Day 2: At Sea

G fell asleep so early last night that he was up before 5am today, sifting through his carry on bag trying to find something and wondering aloud if his Liars Club buddies were in the International Cafe yet. If you’re new here, that’s a joke, harkening back to our transpacific cruise in September 2019 on the Ruby Princess. Thankfully, he soon left the cabin in search of coffee, and let me get a tiny bit more sleep. 

The reality of blogging in the absence of any WiFi at all hit me like a brick late last night. I had spent last night’s dinner uploading all the pics in yesterday’s post while we were still cruising Puget Sound and had an excellent cell phone signal, intending to add the narrative later. I had done this everyday when we were cruising in Europe and Asia…upload photos while we still had a cell signal and write the post hours later offline and then log into the Princess WiFi and publish the post. Last night, using the BlogTouch Pro app and writing the post on my iPhone, I went to save it when I was finished and my only choice was to save it offline. That shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, but it was, and it means that all those photos will have to be re-uploaded when I finally publish the post from Juneau tomorrow.  I don’t know if any cellular internet is fast enough to load that many photos at one time. I guess I’ll find out. I may have to remove them and add them back one or two at a time. I told you this might be a rocky process. 

G returned to the cabin to see what I was up to, and by 6:30am we were both in the buffet. He went all out and had a made to order omelet prepared, his first omelet since he was on the Majestic Princess. I had just coffee and melon; I had been checking out the breakfast menu in the dining room on the Navigator app and saw something that appealed. We decided to head there when it opened at 8am (leaving me to utter that traditional cruise phrase, “Hurry up and finish eating so we can go to breakfast”).  It’s good to be back!

The view from our breakfast table

Let me take a moment here and talk about the Navigator app. I have issues with it (quelle surprise!); I’m logged in as me, it shows that it’s my account but it only displays G’s on board statement, and my name doesn’t appear in the Chat directory at all. When he searches for me, people with my first name and people with my last name show up, but I do not, leaving him to tease me that I’m not really on the ship and this is all a dream. I’m so over all this app stuff. I told myself I was not going to spend one second fighting the Medallion app on board the Majestic Princess and I’m not going to do it on the Nieuw Amsterdam with the Navigator app either. We’ll just skip using the Chat feature. 

However, saying that, the dining menus part of the app work perfectly. I can wake up each morning and check the breakfast, lunch and dinner menus for the day in each dining venue. That is a really wonderful feature, especially when the menus are all so new to us and we’re dining around. The activities portion of the app works well too. In fact, it wasn’t until last night that we realized we still get a paper activities guide, called the When and Where, in our cabin each night for the next day. G had set something on top the embarkation day When and Where that was in our cabin when we first boarded, we never saw it, and just assumed we had to rely on the app.  

So back to this morning…

My chosen breakfast item in the dining room was a wild rice, quinoa, veggie combo and I was underwhelmed. It was more wild rice than quinoa. I won’t make the effort to get that again. 

The dining room breakfast menu does not change from day to day. 

Dining room breakfast menu page 1

Dining room breakfast menu page 2

Dining room breakfast menu page 3

Dining room breakfast menu page 4

Wild rice and quinoa bowl

Not quite my thing 

Having managed to eat breakfast in both the buffet and dining room, we did a quick tour of the ship (with a capacity of 2100 people, we love this size ship), and then returned to the cabin where G slept a little more and I didn’t. Instead I read for awhile, and did feel a bit more refreshed. We checked out the available daytime activities and found one or two this afternoon we were interested in, but mostly we decided we were going to have an unstructured day. 

We next relaxed by the Lido Pool, with its glass covered roof, and that is as wonderful a thing as exists for this cool weather itinerary. There are no crowds anywhere, and it certainly shows in the availability of loungers by the pool and on the Promenade Deck (a full, wraparound promenade deck). We actually met a couple last night who are on the ship for three cruises in a row, although they were originally told they couldn’t book that due to COVID and then were told they could. They said the ship was at 60% capacity on its first sailing last week and has about 200 more passengers this week. It’s nice. 

