😁







I wasn’t at all surprised to see my luggage hadn’t been delivered as yet, so dropped my rucksack on the table, hung my fleece up and headed up to the buffet – I was starving!

There was lots of variety on the buffet, but for some reason not much was taking my fancy, so I had a snack size croque monsieur (hot and tasty) with a cup of tea, them wandered outside to enjoy the sunshine. If I have 1 criticism of the buffet restaurant it was that they didn’t have any trays available – wasn’t an issue today as I only had 1 plate and 1 cup to carry, but on future days I discovered if I wanted to have a starter (e.g. soup with a plate for a bread roll) I couldn’t collect my main course at the same time as I couldn’t carry it all. You may not think that an issue – it was a buffet so you can go up as many times as you like, which is very true, but if you are solo, the staff were so efficient that when you came back to your table with your next course, they had cleared the table, wiped it down and someone else would be sitting there! First world problems

I was still feeling a little peckish so decided to have something from grill around the pool – but in the end opted for a slice of pizza – again fresh, hot and very tasty.



I settled on a lovely lounger around the pool (I hadn’t been expecting the warmth and sunshine, so was making the most of it!) I decided I needed something to wash this down with, so a friendly waiter brought me the cocktail menu and I ordered the first cocktail of my cruise – an Ultimate Cooler (well I had been onboard at least an hour by now – I do have a reputation to live up to!)



The cocktail was delicious and I was enjoying people watching & taking some pics of the pool area in the sunshine when I remembered I has my very own balcony this trip, so set off to explore the ship a little and check out my stateroom in more detail.











It was probably around 2pm when I reached my stateroom and I was very pleasantly surprised to see my case waiting for me – it’s usually much later in my experience, but it meant I could get the unpacking out of the way (hate unpacking with a passion!) and easily found room for all my bits and pieces. Job done, I was just about to head to the balcony when there was a knock on the door – it was my stateroom steward with a complementary glass of champagne for me and a copy of the day’s Princess Patter (the daily newsletter which lists all the activities going on that day). Well I never turn down champagne, so accepted graciously and took it out on the balcony to enjoy.







Wednesday afternoon’s don’t get much better than sitting in the sunshine on your private balcony of a lovely cruise ship enjoying a glass of bubbly! I also took the opportunity to catch up with friends and family at home and make sure everyone knew that my Wednesday was significantly better than the Wednesday they had just enjoyed! I also pointed out the exciting activities onboard which they were missing out on 😂



Some more balcony pics I took to send home









One of the things that had caught me off-guard when I arrived in Canada was that my mobile roaming package wasn’t covered – it was fine in Europe and the USA but not Canada, so I had made the decision now that I was going to be without free Wi-Fi for a week to buy an internet package. They were discounted once I was onboard and was under £40 for unlimited use for the duration of the cruise – I had promised family I would check in regularly so they knew I was OK, so I thought this would be worth it 😁I could then take the opportunity each day to send pics and let them know how the cruise was going.

I checked the time and realised the muster was due to start in around 15 minutes, so I headed out to find the lounge where is was taking place. This proved to be very easy – straight down to deck 7 in the lift and I was there! I took a set and was idly flicking through some pics I had taken earlier in the day on my phone, when they started to play the theme music from the Love Boat (Princess were the ships used in the tv series back in the day) and then I realised that the safety announcements were being made as jingles! This gave me a real fit of the giggles and definitely made me pay more attention to what was going on!

Before too long, they were sounding the ships horns for the drill and the crew became more serious as they went through the safety process with everyone. We were shown how to wear our life jacket and it was a nice change not to have to put them on (last cruise on P&O we all had to put them on when instructed), with Princess we didn’t even need to take them with us.

Muster was soon completed and everyone headed for the lifts, so I wandered down the sip to the atrium to check out the shops (even though they were still closed as we hadn’t yet left port) and then found the International Café which would become my go to place for coffee and cakes for the remainder of the week



I had opted for freedom dining so that I wasn’t tied down to set times for the week, and when I checked out the menu, nothing really appealed to me, so I decided I would just head to the buffet this evening and then head to the theatre for the comedian later on. For now, the sail away was imminent, so I headed to my stateroom to watch from my balcony prior to freshening up for the evening. I collected a cocktail and cupcake on my way back to enjoy during sail away 😂







I headed up to the buffet and opted for some pasta and salad and followed this up with a cupcake (these were delicious – they had a different flavours each day) before heading down to the International Café for my first latte of the cruise. En route I checked out the shops now they were actually open, and managed not to spend any money – result!

I took my latte and headed down to the theatre – on every cruise I’ve taken the theatre has filled up well in advance of the start to the show, so I had deliberately gone early and taken my kindle so that I could be sure of getting a seat – this proved not to be necessary as the place was almost empty when I arrived, and at no point the whole trip did I see it more than half full.

The comedian was introduced and I put my kindle away to settle down to enjoy the act – 5 minutes in and I was regretting this decision! I realise that humour is subjective, and I also realise that this was a predominantly American crowd, but even taking that into account, he wasn’t the best

I gave serious thought to leaving mid show, but the theatre wasn’t very full and it would have looked quite obvious, so I stuck it out to the end, then debated heading to the bar for a nightcap, but the early wake up was taking its toll, so I decided to call it a night and got one to go and headed back to my stateroom to see if the bed was as comfortable as it looked (spoiler alert – it really was )

I got ready for bed, managed to squeeze in the chocolates left for me and headed to the balcony to revel in the fact that after months of saving and planning,(!) I was finally heading to Alaska.

I took a couple of pics then felt the tiredness hit me again so headed to bed with a movie on my iPad which I think I managed about 5 minute of before giving in to sleep 💤
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Old 14 Oct 19, 08:58 PM  
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Disney_time
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Yay - another day posted.

What an elegant stateroom/suite you are in. I seriously have hotel envy with this trip of yours!

So glad you are travelling in style.
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Old 14 Oct 19, 09:01 PM  
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Melanie R
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Originally Posted by Disney_time View Post
Yay - another day posted.

What an elegant stateroom/suite you are in. I seriously have hotel envy with this trip of yours!

So glad you are travelling in style.
I did rather push the budget on this trip, but you’re only 50 once
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Old 14 Oct 19, 09:13 PM  
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Disney_time
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Originally Posted by Melanie R View Post
I did rather push the budget on this trip, but you’re only 50 once
Rats! too late for me - I'll need to push the boat out for my 60th then!
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Old 15 Oct 19, 06:45 AM  
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margyloveswdw
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Loving your report so far!
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Old 15 Oct 19, 07:42 AM  
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Loopylooloo
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I got a lovely familiar feeling looking at your ship photos, never sailed princess before, but just that first cruise day feeling! How lovely your suite is! And great view of the harbour too, the champagne was a nice touch. How odd about the trays at the buffet, how would someone with kids or disabled manage? I also often find Im not laughing at the comedians when we sail in USA etc, the humor must be really different. I cannot wait to see the Alaska scenery photos Melanie, more please!
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Old 15 Oct 19, 09:04 AM  
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kateh134
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Your cabin looks huge! We’re going on our first cruise for my 50th soon and I’ll make sure cocktails and cupcakes are consumed!
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Old 15 Oct 19, 09:17 AM  
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tigger48
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Loving your report so far your cabin looks huge. Cocktails and cupcakes is my new favourite trend 😋!
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Old 15 Oct 19, 06:20 PM  
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KarenG
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Your suite looks absolutely fabulous.

Stunning scenery and glad to see you’re keeping your cocktail tasting seriously
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Old 15 Oct 19, 08:07 PM  
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2point
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Enjoying the detail in your report. Looks fab.
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