Asea

Well, we made it.  Our good friend Susan drove us as promised to Pier 35 and dropped us off amidst a flurry of hugs and goodbyes happening all around us.  It was about 11:00 am.  After waiting in a long line for over an hour, we finally got to check in, which was a smooth process though the woman checking us in couldn't find our room keys for a long time.  (I was hoping it meant an upgrade, but alas, no.) Then a stroll through the security gate and onto the ship.

Our staterooms weren't ready yet so they had us go up to the upper deck for a while and lunch. They gave us complimentary champagne to welcome us aboard and then at about 1:00 or so we were in our stateroom. We were pretty tired so we just hung out in our stateroom for a while.  (We couldn't unpack yet because our luggage hadn't arrived yet.)  Some exploration, then unpacking and it was time for evening fun.

Evening fun consisted of a welcome-to-the-ship performance in the theater with a taste of what to do around the ship. We then had a nice dinner at the Grand Restaurant, which is the main dining room. After that we ended the evening with drinks at the Martini Ice Bar, which was very quiet. But the martini I had was lovely.

Friday was our first full day on the ship. We had a leisurely breakfast followed by an art history lecture.  (Okay, it was actually followed by a nap, but we're on vacation, gosh darn it!) the lecture covered 30,000 years of art in about 40 minutes. Things went by quickly to say the least. 

Following lunch, we attended another presentation by a naturalist onboard. Milos is an engaging and very humorous speaker whose lecture was on land mammals and birds of Alaska. We learned about bears and moose and eagles and a wide variety of other creatures. None of it was presented in a dry or dull way though. It was an thoughtful and fun presentation.

Yesterday was our first formal night. We have three formal nights during this cruise at which we're supposed to dress up for dinner. So Allen and I donned our fancy duds for dinner. Fortunately, "formal: doesn't necessarily mean a tuxedo or even a suit.  I wore a black sports coat and black trousers with a white shirt and a bow tie.  (Yes, I do wear ties on occasion but always bow ties.) We also got brave and sat with a group of people we don't know! Celebrity Cruises gives the options of fixed seatings for dinner or come-when-you-want seatings. We chose the freer, more flexible seating plan. So you don't sit with the same people every time. But we ended up with a very nice group of folks: a couple from Wales, another from Sydney, Australia, and a third couple from over the bridge in Marin County. We had a lovely time, which is saying a lot for two introverts who like to stick together. 

Last night we changed our clocks back an hour to adjust for the time zone change we'll be going through. We're on Alaska time now! Except my ipad and iphone forgot to make the switch (well, in all honesty, I forgot to tell them to do it) so in spite of the fact I changed my alarm clock, we're up an hour earlier than we have to be.  Ooops.

Time for breakfast then to see if I can find some wifi to send this post to the blog site.

Ahoy!