The cruise begins!

Day 1  February 2, 2018   San Pedro

Janet and I had lunch on board in what became one of favorite places, O'Sheehan's (yes, the same name and menu as on our last cruise). Chuck Collins drove us to the ship, and after a long wait in line to check in, we enjoyed the afternoon on board, "exercising" our Beverage Packages!

The day began with me buying Elton John Farewell Tour tickets (for Cincinnati, more than a year off) the second they opened the online window to sell tickets. It was 10 am for Cinci, but 7 am here. Janet was still asleep.

We had breakfast at Chips again, and then went to Chuck's for a nice visit. Such an interesting fellow. He had Sirius Margaritaville on his radio during our visit, and we learned he's a big Jimmy Buffett fan. He described how he was able to retire early with full benefits by winning an "incapacitated" case because he could not get along with his fellow law-firm colleagues.

We then drove separately to the car rental lot to turn in our Malibu, and he drove us to San Pedro. The line outside to check our luggage was really long, but we eventually made it. Once inside, we got to use the Latitudes Platinum line to bypass the long check-in lines.

Drinks in hand, Janet and I watched others dance on the pool deck as we departed. There already were people in the hot tub! This was our introduction to Cruise Director Mandy and the Norwegian Star's production cast. One thing Janet and I had noticed during our lines and check-in and once on board was that there were hardly any Asians. What a different type of crowd we had here, compared to our last cruise to Norway.

Departing just before we did was another STAR cruise ship, the Princess Star. It was headed to Hawaii. I learned later that this was the same ship and cruise that Al and Liz Skylar had taken a couple weeks earlier. Janet also thought that this may have been one of the Princess ships she had been on before.

On deck to watch familiar scenery as we departed the harbor we'd visited so many times during our SoCal lives.

 Docked near our ship was the battleship USS Iowa, now a museum. It was active during WWII, and decommissioned in 1990.

  One of the Ports O' Call restaurants.

The sun set as we were reaching the breakwater. I showed Janet the small-boat docks in the distance where I launched my boat a few times to go to Catalina Island.

We ate dinner in the big Versailles Dining Room, with a couple from Corona. We sat at the very back, and could watch out the huge stern windows the mainland behind us as we headed south. Dinner service was VERY slow that night, but we still got to the stage show in time. We were off and sailing!