Day 1 – Toronto to Seattle

I spent the night before the trip packing with Mom and Aunt Deb. Matt set up Aunt Deb’s new laptop so she would be ready for her new internet service. Hard to believe she has her own computer, a new 40” high def TV and will have digital cable and internet before we return home from Alaska. She’s really moving up from the 13” TV with bunny ears!

We managed to get a few hours sleep before heading to the airport. My right leg was bothering me, to the point where I am wondering if it is a blood clot. I picked up some aspirin on the way to the airport, although the naproxen seems to work better. Will have to keep and eye on it.

We were at the airport shortly after 6:30am; the web check-in was done yesterday, so we only needed to drop off the luggage and clear security and customs. We were through the checkpoints and grabbed some breakfast and were at the gate by 7:20! I was amazed at how well the web check in improved the trip, but since this is not an option on the return trip, we could be in for some waiting.

Internet for some reason had sounded as though it was free, and of course I should have known this to be too good to be true, there was a fee, and since we were both tired and had not been away from the net for long, opted not to use it.

The plane was boarded and on the runway on time at 10am. This plane was amazing! The seats were comfortable, and when I say comfortable I am not lying by any stretch. After a 5 hour flight, my ass was still awake. My leg on the other hand was still bothering me. After a quick taxi (20 min) to the pier we were met with the most common thing you will do on the cruise … hurry up and wait, or … you will be herded like cattle, get in line and move 1 foot occasionally.



Fortunately, the Seattle terminal seems better organized than Fort Lauderdale and we were through the screening process and on the ship quite quickly. What surprised me the most was that we actually had our luggage almost immediately, which I can't ever remember happening before. Any other time I have cruised, you were lucky to have the luggage before supper. I was unpacked and ready for holidays by 2pm.



The weather was beautiful and we set sail at 4pm as scheduled. We were up on deck at the time and saw some sort of a sea lion splashing about. The cool thing with Princess now is that they actually do a DVD of your trip and we noticed after watching the footage filmed today that we made the final cut … what a souvenir that will be!