Our Alaska cruise adventure started today. We met at 8:00 a.m. in the hotel lobby to walk to breakfast at a small French bistro that Chris recommended. It was a healthy walk to the restaurant, and fortunately the weather was beautiful, pleasant and with a cloudless blue sky.
After breakfast we went back to the hotel to freshen up and met in the lobby again, this time with our luggage. We ordered cabs to ride to the pier since we had too much luggage to walk comfortably. The hotel desk told us that the cab companies refused to send minivans except for people in wheelchairs, so we had to take separate cabs. The short ride cost only $6.75 plus tip, well worth it for the convenience.
At Pier 66, we joined a line of passengers waiting to drop off luggage for the Norwegian Pearl. The line went pretty quickly. There was a security check, but it was much less formal and stringent than the TSA runs at airports. For some reason our large suitcase was pulled aside for special handling.
We continued to the ticket windows for people who hadn’t cruised on Norwegian before, where we had our pictures taken digitally and received our key cards. These are our on board credit cards, so we were cautioned to be careful with them. Then we walked aboard and went to deck 11 to check out our staterooms. They weren’t entirely ready yet, but our room steward, Mohammed, introduced himself and said it was fine to leave our luggage, so we went to explore the ship.
It's huge! There are three main staircases: fore, mid, and aft. Our staterooms are on Deck 11. Deck 12 includes the main buffet, the Garden Cafe, and all the pools and hot tubs. Today there are people in the pools, since Seattle is sunny and warm today. We found the Summer Palace, one of the two main dining rooms, was open, so we had lunch there. It's a lovely venue with a great view out the back of the ship. White tablecloths and napkins, friendly service, good food--but oddly enough, no good mixed green salads.
One of the big events was a lifeboat safety drill. All passengers were required to go to their official gathering area (indicated on our key cards). As we reached the area, our key cards were scanned to verify that everyone had attended the drill. One everyone was assembled, a crew member demonstrated how to put on a life jacket, and we were dismissed. The whole briefing took less than five minutes, and no reference was made to lifeboats or what to do in an emergency. We looked at each other and shrugged. What a waste of time!
For dinner we went to the other sit-down dining room, the Indigo. We had to wait, but we had a buzzer, so we could wander a bit. We checked out the library.
The menus for the two main dining rooms have two sides. One is the standard items, the other is the specials of the day. The specials are the same for Indigo and Summer Palace each day, but the standard items are a bit different. One of the specials is always a different regional specialty.
All the staff are very welcoming and smiling, including the ones at the doors to the restaurants with spray bottles of hand sanitizer. Chris says that one of his friends described cruise ships as floating petri dishes. The cruise line is working hard to prevent the spread of any bugs that anyone might be carrying.
The food was good, but we were surprised to find only a minuscule amount of veggies on the plates. In general, the portions are not as huge as most restaurant portions, probably to try to reduce food waste and in the expectation that people will be eating more often than usual.
In the evening we went to the Stardust Theater for a brief intro to the entertainment for the week. We're especially looking forward to seeing more of the magician Jeff Hobson and the Four Seasons tribute group Oh What a Night.
Earlier today we got a note saying that our large suitcase would be available and where to go to pick it up. Evidently something in the suitcase suggested on x-ray that we might be trying to bring alcohol or some other contraband on board. After a brief search and several questions, the suitcase was liberated. We've unpacked everything and settled in.
Chris and Annie have an inside stateroom right across from our mini-suite. They can come over anytime to enjoy the balcony view.
We had to do some running around to get keys for Chris and Annie for the suite. First their keys worked, but ours didn't! Then ours worked, but theirs didn't. Finally we got all the keys working at once. This gave us lots of exercise running back and forth between our suite on Deck 11 and Guest Relations on Deck 6 in the Crystal Atrium. There are elevators, but we are using the stairs--it's good exercise.
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