Embarkation day is here! We are up and out, walking along the river for our last morning exercise in Adelaide. It is another gorgeous day here – and we really hate to be leaving, but more adventure awaits aboard our new home for the next 17 days.

Back in the apartment we get all our packing done, shower and clean up the place – then decide we are not taking the train to the port as we had originally planned. Uber takes the same amount of time – just without the hassle of dragging our bags down the street two blocks and then muscling them onto the train with no real place to put them, getting all hot and sweaty in the meantime – all just to save a couple of bucks. Nah – we’re taking the easy way out (Peter – you should be very proud of us!).

The Uber is literally on the same block as the apartment when we push the button. He is at the curb before we are even out the doors. That’s service! And off we go for our 30 minute ride with the sweetest Uber driver ever! Indian born, here in Adelaide for 16 years, talked the entire ride, told us all about living here, how much he loves it, his family, the life, everything. Totally fabulous way to say goodbye to Adelaide. We loved him!

Dropping us off at the terminal, we bid goodbye to our new Adelaide friend and headed inside to drop our bags and check in. Smoothest check in ever -seriously. Everything was on the app, the check in clerk checked our passports and vax cards, handed us our medallions and voila! aboard the ship we went. Cool!

Even though it was a little before 12 noon, the rooms were ready, so we headed straight to our refuge for the next 17 days – full aft suite on Dolphin deck. What a great room! Full size living area with sofa and chair, excellent huge bathroom with separate toilet room, huge bedroom and the piece de resistance – massive fully covered balcony with 2 loungers and a large table for breakfasts and dinners. Sweet!

Hand luggage stowed, we head out to explore the ship, quickly finding our way and remembering the basic layout of the Grand class on Princess. We hit the buffet for lunch – good selection of sandwiches, hot dishes and salad – then continue our wandering ending up in the Wheelhouse for our first drink of the day!

This is our first cruise using the Medallion system, which is cool, if not creepy the way the thing works. It is your room key, which is fine, the door is automatically unlocked when you are in the vicinity of the room – and your picture is flashed up on the electronic screen next to your door. It works from a ways away – our door is around a corner and it is always unlocked when we round the corner – no idea how far down the hallway we are when it opens. The Medallion also tracks you around the ship – so when we order drinks, the tablets the bartenders use automatically pick up who is in the area – along with our photos, so we order, and the bartender looks at his screen and says, “Cathy?” And that is how you pay. Restaurant host/hostess desks are the same. Sort of creepy.

Also, everything is controlled by the stupid Medallion app. I won’t even go into the problems we had trying to get it to work on Ed’s phone. It took hours – literally – and finally after about 5 hard reboots, we got it to work. But you have to have it. Your account is on there, dining reservations are on there, full daily planner is on there (even though that thing STINKS big time – they need to completely redesign it) – oh and here’s an innovation (which I am absolutely certain the servers HATE) – you can order food or drinks from the app and have it delivered to you anywhere. So, we’re sitting at the pool (well, we wouldn’t be, but as an example!) and you want a beverage – order it on your app. You give your approximate location and the server will come around and look for you. Same with food – and there is a lot you can order, like salads, burgers, sandwiches, all sorts of stuff. Really kind of cool – but kind of a nightmare for the staff we would think.

As for the suite amenities – we get the special dining room for lunch and dinner and a special place for breakfast. Also canapes at night – if we want them. We have to order them. Which is really smart when you think about the food waste. We have a little paper order slip where we can choose a selection of canapes (maximum of 6) for our steward to bring. Haven’t done that yet – because we also have the Elite lounge at night which has a ton of food – and really – how much food do we need? Not that much, you can be assured!

So – on with our day…..Back in the room, our bags have arrived (phew!). Unpacking is quick, and we are ready to check into our muster stations. There is some initial confusion about when the muster station will be open to check in – since this is only a “small” embarkation port (Princess is doing the Costa thing – you can board in Melbourne or here, in Adelaide, and take a 3 day “seacation” to Melbourne, a 5 day RT from Melbourne or a 19 day Melbourne RT with New Zealand – it is totally confusing, and confusing to the staff too – talk about pressure on them! Crazy!) the muster stations aren’t set up until later in the afternoon. But, the Patter (the daily newspaper) and the video you have to watch in your staterooms tells you to proceed to your muster stations to check in without a timeframe – thus the confusion. Supposedly the check in won’t start until 3pm, but we are there around 2:45. Sigh. There is a bizarre little sitting area in the corner near the stairs by the entrance to the Vista lounge (our muster station), so we hang out there to wait. Finally we notice that the guy who told us we couldn’t check in until 3pm is letting others check in. Eek. Oh well, we’re right here, so we’re checking in too. Done. Finally!

Then it is off to the gym, and to get ready for our first night aboard. We meet our cabin steward, Felix, who is a doll. Then get ready to go to dinner in our special “Club Class” dining area. That all works our perfectly smoothly – of course this is a long port call for those who are staying on so a lot of folks are still outside, or just coming back – we will have to reserve judgement on just how smoothly our little dining area operates once we are on the 14 day NZ portion of the cruise. But regardless, tonight it is perfect. We have excellent servers – Antonio and Nixson, both from the Philippines – so we get to practice our Tagalog – which they find really wild that we know how to speak some things. Very fun.

The show tonight is a singer – who didn’t ring our bell. Not to mention the theater is typical Princess undersized! We walked into the 7:30 show just to see how the singer was – and it was wall to wall, shoulder to shoulder. Not a seat in the house. We stood in the back and watched, but ended up heading out to the Explorers lounge for the band – who are extremely good.

Then it was to the balcony for our end of evening beverages – not letting this balcony go to waste – no way no how! And off to bed, ready for Kangaroo Island in the morning..