The Lido Pool area

It’s wonderful!

We returned to the dining room for lunch around 12:30pm. I had a calamari starter followed by a southwest quinoa bowl and this time both were fantastic. G ordered the Mexican street tacos followed by a Cobb salad followed by a hot fudge sundae. He is one happy camper. 

Dining room lunch menu

Calamari starter

Southwest quinoa bowl. Delish!

I had wanted to get to the cooking demonstration at 1pm, but meals in the dining room take quite awhile. We’ve often found this to be the case on Holland America. Instead we went directly to the- well, I think it’s called MainStage, though it’s called World Stage  on the deck plan. Basically it’s like the Princess Theater.  There was a documentary on the Iditarod race hosted by the cruise director/ travel host. That they are one and the same person is a bit unusual to us, but hey, every cruise line has its differences. The origin of the Iditarod race is quite interesting. It began as a relay race for the purpose of rushing medical supplies for  diphtheria patients in Nome, Alaska. 

Then it was hot tub time (also in the glass covered Lido Pool area), squeezed in before we got ready for tonight’s formal night. Can’t say I missed those over the past 18 months!  G brought his tux (he usually likes formal nights), but wasn’t feeling it tonight and instead wore a dress shirt and slacks.  He looked entirely appropriate; we saw everything from tuxedos (a few) to fairly casual wear in the dining room. 

On the way to the dining room, we went to Lincoln Center Stage for some music performed  by a violinist, a violist, a cellist and a pianist. Oh my heart. I love that kind of music!! We continued on to dinner at 5:30pm and limited ourselves to just an entree and coffee; we wanted to get to MainStage for the captain’s champagne welcome. Holland America does this by having the senior officers line up outside the theater to greet guests as they enter, and then handing out flutes of champagne. 

At 6:45pm, the captain was up on stage and welcomed everyone and made a toast and, if not exactly a socially distanced champagne party, it was fairly close. He told us there were 1593 passengers on board for this cruise, which is in line with what we had been told by the back to back couple, and about 500 fewer than the ship’s capacity. There is nothing crowded on this ship. It’s really nice!

The first of three production shows was performed at 7 and 9pm. Tonight’s show was called Humanity, and we should have known when the activities guide said it was going to be performed by Step One Dance Company that it was going to be simply dancers. There were six of them, and they were all fantastic, but we missed the vocalists that we’re used to in production shows, not to mention we love live musical accompaniment. The major feature of the show is the digital backdrop which really is quite amazing. I remember that about Holland America; when they invest in a technology for their theaters, they really use it…a lot. (Memories of that cantilevered and moving stage on the Maasdam that would make a grinding sound the whole time it was moving still make me laugh). But six in house dancers with no vocalists or musicians…I can understand why we’ll be treated to three production shows in a one week cruise. Happily, the three male dancers are not a bit unattractive. Note to self:  sit closer to the stage next time. 

After the show, we left the theater and caught the end of a piano duo playing 70’s music at Billboard Onboard (oh my, I’m struggling with these venue names) and then returned to Lincoln Center Stage for more music on the strings and piano. Holland America is known for its live music venues and I can see why. They’re simply wonderful. 

And finally it was time for coffee and dessert, and we went up to the buffet to get both…and only then remembered then that the buffet closes at 8pm on Holland America, and then re-opens for late night snacks at 10:30pm. Not a fan of that! We could have headed back to the dining room I guess, but weren’t as comfortable doing that as we are on Princess, where we are always welcomed to the dining room with open arms (literally), regardless of how many times we’ve already been there that evening.

We decided instead that a night without dessert was probably not the worst thing, especially since most of our nights for 18 months have not featured a dessert, and returned to the cabin. We’re watching a movie in our cabin and, at 9:45pm it is still light outside.  We move clocks back an hour tonight. I predict an early wake up again tomorrow. 

