June 29

Sunday June 29: Seattle Lakes Cruise

The LAST Day

Sooooo, the bottom line is we had a wonderful day - BUT, the day did NOT start off that way. Take a look at Sue and Dan waiting, waiting above.....yes, that's how the day started. We were scheduled to go on an all-day cruise to Friday Harbor which included whale watching and wildlife "hunting" on the boat. When I'd first seen the excursion it described as leaving at 7:45 am and not returning until 7:15 pm. But when I had called and made the reservation from Sue and Dan's the day before we left they sent us a voucher we were required to print out and present when we left for the tour and it said the departure time was 11:30 am. I thought that was unusual, but there it was in black and white. So today we had all the transportation arranged and about 9:30 Kim called to ask about what to wear and the girl was stunned we were NOT ON THE BOAT! The boat had left at 7:45 (like I had originally thought); when Kim asked about the voucher, she said, well that's what you present when you are ready to return! Well, nobody told us that! So here we are without an excursion and the girl was qute rude telling Kim there were no refunds! (over $400!). But later when we called back the gentleman was so nice and sent us a refund form, so it looks like we will get our money back. 

So I started looking for alternatives and we settled on a 1:15 lake cruise. I made reservations - the girl told me it was within easy walking distance from us....and the GPS confirmed this. So we went to lunch and had over an hour to walk a half a mile. We started walking and the road was blocked with construction. We asked some construction workers and they were like, "oh no, you've got such a LONG walk ahead!" So we called our taxi guy, and warned him of all the traffic due to a Gay Day parade downtown. We still had an hour to get there. He called when there was ten minutes to get there (still plenty of time by the GPS) that he was running late....stuck in traffic. Finally he arrived and then we couldn't find it AND had traffic. We got there just as the boat was leaving.....sigh. So we walked across the parking lot and had cocktails for two hours (see above).

We were booked on the 3:30 cruise and it was fabulous. So relaxing and if anything, the weather was hot. We could not have asked for better Seattle weather - it rains for over 260 days out of the year, and had rained every day while we were on the cruise! But today was perfect. We cruised up and down Lake Union, into Portage Bay, and then into Lake Washington. We saw the University of Washington Huskies' football stadium (boo - GO COUGS!); the home from "Sleepless In Seattle," Bill & Melinda Gates estate (wow!); the home of the owner of Starbucks; and one of the coolest things, a big boat of college kids with nearly all of the coeds topless, and enjoying showing us what they had! Somehow the camera-guy (that would be me) was so stunned he missed both the still shot and the video shot.....wow.  When we returned we walked around the bend of the lake and had dinner right on the water at a nice local restaurant and it was also a fabulous spot to eat. We had the best luck all weekend with the food and weather!