All Aboard!

Cruise day had finally arrived! We saw this welcome sign inside the cruise port building.

We had parked our car in a nearby parking lot and took a shuttle bus to the port building. Once onboard the ship, I kept looking for my family and hoped to see them arriving soon.

Little did I know, they were already inside the building waiting to get checked in.

Pretty soon they spotted me on the ship (see Michelle waving to me?) and I spotted them by the building getting ready to get their picture taken before crossing the gangway to get on the Golden Princess.

It was heartwarming to see all the family had arrived and know our familial fun-ness was about to begin!

There's Mom and Dad (far left on gangway), Nani (wearing green), Andy (waving at me), Amanda, Lorene, Mark, Michelle, Mike, Kathy and Sam. All of them! They made it! They drove to Yakima, Washington the day before and then picked up Mark and Michelle this morning for the shorter distance drive from Yakima to Seattle.

Dallas, Rebecca, Brooke, Caroline and Spencer had also made the drive to Yakima the day before so they could be ready to take over caring for Mark and Michelle's five kids during the cruise week. It was like a little working vacation for them--Dallas and Rebecca did all the work and the kids did all the playing.

It was comforting to know everyone had traveled safely and reached their destinations as planned to let the relaxation and fun begin.

We had a balcony suite. Glen loves to be able to go out on the balcony and look around while he's waiting for me to get ready (because he claims it takes me sooooo long to get ready and it gives him something to do all that time).

He's studying the lay of the ship to try and figure out where everything is located.

Nani was super happy to get upgraded from an inside cabin to an outside cabin with a porthole. It opened up a whole new world to her to get a view of the outside when she was in her cabin.

We started exploring the ship. Amanda was excited about the prospect of going swimming.

The ship had a Theater Under the Stars where movies were shown all throughout the day and evening.

Glen found the ice cream shop where he happily got his fair share of ice cream cones throughout the cruise with just a tiny amount of ice cream in them because he really just loves the cone. On the other side of the big cone he would get several bags of theater popcorn which was offered only in the evenings. He loved that treat as well.

We had just been on the ship a few minutes, but we didn't waste any time finding food and eating our first meal.

It was time for our emergency drill and who should we see as we were hauling our life jackets around but another Arlo from the small farming community of Clifton, Idaho. The two Arlos were telling us there were only three Arlos in all of Clifton and here were two of them together on the very same ship.

Our muster station was in the casino. After successfully getting our life jackets securely fastened about us and then returned back to the top shelf of the closet in our cabin, it was time for departure.

It was a joy to behold the beautiful blue sky as we sailed away from the port. The sky had been gray and overcast the whole day before and the blue sky just added to the excitement of the moment--and made for much prettier pictures.

Some of us congregated up on deck for the bon voyage--me, Nani, Mark, Michelle, Amanda and Andy. (Don't have any idea who the people in orange are. Just a couple of the random thousands of people who were onboard the ship with us for the week.)

Mike and Lorene soon joined us for a view of the landscape.

Nani was the first one seated in the dining room that evening. We were first to arrive at our assigned table and we had a good laugh at the distance between us.

Soon enough Mike, Lorene, Sam and Kathy had joined Nani at the small table. Look at all that delicious food they were eating.

This is what it looked like on the bigger table from my viewpoint. We were always taking pictures of our plates of food.

Dad ordered a beautiful plate of fruit with every meal.

This first night he ordered a cup of fruit and we were pretty sure it was spiked with some kind of alcohol. From there on out we were very careful about what we ordered as we checked with our waiter if anything on the menu sounded like it might have some strong stuff in it.

Prime rib was one of the featured menu items this particular evening.

Mark and Michelle wanted to get their picture taken each evening by the dining room. Cute couple! Michelle was so fun to watch the whole week long. She was so excited about everything and it was always quite evident by the look on her face and the exclamations she made over all the food we were eating and the fun we were having.

All of us attended the evening show. Here's where I need to make a disclaimer about some of the pictures I will be posting. Sometimes I didn't get the greatest shots and I apologize to everyone now and in the future who may not quite like the way they look in the photos. This includes Sam in this picture, Amanda in the next picture and me in the third one.

What better way to end the first day than by going to the midnight buffet? We didn't actually eat at midnight because the buffet closed at midnight, so we got started some time after 11 p.m. and ended around midnight. We found that was plenty late enough and sleep was sounding pretty good to us by the magical hour of midnight.

Good night, sleep tight. More fun and food was waiting for us in the morning.