July 9, 2009

I've been typing in a word document when I have time on our cruise... Sorry for the errors.

July 9, 2009

Well, we departed on July 7th from Grand Rapids airport. Robert dropped us off. Surprisingly I wasn't nervous at all even though I had never been on a moving plane before. I think I pretty much used most of my nerves for the wedding. I didn't even take a Xanax.

Our first flight was on a small 18 passenger plane. We flew to Toronto. It was my first flight. It was fine lifting off. The only thing that was uncomfortable was that my butt was under constant vibration because I was seated near the engine. We got to Toronto in about an hour. The Toronto airport was very disorienting. It was pretty big.

Our second flight was from Toronto to Vancouver. That flight was around 5 hours. Brian and I were incredibly tired for this flight. The plane was nice, though. We had built-in TV screens at our seats. So, on the flight to Vancouver I watched Monsters VS. Aliens and He's Just Not That Into You. By the time we finally landed in Vancouver it was about 12:24 a.m. (3:24 a.m. Michigan time.) Brian and I had a very small amount of sleep on the flight.

For the next 11 hours we were in the Vancouver terminal. It was boring and uncomfortable. I managed a nap here and there. And I think Brian managed a 15 minute nap. Despite it being early in the morning in Vancouver, there were quite a few people. At around 5:00 a.m. their time people started showing up more. There was a group of Middle Eastern men, several donning turbans, talking so loudly that Brian and I couldn't manage a nap at all.

At around 10:30 a.m. Brian and I made it to Bay 12 where our shuttle bus would be picking us up to take us to the cruise ship. Unfortunately, Carnival was having an Alaskan cruise at the same time. So, we were mixed in with more and more people.

We drove around 40 minutes through Vancouver. The bus driver informed us during the drive that 40% of the people living in Vancouver are Asian. And you could tell. There was Asian writing on most shops and businesses. And I think I saw three different Starbucks Coffee shops on the way, too. Honestly, I wasn't too impressed with Vancouver. There was construction literally everywhere on almost every street. And the gas prices in Canada are so much more outrageous than the US. So people were walking.

We eventually got to the pier. And from there they pushed guests for BOTH cruises into the same area and didn't separate us out until the end. I felt as if we were quarantined, too. The workers pushing us every which way were not too polite. After about an hour, we finally got through and were free to go to our ship.

At this point, Brian and I had been up for just over 30 hours. We were tired and didn't feel like dealing with anyone. They served us a meal on the Lido deck as soon as we arrived. Then informed us that our stateroom would not be ready for about two more hours. So, Brian and I were pretty restless. That was what we wanted most so we could sleep. We hung around near the elevators on the Lido deck and walked a little before our room was ready. We sat down and slept almost the whole time before we had to do the emergency practice drill; complete with life vests.

After the emergency drill we went back to our room and slept for a little bit longer. Then we managed showers. Since I recently had gotten my hair cut and it no longer takes an hour or more to straighten it, I decided for the dinner that I would wear my hair straight. Since I don't personally own one (because my hair was so long and it was time consuming) I decided that I would use the hair dryer that was available in our stateroom. After about 15 seconds in use, sparks flew out and then three pieces of searing hot metal spring fell out onto the floor. So, I decided not to use that again... I managed to get ready. Dinner in the main dining room was casual dress, so we went there. It was a gorgeous room. Complete with chandeliers and a big portion of the ceiling had lights twinkling so close to the roof that it looked like stars. Our waiter, his name sounded like “Whit Whit,” was awesome. And the food was fantastic.

After dinner, Brian and I came back to our room and managed to see a portion of the sun setting. It was pink and purple hues.

This morning we woke up and decided that we would explore some of the ship. We woke up at around 8:00 a.m. (their time) and went to the Lido deck for breakfast. I had some froot loops and some fruit and Brian had some smoked salmon with cream cheese and capers on a dry bread. We couldn't find a table to ourselves for breakfast so we were seated next to an older couple. Brian told me that when I got up to leave to get fruit that the older woman was going on and on to her husband about how disgusting smoked salmon was.

We managed to get online briefly here later on in the day in the Explorer's Lounge. The internet wasn't entirely that fast and I think it took me about 8 tries refreshing the page to get my facebook to load. And it took me about three times to just update my status. We were online for mere minutes and it cost us around $12.00.

Still feeling tired from traveling, we slept for a good portion of the afternoon. Since we have a veranda suite, we get movie rentals for free. (Currently we have Bolt playing.) So, we've rented a couple of discs here and there and just had them playing. We are loving the peace and quiet here in our room. We figure we have a whole week to explore the ship more and more.

We've taken mostly pictures inside the ship today. As we're traveling more north and the temperature is a little warmer in the morning it has caused a lot of fog. Almost to the point where we can barely see 10 feet out in any direction.

After our dinner tonight we got back to our room and there was towel in the shape of a sting ray (complete with computer print out eyes – which I have saved and put on my phone for laughs) on our bed. Next to it were a couple pieces of chocolate.