Ahoy the shore from Alaska (1st in a series)

We are on the first full day of a 7 night Alaskan cruise aboard NCL’s Norwegian Pearl. We are currently on our first full day at sea (Monday August 31) having embarked yesterday (Sunday August 20th at NOON). We are charting a course North along the Pacific shore toward British Columbia and the inside passage enroute to our first port of Juneau.

Our flight to our embarkation port of Seattle departed from Pearson at 9:30 AM on Saturday. Morning. We used a large airport limo van (Cadillac Esplanade) to get from downtown out to YYZ because there are four of us traveling together (myself, my son Ryan (17), my daughter Claire (14) and my sister Donna (age withheld)) and we had packed six check-in bags and four carry-ons between us. We were met by our limo driver at 7:00 AM promptly, traffic was light and we were at Pearson a full two hours before departure. There were fairly long lines at Air Canada check-in and US customs but we were thru to our gate in reasonable time (none of us set off the alarm or were selected for secondary security inspection). The flight boarded and departed .on time. It was an Embraer jet with two seats on either side of the aisle and we were all seated in a single row. The flight was over 2/3rd full so there was plenty of room for our carry-ons in the overhead storage compartments. . We had no turbulence enroute and touch down on the runway was smooth. We actually arrived early. Overall a near perfect flight.

We had to wait a fair time in a separate queue for a van taxi to get from Seattle airport to our downtown hotel (the Grand Hyatt, downtown at 7th St between Pine aand Pike near the Conference Centre). We arrived at our hotel around 1:30 and upon checking in at the registration desk discovered our room was not yet ready so we checked our bags with the bell hop and set out to explore the city. We walked down to the waterfront to explore the famous Pike Public Market. At the fish-mongers booth we saw the handlers throwing flying fish thru the air at a volunteer tourist victim who was charged with the task of trying to catch the slippery scaly airborne objects. She succeeded on her third attempt! We were also impressed by some of the flower market stalls. .As we were walking back up along Pine St, the reception desk called to say our room had been assigned. We returned to the hotel and were given keys to room 2202. It was a very comfortable room with a very large marble bath featuring a large soaker tub and corner glass shower stall.

After our bags were brought up to our room, we set out on the town again. By this time it was mid afternoon and we heading out to the Cheesecake caught the monorail from the shopping second a few blocks from our hotel out along a 1.5 mile stretch of track to Settle Centre, which is the home of many museums and the Spoace Needle. The monorail, the Space Needle and much of the exhibit space were originally built for the 1962 World Fair that Seattle hosted. We purchased “day/night” two visit passes and went up for our initial visit around 5:00 PM. The tower is a little over 600 feet tall and offers exceptional panoramic views of the city and Puget Sound. After returning down the outside bug elevator, we headed over (at around 6:00) to cross the street to catch our Duck tour, which was departing at 6:30 PM.

The Duck is a surplus WWII amphibious craft (similar to those used to storm the beaches of Normandy) that has been retrofitted.for tour purposes. The tour is 90 minutes long--- approximately 60 minutes on land and 30 minutes on water. We were assigned to Duck A (#5) which was piloted by Captain Stupendous—a balding man fond of donning wld hats! The land tour took us through most of the “must see” sites of Seattle, including the waterfront, Pioneer Square and the city centre. Then we headed out across a span bridge to Freemont, which was our entry point into Lake Union for the section of our tour. We happened to hit the water just around sunset. Lake Union is a deep fresh water with many house boats, house barges and floating homes on it, including the one made famous by the Tom Hanks – Meg Ryan movie Sleepless in Seattle .From the lake you can also see gasworks park—a greenspace built around the site of a former gas factory that no longer operates.

Following our duck tour we went back up the Seattle Needle after nightfall and caught the return trip on the monorail back to the Hyatt to turn in for the night. The following morning we went out on a morning walk back to Pike Market—this time descending the hill down to the aquarium.

More to come…embarkation… stateroom