The direct flight from Vancouver to San Diego was to arrive at 12:40, and we had to be on the ship by 16:00 or so. We were assured that it was about a 10 minute taxi ride from airport to pier, so this seemed like a good idea. However, when I planned the trip,I was not expecting the very special Vancouver December of 2008. Vancouver had unprecedented snowfall, icy roads, and airport delays. It was snowing a bit in Vancouver on the day we were to depart, but that wasn't a major problem. The major problem was the fact that the plane we needed to take to San Diego had to come to Vancouver from Saskatoon, and it hadn't occurred to Air Canada that the weather in Saskatoon in December might be less than ideal. Our plane was late arriving in Vancouver airport. As we waited (and waited, and waited) for our flight which was supposed to leave at 9:30, we calculated that as long as we took off by noon we would make it. We finally left at 11:30. This did give us enough time in San Diego to reach the ship and get checked in, but not with much time to spare.
Our welcome aboard the ship was great. On shore, they took our luggage, processed our travel documents, passports and that stuff, gave us our magic “everything card”, then sent us to the ship. Upon boarding, they scanned the card and took our photo for security purposes as our card was scanned (that was the third time we were photographed, but the other two were just trying to sell us portraits). Then they gave us a glass of champagne and a steward showed us to our cabin. There was a line for the elevators, so the steward suggested that we'd take the stairs instead. More on this later. The cabin was spacious by European hotel standards, and way bigger than the cabins you see in war movies, but not overly large. We had two single beds, but as the cabin attendant showed up, we asked him to fix it, and he did.
The ship departed on schedule at 6:00, accompanied by a low rumble of engine noise and a bit of ship movement. Robyn and Wade both started to feel a bit light-headed and unstable on our feet, almost as if we were drunk or sick. It only took a moment or two to realize that we weren't drunk: the floor was actually moving. Having realized that, it was much easier to deal with.
The ship has decks 4 to 12 (with some exterior access to deck 13). There is capacity for 1800 or so people. There are lineups for elevators. We quickly decided that we would not use the elevators, both to save time and to get some much needed additional exercise.
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