And, finally tonight, I thought I’d give you our thoughts on how this cruise feels in the midst of COVID. I’m sure there’s a lot of cleaning and new health protocols going on behind the scenes, but, frankly, it doesn’t feel any different from a pre-COVID cruise…except for the entire ship’s company being in masks and the reduced passenger load. There are only a few passengers in masks, and since we rarely are in an elevator with anyone else, I’m fairly comfortable with that. But if I expected there would be seats blocked out to ensure social distancing in the theaters, bars and dining areas, I was wrong. We were told that we need to wear masks when inside or on public transport in the Alaska ports, and outside too when not socially distanced, but that’s how it was at home for over a year (and, frankly, probably still should be). 

So, cruising on this relatively small ship sailing at reduced capacity with fully vaccinated crew and guests feels really safe. So far. Let’s hope it continues. 

Day 2 When and Where

Day 1: Embarkation day on the Nieuw Amsterdam

 We are here. 

WE. ARE. HERE.

Wow, does it feel amazing to be able to say that. 

You know, it suddenly occurred to me yesterday afternoon, while I was racing around the house packing, that we had been on the Nieuw Amsterdam before. We’ve only done four Holland America cruises in the past, but, looking back at our cruise history, sure enough, one of them was on the Nieuw Amsterdam, nearly eight years ago. Apparently, we liked it then (http://pescadoamarillo.blogspot.com/2013/11/holland-america-line-and-nieuw.html); we’ll see what we think after eight years and a pandemic.

And let me take a minute and set up a keyboard shortcut for Nieuw Amsterdam.  As you can imagine, autocorrect is giving me fits about the “Nieuw”.

As I said in yesterday’s post, we had a very early morning today. We got up at 2:00am, and by 3:30am were driving away from the house. We already knew that we would be out of luck with an Uber or a Lyft at 3:30am on a Saturday morning (the bars were closing about then!), and the prices of hotels at the airport have more than doubled since we last stayed in one in September 2019. We decided that our best option was to drive to the airport yesterday, rent a car, drive both cars home and return the rental to the airport this morning at 4am. Naturally, even that solution was not worry-free. Would the rental car company actually have a car (shades of Seinfeld here)?  Would our Southwest flight be late or cancelled due to system-wide computer issues, or pilot, aircraft or fuel shortage? So many travel things we used to be able to trust would happen pretty much as planned can’t be relied on right now. So we packed an extra helping of patience and hoped for the best.

I’m happy to report that, on our first travel day in 18 months, it all went off without a hitch.  I’m always amazed, when we leave our neighborhood that early in the morning without encountering a single other vehicle, to find the expressways busy and the airport absolutely packed. At 4:30am! Our TSA Pre check saved us a lot of time going through security (nice to be using it for the first time since we renewed it earlier this year), and though our plane was full, the travel time was relatively short.  After all, my most recent flight had been the one home from Sydney, so anything shorter than that was all good.

Sunrise over the Cascades

There was no YouTube-able mask drama on our flight; people were too sleepy at that hour to put up much of a fuss. We wore KN95 masks from the time we boarded the rental car shuttle until we were in our cabin on the Nieuw Amsterdam and added a cloth mask on top of them on the plane. Interestingly, I did a Blood Oxygen check on my Apple Watch toward the end of the flight. It was 97%, which was higher than it’s been in the smoke at home for weeks.  I wish some people could be convinced that wearing even a double mask is not depriving their brain of oxygen, and would stop behaving like it actually is.  Just sayin’.  

