It was another disturbed night for us. Karen had set an alarm for 3am to get an update on her Mum. After turning off the alarm she found she had a series of updates all giving more positive news including a picture of her Mum dressed and in the Lounge of the Care Home. She was apparently now eating and drinking without any problem.
It seemed to have been a false alarm as such and we were glad we had not dashed onto the first flight home. However, Karen still felt guilty for not being there with her but agreed that unless she took a sudden turn for the worse that we would board the cruise.
The trouble was I was now wide awake and on top of that knew that Norwich were about to kick off away at Coventry. I followed the updates until half time when I finally felt sleepy again. When I woke again it was to the news of the first league win of the season, meaning I am now confident the bookies will start paying out on us having already won the league by Christmas.
It was another make do breakfast as we got packed up on this part of the trip for the last time. At 9am we loaded the car and started the 1-hour journey back to the Car Rental drop off at Seattle airport. As normal I had to return the car full of fuel. Also as normal we couldn’t find a close gas station and ended up going past the rental return turnoff to find one.
We then took the car rental shuttle back to the airport to meet up with the pre booked taxi I had organised to take us to Pier 91 which was where we were to board our cruise ship the Eurodam.
We were running early as was the taxi driver which worked out well. The journey to Pier 91 took about an hour with the traffic. It was a bit chaotic from then onwards for a while as we had to get labels for our bags, go to baggage drop, go through immigration, then check in to the ship and then finally board the ship.
The ship seemed quite familiar as it was the sister to the previous cruise we had taken. This time we were on the 8th floor in the cheapest room possible. No balcony for us. It had been a conscious decision as we had spent so little time in our room last time and even less on the balcony. The cost of a balcony would have added 50% to the cost and we would rather use that money on another trip somewhere else.
So, it was with in trepidation we entered cabin or in Holland America terms, state room 8137. I had told Karen that we may have to move the mops, brooms and Dyson out of it to get into our little cupboard. But it wasn’t bad and didn’t seem any smaller than last time, just no window at all to the outside.
We quickly unpacked as we were both in of a drink and some sustenance. We headed to the Lido Market where we had some of the lunch on offer. I would liken this still to an office canteen although food is much better.
Once we had eaten this and after registering at the muster station, we went to the Lido pool area where to save time I got us both some bubbles and a Strawberry Margarita out of our complimentary now 15 drinks per day each. How they arrived at that number I have no idea or indeed why they had increased it since our last trip.
We both started to unwind for possibly the first time this trip. The weather was beautiful and the sea glistened from the sun. We had another Strawberry Margarita each.
Then just as the ship started to pull away, we headed to the outside deck to join the sail away party that had started. It was very busy with lots of people including us taking pictures of the Seattle skyline as we moved away from it.
The music got cranked up and lots of people started line dancing. We were too shy and had not had enough alcohol to attempt to join in.
Finally, we met up again with T&G who we had not seen since boarding. We joined them for a hot drink inside. I now had the munchies and had a small build your own pizza which was quite acceptable.
With T&G in tow we headed back by the Lido pool where we thought it would be rude if didn’t try a Strawberry Daiquiri which I decided was not as good as the Margarita.
T&G left us to an have a very early dinner in the Lido Market. We thought we should try and soak up some of our alcohol intake by having a cup of tea before heading back to the cabin to have a shower before going to dinner ourselves.
At 7pm we went to The Dining Room. There was a very short wait before we were shown to a delightful window table for two. After we had ordered our food and drink (that may have included wine) we got chatting to a girl in her 20’s who was sitting alone at the next table. She was as fascinated to learn about us as we were about her. She worked in Marketing for Starbucks based at their corporate office in Seattle and only booked onto this cruise through the liners standby programme 4 days earlier at a real bargain price.
The food was very good as was the service. We both had the Alaskan Seafood followed by the New York Strip. We took a leisurely 1 ½ hours eating and drinking through the 3 courses.
Then we wandered along the ship and came to the Rolling Stone Lounge. The 7-piece band were playing a ‘Rock Legend’ set. They were all terrific. They had the full lounge absolutely rocking. Each member could have been a soloist. T&G came and found us and we watched the bands 2nd set of ‘Back to the 80’s’ which they performed well but I liked less mainly because of the songs in my opinion had not aged well.
Then finally just before 10.30am the lack of sleep from the previous night caught up with us and so we retired for the night. The gentle rocking of the boat soon sent me off to sleep.
