So, until WP allows me to post piccies I went over here

So, I am not entirely sure about the format here, so please bear with me until I sort it out. My memory is short and it has been a long time since I visited my old Blogger spot. However, since WordPress has rendered my unable to run photos, for whatever reason, I am taking this step. Hope you follow me here and have a look. Pictured above is the Rhapsody, which was our home for 11 days.

Cruising. This was a new venture. I had actually been on a cruise nearly two decades ago down the so-called Mexican Riviera. I liked it then. Like it now. For the first couple of days I wasn't so sure. And then we got used to it, and by the time it ended we wanted it to go on and thought in terms of when and where we'd like to cruise again.

The Pacific is very huge and for the five days until we reached Hawaiian waters, after sailing out from my hometown of Vancouver, there ain't much happening. It's just mainly water. No birds, no sealife to speak of, though we did see a couple of whale spouts the first day out. After that, nada. The North Pacific water is cold and grey looking. The waters around Hawaii are that lovely azure hue and it was wonderful watching the transformation to that color.

What didn't we like:

- the departure from Vancouver. It was a zoo and it took hundreds of people hours and hours to get aboard. They have to do it better, quite simply. At moments I felt like saying to hell with it and going back home. Later, on the ship in conversation with other pissed off passengers, some of them cruising veterans, we heard that most other cruise ship docks do it much more effectively and expeditiously. So, it seems that there isn't much excuse for Vancouver being slipshod.

-Wendy got a tad seasick the first night, but that was the end of it and she felt fine the rest of the time.

- a little bit of gouging for extra services. Not a lot, but enough that it was irksome.

- gaining access to a port via tender. Not always a fun experience, but one that had to be borne with.

What we did like:

- the food. Much too much of it, it seemed at times of gluttony. The worst was in the sumptuous buffet where there were dishes for every taste and ethnicity. And the desserts (my weak link) were to die for. Thought I'd gain a few hundred pounds but, miraculously I gained only a pound. Don't know how that happened. Maybe it was due to ...

-... exrercise options. Ranged from strolling Deck 10 which was a measured quarter of a mile. And the pools. Loved the pool, especially at the solarium which we'd hit every morning, even before coffee. There was also a gym and a fitness centre. No excuse for slugs unless that was what you chose to be.

- Starbucks: We had our very own Starbucks whence we'd stop for a latte each afternoon.

- Theatre: Live stage as well as a movie house that put even a city cinema to shame with the most comfortable seats imaginable and no jerks with cellphones.

- Our cabin attendant: Hippolita, the young Goan man who was more charming than the Geico Gecko and who manufactured a new and imaginative towel animal for us every evening when we were away for dinner. Such a neat little surprise. I think we wanted to adopt him by the end of the trip, even though he was a grown and married man with a relatively new wife back in India.

- General accoutrements: The Rapture of the Sea was quite a beautiful ship externally and internally.

- And much much more to be consderered and reveled in.