11 and 12 August - on the Dawn Princess

We got to the cruise terminal at around 10:30, knowing that check-in time wasn't officially until 1pm.

Turns out that they would have let us board pretty much straight away except that there was some problem with getting the previous passengers disembarked. Judging by the smell around the elevators where we eventually boarded, I'd say the problem wasn't so much with disembarking passengers and was more about a broken sewage pipe. Anyway, they let us check in, gave us our cruise cards and then told us we could either wait in the terminal or go for a walk and come back at 12:30. We went for a walk and once we found our way out - which was a real challenge! - we discovered a very nice walkway called the 'Cruise Ship Promenade' which eventually led to the Los Angeles Maritime Museum and then further along to 'Ports'O'Call' which is basically a restaurant area. Paul got some nice photos but I'm probably not going to try to upload them over this internet connection.

By the time we got back it was around 1pm, and we got on board.

First impressions - cabin seems to be smaller than on the Diamond or Star Princesses; the balcony is definitely a tiny one like on the Pacific Jewel rather than the big Caribe balcony ones on the Diamond and Star. However, it will all be quite comfortable.

We did the usual wander of the ship and found all of the important places - where to eat, where to buy stuff!

There's no AnyTime dining yet on Dawn, it's all the old-fashioned Traditional thing where you're allocated a table for the entire cruise. We're sitting with three sisters from Scotland (as opposed to the three sisters from Ireland who were on the Cosmos tour!) plus two other couples. All very nice people - they all boarded in Southhampton although one of the sisters lives on the Gold Coast. Dinner was lovely, but I'll weigh a ton if I eat there every night!

After dinner we just wandered around a little more and then crashed - I think the early mornings on the bus trip are all catching up with us. I managed to lose my camera but someone handed it in so I got it back - not a clever start!

I won't be posting every day now - not just because we're at sea and therefore it'll be 'lazed around all day' but because the internet access is so slooow and so expensive. We bought the dearest package of minutes we could and it was still 25cents per minute. Standard Pay As You Go acess is 75 cents a minute!