Panama Canal 2014: Day 1-San Francisco-Island Princess

Steven and Saira came bright and early at our request to take us to the train. The train was on time and our trip to San Francisco was uneventful, The transfer to the bus in Emeryville was quick and easy and we arrived to the Ferry building in no time at all. There was a huge farmers market there, not sure it is there every day but the fruit and veggies looked amazing. We continued on walking to Pier 27 because there were no taxis in sight. I thought there should be a taxi stand of sorts by the ferry building but we didn’t see one, nor did we ask. The weather was lovely so we walked the short distance, just over a mile. They were allowing people onboard already, I think it was around noon. That process went quite quickly. However, when they screened luggage and you had your allowed 2 bottles of wine, you are pulled over and required to remove it from your luggage for inspection. John suspected they want to be sure it is really wine and not hard liquor. I wonder how long they will continue this and turn people off. As far as customer service it seems to me it would be better to not allow any wine at all than to make people stand in yet another line for what is “allowed” onboard. I will add that there were just two people sitting at a table trying to inspect these bottles. Of course there were people who had too many bottles so they had to fill out paper work to charge them the corkage of $15 per bottle. They remained in the same line so it was very slow moving. That was the only slow part of boarding. Once onboard we worked on the dinner reservation since George was not able to secure it this morning. This too is a process. There is a number to call and it should be simple but of course no one answers the phone. John tried the entire time I unpacked. Finally we called customer service and complained, they somehow put us through and we secured our 7:30p dinner reservation for 8 people. We went upstairs for a quick bite to eat, bought a wine package (card to be delivered ton our cabin in 1 hour) and went back to our cabin to see if John’s suitcase was there yet. It wasn’t but we did have a note to go and retrieve it as it was locked and they wanted to look in it. I put 2 bottles of tonic water in it, I guess that’s what caused the concern. By the time we unpacked that Stuart & Darlene dropped by for a glass of wine. We chatted for a bit and then Muster for all of us who boarded in SF. Soon it is sail away time! We met by the Lido Bar not taking into consideration that the music was so loud we really couldn’t visit. We met Stuart’s brother Eric and his wife Kathe. We all ordered a drink and watched as we left the city and headed for our pass under the Golden Gate. As always it is very windy but it was not cold and we had great views. It’s always a thrill to me. We took lots of photos and after we were well past the bridge our group dispersed and made the plan to meet at the Bordeaux Dinning Room at 7:30p. We had an invitation to join the Elite group from 5-7p daily for Cocktails and Hors d’Oeuvres daily. It is a little misleading since they only offer one cocktail at a reduced price of $5. John, Tawny, and I went to take a look, they had guacamole, which Tawny was hungry for. In addition to the guacamole they had a lovely cheese platter, olives, rolls, breadsticks, and a few other things. We tried again for the internet but it was not to be. So we went back to the cabin to freshen up and pick up our wine card. Darn, the card isn’t there so we called on it, several times. Finally we got the card moments before we had to leave for dinner. Upon arrival to the Bordeaux Dinning Room it was somewhat of a fiasco. One would think it would be organized for this cruise since they have been sailing for 3 days now from Vancouver, BC. So in order to find out what to do I got in line and John went up to the front to ask the process. Nothing is posted. We were told since we had a reservation we should go to the starboard side at our appointed time and we would be seated. One by one our companions arrived so we worked our way through the crowd standing around and finally made it to the starboard door. They didn’t seem to know what we were there for but then told us we came though the wrong door, we should have been on the port side! We shifted over to the port side once inside the door since by now it was past our reservation time. Only to be questioned again why we were here! The gentleman in charge seems to be very excitable and shouting at the waiters. I guess in order to get us out of his way were were seated. The table we were taken to had nothing on it except napkins. The waiter and assistant (Rolando and Orlando respectively) were very nice. The rushed and had our table set very quickly even if the wine glasses were warm. The dinner was nice, the service was good once we were seated. We are bushed tonight and shortly after everyone was done eating we headed back to our cabin. We turn the clocks forward one hour tonight so we are more than ready to get to sleep.

Ferry Building Farmers Market