The song has been stuck in my head for the last couple of weeks as we’ve been getting ready for this cruise. But now that we finally are sailing, maybe it’ll get flushed out.

But I must begin with a confession: the photo of the ship in yesterday’s post is not ours. No matter: ours appears to be a sister ship, so you get the idea. It turns out that internet is horrendously expensive and slow on the boat, so I will not be including tons of photos until after the cruise.

I first encountered our ship on Saturday morning when was running around the Stanley Park seawall. Yes, my back has begun cooperating sufficiently to allow exercise. So here I was, right underneath the Lion’s Gate bridge at six in the morning, and underneath the bridge are me and our huge cruise ship. (Oh, there was also a great blue heron and a couple of geese.)

Our embarkation was uneventful, except long, given security, re-entry into the United States — Homeland Security did it in Vancouver, so we don’t have to do it Ketchikan, our first port of call — and other stuff. But we got on, and the boat sailed around 5 p.m. I went underneath the Lion’s Gate bridge the second time of the day, this time on the forward deck of Diamond Princess.

All in all, it’s not bad at all being on the cruise. Our stateroom is, if not stately, certainly very

 nice and large for a cabin, with its own relatively wind-free balcony. (Here’s a view from it on Sunday morning.)