Embarkation and off on our adventures!

It turns out that the Pope is in New York, so our bus transfer to the port was a bit late. We then had to wait a little while longer, as a couple of passengers inexplicably didn’t show up (and never did). Finally, we set out on a circuitous route to the port (again, because the Pope was, to quote the bus driver, “marching down Fifth Avenue” – this led to mild speculation between Ingo and myself as to how that would actually look).

Upon arriving at the port around one, we found that we had to first line up to get through security – which wasn’t too bad, as the line moved at a steady rate – and then had to get into a much slower line to get our boarding passes for the Norwegian Gem. It took quite a lot of ingenuity to keep Torsten happy in the lines, as we hadn’t had lunch, and he only had a bit of a nap in the bus going to the port. After all, lines aren’t much fun when you’re an adult – it must feel like a pointless eternity to a 1 ½ year old! The only upside was the view of the ship, which was very pretty with all the brightly coloured gemstones painted on the side.

After getting our boarding passes/keys/ship credit cards – amazing how they make one small bit of plastic perform all those functions – we trundled aboard the ship and into our stateroom. Our mini suite is awfully nice; it’s got a lot of stowage, and a sitting area that can be separated from the bed area by means of a curtain. The sofa turns into a bed, so it’s perfect for Torsten. The balcony is fairly spacious, and you’re prevented from falling over the side by a glass half wall; that means that the view is relatively unobstructed – an improvement over unsightly bars. As there is a small gap between the half wall and the floor, however, we will have to prevent Torsten from playing with his Hot Wheels on the balcony. Or anything else small, for that matter.

We changed Torsten’s diaper when we got to the stateroom, and relaxed there for a bit…until we realized that Torsten had – um – become stinky. This led to the appalling realization that we had just used his last diaper; all of his other diapers were in the checked luggage being loaded aboard the ship. Ingo went to take a look in the ship’s shop to see if they sold diapers, but the shop was (a) closed while we were in port, and (b) unlikely to carry diapers. Then, shortly after Ingo returned from his fruitless search, the siren wailed for the mandatory emergency drill, so we put clothes back onto Torsten, hoped that his odour wasn’t too off-putting, and joined the throngs headed to their emergency stations. The drill wasn’t really that good, in my opinion – the emergency stations were in various lounges on the ship where people could sit down, and so the vast majority of people weren’t paying attention. We never went out to the lifeboats, and the drill mainly consisted of some weak speeches on the importance of not setting fire to your room and a perfunctory demonstration of how to put a life vest on. Some crew members wandered around, peering at the stateroom numbers on passengers’ life vests, and checking them off a list.

After the “drill” concluded, we went back to the stateroom, hoping that our luggage had been delivered. It hadn’t. However, shortly thereafter, it was. Luckily, the bag containing all the diapers was the first to be delivered, and so we were finally able to destinkify Torsten, after which we unpacked our bags (the second one followed the first very quickly), stowed everything away, and set out to look around the ship.

Our first stop was the Kids’ Club – which Torsten loved. It’s a beautiful room with a small jungle gym at one end, padded mats along ¾ of the length, small tables and chairs in the remaining ¼, and windows along the whole length of the room. Torsten is unfortunately too young to participate in the Kids’ Club activities, and even more unfortunately too young to be allowed to play on the jungle gym, but unexpectedly, there are activities for under 2 year olds – the parents simply have to stay and supervise – and he also received a wrapped present which consisted of a stuffed lobster (a toy, not the food), a colouring book, and some crayons. I will be interested to see what they are like. He had a great time just running back and forth along the mats.

After the Kids’ Club (the preceding paragraph makes it sound like a simple stop, whereas we spent a considerable amount of time there), we promenaded on deck, passing bundled up people shivering on deck chairs – as it was late afternoon, it was getting chilly – and also a few hardy souls swimming. I will permit myself a bit of meanness and say that those swimming were mostly protected from the cold by a good layer of blubber. As it WAS getting chilly, we headed inside, and as we were rather hungry – and in Torsten’s case, getting tired – we decided to have dinner. We had it at Cagney’s Steak House, one of the cover charge restaurants, which was completely worth it. For a $20 per person cover charge, Ingo got an appetizer of crab cakes, a large veal chop with foie gras croutons, and side dishes of creamed spinach, shoestring onions, and mashed potatoes. I got a lobster bisque, a 14 oz prime rib (where they brought the whole roast to the table and cut it before my eyes), and the same side dishes. Torsten had bits of our dinner and had an additional plate of creamed spinach. He was a big hit with the serving staff, who kept trying to find something to bring for him. Towards the end of dinner, he started getting quite antsy, so we decided to skip dessert – only to find that the wait staff didn’t want us to, and so they offered to bring it to our room for us! Mmmm, crème brulée!
A quick stop at the Internet Café to enter for a draw of 500 free minutes, and then into our stateroom for our normal bedtime routines. Good night!