Day 01 - 07/23 - Tukwila to Vancouver

 Embarkation day for our Alaska cruise was finally here.  We were awake by 6:30am and our son picked us up at 8am and dropped us off at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel in Tukwila.  Our bus was there but we had to wait for Alan from Travel With Alan (our tour company this year) to arrive, but a line had already formed.  We were quickly out on the first bus with 49 of our closest new friends.  Jim, our driver had driven down from Vancouver after having gotten up at 4am.  After a short orientation talk by Alan, we were off about 10 minutes early.

The drive up I-405 and I-5 was smooth and we made total use of the commuter lane.  We made a 20 minute rest & comfort stop at McDonald's in Bellingham and received Canadian customs forms to complete.  At the Canadian border were all ushered off and had a face to face encounter with a border guard.  Our grandson got the bulk of the questions and we passed with flying colors.  All totaled the stop was around 10 minutes.  

The next hour and a half was mainly a traffic slog through Vancouver city traffic.  At Canada Place there were 3 ships including ours. Our HAL check in took around 20 minutes and then we had to go through US immigration which was quite time consuming at over an hour to get to the check in machines as three ships guests were being processed.  Fortunately there was a couple ahead of us that were quite engaging to chat with. We then boarded the Noordam and found our room, watched the safety video and went to our muster station. We were finally able to sit down for a late lunch at the Dive In near the Lido pool area two hours after arriving at the pier.

We checked out Club Hal and then enjoyed some hard ice cream before Angela and Jakob changed into swimming attire.  They adjourned to the aft pool and I watched for a while before heading to the front desk to possibly clear up an issue with beverage overcharges (we all have the SIGNATURE BEVERAGE PACKAGE and Angela's card doesn't say it so she keeps getting charges). When I returned to the pool area, that's when things got real exciting!

Jakob was at the pool's edge and Angela was holding his head above water and I didn't suspect anything amiss until another lady who was near him came over and said, "Your wife is doing much better than I would!" I asked if something was wrong and she told me Jakob's leg was stuck.  There were a couple of medical personnel standing by me just looking at the situation, and I lit into one saying "Do something!".  She was on her phone with little sense of urgency so I removed my shoes and rolled up my pants and went in to help.  I couldn't free him but about that time a medical person (a doctor I believe) came from behind me and quickly assessed that he needed to jump in the pool.  He was able to better assess the situation and gently began trying to release his leg.  Finally it popped out to the cheers of the crowd.  He had no scrapes or bruises and was able to walk on the leg with no difficulty.

Afterwards I had some interaction with the Captain who was watching this unfold, but I'll not share any of that at this time other than to say I wasn't impressed with his response to the situation.

The director of security visited with us and appeared to be taking notes about the crew's response.  He was very encouraging to Jakob.

The preceding was enough excitement. Here's hoping things will be not quite so exciting going forward unless whales or other wildlife are involved.

After a light dinner in the Lido, Angela checked Jakob into Club Hal and then joined me in the Main Stage for an EXC presentation on Alaska we've seen before.  Afterwards we watched a bit of Billboard Onboard and enjoyed the two pianists before heading back to the Front desk to continue to work on the over-billing issue. Hopefully it's now solved.

Tonight we gain an hour to be on Alaska time.  Tomorrow is a sea day as we make our way up the Inside Passage.

Here's a few observations from our first day onboard.

1. We really like the look and feel of the ship.  It appears that there has been significant refreshing of carpets and the like.

2. Going through border security is a real slog at well over an hour. 

3. Hard ice cream is still being served in the Lido.

4. The taco bar is back in service by the Dive In

5. Our partially obstructed room 4119 actually has a nice view.

6. The Crow's Nest has a really nice puzzle area

7. So far the internet is decent with a tested download speed of 22mpbs download and 1.91 mpbs upload using the surf package which is $119.95 for voyage for one device (and we get a $30 discount off that price for loyalty).