June 19 - 21

After a fantastic weekend in Louisville for the "Downs After Dark" night at the races where fifteen of us celebrated a family reunion together, Kim and I were off to Hiawassee, Georgia to visit our best friends Sue & Dan Reynolds and then head off to Seattle to begin our Great Alaskan Cruise Adventure! The trip from Kentucky to Georgia was much like an "E-Ticket" ride at Disney World as we wound our way through the mountains of Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. The scenic drive was spectacular at times, like the Great Smoky Mountains as seen in the above photo....but other times it was a 'white knuckle" drive for these two "city-slickers" such as the winding 45 minute adventure along Tennessee Highway 68 (below left). But we finally made our way to Sue & Dan's and were soon relaxing on their picturesque back deck overlooking the lake (below).

The first full day of our Georgia trip was to see the new Superman movie, "Man of Steel" - which was awesome - and then across the street to a cafe which overlooked the mountains and lakes of the area (above). Just a gorgeous view! 

Finally, the trip to Alaska began bright and early Thursday morning. We left the Reynolds' residence right on time at 6 a.m. and Dan navigated the truck on the two hour journey, with all the luggage, up and over the mountain and then to the train station located just north of the outerbelt around metro Atlanta. We got our tickets and settled in for the 45 minute trip through the heart of the city and to Hartsfield International Airport on the southern edge of the outerbelt around Atlanta. We took the luggage inside and boarded an in-airport shuttle train to take us to the proper terminal where we checked our luggage and arrived at our departure gate a little less than an hour before take-off. Perfect timing! 

The air travel was smooth as can be on the non-stop Southwest flight. The airline attendants were very funny and highly entertaining :) After clearing the partly cloudy skies of Georgia we had nothing but blue skies as we headed across the heartland of America, and then across the western plains and mountains, before finally reaching the Great Pacific Northwest and the Seattle airport.

We had to wait about 40 minutes after collecting our luggage for our "Express Shuttle" to take us to the Quality Inn & Suites. But it was located less than a block from the iconic Space Needle. It was drizzling and raining from the time we landed but we braved the elements and walked a couple of blocks to a pizzeria and enjoyed a couple of slices of pizza for dinner before settling into our rooms for the night. Kim and I spent the evening watching our Miami Heat win their second consecutive NBA championship by defeating the San Antonio Spurs in a dramatic Game 7 which was not decided until the final minute!

We got a good night's rest, in spite of the time change, and all four of us were in the lobby around 9:30 to await our shuttle - provided by the Quality Inn - to our pier and the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship. Let's just say that we "got our money's worth" (all $7 per person) with a very interesting trip to the cruise port in a van with another crusing group. The luggage was overflowing from the back, including two pieces placed along the side walls of the interior and the one gentleman in the front passenger seat holding Kim & my garmet bag! We arrived to the pier in plenty of time and in spite of the determined efforts of one of the other passengers in the van to completely disrupt the unloading of the van's luggage.....which completely befuddled the Royal Caribbean baggage handlers! Luckily Dan was standing right there and he pointed out where our luggage was, and soon the Celebrity baggage handler had all of our luggage in place and we were set to begin what we anticipated would be a long process of waiting our turn to board the ship. Much to our delight we walked right to the front of the line and were cleared in less than five minutes! We were on board the Celebrity Solstice before eleven a.m. and posed for an "on board" picture high up on Deck 15 (see below) with the mountains surrounding the Seattle port in the background! One of the perks of our booking our cruise through CruiseOne and our agent Nancy Nelson was that we got the "Classic Beverage Package" for FREE with our cruise. This was a financial benefit which was calculated at $44 per cabin, but the way the program works was that ALL FOUR of us get unlimited beverages - water, soda, beer, wine, and alchol - for the duration of the cruise! I quickly introduced Dan to frozen mudslides - see me enjoying my first above right - and all of us had a second drink (except Kim who wanted to get the first workout of her cruise) before being able to get into our cabins. The pics of our cabin (Rm 7120 - right next to the Reynolds' in 7122) show the room from the balcony looking back to the door on the left; and from the door to the balcony on the right. We had our "muster" in the theatre - where we were delighted that in the unlikely event we would have a real emergency at sea, our group would be the first ones into the lifeboats AND our group had the largest number of lifeboats! Always nice to be first, especially in this unlikely circumstance! After that required meeting we had about 45 minutes to get "cleaned up" and head to the dining room for the first night's big meal. I had gone down to make our reservations - as we were with the "select dining plan," which allows us to eat on our schedule. We all enjoyed the dinner and then we went to the first show in the theatre. It was a variety of acts, most of which were designed to give us a taste of the presentations and shows that were to come. It was highly entertaining and we all left with the feeling that tomorrow's "day at sea" would not have enough hours in the day to allow us to do all the things we wanted to do.........a GREAT start to our adventure!