Well, one and a 3/4!
I'll start with our boarding. We woke you early and had to leave our hotel at 11am checkout. We triple checked we had all of our stuff and headed outside to get a taxi. He was way nicer then all the ones we had taken over the past few days, that's for sure! He told us about portland and was very friendly. He also said he brings a lot of people every week to go to their cruises at the pier where the ships our docked. Seeing our ship as we were pulling up was surreal. I couldn't believe after months of waiting (Seven to be exact!) we finally were going to set foot on our Alaskan cruise. Tracy and I couldn't stop saying "OMG we're going to Alaska!!!" Tom and Sean were excited as well, of course.
When you first arrive for a cruise you have to go through security. Similar to an airport with the bag check and emptying out electronics, such as laptops/cameras. You walk through an old school metal detector. You then before you enter you show your passport, and tickets. Btw I forgot to mention when you first arrive in the drop off they will take your luggage, before you arrive you staple on the tags they email you with all your info on the.) Then you head to the check in desks and they process it then give you a colored sticker along with a number on a small ticket and they give you your room card. You will use that for everything. DO NOT LOSE IT!
Then you wait to board. A women starts calling the numbers and when yours is called you get in line and hand your number ticket it over! You line up to go on a huge ramp that leads everyone up the to the ship! Once You get to the boat that scan your room key and tell you which side to go. At one point along your way you get to take a picture with an "Alaskan" backdrop. Everyone did boring still smiling poses and of course Sean and I are anything but boring. So ours is pretty goofy. The photographer started laughing.
Then we headed to our room! We were deck 5 so it's lower in the ship, and we were in the middle of it right next to the giant plaza! Our room is through the art gallery. A guess cruises do auction?! Such beautiful painting, they even had Pino's! Sean's favorite! We slide our card and entered, oh my gosh! This is where we'll be staying for a whole week! It was tiny and the bathroom was super small with a weird toilet, we had a king sized bed and the closet is massive! Our luggage was outside of our room right as we arrived. I read that sometimes it can take hours before you get it because of how many people! So we were pretty lucky, Sean was able to change his shirt before we explored!
We met back up with Tom and Tracy and adventured out to see all the awesome cruise stuff! The plaza next to the room has the international cafe which is open 24/7. Talk about perfect for night owls like Sean and I. The plaza was gorgeous. Gold with three leveled spiral stairs. Right out of a fairytale. So it was easy for us to get to the most popular floors. The had tons of lounges/bars that had live music. The were all unique but all classy. I felt like a rich person just being there! The elevators were Gatsby like, full gold with mirrors, perfect for selfies, haha. We headed to the top of the ship, I couldn't believe it, outdoor bars, pools, and even a outdoor movie theatre! Before anything though you have to go to the emergency meetings, it's about 30 minutes. They just show you how to use a life jacket and instructions for where to meet and what happens in an emergency. Our meeting spot was the casino! We thought we'd go there durning the week, but honestly is smelled so smoky! Ick! We never went, they have a non smoking night but it doesn't even matter. Tracy is a smoker and even thought it was disgusting! Anyway back to the fun stuff!
First thing we all decided to do was eat! We were starving! So we headed to the Horizon, a anytime dinning option. It's buffet style. They all loved it, but for me I'm a vegetarian and picky. So it was pretty sucky for me the whole week. I lived off the pizza bar by the pool for a week! The top floor was awesome, you could eat in the horizon dinning room or the outside, we ate at both durning the week, depending on how cold. The also have a burger bar near the pool and if we ate there then we sat by the awesome full window seats. Pretty neat! Then we headed to the Tradeswinds bar! It became our meeting spot the whole trip, since cellphones most of the time didn't work. We actually used landlines to call each others rooms, haha! We got to see Seattle and the Space Needle for the top deck, and it became a huge party once they blew the horn as we left the dock and set sail!
The band was jamming by the pool fun songs, even the electric slide which Tracy jumped on in. Everyone was cheering and drinking and having a good time. Of course as we were leaving Sean was hugging me from behind as we looked out at the view I flung my arms open and screamed "I'm kind of the World!" Startling him, but it had to happen! About 2 hours later then party stopped outside and we went back to the room to unpack and relax. We changed into some nicer clothes and went to the Explores lounge and the ordered drinks and we listened to the fantastic live music. It was a great start to our trip. Sean and I went back to the room around midnight because Tom was wasted and we were not, so we headed to the room to relax. I uploaded all my photos to the computer and we charged all of our stuff. The next morning I was not well! It was anxiety ridden, we were at full open sea and I was sea sick. Feeling the boat rock all night kind of freaked me out. So I pretty much slept till 3pm. Apparently Sean was basically alone all day. Turns out Tom and Tracy also had a rough night and spent the day in their room sick. By 4pm I was much better, it was really just anxiety that had me unwell. At the end of our trip we found out from a band member our first night at sea had been the roughest out of all cruise season, which is five months! Lucky us. We ate some food and chilled outside. Around 5pm we headed back to the rooms to get dressed for dinner. It was a dress up night so I got to wear a nice dress and Sean had to button up and tie it! He's so Adorable. We went to the Italian restaurant. Super fun seeing everyone all glamed up. On our way there we went down on of these main hallways and found our picture from our boarding the ship. We waited till after dinner to buy it though. Dinner was great, I finally had a good meal. Well, just buttered pasta, cause the menus are small and mostly meat or weird gross stuff. But our waiter was cool and hilarious! And we basically picked out everyones meal. He made the right choices and they loved it.
After our scrumptious dinner we headed back to our rooms and decided to all change and chill before we meet up around 7:30pm to enjoy the night. We returned to the Explorer's Lounge again. Got to see some karaoke. Then the band Passion played again. Tom went to use the bathroom and when he came back and was like "Guys! You need to come with me!" so obviously we followed him. We went the the 3rd level of the plaza and the most wonderful violinist was playing. What a talented he had. He's played so fast but his fingers glided with ease like it was nothing. It was a great night we went to bed earlier because tomorrow was our first day in Alaska! Docking at 7 in the morning! And you betcha we were going to get off as soon as we could! Land is my favorite!
Tomorrow I'll be posting Alaska Day: Three! Once it's up I'll come back here to post Links to each of the days!
Love always, Christina
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