Morning came early on our Embarkation Day, the three hour time change will take us a couple of days to adjust to. We were up at about 5:00 AM, our bodies thinking it was really 8:00 AM. We ate the danish we had picked up in the Von’s grocery store last night for our breakfast, and used the in room coffee maker for brewing my coffee.
We needed to complete the repacking of the suitcases to try and accommodate the added items from the grocery store run. We expanded the large suitcases, which actually increased their size more than we had remembered. After moving some items over from the carry on suitcases, we added some of the beverages to the smaller bags. Once that was complete, we took a short walk around the marina area outside of the hotel.
Doubletree Hotel – San Pedro
It was a foggy morning, and a little cool, and we ended up going back to the room for our jackets. Of course, about 20 minutes later, the sun finally peaked through the fog and clouds, and it turned much warmer. It was interesting looking into the water in the marina, it was surprisingly clear, and there were many large star fish on the rocks along the edges. There were various colors, some white, some red, and some were an orange color. There was also some Kelp growing in the marina, which was interesting to see in real life for the first time.
After about a 30 minute walk, we headed back to the room. Since our scheduled time for the shuttle to the cruise ship was at noon, we still had about 2 more hours of waiting. We watched some of the Clemson football game on ESPN. It was strange to be watching live football at 10:00 AM in the morning, it was a 12 noon start time for the game on Eastern time. Once again, we found ourselves impatiently waiting around for a scheduled event to occur. After yesterday and this morning, we were becoming tired of all of the waiting, but we knew it would not be much longer and we would finally be on the ship.
Our scheduled noon shuttle time finally came and we boarded the van along with some of our fellow hotel guests for the short trip over to the pier. With all of the luggage and passengers aboard, the shuttle headed to the port. The baggage drop off went smoothly, and we headed inside the cruise terminal to check in. Since this cruise was mostly made up of frequent cruisers, the advantages we normally see in shorter lines for our Princess Platinum benefit of preferred check in was not to be found. One of the ladies directing passengers indicated that about 75% of the passengers on this cruise were “preferred” status for boarding, so there were no quicker lines.
It took about 15 minutes to check in, then another 25 minutes to go through the security screening for the carry on luggage and personal metal detection screening, just like for the airlines. Then after another line for the final passport check to confirm we were the same persons as our cruise cards, we finally boarded the ship. After one more line to check into the ship’s on board security system, and of course, the boarding photo, we finally made it to our stateroom. For the first time in two days, we could finally relax, no more lines, no more impatient waiting.
Port of Los Angeles
We were greeted by our cabin steward, Edgardo Perez, who was from the Philippines. He was really nice, and we could actually understand him, which has not always the case for some of our previous cabin stewards.
We had the emergency drill at 3:30 PM, and then were informed by the Captain that our departure would be delayed about an hour for completion of the ship’s refueling. There had been a barge along side the ship for the entire time we had been aboard, and we could see it was still there, adding as much fuel as possible for this long voyage.
Finally, at about 5:15 PM, the dock lines were let go and the Sapphire Princess headed out to sea. As soon as we were outside the breakwater, the fog really set in, and visibility was less than a quarter mile, so there was not going to be a good sunset for photos tonight, although we took a few pictures as the sun sank behind the fog bank.
Heading Out to Sea
We spent some time exploring the ship, then went to the buffet for dinner, which is our tradition on the first night of any cruise. We were just too tired to go through the dining room experience. In addition, our large luggage had not yet made it to the room, so we had limited clothes available in our carry on baggage, and did not have the proper “smart casual” attire for the dining room anyway.
After dinner, we walked around the ship some more, ending up in the Princess Theater to watch a portion of the comedy show. We headed back to the room, and found that our luggage had finally made it, so we unpacked and put everything away. It was not until then that we both felt like we were finally on vacation and could totally relax.
It was foggy outside for the entire time until we went to sleep, and the ship’s fog horn was sounding off about every 3 minutes. It was nice that the seas were calm for the first night.