Alaska Bound - Takeoff!!!!!

Let the cruise begin!! Before boarding the Rotterdam, we had several checkpoints where we had to show our paperwork, go through security (very similar to the airport) and get our key cards which is what we will use all week! The procedure went quite fast and before we knew it, it was time to actually board the cruise ship!

It looked just HUGE sitting there – it WAS huge! Neither one of us had ever been close to a cruise ship before and we were just amazed at the size! Lunch was being served on the Lido deck but we chose to check out our stateroom first! And all I kept saying to Glenn was: Oh my – Oh my!! It was all so much more than what I expected!

We walked into our room which was actually a little bigger than I thought it would be (but don’t get me wrong here, the rooms ARE pretty small) but of course the balcony made it seem much larger! Anyway, there on our little table is a darling arrangement of flowers and 2 wrapped gifts! PRESENTS!! I opened up the card and it was from Laurie, our travel agent – wishing us a Happy Anniversary and a great time on our cruise!! HOW SWEET!! The flowers were just beautiful!! She also had gotten each of us a coffee mug with a picture and name of our ship on it! How fun to have something like that waiting for us when we arrived!!

Our luggage was actually outside our door within a few minutes so I quickly unpacked and before we knew it, we were exploring the ship! Good thing we had a pocket map to find our way around as these ships are HUGE!!

We did find where they were serving lunch and ate a little bit (actually Glenn ate part of a meal and I opted for mousse with fresh berries) and then it was more exploring before ending up on the upper deck to get a drink and prepare for take-off! The weather was gorgeous and we just sat up on that deck and hung out until the ship went out to sea!

They were having a safety lesson at 3:30 which is actually mandatory so we found our lifeboat place and listened to the training in case of a disaster – I REALLY felt like I was on the Titanic then!

We explored a LOT – but still seemed to get turned around all the time – I guess time will tell if I figure out this boat from front to back!

I did forget to mention earlier that before we left, I got a prescription for a patch to wear for motion sickness – my nurse friend had told me I should really wear one since I’m SO prone to seasickness and boy am I glad I did! I’m amazed at how much the ship does rock at times – luckily, it’s not making me sick at ALL, thanks to that cute little band-aid behind my ear!

We sat on the balcony for a while – read all the info in our room so I could really be informed on everything – checked out the internet café where most of us will be spending our hard earned money as there is NO FREE internet on the ship – would you believe about .55 per minute and that’s IF you buy your time ahead of time???? WOW – guess I won’t be sending too many emails!! But also from our travel agent was a book of coupons to use on the ship and one of them is for so many minutes of free internet – I’ll DEFINITELY be using that coupon!!

We had opted for “open dining” on the cruise which basically means we do NOT have a set time to eat dinner – you can make reservations if you would like to but otherwise, you just show up and may have to wait a few minutes! Dinner was great –I chose a fresh fruit medley for my appetizer which was papaya, melons, mango and strawberries, drizzled with a cream sauce and a hint of mint! Soup was a corn/cheddar/crab chowder and my main dish was a parmesan crusted chicken with veggies and potatos – very good!! Our waiter brought us a dessert menu so we were ready to give our order when he came back and said he had a note that we were celebrating our anniversary and he would be giving us a cake to eat! So he brought this cute little cake (not really little though as we couldn’t eat it all) with an edible “Happy Anniversary” sign, stuck a candle in it and 3 of them sang us Happy Anniversary in their native language, Indonesian!! Of course, we couldn’t understand a word of it but it was sure a cute song! After that, the violin player from the dining hall above us, played a tune just for us too!!

We ended up going to the production of “Nothin’s Gonna Stop Us Now” – singers and dancers – Glenn didn’t enjoy it as much as I did though!

Of course the bed turn down was completed when we got back to our room with chocolates waiting for us – a perfect end to a perfect day!! Now if only the boat would quit rocking enough so I can fall asleep!!