Cruise: Sept 7-8 Seattle, Washington

This is the first installment of our Alaskan Cruise blogs.  See Cruise Overview for more on our itinerary.

We flew to Seattle a day before our cruise departed so we were sure to get on the cruise in time.  We were concerned if our schedule was too tight on the day we embarked the ship that any snafu in schedule could result in us missing the ship!

We arrived in Seattle around dinner time on Saturday, September 7.  The SEA-TAC airport is on the southern end of Seattle and our hotel was in the Belltown area near Puget Sound so we got a small tour of Seattle on our cab ride.  We saw the baseball and football stadiums, downtown, and lots of shipping docks. We arrived at our hotel, Belltown Inn, then found a sports bar, Spitfire, nearby to watch the Michigan vs. Notre Dame football game.  We were pretty tired after the day of traveling and the two hour time change, so we were ready for bed after the game.  (Why is it that airports and air travel are so exhausting???)

Game time at Spitfire

On Sunday, September 8, we woke up early (again with the help of the time difference) and decided to check out the neighborhood since we didn't board the ship until early afternoon. We had not done any research on the area before coming so we hit the streets and Google maps on our phone for suggestions.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, which we were not expecting in the typically rainy city of Seattle.  We found a great place for breakfast, CJ's Eatery, a few blocks from our hotel then walked the Belltown area.  We spent some time touring Seattle Center, which houses several theaters, the space needle, outdoor art/fountains/gardens, EMP Museum, Key Arena, and much more.  It was a quiet, Sunday morning for walking around and taking it all in.

EMP Museum
Very cool building with lots of unique texture and colors

EMP with Space Needle in background

Another view of EMP

International Fountain
You can tell how huge this was by the person in the picture 

Some of the outdoor art

Brent enjoying more outdoor art

The sculpture that Brent was playing on

We headed toward Puget Sound to take in more sights including the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and Olympic Sculpture Park which had many outdoor sculptures and beautiful views of Puget Sound.  We then took a walk on the Boeing Company Bicycle Path along the water to check out where our ship would be boarding.  We decided that since it was only a half mile walk from our hotel to the pier that we would just walk with our luggage (most of which had wheels) rather than getting a cab for the short ride.

View of Puget Sound from SAM

Puget Sound

A roof top meant for viewing Puget Sound
(the roof came to the ground so you could climb it)

Mr. & Mrs.

Stainless steel tree sculpture

If you've ever gone on a cruise, you know that the embarkation process is s-l-o-w.  We were impressed by the efficiency of it all, but the reality of checking in 2500 passengers and all of their luggage (and, of course, lots of security) simply takes a lot of time.  We got to the pier early afternoon and got onto the ship by late afternoon.  We were scheduled to depart at 4pm and, let me tell you, cruise ships are on time!  Pulling away from Seattle on the clear, sunny day we had was beautiful.

The opening above "Norwegian Pearl" was the 7th deck
 out of 14 decks on the ship.
We entered on the 7th deck
(you can see the people waiting to embark on the ramp)

We spent the evening on the ship settling in, getting acquainted with all the ship included, eating dinner, and taking in a show in the theater that included a variety of acts that would be featured on the ship all week.  It was a great preview of what was the to come for entertainment and helped us decided which shows we wanted to see in full.

A few things that stuck out to me about Seattle:

• It is a very eco-friendly city.  They had hybrid, electric city buses, lots of trees and green spaces, and even a compost bin at the SAM.  Brent thought I was nuts, but I took a pic;)  Our hotel also offered reusable shopping bags to use while in the city.

Seriously, some times I'm hard pressed
finding a recycling container in MN,
but they even had a compost container!

• It is a very pet-friendly city (at least the Belltown area was).  People were walking dogs all over and even bringing them into restaurants and stores.  (If you're wondering how hygienic it is to have pets in restaurants, keep in mind that most of the restaurants had the window walls that opened to allow for alfresco dining and the dogs were very well behaved and of the smaller variety:))
• It is a very bike-friendly city, which I'm assuming goes right along with it being an eco-friendly city. Our hotel even had bikes we could borrow (at no charge).
• They are used to living with rain.  Even though we were there on sunny, beautiful days, we noticed umbrellas next to outside doors everywhere.  Our hotel also had a huge umbrella stand full of umbrellas for guests to use.  

Again, for more pics from our trip, check out our Shutterfly site.  More to come on our Alaskan destinations!