Empress Dock

This afternoon I headed off to the boat to New York! It took almost an hour from the time I got there till I got to my room, which considering how many people there were was not bad. I thought it was going to take a lot longer than that. They obviously know what they are doing, and I was wearing my mask the whole time as I do when I am inside and ready to take it off if someone needed to see my face to verify it is me and all. Well, I had a hat on as well and the lady at check-in was looking like she was trying to figure out if it was me or not against my photo and I started to say "oh, do you need me to take off my mask," but I didn't get that far cause I took off my hat as I was talking and she said "oh, there's your hair" and that was good enough. It made me laugh.

I got to my room and it is pretty nice. The balcony is huge! I did a few laps on the upper deck you can walk around on (and it has lots of comfy looking lounge chairs to sit on!) and found the pool (which looks bigger in the photo - it is pretty small), and some spare propeller parts at the front of the ship. We started sailing and it is so flat I cannot even tell we are moving unless I see the water. It is also silent - I can only hear the water and people on deck and stuff. I have never been on a ship this quiet and Raymond was looking up info about it and said it was just retrofitted last year with a fancy new engine in a soundproof room which is really nice. Also all the freshwater is supplied by three seawater desalination plants! Crazy! So fancy!

I was reading in my room when it got loud all of a sudden so I went to my balcony to spy and this little boat came up right under my balcony and picked someone up! I was like what in the world?? And I told Raymond and he was just like that was probably the harbor pilot. I guess big boats don't drive themselves in and out of the harbor - there are special people in each harbor that do it instead because they know the currents and depths and all of that. I learned so much today! I never knew that was a thing!

I didn't explore that much, I kept going up to the buffet area to get water and tea (which is where you get to the outside deck from) and ended up doing a lap outside every time cause I would go spy and well once you start walking around you have to spy on all sides right? I did so many laps I didn't explore much else, but that will be for tomorrow. There is a sign on deck that said 3 laps is 1.1 miles, 2 laps is 1.1 km so I did at least 3.3 km (I can't remember how many times I walked around out there, but at least 6! But that and all the walking around town this morning was a lot of walking).

Sunset was pretty nice - I am on the wrong side of the boat for it, but I looked out and the sky was pretty so up I went for another walk around the deck! The sunset reflecting on the propeller parts was fun. And when I was coming back in I thought I would spy on the buffet again and found a banana chocolate mousse cake thing that I could eat - and it was super tasty! So far the food has been pretty good (though they had a different chocolate mousse cake thing earlier that was...not great. And I was too hungry when dinner got here to remember to take a photo of that - I ordered room service as the buffet wasn't what I wanted, but I am happy with all the vegan options they have!).

The weather tomorrow is supposed to stay good so hopefully it does! If it is like this the whole time that would be perfect, but I don't really expect it will be. We shall see! It is a fun adventure!Read more