Mike and Pam came by our apartment, picked us up and away we went to the Port of Houston. We had prepaid parking and had a bit of a wait to get through the line and park, but it all went smoothly. We got very excited when we arrived and saw the ship...it's quite impressive! We did get a laugh when we saw that the "covered parking" was actually guys putting a cover on your car! I can't remember what the additional charge was for this, but it was pretty hefty.

We dropped off our luggage and then headed inside. The check in process went very easily, although we did have to fill out an additional form this time stating we did not have a fever or that we had not been to an Ebola country. And my new fan made it through just fine, no confiscating it this time!

It was a chilly morning, so we were all bundled up with our coats and scarves but once on the ship, we hung those up in our rooms, A509 & A515, and grabbed some lunch. The buffet room was very crowded but we managed to score a table by the window. We headed back to our rooms and unpacked, chatted a moment with our steward, Christian, then met up to go exploring the ship.

The main Piazza area was really decked out for Christmas since this was December 7th, and was just beautiful. There were Christmas trees all over the ship, but they had definitely concentrated on this area with the decorations.

We enjoyed dinner in the main dining room, then checked out the Princess Patter to see what activities were going on. Rich & I decided we would go watch Sunday Night Football at the Movies under the Stars, while Pam & Mike went to the theater. It was really chilly due to the wind and we had to use towels because all the blankets were still in the laundry. I didn't last too long. :))