We had an early flight, and knew we’d have to wait somewhere before boarding the ship, and I really didn’t want to be standing outside the cruise terminal while we waited. Not knowing when we were supposed to be boarding, and this being the Age of COVID, we thought we’d let Holland America figure out when to take us to the ship and so purchased transfers through the cruise line.  Once we landed in Seattle and collected our two suitcases, we were personally escorted from baggage claim to a waiting area carved out of the airport parking garage.  It’s convoluted to get to this shuttle waiting area on your own unless you know where you’re going, and I can see why we were escorted over there, despite that fact that our names didn’t even appear on their list (since the list was printed before we booked).  I’m also quite sure (but not certain) that this is the same place guests wait for the Princess shuttle, as the lady who helped us said she would be a greeter for the Majestic Princess tomorrow.  She was quite happy to be back to work, and even if she hadn’t said so, we could have surmised that from the friendly way she did her job  

At 10am we were allowed to board the large bus to travel to the ship, but were stopped just before we left the parking garage. Apparently the ship was not going to start boarding until at least 11am, and travel time to the pier was about 35 minutes.  Oh, and the driver had been informed that she wasn’t to deviate from the normal route getting there, so we were going to have to sit on the bus for a bit once we arrived at the pier. Well, the driver didn’t deviate; she simply drove slowly and gave us a great narrated tour the entire way.  She also said (and again it was obvious this was true) that she was so happy to be back at work. It’s nice to feel appreciated for doing what we love to do. We all know that the tourism business has been devastated by the pandemic, but it’s quite poignant to meet the people who have been most affected, and made me feel glad that we are contributing in even the smallest way to the industry’s recovery.

She did so well with that driving slowly thing that when we arrived at the pier, we were able to disembark the bus immediately and start the boarding process.  And considering where G and I were starting from, even that went well.  When I completed the Holland America online check in on Wednesday, their system told me that we were too late to get boarding passes for the cruise (less than 72 hours pre-cruise). No worries. We figured we’d simply show up with our booking number and passports and vaccination cards and we’d eventually be allowed to board. Then, this morning, while we were waiting for our flight to depart, I checked the HAL Navigator app on my phone (yes, they have one too; it’s just that guests still check in on their website) and saw that we did have e-boarding passes and a UPC code. No worries!

We were required to show our vaccination cards before we even entered the port terminal, though I heard an announcement that anyone without a card (like the couple of kids on board, I guess) had to be COVID tested before they proceeded any further into the terminal.  

Despite our e-boarding passes stating we were Boarding Group E at 1:20pm, at check in we were assigned Group B and were onboard and in our cabin shortly after 11:45am.  

Gladly!

Correct mask usage (over the nose and mouth) was strictly enforced at both airports, on the plane, on both shuttles and in the cruise terminal.  At the SeaTac airport, an announcement stated, over and over again, that gaiters were not acceptable unless they were double-layered, and handkerchiefs weren’t allowed at all. Entering the cruise terminal, I saw one person stopped for only wearing a single-layer gaiter.  I’m not certain how that got resolved, because I heard him say he didn’t have anything else to use. 

And G and I will continue to wear masks, probably for the entire cruise.  I am simply most comfortable doing that, because it’s already obvious that there is limited social distancing on the ship. Guests have the option of dining alone or with strangers, seating for shows is not spaced out other than what happens naturally from a lower passenger load and there are no limitations in elevators (which, thankfully, on this ship arrive quickly and mostly empty).  We have another cruise after this one, and I am leaving to visit Mom five days after we return home. I want nothing to interfere with those trips (see previous post re: mom hug) and would never forgive myself if I inadvertently took COVID into Mom’s retirement community.  Maybe we’ll feel differently in a few days, but for right now, we are among the very few masked passengers on board.

We dropped our carry ons in our cabin and immediately headed to the buffet.  We were starved.  We hadn’t eaten yet today and, frankly, our entire diet since we booked this cruise three days ago consisted of a large salad I made by chopping up everything that was left in the produce drawer.

This was offered at the first station in the buffet and it was as far as I got!

I took this photo at our house earlier this summer, just to prove that my watermelon obsession is not limited to cruises.

We were happily served water, lemonade and ice tea in the buffet, but coffee seemed to be “get it yourself”.  And I happily did help myself, and was a little thrilled that it was the same excellent coffee I remember from Holland America eight years ago.  Despite the self service, the wait staff (on Holland America they are all from Indonesia) was extremely friendly and welcoming.

