2022-05-13: Boarding the Celebrity Millennium

We woke up shortly after 8:00am this morning. We were disappointed we didn’t sleep any later, but quickly came to the realization that it was 9:00am Calgary time. That’s not a bad sleep in for us. We got ourselves showered and dressed and headed out to grab some breakfast. We saw a little cafe down the street called the Red Umbrella Cafe that we figured we’d try. It was a small place but it was busy. Darrell was disappointed that they only offer eggs benedict on weekends and it was only Friday. It certainly wasnt a fast dining experience, but the food was tasty.

After breakfast we headed to Starbucks on the other end of the block to grab some drinks before going for a morning walk. We headed back to English Bay and walked the opposite direction from the night before. We ended up walking to “Second Beach” in Stanley Park before turning around and heading back to the hotel.

We got ourselves packed up again and had the front desk call us a taxi. At about 11:45 we jumped in the taxi and headed to Canada Place to board our cruise ship, the Celebrity Millenium. We dropped off our bags and walked to the check in area. We were expecting to have to wait in a large line, but it wasn’t very busy. They asked to see our passports and COVID tests before ushering us to security. We walked right through security and then had to go through US Customs. The line wasn’t very long here either, but they had a Nexus line that was completely empty. Nexus saves us time again! We were through customs within a couple of minutes and headed to the ship. After getting a picture taken by the ship’s photographer, we joined the line to board the ship. This was the longest line we encountered, but still only took 5 or 10 minutes to get onboard. In the past we’ve been given our Seapass cards on shore and have had to scan them to get on the ship. This time we were told to collect our Seapass cards from our staterooms.

Once on the ship we headed to our stateroom. There was a sign on the door that said the room wasn’t ready yet but we were welcome to grab our Seapss cards and drop off our bags before exploring the ship. We took a quick look around the stateroom and then went exploring. The ship is over 20 years old but looks very nice. It’s a smaller in comparison to the newer ones and only holds 2200 passengers. We made our way to the Oceanview Cafe and grabbed a bit to eat for lunch. We enjoyed lunch on the outdoor patio at the back of the ship. Just as we were finishing our lunch, it started to rain a bit. We decided it was time to head back indoors and explore some more. We spent some time getting acquainted with the ship and exploring the public areas.

It was mid-afternoon at this point so we headed back to our stateroom. Unfortunately, it still wasn’t quite ready for us. We decided we’d find somewhere to relax for a bit. We read about some daily sudoku puzzles in the Sky Lounge so headed that way to see if they had one today. They did not have one today, but the Sky Lounge was quiet and had a great view of the harbour from deck 11 so we decided to hang out there for a bit. We ended up staying there until the ship pulled out of port. We watched the ship sail out of the harbour and under the Lions Gate Bridge. Once we had left the harbour area, we headed down to our stateroom again. It was finally ready for us and our baggage was waiting outside the room. We got ourselves unpacked and relaxed in the room for a while.

We headed to dinner in the main dining room around 7:15pm. We both had mushroom soup for an appetizer and prime rib with mashed potatoes, carrots, and green beans for the main course. Amanda chose a dulce de leche and Darrell chose a banana and blueberry crumble for dessert. The meals were delicious.

After dinner we headed to the theatre for tonight’s show. Our cruise director Alejandro gave a brief introduction. He’s from Argentina. He introduced tonight’s performer who was a comedian by the name of Fred Bevill. He was hilarious! He engaged with a few members of the crowd, but really attached to a young man and his girlfriend from Alabama. We really enjoyed the show. We found out during the show that this is Millennium’s first Alaska sailing of the year and there are only about 1100 people on the cruise but the ship has a capacity of about 2200. The ship is only half full!

After the show, we wandered through the onboard shops briefly. Darrell bought a hat he liked since he forgot his hat at home. Then we returned to our stateroom. Darrell took a look outside and saw we were travelling through a very narrow passage. He checked the GPS on his phone and determined we traversing a narrow passage just North of Campbell River. We passed a place called Brown’s Bay Resort. No one told us we had a bay or a resort! Shortly after passing the resort, we passed a couple of tug boats followed by another cruise ship; Holland America’s Koningsdam. It’s just returning from Alaska and will be docking in Vancouver in the morning. After watching the Koningsdam sail by, we returned inside and got ready for bed. Tomorrow is a day at sea sailing the Inside Passage.