Hurricane?!!! “There is a Hurricane Matthew heading New England’s way!”.  What?!! My goodness gracious, those are the words that I heard come out of Chris’ mouth a week before we were to leave for our cruise.  Let me preface my following words by saying that my thoughts and prayers were with ALL of those that were in Matthew’s path, it was a horribly devastating storm and it left behind it major damage and many injured and dead–It was a terrible storm and I would never want y’all to think that all of those people and places that Matthew ravaged were out of my mind and I was only focused on our cruise as that wasn’t the case.  I had many friends who were in the path of that storm and I spent much time in deep thought and prayer for their safety as it ravaged passed them.  I will admit though, that when I turned the tv on and saw a map such as this, I started taking deep breaths and also praying that the Princess cruise to Canada and New England that we had been planning for the last 6 months wouldn’t be affected.

I watched with great interest and worry and saw many maps such as the one pictured above as we worked our way through the week prior to our cruise.  Finally, on the Wednesday before we were to leave the following Saturday, Matthew decided that he was going to make a turn and go out to sea instead of heading over our home and then onward up the East Coast. This was a relief, not only for our cruise, but, also for our oldest daughter and pups that would have had to weather the storm in our home.  I cannot express the sense of relief that flooded my very being.  Yes, I’m a bit high strung at times and yes, the stress of worrying about that hurricane on all fronts just about caused me to go into full panic attack mode (literally) <~~~Not even kidding!  I turned my attention once again to my planning and eventually to my packing for this lovely trip. 🙂  I was doing this while watching the devastation that that awful storm was reeking as it marched up the coast of Florida, onward into Georgia, and eventually touching South and North Carolina–I must pause here and say that both Chris and my good thoughts and prayers went out to all that were affected, it just broke our hearts. 😦

It did finally come time for us to get ourselves packed up and ready to go, I created a little video for y’all to watch and in it, I show you how I utilize my medium packing folder  and my packing cubes. I then explain how I packed everything and that I had to change course from my original packing plan and adjust (NOT easy for me) to my new plan. 🙂  Here is that little video:

As I just mentioned in that video, I do not do well when I have to change course after I had one plan in my head for months and months…but…I managed to do so without having a meltdown…go me! 😉 🙂

Now fast forward to Saturday morning, very early on Saturday morning, like 4am on Saturday morning.  EVEN with the excitement of heading out to hop in the car and drive to our cruise port, I am still not much of a morning person, but, hop up out of bed I did and before I knew it, we were in the car and on our way…YES, we got to DRIVE to this cruise port!! YIPPEE…We’d never been able to do that before…what a pleasure it was not to have to worry about airport security, rushing from one gate to the next, and being smooshed like a sardine in a can as we made our way to our destination. We drove out of our driveway at 5:45am on that Saturday morning and when the sun finally did come up it was a lovely day!

Our first stop was at the “Maryland House”, we grabbed a bit of breakfast and took a tiny break before continuing Northward to our eventual destination, the Brooklyn Cruise Port where Princess Cruises big, beautiful Regal Princess would be waiting.   

Before I continue on, here is what our Itinerary would be for the coming week (the one pictured below is actually the Itinerary for 2017, but it is the same one for which we were fixin’ to depart):

After our little break, we hopped back in the car and got back on the road heading on out of Maryland and into Delaware…

Being very grateful that we had an E-ZPass…Makes going through toll booths so much easier not to mention quicker…

And eventually we made it into New York…

And over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge:

That led us into Brooklyn…

And eventually, with a little help from our GPS, to the Brooklyn Cruise Port.  NOTE:  The route once you leave the interstate and are weaving your way to the cruise port it is quite challenging for a first time visitor (like us).  I highly recommend that you have some sort of a navigational tool…i.e. Car Navigation system, GPS, Cell phone nav…***something***.  It was a bit of a harrowing experience, BUT, we finally turned a corner and this is what we saw…

And listen to Arlynn the excited goober in this little video…haha:

The road led us straight to the cruise terminal and we dropped our bags off with the Princess representatives before we went to park…yay, we didn’t have to roll our suitcases across the parking lot after-all!  I LOVE Princess! 🙂

Then we made our way around to the parking lot and parked our car.  Chris found a lovely corner parking space where his car would be nice and safe for the next week.  It is a secure parking lot too, just to let y’all know that. 🙂

Then of course “Ms Chatty Cathy” started talking to some folks who were parking their car close to us as she was trying to take a selfie in front of the Regal—To say I was a tiny bit excited at this point would be an understatement. 🙂

Chris finally grabbed a camera and clicked off this picture:

We then gathered our backpacks and walked to the cruise terminal which was no more than 2 blocks or less away…You can see the door that we entered through on the very right side of the picture above ^^^. 🙂

And for the very first time in our cruising history, we were directed to the “Preferred Check-In” line…what?!! My gracious, **that** was nice.

We were handed our “Platinum” room cards (the sticker means that I purchased a “Soda & More” package online before we left home) and a map of the Regal Princess…

:

We were pointed to the VIP room (what?), lol, and before we knew it, we were being told we could board the ship. The following is a little video that I took as we were boarding the gorgeous Regal Princess!

Stay tuned, the fun is *just* beginning!  Next up, I’ll tell you about our Sail Away out of Brooklyn and share with you a tour of our Mini Suite. 🙂

Here is a little preview of what we saw as we were sailing out of New York City:

Until next time, y’all take good care!! ❤

***If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me…Psalm 139***

~Arlynn ❤

Here is a link to my next Blog post in this Series:

Canada & New England Cruise: Mini Suite Tour, Muster Drill, Sail Away, Princess Patter & More

**And if you are interested in checking out the wardrobe that I chose to take on this cruise and my pre-cruise packing report, here are a couple more links for you to peruse through:

Canada & New England Cruise Wardrobe Choices

Canada & New England: Pre-Cruise Report

I also have a Facebook travel page, please feel free to join! Here is that link:

Arlynn’s Travel Blogs & More

And one more, I also have a YouTube travel channel, please like and subscribe if you’d like! 

Arlynn’s Travels