Depart Boston and a Sea Day

The scene at the hotel on Saturday morning wasn't as bad as expected. Lots of people with lots of bags wanting to go to the ship. Somehow the young man loading the van with all of us and the bags made it all happen and we arrived at the cruise terminal about 11:45am. Our bags disappeared in to the system along with our box of a dozen wine bottles. Check in proceeded quickly helped by the fact of Deen's cane which got us in the disabled queue.

After we found our room we went up to lunch in the Main Dining Room (MDR) and by coincidence met two of the Roll Call couples that are the main organizers of the Meet and Greet. Instant friends.... After lunch and some unpacking by Deen and exploring by me there was the safety drill. Afterwards the Roll Call gathering wearing our Mardi GRAS beads and meeting more of the people that we only knew on-line. Very nice to be able to put faces to names. I also had my welcome aboard Mojito. It was very hot on the rear deck so the drinks went down very nicely.

More unpacking as the rest of our bags and the wine arrived in our room. Then off to dinner at 8 pm. We are seated at a table for 6 but our 4 table mates were no shows. It seems a lot of people skipped the MDR on the first night. After dinner we went to the showroom for the Cruise Director welcome then off to bed.

The first sea day started with a Meet and Greet in the Crows Nest . Well organized and attended and we all had name tags. The Captain and some of his key officers attended to welcome us all. A great opportunity to meet more people. There are 1183 passengers on board ,including it would seem lots of Texans.

We attended an Explorer series talk about the early Vikings explorations of Europe. It was very interesting including some aspects of their settlement of Yorkshire in the 864- 956 period. York was called Jorvik and some of the place names in Yorkshire have Viking roots.

Most of the day was spent off the coast of Nova Scotia and I emailed our friends there to ask if they could see us waving. For the most part it was foggy. Happy hour drinks in the Crows Nest . Deen was very happy that she finally saw a whale. It was also our first formal night and we were both appropriately dressed.

Also at dinner we met our other 4 table mates, all Canadians from BC and Alberta. Very companionable. After dinner we went to the Broadway show.








Pictured are Randy having his welcome aboard drink, a scene from the show, the formal Deen and Randy, and the Captain. The next picture includes 3 shots from the Viking lecture and a view of the ship' s swimming pool. With the ship's movement the pool has become like a wave pool.

From RCD's iPad

Location:Off the Coast of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia