Alaska Cruise Trip - Day 2

        Day 2 of our trip was embarkation day for the cruise!  We were very excited about getting to the ship but we had some time in the morning so we decided to go to the Pike Place Market. Our hotel was only a few blocks from the market so we took a walk down there to check it out.   Once we got there we had about 25 mins to walk around before we had to head back to the hotel to check out.  The market has a very fun energetic atmosphere and I would definitely recommend going there if you are in Seattle. 

The Front of the Market

The Famous Pike Place Fish Co. where they throw the fish around

We stopped by the Daily Dozen Doughnut Co. to get some tasty fresh doughnuts.  This is also a fun place because they toss the doughnuts in the air and into your bag. 

        After we got back to the hotel, we got our stuff, checked out and went out in front to wait for a taxi. There were quite a few people waiting to get taxis to the ship but we weren't concerned because we had until 3pm to get there.   The taxis were all tied up for a few minutes so the hotel's taxi coordinator put us into an SUV to take us to the dock. That was pretty nice considering it was the same price as a regular cab.  It cost 20 dollars to get to the dock.  Princess is located at Terminal 30 which is the furthest south of all the docks. Don't try to walk there from downtown- you will end up having to get into a cab at some point. 

         The check-in process for Princess was not bad at all. We waited in line for about 10 minutes and dragged our luggage till we got to the door. That was probably the hardest part of checking in (which isn't really that hard).  Once we got to the door they took the big luggage and we went into another line to get our cruise cards.  On Princess and I think all cruise ships they give you a cruise card which serves as your key to your room and your payment for everything on the ship that you buy. (things from the shops, any alcohol, and any special things like wine tasting you might participate in)  That line went very quickly- about 10 mins and then we were off to the gangway. All together it took about 30 minutes to go through the whole process and be in our room. Pretty impressive! Princess definitely has streamlined that process. 

         Once inside the ship we decided to walk around and see everything since we had time. In the middle of our walking around we ran into the start of a tour of the ship. It was lead by one of the cruise entertainment people  named "Boogie".   We decided to take the tour and learned a lot about the ship and found out where everything was. That was very helpful.  We continued to run into Boogie the rest of the trip and he was always very friendly and seemed to remember us. 

This is the indoor pool with the glass roof

After our tour we went back to the room and our luggage was there waiting for us. yay!  We unpacked a little bit and then went up to the top deck for the Sail Away Party.   They had a band and the atmosphere was very fun. 

The Sail Away Party

As we left Seattle, the views of the city were great

      We had our first sit down dinner at 8pm in the Amalfi dining room that night. It was a casual dress night so that made it easy.  We met our table mates who were two older ladies who were best friends. Very cute and fun to talk to.  There were two other seats at our table but no one ever showed up for them.  For dinner that night I chose the spring roll appetizer, the salad, a pasta dish and some struedel for dessert.   All the meals were wonderful and consisted of an appetizer, soup, salad, main course, and dessert.  Each course had at least 3 selections to choose from. 

       After dinner we went to the Sail Away show at the Princess theater. There was singing and dancing and introductions of the major department heads on the crew.  It was fun but it felt kind of weird because the boat was rocking quite a bit.  That evening was the choppiest of the entire week with 4 foot swells - probably because we were in open ocean.  It wasn't bad though and we didn't get seasick at all.  

The Princess Theater is the largest theater on board the Star Princess

       We went to bed pretty late that night and were looking forward to a relaxing day at sea the following day.  At dinner we signed up to attend a wine tasting the next day and that was the only thing we had planned.

Alaska Cruise Trip - Day 1

      My husband and I recently returned from a wonderful trip. We took a cruise to Alaska on Princess Cruises' "Star Princess" ship.   We left out of Seattle on July 6th and returned on the 13th.   It was a great trip and I'm going to be blogging about each day of the trip.  I will include pics and stories about the trip as well tips for people who might be thinking about taking a cruise to Alaska in the future. 

      We left home on the 5th of July and flew to Seattle on Virgin America. This was our first time on this airline and it was pretty interesting.  It has all kinds of mood lighting and purple plastic on the interior and each seat gets their own entertainment system that includes movies, television, video games and a food ordering system.  The movies and premium television require payment to use them but most everything else is free. 

       The plane wasn't very full and we had a great opportunity to upgrade to first class for a very low cost so we took advantage of that.  We were served a nice meal and got to use all the entertainment services without paying extra.  I watched "Horton Hears a Who" and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Chad watched "Sweeney Todd" but was sad that the movie didn't end by the time the plane landed.  Most of movies available were too long for our flight to Seattle.  But we had a nice time being pampered and it was a great start to our trip. 

       Once we arrived in Seattle we caught a cab to the Red Lion on 5th Avenue.   It cost 30 dollars for the cab ride from the airport.  The hotel is located in the center of downtown Seattle and surrounded by restaurants and shopping. It's a great location for anyone who wants to see downtown on foot.  It's very nice and updated and I would definitely stay there again. We settled in and then decided to take a monorail to the space needle. The monorail was only 2 blocks from the hotel so that was very convenient. We got to the space needle very quickly and bought tickets to go up to the top.   It was very fun and we enjoyed the beautiful view. The sunlight at that time was great for picture taking too. 

        After leaving the Space Needle we were starving and tired so we took the monorail back to the hotel area and ate dinner at P.F. Changs.   After that we went back to the hotel and went to bed early so we would be ready for our big day ahead of us.  It was nice to arrive in Seattle the day before the cruise. It took a lot of the stress out of getting to the ship on time and we had extra time in case our luggage got lost or the flight was delayed. 

The Space Needle

Chad enjoying the space needle

The view to the south from the Space Needle

A very interesting building that we could see from our hotel room