Cruise 2011, Days 1 & 2, 9/17-18

Saturday September 17, 2011, Day One, Leaving San Francisco
We were up at about 9 AM. I made coffee in the single service coffee maker in the room. The coffee tasted fine, but wasn't very hot.
I used Gerri's phone to check on nearby geocaches, it showed closer caches than my preloaded Geomate, Jr. I tried one a block from the hotel entrance but had the same problems as yesterday with the GPS when I got near the cache. I never found the cache.

At about 11 we went to the lobby and settled the bill. We then waited for time to get on the bus to the cruise ship dock. We were on board the Sea Princes before 1pm. After lunch we had a safety drill. The ship sailed at 3:30. We found a place on deck to watch and take pictures as we went past Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate Bridge.

After passing the Golden Gate we headed south west for Hawaii. The ship cruises at just under 25 knots.
Our supper seating is at 7:45 at a table for eight. We met 5 of our table mates. The supper was delicious with a lot of choices.
By 10:30 we were back at the cabin and ready for bed.
We haven't decided yet whether to purchase a wifi plan. My blogs will probably cover several days each and probably won't include pictures. We will post pictures later.
One of the TV channels runs a crawler with the ships position. When I started writing this blog our position was N37° 4.00 W124° 22.48.

Sunday September 18, 2011, Day Two, At Sea
After a long day yesterday we slept very well. The sea was only running about 1' waves so there was little motion on the ship.
We started the day with a continental breakfast delivered to our stateroom.

Our position at 9 AM was N35°16.40' W124° 16.40' I was noticeably warmer this morning on our balcony. We are on the port side of the ship. There were some clouds but the sunlight sparkled on the sea. No white caps in sight. There is a channel on the television that shows the view from the bow. Of course there is only sea to be seen. The same as the view from our balcony. This is the first time I have been out of sight of land.
Gerri made a reservation for a spa treatment this morning and came back feeling great after having a facial. We then signed up for the wifi service in our stateroom. We signed up for 500 minutes for $175.00. If we spread that over the entire trip, it comes down to 18 minutes a day. We hope that is enough time to collect e-mail and post this blog. No time for games and very little for Facebook.
After walking around the Promenade, Deck 7, it is the only deck that goes around the entire ship, we had lunch in the Horizon Court. We checked out some other areas of the ship and at 2pm we went to the pool area where Gerri laid out in the sun, reading her Kindle while watching and listening to a Paul McCartney concert on the huge movie screen which she said was like being at a live concert. I elected to sit in the shade in a regular chair and read my Kindle and since it was right by the ice cream stand enjoyed a vanilla cone. After the concert we headed to one of the dining rooms which was serving High Tea, our first time going to this type of activity. They served scones, tea sandwiches with a white-gloved service and of course, tea...very good. At 4pm we went to the Vista lounge and played a trivia game. Neither of us did very well, only getting half the answers right. After that it was back to the stateroom to rest awhile and get cleaned up for supper. Only two of the couples came to the table.
After supper we went to a show in the Vista lounge. The show was a standup comedian named George Casey. He had a lot of funny material.
Back to the stateroom we relaxed and it was almost midnight when we went to bed.

Looking out

Loking in

The ships position was N32° 54.59' W133° 40.98' just before we went to bed.