 

QR codes for all menus…but you don’t have to use them. Paper menus are also available. 

Water in metal cans instead of plastic bottles.  Yay!

We returned to our cabin to find that our large suitcases had been delivered, and it took no time at all to unpack them.  Even better, there was plenty of room in our cabin for everything.  It was tough finding enough storage space when we were on this ship in 2013, with a winter’s worth of luggage.  But two weeks worth? Piece. of. cake.

The only nod to social distancing was a different kind of muster drill.  Most cruise lines are doing some variation of this now: We watched a safety briefing on our cabin TV, we went to our muster station sometime during the afternoon (on the Promenade Deck) and had our key cards scanned, and we listened to the captain’s safety announcement. We were also encouraged to try on our life jackets in our cabin, and you know us…we really did. With 26 years of military service and 12 years of Catholic school between us, we are rules followers. 

There was a sailaway party on the aft pool deck starting at 3:30pm, and it was very nicely and somewhat subtly done, with a perfect DJ playlist, a fair amount of alcoholic beverages consumed and the beautiful Seattle skyline in the distance under overcast skies.  And here’s the thing…unlike what others have reported when they first stepped on a cruise ship post-COVID, I had managed to get to that point in our day without feeling the least bit emotional about finally being back.  But when I looked over the side of the ship and saw the water churned up by the Nieuw Amsterdam pushing away from its berth, I literally choked up. I don’t know what that stirred up inside of me, but it did it quickly and thoroughly…and then I was fine.  I took advantage of our cell phone signal to call a few friends who didn’t know until they read my blog that we were even leaving home a week early.  Sorry about that.  Like I said, we’ve had an intense few days.

That left us about 15 minutes to nap and five minutes to shower before going down to dinner.  We wanted to be there at 5:30pm when the dining room opened, to try to get a table for two in a nice location with the same waiters for the rest of the cruise. Yeah, this one will work. 😉

The view from our dinner table.  Oh how I’ve missed this!

Waiter Karma (we call him Good Karma) from Bali and his assistant Aziz from Java were so so so friendly. Like everyone else we encountered, they are thrilled to be back at work. The entire ship’s company (all vaccinated) is wearing masks, but Karma made a point of telling us that we didn’t need to if we didn’t want to.  No, really.  We want to.

Day 1 dinner menu, page 1

Day 1 dinner menu, page 2

OMG. A meal I didn’t have to prepare or clean up from afterwards.  This nearly choked me up for the second time. Even after I was vaccinated, I’ve eaten in a restaurant (mostly sitting outside) just a few times.  I think the meals in the dining room are going to be my favorite part of this cruise.  I’ve survived the past 18 months at home by choosing to focus on things to be grateful for, but it is admittedly getting harder and harder to be grateful for washing dishes eleventy-seven times a day (I can’t stand leaving even a single spoon unwashed in the sink). 

Alaskan crab seafood cocktail

Salmon with cilantro rice

Love the way they serve my soy milk for after dinner coffee

Triple berry Alaskan tart

By the time dinner was over, we were in hour 20 of our day and decided that nothing happening on the ship this evening held as much appeal as sleep. It usually takes a little longer that first night to get settled, but G was asleep in less than a minute.  As will I be when I finish this post (edited later:  no, I wasn’t. It was a rather sleepless night). 

Day 1 When and Where

So many good things happened today. I am grateful.

Cruise #1: 7 nights on the Nieuw Amsterdam

I can’t tell you how weirdly unfamiliar it felt to prepare this itinerary post, to screen capture and crop these images from the Holland America website, despite the fact that I’ve done that same thing over 75 times before. And trying to recall how to insert them using the BlogTouch Pro app, and center and re-size them (how many pixels wide did I used to make them?)…buckle your seat belts.  Even after nine years of blogging, publishing these posts could be a rocky process.

