Day 3: Bon Voyage!

This morning I took the shuttle back to the airport and waited for my coach out to Seward. I love being a runner. I met a sweet Asian couple, the husband is a fellow runner and happened to run the half marathon the day before...but super cool thing about it...he's 73 and came in 1st for his age group! While I was waiting I met a couple celebrating their 50th anniversary accompanied by their two children and their spouses all hailing from OK and TX! Since we were a few hours early we were given a heads up to sit on the opposite side of the driver for a better view on our 3 hour ride out to the ship. Super happy about the tip! WHAT A DRIVE!!!!! It was beautiful. As we traveled down the Cook Inlet toward Seward it was low tide and we were able to see all the silt deposits along the shoreline. Our driver told us so many people a year die from walking out on the "mud flats". The silt acts kinda of like quick sand and begins to slowly wrap around the person as they sink and then when high tide comes in they drown. But it was really neat to see all the silt. All along the left side of the bus were the mountains and since it’s summer the snow up on top of them is melting and as it does waterfalls develop all over the slops, again beautiful! We came to an area where after the 1964 9.2 magnitude earthquake had caused the land to drop 8 feet, as a result when the tides came in it killed off a ton of the vegetation of all that newly covered land. As we drove there are a bunch of naked dead trees and due to the change in sea level there is vegetation slowly growing back. When we finally got to the pier I was thrilled to find out my cabin had been upgraded! I made my way through to my stateroom and was stunned at how awesome it was. It’s like a mini hotel room on steroids! My bags were yet to be delivered so I made my way around the ship exploring. My parents had said it’s like a little city on water, but I had no idea until I actually experienced it myself. I ran into one of the Lifestylists, Nick, and he invited me to join the tour of the ship he was about to give. WOW! So many places and so many things to do!!! After this, since I still hadn’t received my bags, I decided to head up for dinner. I got to enjoy a table all to myself and opted for the Salmon. I figured might as well get started on trying things now! The main dinning room offers 5 courses (complimentary)…and most nights I eat all 5. DELICIOUS! Now, I didn’t pig out on the cruise I generally left a little bit on each plate so I would actually have room to make it all the way through all the courses without stuffing myself. Post the delicious first meal I went back to my cabin and unpacked everything. The Ocean Bar had intrigued me earlier and decided to go back there to enjoy the jazz trio and the view. The Crow’s Nest had a 10pm singles and solo travelers champagne toast. I met Amber the Events Coordinator and she introduced me to the DJ, Mark, who’s also from Texas. He and I hit it off spent the rest of the evening chatting away.

I'm having difficulty getting the still pictures and video off my camcorder, I'll update once I do.