Family Vacation to Alaska - Day 2

Friday, 25 May, 2007 - Boarding

We were up fairly early this morning considering the long day we had yesterday and called the American baggage center again – still no news on our missing bag. The computer generated report over the phone had five out of 8 bags claimed and had not even been updated to reflect that we had 7 of them. I threw in a load of laundry – the clothing we had worn the day before. Uncle Tony was busy downstairs cooking and we had a delicious breakfast of southwest burritos and bacon.

Rhys was in heaven – it had been a long time since he had last had bacon for breakfast.

After breakfast I called the American baggage center and waited for a live person to answer. She checked on our lost bag and it became obvious that the wrong bag claim number was entered in the system. She corrected the problem but could still not locate our bag. I had them change the destination of our bag to the Seattle cruise pier hoping that it would still be delivered in time for our cruise. Our back-up plan, though, was to head over to Walmart and pick up some new shoes, socks, and another bag.

Seth found a pair of George dress shoes, a pair of running shoes, some running socks, dress socks, and shoe polish. I found a pair of cheap (but definitely not comfy) brown casual shoes, a pair of running shoes, and shoe inserts. We also picked up some travel sized toothpaste, baby powder, laundry detergent, shaving cream, and found another rolling duffel bag.

We headed back to the house and packed up our remaining items then headed out to the pier but only after stopping and taking pictures of each of our suitcases and a picture of their contents as well. It took about an hour to reach the pier. We arrived at about 11:30 am and there were quite a few passengers already checking in for the cruise. We noted that the internet check-in line was quite a bit longer than the regular check-in line – at least at this time. So much for being prepared – we would have moved through the line faster if we had NOT checked-in online. We received our key cards and signed the appropriate documentation. I spoke with a supervisor who took down our information about the lost bag and suggested having the bag sent to Juneau if we did not receive it by the time we sailed. I have no idea how reliable American Airlines would be doing this.

We boarded the ship after stopping for our traditional boarding pictures.

We were immediately sent to the Lido restaurant for lunch. The restaurant was very crowded and we moved to the aft part of the deck and found an open table outside.

It was a little chilly but warmed up nicely as we ate lunch. While Mimi, Papa, and Amina went through the buffet line, I made my way downstairs to the front office to sign us up for the cooking class. I was redirected to the library where I found the lady taking reservations. She didn’t have a copy of the schedule yet but did take down my name and cabin number for the classes. I headed back up to the Lido restaurant and took Rhys with me to get into the buffet line.

Seth joined us a little later and I loaded up my plates with fresh fruit, salmon, pate, chicken, and mashed potatoes. The food was okay. For dessert, I had a slice of fruit pie which I liked. The kids enjoyed ice cream cones. Rhys was especially happy with 2 desserts.

After lunch, Mimi took Amina and Rhys to find the library. Seth, Papa, and I sat out on deck for a little while until just after 1:30 pm when they announced that the staterooms were ready for us. I was not expecting our staterooms to be ready until at least 3 pm so this came as a nice surprise. We took our things and headed down to deck 2. Our room numbers were 2553 (Seth, Rhys, and I) and next door, 2557 (Mimi, Papa, and Amina).

We unpacked the few things that we had with us and soon Hardy, our room steward, arrived to greet us. Soon after he introduced himself, our luggage started to arrive. The luggage arrived a couple pieces at a time giving us plenty of time to put things away and then stow the luggage under the bed. Surprisingly, all of our suitcases fit underneath the bed. Our stateroom is an outside cabin on the starboard side with a large round window over the queen sized bed. There’s a sofa that converts into a bed for Rhys. The tv monitor is up in the corner near the vanity/mirror. Not a very good arrangement as we can’t watch tv privately as Rhys sleeps. There’s plenty of closet space and hangers. A door leads to the bathroom with a sink, toilet, and shower/tub. Pretty standard cruiseship stateroom but I much prefer this tub/shower combo than just a shower.

I did run upstairs to the spa for a tour and turned in my entry for the free drawing. The spa is very nice and they offered traditional services like deep tissue massage, ionotherapie, hair/nail services, etc as well as acupuncture. I booked a reflexology session for Sunday morning intending to have this service done after my long (6 mile) run in the Fitness Center. We did not dock in Juneau until 11 am and our excursion was not scheduled until 5:30 pm so I figured there would be plenty of time.

