Another non-newsworthy day. Well, boarding the cruise ship was new news but that’s really all that happened. Not to belabor it but oh, how slow and painful the process was. Crowded buses, long walks towing heavy luggage, interminable lines snaking back and forth like Disneyland, waiting to get ID checked, waiting to check in, waiting for a visa application, waiting for passport control, waiting for the shuttle boat, waiting on the shuttle boat….

3 hours later I was on board and my lovely room was waiting for me. I splurged and got an upgraded balcony which I think I’m going to like very much. I can sit with a front row view of going through the Suez Canal! But that’s in a few days time….

At 5pm I met with some members of the FB cruise group that I joined (2 of whom joined me on that 1st walking tour in Venice) as well as a very nice couple from BC that I met in my hotel lobby yesterday and invited along. We tried to get a table together for dinner but it’s all assigned seating so we’ll try to fix that for tomorrow night.

The ship is nice – quite small compared to the behemoths they’re building these days, lots of nice wood and warm colors. I didn’t really get a good chance to explore other than the bar our group met at and the dining room. There’ll be plenty of Sea Days coming up so I’ll have all the time in the world to suss things out later.

Tomorrow we visit Split, Croatia. I’ve got another walking tour planned 🙂