Sorry this first post will be a bit long, I promise to do better… :)

So the first day of our Grand Voyage went smoothly… we had no problems with our flight or shuttle (aside from the old man smuggling beer in his luggage which started leaking) … we even shared our TUS-LAX with Brian G. and saw the Quantas double decker Airbus A380. Pretty cool… We got on the ship as soon as they allowed and of course, went straight to lunch. The Amsterdam is quite a bit smaller than the ships I’m used too, but surprisingly enough, it doesn’t feel crowded, although I definitely feel the rockin’ & rollin’ more…. Thank goodness for dad’s magic little pink pills, I haven’t felt any motion sickness!

We watched “The Hangover” at the ship’s movie theatre and I must say, I was mostly amused :) At dinner we met our table mates, Davey & Louise from England, and Dudley & Patty from Vancouver, (Canada)…. They are a hoot…. Dudley was debating Gretzky as being the greatest hockey player ever and I don’t think he realized no one was actually arguing with him :)
The show our first night was called “Let Us Entertain You”, but it was more like “Let us introduce every crew member on the ship to you” We ARE the youngest non-crew members on the ship as far as we can tell, and I think by the end of our tirip we may very well be celebrities… we kinda stand out among all the retirees… :) but I think we are acclimating to “retired” life pretty well…
Day 2 (our 1st full day), we slept till nearly 10am, nearly missing breakfast (horrors!! I don’t think chris really believes in room service :) and went to an astronomy lecture on constellations that hopefully has armed us with the knowledge of what to look for when we have stargazing nights. We spent the rest of the afternoon, lazing in the sunshine…ahhhh….
Dudley had a game for us at dinner, to name 11 parts of the body (no slang) that are only 3 letters long… it’s harder than it sounds! Davey was quite perterbed that he kept guessing the same answers right after we said them… :)
Day 3, we got busy and blazed thru a talk on our first port, Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas & Papeete, Tahiti…a culinary demonstration with Chef George Geary (anyone know him from Food Network?) on CHEESECAKE (YUM!!!), which by the way, I did not know there were “savory” varieties of, (K & K would have loved this) …. Then off to get my Georgia O’Keefe on with a Watercolor class (I promise pictures of the masterpiece upon completion) hosted by 2 crazy ladies who apparently believe that listening and painting can not be done at the same time (“put your paintbrush down!”)… chris was a bit disgruntled by this “rule”, I thought he might throw his paint pallet at one of them :) then I hightailed it to the gym (yes, its true! 2 days in a row!)… we also met 2 more table mates, Tom & Sam(antha), also from the UK… very nice… chris, tom and dudley got into a debate about socialized medicine and why america won’t let obama pass his plan…. I distracted my self with evesdropping on other conversations… the entertainment this night was a British comedian (in the most loose definition of the word… we left before it ended)… he had a few funny jokes, but it was almost funnier how awful he was :)

I don’t know if I’ll blog again till we start hitting the islands, but then again, who knows what craziness we will run into with Dudley, Davey & the rest of the gang :)
Chris is already planning another world cruise, but I’ll see if we are quite as anxious by the end of this voyage… J The food is great (even sushi at the lunch buffet) and the rooms are slightly larger than RCCL, but I think Royal excels above and beyond when it comes to entertainment and service… I’m not complaining at all, quite enjoying myself in fact… just evaluating….
Miss you all….