We stayed at the Hampton Inn by Hilton out by the airport last night on points. We stayed here last year so we knew we could walk across the street and get dinner at Burger King!
The shuttle bus was late picking us up - the traffic was horrible. We got to the cruise terminal about 10:30. The longshoremen who unloaded our bags from the shuttle absolutely loved my Russell Wilson jersey!
When we cruised out of Vancouver last year, it seemed very quick and easy. This time, however, the baggage drop off was a disaster (so we took our bags with us and delivered them ourselves to the appointed door "D" - but we only learned that after asking several information people).
After we dropped off our bags, we ran into Valerie & Ian (our good friends from Australia) heading down to drop off their bags and go thru Customs. We walked right up to the check in desk and were then sent to go through Customs. But, again, there was no signage - just someone telling us to go out the door and turn left. Had I not been paying attention, we would have ended up on the street instead of going back through another door to Customs (there was no sign) which turned out to be very fast.
Once that was done, we were sent to board the ship. Of course, I made Jim get the boarding picture taken, much to his dismay! He, in turn, made one of the photographers get in the picture with us!
And what do we all do when we board the ship? Yep, go to the Windjammer (heretofore known as WJ), find a seat and eat lunch! On this ship (Radiance of the Seas), it's aft so we found our table at the very back and took up residence until 1:00 when we could get into our cabin! This is what I could see from my deck.
We met up with Valerie & Ian later in the afternoon in the WJ for tea, chips (that's french fries to us Americans), ice cream cones and lots of catching up. We hadn't seen them since April, 2014.
And we can't forget Muster! We stood in line with Basil & John from Orlando and Daniel & Dan from St. Paul. They made that half hour go quickly. We laughed the entire time but were careful not to get caught and paid attention when we were supposed to!
We had before dinner drinks in the Diamond Lounge and enjoyed dinner with a couple from Ontario, Canada at our table. Dinner was delish as always! And this ship is serving the chilled fruit soups which is a favorite of mine!
After dinner we took a walk and the guys played a round of golf before we called it a night. It was pretty chilly up top plus we still needed to unpack our suitcases. We set our clocks back one hour so we were actually in bed by 9:15. Oh well, it was a long, exciting day!
Anita I am loving your blog. Thanks for posting it. It's helping me get through the next two weeks of craziness before we leave!!
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