Forever Flying!

   I guess you could say that we arrived fresh and ready to go but after the long long trip to the ship I think we are ready for a nap!

    We arrived at the Toronto airport at noon on Wednesday having already checked in. 2 hours later we finally had cleared inspection and were ready to board the Cathy Pacific flight to Hong Kong. Cathy had my name as 1 word and it needed to be changed on the manifest . That only took a minute but it took an hour to get to the counter. Inspection also was very slow.

   The 15 plus hour flight was as comfortable as you could expect. Wider seats, leg room and a full entertainment slate. Judy and I watched 3 movies each. They did have a menu with the lunch and dinner selections and wine was available. We flew directly over the pole and the shapes and configuration of the ice and snow were something we had never seen before. We did not get much sleep arriving at 7 pm. Is it morning or night? Now that it is night here but day back home we can't seem to figure out what to do. We did get some sleep in the 5 hour wait in Hong Kong.

The 4 hour flight to Tokyo (overnight) was smooth and easy but we were wide awake for most of it. Customs and immigration went quickly and we met the Princess rep around 7 am and then had a 2 hour wait for the 2 hour bus trip to the pier.

   We were among the first to arrive but the ship did not started boarding until noon. This seemed to be one of the poorest boarding that we have been through probably because the venue was not that good and they organization left something to be desired. Having been up all night we were tired but glad we had finally arrived.

Drum Ceremony

We lunched in the dining room with a couple from Hawaii. We were ready to eat after the airline food for the past 30 hours! A walk around the sun deck and a small nap before the life jacket drill followed in quick order. Luggage was in our room and stored quickly. We fought the need to sleep all day! As we left the dock, a group onshore performed a traditional drum. We have seen it before but the crown waved yellow towels. The sailaway party was a bit of a bust but the band was lively and the line dancing woke us up.

   Our assigned dinner time is 7:45 pm. We are sitting with 2 other couples, one from San Francisco and one from England but are Canadian. We decided to retire immediately after dinner. Tomorrow is a port day but it is a small port with little for us to do. We can sleep in if we choose as we need to get our energy back. A long tiring 32 hours of travel finally comes to an end.