Anchors Aweigh!

We began our day by slowing trying to repack what we had already packed to come here. It seems both of us have had to open every piece of luggage we brought to find one thing or another so it took us awhile to get it all put back together, get showered and then head up (and I mean up) first the elevator, then a long (it just seems that way..really it’s about a block and a half straight up) hike up to Pike Place Market to get a bouquet of flowers to take to the ship with us. It was fleet week here and the battleship that was in front of our window at the hotel all weekend was getting ready to leave. It was supposed to be sunny and clear today but again it was overcast but strangely humid although I wouldn’t say it was warm, it wasn’t cold either. After gasping for air and clutching our chests when reaching the top of hill to the market, we wondered if we would live to enjoy the flowers we bought for our cabin! We got to the cruise terminal and it was a weird setup. We couldn’t figure out the setup and there were no porters around to help. Our not so nice Pakistani/Iranian/Indian cab driver dropped us in the middle of nowhere as far away from where we needed to be as possible so we had to drag the luggage and bouquets of flowers all the way to the terminal by ourselves. Then after this nice man did take our luggage and we tipped him, he promptly gave us a tip and sent us to the wrong line! We did finally get to security where the lady told me I had a very “busy” bag and asked me to remove my laptop. That took major maneuvering as we had crammed the wine we bought in there too along with items that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. She did allow me through and we went to the next que to wait to check in. We had “Andy” who was way perkier than we were by this point but we got happier when he handed us our cards and we headed for the ship. Kay was horrified when we were getting our embarkation photo taken when the video team also took our photos with our flower bouquets. She was heard saying that she was not going to buy a video just because they took her picture…we’ll see.

Our cabin is very nice. There are no inside cabins where we are so these cabins are very long and roomy. We have plenty of room between the beds and a full size sofa, a chair and coffee table along the with desk/dresser and shelving and flat screen TV. We left on time to a salute of the ship’s horn to their corporate office that is in Seattle. It was raining and getting very chilly as we passed island after island. We were assigned to eat at 5:30 today and had a table by the back window that was lovely. The casino was closed last night because we were in Washington waters so we went to the piano bar after dinner and the lady singing and playing there is excellent and fun. This will be a good place for after dinner. We went to the Welcome Aboard Show and it was fun and they had a magician that really was a comedian and did some rope tricks that were very funny. We left when the dancers came back on because I was falling asleep sitting up. Great night sleeping Debbie with the rocking and rolling.