Alaska – May 2009 – Norwegian Star - Part 1

 

Our trip started early Friday morning with a long flight from Tampa to Seattle.  We finally arrived in Seattle and got settled in at our hotel – Homewood Suites (on Western Avenue).  What a lovely hotel.  Our room had a very nice view of the water.  It was in a great location – a quiet area of town just a few blocks from the Space Needle and within a mile of pier 66 where our cruise will depart from.  We had dinner at a very nice little Italian restaurant named La Dolce Vita on 1^st Avenue.   I would recommend this restaurant any time you visit Seattle, not just if you are staying over before a cruise; but I would suggest making reservations just in case as it is a small restaurant with only a few tables.  After dinner it’s back to our hotel for a good night’s sleep.

Saturday

Our cruise doesn’t leave until 4pm so we have plenty of time, but we like to get to the pier and get signed in so that we can get on the ship as soon as they start the embarkation process.  We got dressed and went downstairs for the free breakfast offered by the hotel.  After breakfast, it’s back upstairs to make sure we are all packed.  Around 11 a.m. we decide to head over to the pier, so we got a cab and headed over.  By noon we were on the ship.  The embarkation process was very simple and we had no long lines at the time we were there.  After our “Bubbly” welcome, we took off to get our bearings.  Personally we enjoy getting on board the ship early so that we can walk around and begin to familiarize ourselves with the ship. 

The Norwegian Star is a very nice looking ship; quite elegant looking and pleasing to the eye.  We find our way to the lunch buffet and help ourselves to some…interesting lunch (is this an insight to what we should expect during our cruise?).  I’ll tell you more about the food later.

We eat our lunch and wander about the ship a little more.  Around 2pm we are allowed into our staterooms, so we set out to find ours.  We had an ocean view stateroom located all the way aft on deck 8.  This turns out to be a great location for us as we are just a few decks below the buffet where we like to have our daily breakfast. 

 

The rest of the day consisted of checking in with the Shore Excursion desk to sign up for our excursions and more venturing around the ship to seek out places we might like to visit during our sea days.  We found the spa, conveniently located only two decks directly above our stateroom – again, a plus to our stateroom location.  We took a tour of the spa and decided that we wanted to sign up for the spa cruise pass that would allow us unlimited access to the quiet spa area, pool and hot tubs.  Dinner in Versailles, one of the main dining rooms and then we decided to head to the spa to relax in the hot tubs and lounge in the comfy lounge chairs set up right in front of a huge window looking out the back of the ship.  Finally, we retired to our stateroom for the evening as we were still a bit tired from the long day of travelling the day before.  

Sunday

Who ordered the lights turned on so early????  It’s 5 a.m. and I’m wide awake because there is so much light coming in the windows.  Today is a day “at sea”.  We head to the buffet for breakfast.  It’s packed, difficult to find a table to sit at, and again with “interesting” food, but at least there’s small boxes of cereal and pancakes & french toast that should be normal enough to eat.

We are finding out that the ship has a very interesting layout.  There are no real enclosed spaces and many of the eateries are “walk-through” so there is a steady flow of traffic right by your table…right, lovely.

Tonight’s show is a medley of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hits.  I thought it was a very good show, but I’m a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber anyway, so…  (This turns out to be the only show we got to see.)

We went to the spa until they kicked us out around 10pm.  Word to the wise, there is this one hot tub they have…WOW is all I can say!  I don’t recall the name, but there is a lounger that fits 4 comfortably and you turn on the hot tub and bubbles just come up all around you.  What a way to relax.  You must take some time to get access to the thermal suite so that you can try out this hot tub.

 

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