Day 3 - At Sea

Saturday started off pretty well. We left the curtains open overnight, so we woke up pretty early and thought we had a good start to the day. We even had to hang out in our room for awhile, waiting for the breakfast bars to open. So we got an early start on the breakfast buffet, and then headed out to explore the ship. It was a little rough walking around the ship, kind of funny that we were walking from side to side down the hallways. During our exploration, Joe was happy to find a basketball to play with on the court. He was shooting hoops for a little while, and realized how rocky the boat was when he watched the ball totally aiming for the basket, and then the basket would move 2 feet away.




I realized how rocky the boat was when we saw the pools. One pool had massive tidal waves coming out of it. We took a video but the video is nothing compared to what we really saw. I think the pool emptied itself at least halfway from all the splish-splashing it was doing. I could have watched that all day. I think that was the big excitement for the day. The rest of the day we were feeling kind of blah, still not adjusted to the new time, and feeling slightly seasick from the stormy weather. So we ate, then napped, then ate, then napped for the rest of the day.

Day 2 - Sailaway from Seattle

Friday morning I woke up before the alarm, still on East-Coast time. I ran to the window, hoping to see the Celebrity Infinity awaiting my arrival. I guess I was still groggy, because I thought “I don’t see the boat, it must be behind that big building.” Then I realized the big building WAS the boat. Wahoooooo my boat is here!!






We were instructed not to arrive at the pier before noon, so we got up and headed back up to Pike Place Market. We had a delicious breakfast from Piroshky Piroshky. Joe had, get ready, a piroshky! He had the spinach, ham, and cheese version. It was a little too spinachy for me, but the pastry was delicious. I got another bakery favorite, the apple cinnamon roll. Mmmmmm it was devine. Simply devine. We had actually walked by the bakery the night before, and were disappointed that they were closed because the smell was so enticing. It was well worth the wait.





I topped off my breakfast with a caramel latte from the very first Starbucks store, and then we headed into the market.



It was still early in the morning, so vendors were still setting up, but we hung around long enough to see it get pretty busy. The guys at the fish market were hamming it up, posing for pictures with the fish. I think we did see them throw one or two fish back, just like you see on T.V. Soon enough, it was time to head back to the hotel and start packing back up.

The hotel couldn’t have been in a better location, it was directly across the street from Pier 66, so we could easily walk to the pier with all of our luggage. There were some complainers in the line, but I thought the cruise line did a fabulous job of keeping things moving and organized. If you think about it, it’s pretty amazing how quickly they can turn things around. They dock at 6 a.m., serve breakfast to the 2000 old passengers til 8:30, shuffle them off the boat, and have all the cabins cleaned and turned over, sparkling for the new residents by 1p.m. It’s really a pretty organized operation they’ve got going on. So we walked onto the boat by about 12:30, were greeted with a welcome champagne (or orange juice for some of us), and sent up to the buffet for our first filling meal of the week. Even the buffet food was delicious, and there was always a variety to choose from. So we hung out at the buffet until our rooms were open, and then I ran down and turned the TV on so that we could book our snorkeling excursion! I had called a few days before the trip and the agent advised me that the excursions desk would be super crowded on the first day, but I could book excursions from my room. We were in and out of the room for the first hour or two while we waited for our luggage to arrive, and then we went up on the top deck to enjoy the sail-away party. After awhile, I asked Joe to check the time, and said “4:15?!? We’re late, we should be leaving by now!” Well then we looked at the land and realized that we had already pulled away and started to move. What the heck – no horns, no loud-speaker announcement, no nothing?!? Who cares, we’re on a boat!



The first night was pretty relaxed. We were still adjusting to the time change, so we ended up having dinner at the buffet, and turning into bed semi-early again, after enjoying the ocean views from our private balcony of course!

Day 1 - BWI to Seattle

Day 1 of vacation was all ups and downs, literally. We finished all (most) of our last-minute chores before vacation, dropped the dog off at sleepaway camp, and had our limo service (aka in-laws) take us to the airport. Our first flight was running just a few minutes behind (which was a little nerve-wracking for me, since we only had 30 minutes to make our connecting flight in Kansas City), but a nice Orange Fanta and pretzel from Auntie Anne’s kept me content. I’m easily pleased these days.

The flight out to Kansas City was fine. I got a few naps in, and Joe watched a movie on his cell phone. We arrived in Kansas City and hustled 2 gates over to catch our final flight to Seattle. Luckily, we not only made it in time, but we were able to get 2 seats together. However, they were in the very last row of the plane. I’d sat in that last row before, and loved it because I could recline and not worry about the people behind me. Well, apparently only the seats on the right side recline, and we were on the left side, stuck sitting upright for the whole trip. After we pushed back from the gate, we were told that we’d be hanging out for a little bit while a mechanical issue was resolved. It turns out there was a busted air conditioning unit, and as a result, the plane would be fine to fly, but we couldn’t fly any higher than 24,000 feet. Well, combine that with tornados all over the middle of the country, and you get quite a bit of turbulence. I mean a seriously bumpy flight. As in, the woman in front of us said “I’m taking a bus back to dallas!” Now add in the STINKY man sitting next to me (with my still-enhanced sense of smell). Joe thinks that dude was passing gas during the whole flight. I was never sure if it was B.O., bad breath, or what. I know it started off bad when he opened up his pickle sandwich to eat during the flight. (Yes, I am pregnant, and NO, I still don’t like pickles!) And it only got worse. I couldn’t sleep due to the turbulence, and the smell was making me sick. I actually looked to make sure my seat was fully equipped with a barf bag. I spent much of the flight facing Joe, with my hand covering my nose, trying to keep the smell away. But, on the bright side, we landed safely in Seattle, caught a shuttle bus to our hotel, and started off our vacation. Our shuttle bus driver showed us a few sights on the way – the Starbucks headquarters, the two Seattle stadiums, and probable some other important landmarks. We checked into our hotel, and then walked up to the Pike Place market to find dinner.

We quickly learned that most places in the market closed by 6p.m., but there were a ton of Falafel shops open, so it was Falafel for dinner! After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, grabbed an ice cream for dessert (not knowing this would be the start of a pattern for the rest of our trip), and tucked into bed, already exhausted!