*Lana's Daily Fun Fact*
The Princess Patter is a daily guide to cruise activities. It details daytime events and nightime entertainment, as well as some historical facts about the cities we visit. Not only is it very informative, but it is also a great souvenir from our awesome vacation!

*Dave's Daily Fun Fact*
Going on a cruise is all about 2 things: relaxing and eating. The Sapphire Princess boasts 3 lunch locations and 7 dinner locations, including an Italian restaurant and a steak house, a dozen bars, a soft-serve stand (for which they have the audacity to charge), and even Afternoon Tea at 3:30pm daily. More importantly, the Horizon Court located on deck 14 offers a 24-hour buffet, complete with mini-desserts and awesome midnight snacks. It's the second coming of the Freshman Fifteen.

Did you ever notice how fast time seems to fly when you're having fun? Although we were excited to get our cruise started, we were a little sad to leave Vancouver. We will definitely come back and visit all the attractions that we missed. We had the Pan Pacific transfer our luggage directly to the ship, hoping that we wouldn't have another problem with lost luggage (it would continue to be a recurring theme, as we would find out later in the trip). The Sapphire Princess had already docked in Canada Place earlier in the morning, so we walked along the dock to take pictures and admire the sheer size of the cruise ship.

After taking a bunch of pictures, we ate lunch at Steamworks Brewing Co. I had the Deluxe Steamworks Burger (bacon and cheese) and Lana had the Mushroom Burger. The burgers were great and the fries were absolutely awesome! I used up all the remaining Canadian cash I had (except for a few coins which couldn't even buy a stick of gum) and we headed over to the dock to board our floating home for the next 7 days.

Once on board, we headed straight for the top deck to wave buy to all the onshore people as we headed off into the sunset. For some reason, we were delayed for an hour and a half. Maybe we were waiting for a few more passengers to show up. We noticed a couple on the dock that waited patiently for our ship to leave. They were a funny couple, each person always looking in different directions at different parts of the ship. They must have been there for 45 minutes or so. Their perseverance was our motivation to stay up there, despite my legs getting tired and it starting to get chilly. When we finally left, they followed along and I silently thanked them and hoped that they had more exciting plans in store for the evening.

All our information was kept on a blue key card. It's our room key and onboard credit card. Also, when we leave/board the ship, we used it to check in, as our image pops up on a screen so the attendant can verify that the correct person is coming back onto the ship. We stayed on deck 12, the Aloha deck, in room A336. Our room was great, with a nice-sized balcony and a super-small shower. Our steward's name was Dragus, and I believe he was Romanian. The crew was completely international, with everyone either European or Filipino (I suppose that's not too international). I think I'll name our first-born Dragus... Dragus Lem. Hmmm, it looks a lot cooler than it sounds.

Before dinner, we had a mandatory muster drill. Our muster station was the Wheelhouse Bar located on deck 7. If we ever heard the emergency signal (7 short blasts followed by 1 long blast), we were to grab our life vests from our cabin and head to our muster station to await further instructions. First of all, you don't need to blast the horn 8 times to get my attention; 1 blast shouting "Emergency!" would be enough to send me into a frightened frenzy. Second of all, if there ever was an emergency, you can bet your boots I'm running straight for the nearest lifeboat instead of walking down 5 flights of stairs to a bar. Didn't y'all see Titanic?

We ate dinner at the Savoy Dining Room (we ended up eating most of our meals at this dining room; the maitre d' remembered us and always greeted us). All the dining rooms served from the same menu, but each location had a different theme and atmosphere. For dinner, we each got to choose from a menu of 3 appetizers, 3 soups, 2 salads, 5 entrees, and a whole list of desserts. Lana's favorite? Unlimited bread.

We closed out the night with an appletini and headed back to our cabin to get some much needed rest after a long day of... well, a long day of nothing really. But hey, it's our vacation, right?