All aboard

Slept pretty well considering how excited I was.  We were awake early as that's still the work routine sadly.  Very grateful to have breakfast included as it only meant we needed to take a trip down the lift to get food and coffee.

After breaky it was back to the room to pack up and get ready to rumble.  Was somewhat easier this time as we didn't have to be quite as particular with weights.  So, I stuffed as much as I could in my main suitcase so my carry on was light as a feather. 

Luckily we had late checkout so there was no rush.  Boarding was supposed to be from 1230 so I figured if we left the hotel at about 11 we would be at the port by 1130 so would only have an hour.  Booked a 13cabs taxi, which screwed us over again and never showed - exactly like a year ago.  So instead, we rebooked with uber and our merc van arrived only a couple of minutes after booking.

We arrived at the port just before 1130 and it looked pretty quiet.  This cruise actually started in Sydney, so 2500 passengers were already on board.  There were about 1000 swapping over today so much different to last time.  We took our bags to the drop off point and then were allowed to go straight in!!  The check in process was easy - the princess staff were super lovely and informative.  We then went through immigration and again they were happy chappies, which is again wierd.  As we were walking up the gangway they told us the room was ready so we could drop our bags in straight away.

We found our room pretty easily, although this ship definitely has a strange layout.  Were on Emerald Deck, which is deck 8, and in room 125 which is on the starboard side.  The room is smaller than what Tony was expecting, but has a bigger than normal balcony to compensate I guess.

After depositing our hand luggage we went up to the buffet for lunch.  Wasn't too busy which was good, and plenty to choose from.  Tony began his mission to have as much seafood as possible, and I picked a bunch of random things, and a hot dog.

After lunch we opted for a bit of a nap which was awesome.  Its still really humid which is tiring.  After the nap we freshened up and wandered up to the pool deck to watch the sail away party/performance.   Its very easy to tell that its quite a different crowd on this ship.  A lot more oldies and a lot of people from China and other parts of Asia.  Hardly any kids too which was a bit of a surprise.

We left the pool deck around 5.30 to go to dinner in the Allegro dining room.  The booking system is a bit wierd here - you do it all on the app.  We wanted 6 pm but had to settle for 540 as that's the only close time available.  To get 6 or 630 you have to be willing to queue up and wait - we aren't really queuers.  While we were at dinner we could feel a fair amount of vibration so knew that we had sailed away.  It was surprisingly shuddery really.

Back in our room again and our room attendant had tidied up the room for us and left out tomorrows princess patter. We watched some tv before trying out the famous princess bed.  Certainly is soft annd sadly it has a hugely bulky quilt that we decided to throw off