Today was an exploration kind of day, finding places on the ship, getting internet access set up, attending a shore excursion briefing, lifeboat drill, and all that sort of thing. This is a big ship, and already we have found one instance of "you can't get there from here, you have to go somewhere else first."  The fourth deck (which is the one our dining table is on) does not have a hallway that goes all the way from front to back, so if you go down to the fourth level at the front (bow) of the ship, you have to go either up or down, go to the back (stern) and then go either down or up to get back to four again. One group of people apparently didn’t realize how big the ship was, or they got turned around, because we ran into them twice as one of them informed the others “we have to go up then down.”

 In the morning I had a meeting with Austin, who will be my personal trainer, to determine what degree of flab I have fallen to (not as bad as I thought, according to him, although if he told me it was hopeless he would lose a customer, so take it with a grain of salt) . I have never belonged to a gym before, so I really do want at least some sessions with a personal trainer to have an introduction to the various machines and help with working out a routine. This morning was just a series of tests to see how strong/weak I am, both to let him know where we are starting from and to give him something to measure progress against. Tomorrow the real work begins.

Apparently it is very easy to forget what day it is when on a cruise, so Holland America has a solution. The carpet on the floor of each elevator has the day on it, just in case you need to know (see picture).

We attended a briefing on the excursions for the next few ports, and worked out what ones we wanted to sign up for. We also walked around several of the decks to find out what is where. We found the two pools and a special area above the Sports Deck that is marked ”Teens Only.” In what is called the Sea View pool (because it is on the very back of the ship), we saw a man swimming like crazy but not getting anywhere: one of his legs was tethered to a pool ladder. The pools are small enough so that is probably the only way to swim for exercise. For the rest, we had a lazy day, reading books on the iPad and Kindle and watching the sea go by from our balcony. I found out that my Kindle newspaper and magazine subscriptions do not download when we are at sea, so I am going to cancel them. At least I found out during the 14 day free trial period.

After dinner, we attended a show in the Queens Lounge – a comedian. He was corny, and definitely not PC, but more or less clean. On the veranda, we looked out and saw more stars than we have seen in a long time, but not the Southern Cross yet. Slept much better; either the vibration is less, or I am getting used to it (maybe both).