Sail Away on the Eurodam!

 Saturday, April 30 - Embarkation

I was afraid I would wake up at 4 am with the two-hour time change, but managed to sleep until 6:30 am. I dressed and went down to the hotel lobby to get some breakfast, but more importantly...coffee. There was a coffee maker in the room, but that is always my last resort.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that scrambled eggs and sausage were being offered. I am on a low carb diet and figured the buffet would be all pastries, cereal and bread. The gal at the front desk told us they had just gone back to a hot breakfast buffet two weeks ago after doing grab and go items throughout the pandemic.

I was pleased with our hotel choice, the SureStay Plus SeaTac by Best Western. There is a second hotel by the same name, but the other one is designated SureStay Plus North. I did a lot of searching online and tried to find somewhere that had a nice balance between price and good reviews and found this place. The hotel is brand new so the furnishings were in great shape. Our room had a king size bed, couch and comfortable chair along with a microwave and fridge. What impressed me most about the room was how well the temperature could be controlled. I had the room quite cool while we were sleeping but the temperature could be adjusted to be comfortable while we were awake. The fan noise was very minimal and yet you could feel the air circulating in the room. The hotel is adjacent to the airport but the jet noise was very minor. The light rail track went right past our 4th floor window but I didn't realize it until I saw a train going by. No noise in the room at all.

Bob left me to shower and get ready for the day while he went for a walk. Normally he would go for three miles or so, but his walk was cut short when it began to rain. The skies were forecast to clear by afternoon and I had my fingers crossed for a dry sail away.

Around 9 am I suggested that Bob check and make sure all of his apps needed to board the ship were in order and ready to go. When he logged into the Verifly app he got an error message. The same thing had happened to me when I first downloaded the app so I told him to just delete it and start over. BIG mistake. When he tried to re-input the vaccine and testing information, he got a message saying it was too late and the data had to be entered BEFORE 8:00 am that morning. Ugh. From all reports, Verifly was the app that was going to let us bypass the long lines at embarkation and whiz into the terminal with no wait.

I had considered taking an Uber from the hotel to the port, but after a little research decided on the Seattle Express shuttle instead. I was slightly apprehensive because it would mean sharing the ride with others, but the positive online reviews convinced me to give it a try. 

Off to Seattle

 Friday, April 29 - MSP to SEA

Our normal pre-cruise routine is to drive to Minneapolis the day before our flight and spend the night with one of our kids or at a hotel with a park and fly option. This time our flight wasn't until 4:00 pm so we were able to eliminate the extra night and leave from home this morning.

I took care of the last few items on my "things to do before a cruise" check list that I keep on my iPad. Some of the reminders are very basic, but checking them off one at a time keeps me focused. By 9 am, Bob was shutting off the water to the house and turning down the temperature on the water heater, the last of the tasks to get completed before we walk out the door.

Our drive to Minneapolis was uneventful although we did run through a short stretch of rain. We were a little too early to go to the airport so Bob made a stop at REI to get a few items he needed. I had made reservations to leave our car at Shepard Road Parking, an offsite airport parking lot. This was our first time to park here and we were supposed to scan a bar code from our confirmation email as we entered. I was trying to explain this to Bob as he pulled in and before I could stop him, he grabbed the ticket that the machine spit out. I wondered if this would affect the parking rate I had been quoted.

The airport shuttle van was circling around the lot and followed us to our parking spot. With the driver waiting, I felt a little rushed as we got our luggage out of our car and loaded into the van and hoped we didn't forget anything.

The only other passengers in the van were a lady holding a toddler. As the shuttle pulled away, she held a container up to the child's mouth who then began to vomit. The ride to Terminal 1 only took about 5 minutes, but the vomiting happened repeatedly. I can only hope the child was car sick, but in reality I doubt that was the case. This might be our first test to see how effective masks are in stopping germs.

Checking our bags and getting through security took a little over an hour! The security line snaked back and forth, the longest I have ever seen. I would estimate only 10 - 20% were wearing masks. 

The security line looking in one direction...

...and looking in another direction.

Return to Cruising

 Thursday, April 28 - Cruise Eve

It is the night before our cruise and I'm trying to decide if I should be excited that we are flying to Seattle tomorrow to board a ship...OR...wondering what in the world was I thinking when I booked this trip!

A couple of months ago covid cases were dropping drastically. With cruises requiring passengers to be fully vaccinated, tested, and masked onboard I thought the time was finally right to get back to cruising. Now the night before our cruise I'm reading of drastically relaxed policies onboard and massive covid outbreaks on ships. This past week the mask mandate was also dropped for airline passengers. I will admit my anxiety level is on the rise.

The red tape to get ready for this trip has proven interesting...and often frustrating. Three different apps had to be downloaded onto our phones, each requiring different documentation proving that we are healthy and inoculated. I've about drained the ink from my printer cartridge copying anything and everything that we might possibly have to present at embarkation.

Tomorrow morning we will load up the car and drive the three hours to Minneapolis to catch a 4:00 pm flight to Seattle. The last time we flew anywhere was in November 2019, nearly 2 1/2 years ago! The airlines destroyed my luggage on that flight and the new luggage I bought on a Black Friday special is finally taking its inaugural journey!

We will be sailing on the Holland America Eurodam. At capacity, the ship carries 2,104 passengers but I've heard our cruise will have about 1700 passengers onboard. This is less than capacity, but many more than have been on the ship recently. The week-long cruise to Alaska will be the first of the season following a trip through the Panama Canal to reposition the ship from Florida to its summer homeport of Seattle.