December 2: Fly and Embark in San Francisco

Being so off schedule is not doing me any favors when I need an extra early rise to get to the airport. But it only takes me a minute after I snooze the alarm to realize I don’t really want to do that.

I have places to go!

Original itinerary. Some ports changed but they didn’t post the new route for me to share.

The night before, I realize (it is pointed out to me) that I never set up my return airport pickup with any of my family – how did I manage that?? And I almost STILL don’t because I’m scrambling the night before to figure out what happened with my idiot COBRA people.

Thank heavens my sister is up late. Though I give her a moment when I refer kind of vaguely to my “cobra situation” and she has to process that I am referring to insurance, not serpents. Disasters either way, of course. 🤣

It’s frosty as Dad takes me to the airport (outbound I had squared away no issues) and my flight is on-time. It’s bumpy in the air, not to mention trying to figure out the entertainment system lol – but a little over 6 hours later (and a refreshing 20 minutes of sleep haha) I’m in California, finding my Princess representative and on my way to the ship.

Already wearing my Medallion – combo ID, wallet, and cabin key in one

The checkin process is very smooth and in no time I’ve embarked. I carry on, so I don’t have bags I need to wait for – within half an hour I’m in my cabin, quickly stashing my belongings and making my floating hotel room into my own little oasis for the next 2 weeks ahead.

And then I’m off to explore the ship a bit and go snap some shots of the port before we Sailaway into the sunset.