I returned to the cabin to finish up unpacking, and we then go upstairs to the Lido deck for the sailing away party at the aft end of the ship. There’s a band playing and we go over to the bar to order the cocktail of the day: a hand shaken mojito – which was quite good. The band was so-so. There were crew members walking around deck with small appetizers – shrimp spring rolls, phyllo wrapped brie cheese, and one other round appetizer that I didn’t try. We sipped our drinks, ate a few appetizers and perused the tables set up by the pool which displayed different services available on board including the Greenhouse spa and the art gallery/art auction where you could guess the price of a Picasso painting. I guessed $180,000 which turned out to be way too high.

The mood on this ship was vastly different than the last cruise we had taken with the kids – a Disney cruise on the Magic where the sailing away party was absolutely fun and energetic with dancing and Disney characters culminating in the ship sailing away after a “count down” and the famous ship’s whistle playing the first few notes of the “When you wish upon a star” tune. After a few announcements by certain crew members, the ship’s horn sounded and we started moving. It was very anti-climactic. The kids were entertaining themselves playing ping pong.

We finished our drinks and headed down to our cabins to get our life jackets for the mandatory drill. I found it interesting that this was the first ship we’ve ever been on where the drill was performed after the ship had already left port.

We found 3 life jackets In the cabin – all adult sizes. We put them on and I tied one around Rhys but it was way too big and I had to double tie it around his waist. We made our way up to station 5 and joined the rest of the passengers.

The announcement made during the drill was quite long and detailed. The HAL took pride in going “above and beyond” the typical drill that we’ve ever participated in providing lots of detailed information. We did have to switch out both kids’ life jackets for “child” ones. We took the child jackets back to our cabins with us.

I changed into something nicer for dinner then went to the Fitness Center to attend the drawings. The fitness center staff introduced themselves and pitched their various services. I didn’t win anything from the drawings which ranged from 50% off teeth whitening service to a facial to a session in the Alpha capsule.

I met up with the rest of our party outside the La Fontaine dining room, upper level, deck 5 for our 5:30 pm early seating. This cruise there would be 4 seatings: early upper (5:30 pm), early lower (6 pm, main or late seating upper (7:45 pm) and main or late seating lower (8:15 pm). That seemed to work well as our servers were prompt, our food was delivered quickly, and the dining room never seemed overcrowded. They soon opened up the dining room and we were shown to our table which was upstairs and close to the windows. We had a nice view. We met our dining room steward, Krish, and his assistant, Agus. Our wine steward is Tony.

I tried the crab and avocado appetizer which was very good although a bit salty for my tastes (iow, not hard to be salty to me).

For the entrée, I opted for the halibut which was encrusted with Panko bread crumbs. The fish was cooked well – not too dry and overcooked.

We had pre-ordered the admiral’s wine package and Seth chose a Blackstone syrah for dinner this evening which worked well with what we were eating. I did order dessert as well but can’t quite remember what I had. The kids shared the salmon encrusted with almonds – both ordered off the adult menu rather than the childrens’ menu which I was quite proud of.

Tony, our wine steward, invited us to the wine tasting event scheduled for 2 pm the next day at sea. Seth and I signed up on the spot. After dinner, as we were exiting the dining room, a crew member in a red outfit similar to a bell hop’s uniform was stationed outside with a cart handing out either mints, dates, or dried apricots on a small napkin to each passenger. A nice touch.

We took the kids up to Club HAL for their 7:30 orientation. We filled out paperwork for the children and they gave us a tour then ended with a question/answer session. The Club had several rooms – one each for the 4-7 year olds, the 8-12 year olds, and the teens. They were all interconnected by short hallways. There was also a Play Station room where monitors on the walls each had 2 game controls and sported different games from Sonic to Cat in the Hat and Harry Potter to Basketball. Apparently, children in this area are not supervised or part of a Club HAL.

I inquired about finding a parent if there was a problem as Club HAL did not have a pager system as the Disney cruise had. I gues s the crew members come find you in whatever area you specify that you will be should something occur. They said that Amina and Rhys would be in different groups because Rhys was still about a month shy of turning 8 years old. In the end, though, they were in the same group each time I went back to pick them up. I can’t be sure this would also hold true if they were busier. The crew members said there were 90 children on board but there were only about 25 children at the orientation.

We headed back to our cabins, too tired to go to this evening’s show which was a comedian. We later heard that the entertainment was quite good. The phone rang and it was the woman in the library calling about our cooking class reservations. Apparently, the first cooking class was scheduled for 2 pm tomorrow. Unfortunately, Seth and I had already signed up for the wine wasting so I declined. We turned in for the evening and went to bed well before 10 pm after another exhausting day but only after setting out our breakfast order on the door of our cabin to have breakfast delivered the next morning to our cabin.