Day 01 - 12 July - Seattle Boarding

It was a great day to finally board the Maasdam after waiting many months for the cruise to begin. It was blue skies with only wisps of clouds and no damage from the mild earthquake that occurred this morning NE of Seattle. Our friend, Doug, who is living in our home while we are gone, drove us down to Pier 66 where the Maasdam was moored. Normally Holland America ships depart from Pier 91, but two mega ships, Ovation of the Seas and the Odyssey were using that facility today.

We arrived around 11:15am and there was virtually no traffic plus it was our first time to see the waterfront area with the former Alaska Way Viaduct gone. It really changes the character of the waterfront. We quickly checked in and immediately walked up the ramp to board the ship, I presented my key card and the security officer asked for it again. It seemed that my wife's picture was associated my key card and vice versa. They let us board but requested that we get new pictures taken and associated with the correct card. This we did after dropping our luggage off at the room.

For the first 32 days of this voyage we are in stateroom 417 which is an inside room in the aft section of the ship on the walking or lower Promenade Deck. If we leave our door open, we have a direct view of the ocean without paying for an ocean view,

We ate a quick sushi lunch in the Lido buffet on Deck 11 and met Brent & Mary (Woodinville Cruisers on the Cruise Critic message board that I follow). We also met Lance who was the EXC presenter on our previous cruise to Sri Lanka and Florian, our previous Hotel Director, Holland has changed titles and responsibilities around so Lance is now Cruise & Travel Director.

We typically decorate our door and for this cruise, we are going to decorate our door with postcards from the cities we visit. So we disembarked the ship in search of a Seattle postcard which we found just south of the aquarium in a souvenir store, On our way back to the ship we encountered a fellow who was "fishing" with a magnet on a rope. We spoke with him and he indicated that he had found bicycles, wheel chairs, and all sorts of miscellaneous items using his magnet on a rope, He showed us a nice leatherman multi tool and a hammer he found using this method on previous searches. The Seattle waterfront wasn't productive for him, so he was driving across town to try his luck at Green Lake.

Back on board we walked around and discovered a Mariner party for which we hadn't received an invitation. Because of our 5 Star status they let us in and soon we were joined by Jill & Joe and Larry all of whom we've cruised with previously including last year's terrific Easter Island cruise on this same ship.

Today's passenger emergency drill was only held for Seattle embarking passengers so it went very fast, There were only 250 or so of us. It's really nice to have a stateroom on the same deck as our lifeboat and drill location!

Several years ago we took a 7 day Alaska cruise on the Oosterdam and enjoyed a nice dinner in the Pinnacle Grill while cruising up the Puget Sound along Whidbey Island. So we decided to keep up the tradition and booked a reservation for 5:30pm. The ship was supposed to leave at 4pm, but was delayed due to a workman who needed to finish a repair. We finally left after 4:30pm and followed the two mega ships in a procession northbound up the Sound.

Dinner was lovely and our favorite wine steward, Marlind, served us The menu is new from our Sri Lanka trip from last February and the Alaska King Crab legs and ribeye steak was wonderful. We both had jumbo shrimp appetizers and my wedge salad was wonderful. I skipped dessert but Angela enjoyed Tres Leches cake,

The evening entertainment was a comedienne, Brian Bradley, who was funny and clean. Afterwards, we went to the oceanography lecture on how do we know how deep is the ocean, by Al Trujillo, who presented on prior voyages and is quite good. We also met the EXC guide, Kay, who commented to me that she thought it was just yesterday that we got off the ship when we hadn't seen her in 9 months when she left the ship in Papeete. She's really good at what she does. We also learned that another of our favorite lecturers on Asian topics is on board and will be presenting.

Angela stayed in the Wajang theatre to watch the gunfighter movie, The Old Man and the Gun, but I elected to leave and update my blog.  

Overall, the ship continues to sparkle and we are looking forward to 74 days on board especially since some of our favorite crew are on this voyage,

Stay tuned for more. We're sailing north tomorrow up the inside passage between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and this is the first time my wife and I have sailed this route. Typically we sail up the outside of Vancouver Island and that's what the mega ships did today, Theoretically, the whale and dolphin watching should be good. I'll report back on that and I brought my good zoom camera so I'm ready for some action photos.