Another reason we jumped at the chance to take these cruises?  A day in Glacier Bay National Park on each one.  That alone is worth the price of admission. We haven’t been to Sitka since our first cruise in 1997, and have never been to Icy Strait Point. Naturally, our fervent hope is to have good weather on least one of our cruises; we’ll be in a rainforest, so it’s certainly not a given. But I feel more optimistic that the temps will be cooler and the air clearer than what we’ve been experiencing at home.  I can’t wait. 

We will not have WiFi on the Nieuw Amsterdam, but I will continue to blog and will publish posts (without photos, most likely) from the ports where we have cellular internet. Photos will either be added while we’re on the Majestic Princess or when we get home (I promise). 

How I spent my COVID vacation

This is one of those chatty posts I mentioned yesterday. If you’re only after the cruising deets, you might choose to pass on by. 

I want to thank those blog readers who emailed me during the past 18 months to check on how things were going in our lives. Though I loved hearing from them, there really wasn’t much to report, and, upon hearing that, many, several…ok, two of them kindly suggested that even if I just blogged about our COVID lives, they’d love to read about it. That would have been some truly sleep inducing reading, because our lives were oh. so. boring.

Still, we know we were among the lucky ones. 

If you’re a long time reader of this blog, you’re well aware of my inclination to catch every respiratory illness that passes my way. As a result, we took COVID very seriously in our house.  Until we were both vaccinated (last March), I stayed home and elevated my online shopping skills to an entirely new level. G was a star, and singlehandedly managed the grocery shopping runs, which he found pretty darn frustrating, what with the layout changes that had taken place while we were in Australia, and the chronic shortages, one way aisles and social distancing. I quickly learned that when it came to some of my more unusual plant based requirements (the futile search for miso paste and za’atar spice was a travesty…I was told), it was best to go the delivery route for the weird stuff. 

Luckily, G stayed sane and provided us with a little time apart by masking up and wandering the socially distanced aisles at Home Depot and Lowe’s. My only excursions out for a year were to the yard (front AND back!) and the many open space trails around us. In some respects though, our years of extended travels prepared us well.  We relied heavily on each other for company, we were already low maintenance from a personal grooming perspective, and we were used to preparing shopping lists with copious planning. As on a ship at sea, there was no dashing out just to pick up an item we’d forgotten. 

In fact, after nearly 5 months of cruising, I was initially a bit excited about the prospect of being forced to stay home, and organized and cleaned with abandon.  It was quite fulfilling to spend my days that way while our weather here was still wintry, especially since I had spent the summer of 2019 so physically limited. I next enlisted G’s help to tackle some other projects: fixing the dining room fountain (I guess we’ve learned that we can’t just unplug it and leave it when we cruise for months at a time, since it had been scaled up for years) and replacing the failed floppy disc drive in my Yamaha Disklavier baby grand piano with an emulator from Bulgaria. Luckily, I had recorded some of my piano performances from years ago, when I was considerably more skilled than I am now, and was able to transfer them from floppy disc to flash drive. I’m not sure if listening to the piano play them back was gratifying (I was really good!…) or disheartening (…and now I’m not!), but it is what it is. Chalk it up to all the travel (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it), and I don’t regret it for a second.  

When the weather warmed up, G was pleasantly surprised to have such a willing helper on yard projects. By then the boredom was starting to set in, and I was just looking for things to do.  Seriously, how many times in life does a husband hear his wife say, “You want me remove landscaping rocks one by one, clean them, replace the fabric under them and put them back? Sure babe!  Sounds like fun!” and really mean it? We removed a row of 20 feet tall arborvitaes (thank you Steve and Linda for your help!), planted replacements and created a terrace on a sloped side of the house by building about 25 feet of retaining walls using 50 pound landscaping blocks stacked up to six layers high. And we didn’t once have to think, “We leave in 15 days and have to get this done NOW”. They were pressure-free projects, and that was a wonderful change to our normal MO. . 

