This morning we woke and grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel before finishing up our packing to board the ship.  We had arranged for a Lyft to pick us up at 11:45 but we got done earlier so we changed that to 11:00, Lyft as usual was prompt and picked us up on time.

Arriving at the dock was quite simple as we already had our medallions.  These are the devices that grant you access to all the services on the ship including access to your cabin.  These work a lot better than what I used the last time I cruised with Princess.  Krista and I can also track each other around the ship with these.

When we arrived at the dock a porter was there to greet us and take our luggage so we didn't have to lug it up on to the ship then find a place to either tuck it away or roll it around the ship, it also made boarding a lot easier.  Boarding was easy a quick jaunt through security then checking in to get on board.  As normal there are photographers everywhere and we got both the Princess as well as the PCA pictures taken.

We were on board just before noon.  We found a place to sit in the grand lobby of the ship, got our bearings and then found some food.  Deck 16 is where the buffet is located, this buffet is split in three sections each serving a number of different food items, types and you can get pretty much anything you want.  After a quick lunch, we decided to explore this massive ship until our cabin was ready, which we were told should be 12:45 to 1:00, so we didn't have to wait long.

The room is nice, good size for being on a ship and the balcony really opens it up to make it feel like a very large suite. 

Being part of the PCA group we had to go and get registered so we could take part in the PCA activities.  We got our badges, and our Tag Heuer wrist bands which allows us to wear the Princess medallions on our wrist rather than around our necks the whole time.

Luggage was arriving later in the day so we decided to go out and discover more of the ship, and get a drink, we had to test this plus package that was part of the PCA package.  The complimentary drinks are a real thing we can have as much coffee, pop or water (bottled or not) as we want and up to 15 drinks, wine, beer or cocktails.  We made our way to the aft of the ship for when we left port and headed out through puget sound.  Here we found a seat along the edge of the deck we got a couple of drinks and off we went on our next adventure.  The ship left dock at promptly 3:00pm.

We soon went back to our cabin to see if our luggage had arrived, it was not there but having a balcony we were able to take in the views while making our way through Puget Sound and in to the Pacific ocean.  Our luggage did arrive at about 4:00pm, so we unpacked as we will be living here for the next 7 days.  We then went and got some dinner because there were a couple of PCA events later tonight.  After a bite we got ourselves orgainized and headed to the first PCA event; the group photo.

There are about 900 PCA members on this cruise which is almost 1/3 of the total passenger complement for this ship.  Apparently during the first PCA cruise event they had almost 300 members take part, then the next one (last year) there was 600 and this year we are just over 900 members taking advantage of this cruise.  

The first event was the group photo.  The brought us all up on deck and took pictures which will be published in the monthly magazine.

After the photo we were invited to a private fucnction in the covered pool and conservatory area.  This is a great place its secluded and has some nice little alcoves where you can just get away for a while.  They introduced the captian and officers of the ship to us and then we had an opportunity to just sit back, mingle and meet other PCA members.  We met a couple from Alberta and someone from our old region 'Diablo' then Krista found pictures of the other members of the Acadia region, Joseph and Edith, so we went hunting for them.

Krista did pick them out in the crowd.  We found a quite place to sit and talk.  They are a lovely couple, a few years older than us but we foudn that we had a lot in common including, and funny enough we live in the same neighbourhood, they are just just one street over.

We talked until about 10:00 and we are both still a bit jet lagged so we headed back to the cabin to get some rest.

Tomorrow is our first full day at sea.