October 1,Embarkation day! New ship and Linda gets goosebumps!

 

Today after checking out of our hotel we taxi’d our way to port and boarded The Polaris for our Longitudinal World Cruise IV. No, it’s not our fourth WC, just the fourth itinerary for Viking. What this cruise is, essentially, is a repositioning of the ship after spending the spring and summer in the Great Lakes and preparing to spend the spring and summer in the southern Hemisphere taking passengers to Antarctica. Lucky for us we get to see both areas and lots in between. 

Sparkling wine always makes the safety meeting better!

Our first order of business after boarding and checking in was to attend a safety meeting and learn how to put on our life vest. These are much different than those on other ships in that they have a neoprene jacket to slip into besides the floaty thing….so incase you are in cold water you will stay a little warmer……I’m hoping not to test these things out!

I took a few pictures today but not a really good selection..We spent time trying to find our way around the ship and then spent a couple of hours trying to put our clothes into the small closets.  I’m impressed at how well they have managed to get our room so efficient but once again I probably should have packed only half of what I ended up bringing. The living area of the room is lovely and although I miss having a patio, the window is awesome and lowers most of the way down. We can certainly get the feel of being outside without having to actually sit out in the weather and bugs!  

Viking seem to understand the concept of a birthday month because when we got into our room there was a delightful chocolate mousse birthday cake and a bottle of champagne waiting for me with a birthday card…I have 23 more days of celebrating to go!

While walking around trying to find where I was, I took just a few pictures. 

We got a peek at some of the toys and the lifeboats.

Kayaks for future fun

Lifeboat tender

Zodiacs 

We are equipped with two submarines and I’ll show better pictures when we take a tour of the Hanger later this week.

Some of the science toys. The weather balloons are set off weekly

One of the science lab stations

The living room is relaxing and quiet…and filled with thousands of books for the passengers to read while on board.

Before dinner we had our first daily briefing and met the science officers. Our chief scientist, Dr. Brandi, introduced her staff and filled us in on what our part will be in this expedition. Seeing that we are involved with research for Cornell University, Cambridge,NOAA,and a few other institutions was goose bumpy for sure! Currently the on board ornithologist will have us helping conduct an observation of migrating birds as we are in the middle of the yearly migration. Much of the data collected is from our wildlife sightings.  The weather balloons are released to help collect data concerning weather patterns over water. It’s all pretty interesting and even I, who am science challenged ,am looking forward to being involved. 

We headed to the World Cafe (the buffet) tonight for our dinner after the daily briefing. The Sushi bar was spectacular, the salad bar excellent and the wine selection perfect. We didn’t make it to the grill area where you pick out your steak and lobster,but plan on that another day. The desert bar looked fabulous but since we had the birthday cake waiting in our room,we decided a nightcap was better before heading into the relaxing portion of our night. 

We have been pleasantly surprised by the number of passengers we already know. Seems like of the 84 who are longitudinal travelers, half of them were on our 22/23 world cruise!

Tomorrow we explore the city of Milwaukee and then have an early departure heading on our way to Mackinaw Island.