October 4 2012 San Diego - sailing

My ship has come in

When I looked out my window this morning the Westerdam was docked opposite, with the Zuiderdam and Star Princess just along from it. The San Diego cruise season has now officially started! Even with all the news coverage of the first televised Obama/Romney debate last night, local news still covered the arrival of these cruise ships.

View from my room of the Westerdam

From closing my hotel door to walking across the street with my luggage, dropping my suitcase off with the porters, filling out the compulsory health statement and checking in and receiving my cruise card took 20 minutes. Traffic officers were on hand to ensure that passengers with luggage got across the road without any problems (i.e. no Don’t Walk signs suddenly blinking). In fact, my experience with traffic officers here and at the airport on arrival and transit officers when buying my travel pass could not have been better. All I met have been very helpful – particularly the woman at the airport who rang the hotel three times to find out where their courtesy shuttle was.

Boarding was to start at noon but began earlier so by 11.45am I was in my cabin and ready to explore.

View from the Crows Nest back to the Holiday Inn and Downtown

I signed up for the Body Sculpt Boot Camp then thought better of it later – I’m on holidays, why inflict so much pain on myself that I won’t be able to move for several days afterwards – so I went back up to the gym and removed myself from the list! I’ll make do with using the stairs, using the treadmills and attending the daily Tai Chi classes instead.

The mandatory emergency drill was at 4.15 pm and since the Costa Concordia tragedy earlier this year, passengers are warned that if they do not attend the drill they will be removed from the ship prior to sailing.

After that there was a sailaway party on Lido Deck around the pool. It was one of the best attended sailaway parties I’ll seen on HAL with live music and some dancing. It also gave me a chance to catch up with some of the Cruise Critic roll call members I’ve met online over the past months since booking this cruise.

Sailaway excitement is too much for some!

As my luggage wasn’t delivered by the time I decided to have dinner, I ate in the Lido again then browsed through the shops. When I returned to my cabin later my suitcase had arrived so I unpacked and then decided to call it a night.