Pampered, Spoiled, Coddled and Indulged

With a successful visit to Yoyogi Park and Harajuku under our obi, we made it back to Tokyo Station, found our luggage and headed to Yokohama for a 4:45 boarding of the Celebrity cruise ship, the Millennium.   Our return to Vancouver and home was to be a slow and leisurely trip.  For the next 15 days we would be pampered, spoiled, coddled and indulged. As good as that sounds, it does come with a price.

Our arrival in the afternoon and check in was quick and with out incident. By coming at our suggested assigned boarding time, we avoided the huge crush of those who ignored their times and came early. Reportedly making boarding a real gong show.  We did miss that first lunch and did not make into the dining room for the early seating, so had to make do with a meal in the cafeteria.  Ohhh, the trials and tribulations of cruising.

Day 17, we were up early for a return trip to the Nippori Fabric Street. The national holiday was over and Nonie fully expected to find all the fabric shops opened and to hit them all before returning to the ship. With an evening departure, we wanted to give ourselves (Nonie) plenty of time. Making it back to the ship on time, we skipped the dining room and had dinner on the back deck as we sailed out of Yokohama.

Our room was on the lowest (2nd Deck) passenger level of the ship and approximately mid ship.

The perfect spot to ride out any storms that we might face crossing the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. While there were some rough days, none that caused us any discomfort.

So for the next 15 days we would be meeting new people,

lazing around the hot tub waiting for the first drink of the day.  The pools were not heated as I quickly discovered when I tried to do laps and only succeeded in seeing the boys disappear for several hours,

and of course eating numerous 5 course dinners which included a bromance with our wine steward who never made a bad recommendation.

We achieved our goal of not using an elevator during the entire trip, which meant lots of stair reps over 15 days staving off that cruise weight gain.












We celebrated two Mondays when we crossed the International Dateline. Disturbingly, both days were quite similar.  Get up, breakfast in the cafeteria, take in a presentation, lunch in the cafeteria, coffee in the bistro, dinner in the dining room, take in a show, got to bed. Repeat

There are three stops to break up the first week of our cruise. Two on the island of Hokkaido Japan and one stop in Petropavlosvk Russia on the Kamchatka Peninsula.