Getting onboard the Prinsendam

December 18, 2015
I left home in Oakland Ca. last night and stayed at a hotel near Oakland Airport. I am flying Southwest to Ft. Lauderdale. My first flight is at 6:20am going to Las Vegas. With 4 hours sleep I arrived at the airport at 5:15am. When I get to Las Vegas I’ll take another flight to Ft. Lauderdale arriving at 5pm.
I met up with my friends Linda and Earl who I met on the Voyage of the Vikings at the Embassy Suites where we are all staying. We walked over to the Harbor Shops and had a nice dinner at Coco, a Thai/Japanese restaurant. Stopped by Total Wine for my one bottle of wine.
December 19, 2015 Embarkation Day
I got to the ship at 11am and within 5 minutes had my room key and proceeded upstairs to wait to board. At 11:30, I got onboard. There was a Santa and an elf waiting game to greet us. I dropped my carry-on bags off in the cabin. I met my friends at the dining room at noon but found out it would not open until 12:30pm. So we wandered around and found the library and the coffee shop, We had a nice lunch together and decided to go our own ways until 5pm for Sailaway. I spent the time signing up for wine tastings, a cooking class, and some excursions. After the lifeboat drill, we met up in my cabin. The Captain informed us we would be delayed leaving port due to a problem (never heard the exact reason why). We proceeded to dinner. Finally about 8pm we were able to get underway. Due to weather conditions, we will miss our first port tomorrow, Half Moon Cay. So the first 3 days will be sea days. We have been told to expect a new daily schedule of things to keep us amused. We played trivia and had every answer correct but lost on the tie breaker. WHAT WAS THE LAST YEAR THAT THE SUMMER AND WINTER OLYMPICS WERE PLAYED IN THE SAME YEAR?
The other team knew. We guessed 1984 but the answer was 1992. On a cruise 1/2 years ago my team lost most of the games to this same couple. From now on we are going to be a lot more serious about our answers on this cruise.
I’ll take pictures of the decorations tomorrow and post them. This is the Christmas tree I ordered from the cruise line.