In the midst of everything, reassuring us that some things never change, both last summer and this summer, G competed in his annual trail run nearly 8 miles uphill at high altitude. With extra time on his hands, he trained fairly consistently for it this year, and is one of those enviable individuals who is emerging from the pandemic in better physical shape then he went into it. He’s a wonder, and my only real pandemic regret is that his perseverance didn’t rub off on me. 

Looks like a running trail to me!

When, in early September, a 100° plus day turned into freezing temps and measurable snowfall just 36 hours later, it scared the bejeebers out of me. With that kind of start, what was our first winter at home in 11 years going to be like? In the end, it wasn’t that bad. Snow, when you’re retired and in the midst of a pandemic with no place to go anyway, isn’t a huge deal. We simply had to keep a path to the front door shoveled for deliveries. However, one of our snowiest springs in history made up for our mild winter, and let me just say this: shoveling 2 feet of wet spring snow this year seemed a lot harder than shoveling 4 feet did many years ago. Or so I was told. We (and by we I mean mostly G, as I was still recovering from that darn wall) dug out one car, just for safety’s sake, and let the sun do the rest.

One thing I didn’t do is fly to Ohio to visit my mom. I now haven’t seen her in 2 years, 2 months and 15 days (and even I weren’t counting, I can promise you that she is).  She celebrated her 90th birthday in June and is thankfully doing very well. Her retirement community did an incredible job keeping all its residents safe, but allowed no in-person visitation for over a year (honestly, it’s shocking to even type those words), and then only very limited visitation, not well suited to someone coming in from out of town. In late June, they opened up nearly to previous levels, but I already had planned to fly back for a week in late August, timed to fall over what would have been my parents’ 70th wedding anniversary. I decided to just keep that trip in place, but I can tell you that I am desperate for a mom hug.

Mom finally meeting her first great grandchild,

 just last week. Quarantine was tough!

I was thrilled when professional sports finally returned last year.  I didn’t realize how much I enjoy them, although you’re all probably rolling your eyes, remembering right now that half my blog posts at times are about football, and absolutely right you are.  But, good grief, I really missed seeing the boys’ sports. McGee’s 2020 track season was shut down just as it was about to begin, but by cross country season they were able to hold some meets. Most exciting, they won the state championship in October (!!!!)…and I watched it via live stream. I also watched his national competition in November and McGuy’s entire varsity basketball season sitting at home, peering at my iPad. I was thankful that they were at least able to compete, and that I could watch them remotely, but it wasn’t the same. By track and field season and spring basketball league (they won the championship!) I was vaccinated and able to attend the events in person, and, honestly, those were best moments I’ve enjoyed in 18 months. 

Living their best lives as they begin senior year.

We scheduled the traditional back to school lunch with 2 hours notice 

Wednesday when we booked the extra cruise. 

So, just one more sleep with a very early (middle of the night, really) wake up and we’ll be on our way. Except for one night over the July 4th holiday, I haven’t slept in a bed not our own since our return from Sydney on February 12, 2020, which I’m pretty sure is the first time in my life that I’ve been home for so long. It’s time to fix that.

Next stop…Seattle!

Ready…set…CRUISE!

Oh. My. Gosh. I thought this day would never come, thought I’d never again be firing up my blog, rounding up masks and packing a suitcase, about to head out on a cruise to Alaska. I also never imagined, when I said in March 2020 that we needed a break from extended cruising, that we would hold the world back with us.

If you’re a returning reader of this blog, thank you (!!) for joining me once again. I really missed you guys! If you’re here for the first time, or just to get some information about the startup cruises to Alaska, welcome! Please know that this blog is first and foremost my diary, not a travel journal, and certainly not a travel guide. My writing style is purely conversational, and people who know me say I write exactly how I talk, but hopefully you’ll be able to glean one or two nuggets of knowledge from what I post.

