Intro to cruising

Our adventure began on the 14th, but the ship didn't pull out until 4pm, so that was kind of an uneventful day. We left Oakland early in the morning, though, to catch our flight to Seattle to leave plenty of time to catch the light rail and get to the pier and wait in line for two hours to board the ship. We were unimpressed with their crowd management skills. Or, I should say, this being our first cruise, we didn't know what to expect and were sort of disappointed to find it even more cumbersome than getting on an airplane, while my parents, now veteran cruisers, were disgusted with their incompetence. But that's okay. We made it eventually and Jack miraculously slept through the whole thing. The highlight of his day was the light rail ride, believe it or not



and the wading pool, which I think was intended more for decor than little kids but no one complained and Jack was delighted.



We soon learned that we could not hang out on the pool deck with Jack for any length of time if we didn't intend for him to wind up in the water.

I'm not actually sure what we did on our first full day at sea. Some shenanigans were had between cousins on the promenade deck and the cabins, lots of stuffing our faces was done at the various restaurants, and we checked out some cool books on animals and trains at the library.

There wasn't too terribly much for an under-two-year-old to do (he was too young for most of the kid amenities on the boat), but he was anything but bored. He loves his cousins, even when they seem to grow tired of him, and woke up every morning of this trip asking for them by name. As long as there are big cousins to watch, it turns out it doesn't matter what else is going on (or if nothing is).