Doesn’t the past year and a half just sometimes seem like a bad dream?  What the what just happened?  Is still happening? I remember like it was yesterday, sometime in mid January 2020 on the Majestic Princess, discussing our mutually growing concerns about the virus with the most traveled guests, who were basically living on board the Majestic as it cruised up to Asia and then moving to the Sapphire Princess for several more months in Asia.  And I often think about the passengers who flew all the way to Sydney to board the Majestic Princess at the start of our final cruise to Tasmania, intending to stay on as the ship sailed up to Singapore. That trip was aborted about a week after we disembarked. And I’ll never forget G and I talking about this in hushed tones over breakfast on the Majestic Princess in early January 2020.  Right from the start, he thought this was going to be a really big deal.  “You mean like an epidemic?” I asked.  “No, bigger than that. What’s that word?” Well, neither one of us, in that moment, could think of the term pandemic.  Yeah, that will never happen again, will it?

Still, for most of the subsequent 18 months, I may have been alone in the world in not chomping at the bit to travel again. We spent the majority of 2020 trying to get refunds of money that Princess owed us, not related to cancellations, but to normal cruising business, and I was, simply put, burned out by the effort.  Since I do most of the cruise planning, and I was not overly anxious to return to the sea, never did I ever imagine we’d be on one of the first Princess cruises out of the US when cruising began again. But I was won over in an instant when it was announced in late May that the Majestic Princess cruises to Alaska were going to be fully vaccinated cruises, that ours would probably be the only ship in each port (it’s like the old days!) and that the Majestic Princess would most likely not be sailing full (ditto!).  After some of the antics that we have observed/endured since this whole thing began, the opportunity to be with like-minded people was just too good to pass up, and it seemed appropriate to bookend our COVID break with Majestic Princess cruises.  We also thought it was prudent to see what we think of Cruising in the Age of COVID. We have final payments for a few other cruises due beginning in early September (still in the negotiation stage at our house). It will be nice to know what we’re getting into before we jump in feet first. 

But, us being us, we had a change of plans (you’re shocked, right?) just yesterday when we added a cruise BEFORE our planned cruise on the Majestic Princess. That’s right…we’re doing sort of back to back cruises. We’ll be boarding Holland America Line’s Nieuw Amsterdam in Seattle on Saturday, then the following Sunday we’ll board the Majestic Princess at (I think…I haven’t yet figured out all the details) the same pier. This is what happens when you wake up one morning, already tired of the heat and the smoke and the haze and the unrelenting sun. By noon it was a done deal. 

Of course that also meant a change of flights, and what really sealed the deal was when we could book non-stop flights on Southwest just three days in advance for about $100 each. The hours since then have understandably been busy ones; however, prepping, packing…these are different sports when we’re only leaving for 15 days.  No finishing up projects around the house after dark, no emptying the refrigerator and pantry and addressing Christmas cards in July.  I’d forgotten how easy short trips are…

…which is a good thing, because Princess raised the degree of difficulty of the pre-boarding check in process to a new high. Oy vey, what a challenge the Medallion App has been for most of us. We were unable to do anything in the app until we staged an intervention with the Ocean Support team, and even since then it’s been shaky at best. I tried to phone Ocean Support with our issues as they arose, to make sure they were aware of them, but when wait times regularly exceeded an hour, I gave up. Listening to that hold music over and over again was a sure fire way to harsh my mellow. Someday, hopefully, it will work for everyone in the way it was intended.  I think it will provide some wonderful functionality when it does.  

Meanwhile, for those of us who like visual aids, this is the amount of time we’ve spent getting our pre-cruise check in done with Holland America:

🛳

And here’s how long we’ve spent working on our Princess pre-cruise check in with the Medallion app:

🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🥺🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳😠🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳😡🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🤬🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳😩🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🛳🤯 

Yeah, it’s been fun. 

Finally, it seems horribly insensitive to glibly end this post with my usual “Life is Good”. Life right now isn’t particularly good, not even for the luckiest ones among us. We’ve all endured so much loss…of loved ones, of trust in the previously sacrosanct, of mutual respect. But I have a goal to find some good in every day. And, for right now, I’ll take that and be very, very grateful. 

It’s time

Source: William Shedd quote