September 7, 2007 (Day One): Setting Sail

After months of anticipation, the big day finally came.  Despite Royal Caribbean's admonition in our ticket packet to not arrive at the pier prior to 1 pm, we knew from websites like cruisecritic.com that we could in fact arrive at the pier by 11 am and expect to be on board shortly thereafter.   That's precisely what we did; we dropped off our bags with a pier representative while the passengers from the previous cruise were actually still boarding buses to the airport and elsewhere, and we were walking on board after a quick check-in and short wait by 11:15.  We didn't go to our stateroom directly because we'd been told it might not be clean and made up yet, so instead we had lunch in the Windjammer dining room up on the tenth deck, wandered around and explored a bit, and then finally went to our room around 1 to see what it was like.

It was ... small.  Jay wished we'd paid for a balcony stateroom after all, but we made the best of it.  More importantly, Jay had paid extra for stateroom decorations celebrating our anniversary.  And chocolate-dipped strawberries.  And champagne.  And robes and slippers.  And a dozen red roses.  All of which were waiting when we opened the door.  Carole was very surprised and pleased.

The first day, otherwise, wasn't all that exciting.  We explored the ship.  We took part in the required muster drill with lifejackets and stuff.  We stood up on the top deck and felt all giddy as the Vision of the Seas sailed out of Elliott Bay and on into the waters of Puget Sound, heading north.  We enjoyed our first dinner in the main Aquarius dining room and met our waiter and assistant waiter, Pavel (from Bulgaria) and Jesus (from the Dominican Republic).  After dinner, Jay wanted to go back up on the top deck to watch the sun set, but to his surprise, a solid wall of fog, so thick it looked like you could touch it, rolled in as we were heading northwest through the Strait of Juan de Fuca passing (approximately) Port Angeles, Washington.   While we certainly didn't encounter fog every day on our cruise, the first evening's fog was a harbinger of things to come.

Cruise Compass Newsletter: Day 1 of 7

Videos:

• Welcome to Stateroom 4000
• Carole Bids Farewell to Seattle
• Carole Visits the Gym
• In The Fog

The door to our stateroom, #4000.	The "Happy Anniversary". The sticker in lower right implied that the sign had seen heavy use from year to year. We took it home with us.	All sortsa cheerful Happy Anniversary decorations hanging from the ceiling.	Closeup.
Closeup.	Carole with the roses. They lasted all week and still looked great at the end.	Carole on the bed with the roses, the decorations overhead, and some of our carry-on bags.	Moncha moncha on the strawberries.
View of Seattle from the observation deck on the very top of the ship.	Carole with the Space Needle in the background.	Jay doin' the Hokies United thing on the observation deck as the ship sailed.
	The City of Dubrovnik, a container ship that was getting unloaded via barge as we passed by.	Carole and the City of Dubrovnik.	Carole was very very intent on making out the City of Dubrovnik's name.
Muster drill, deck 5.	Muster drill, deck 5.	Carole during muster drill.	Carole tried out an exercise ball in the gymnasium on Deck 10.
After dinner, the view southwest from the observation deck, looking toward the Olympic Peninsula. Note the wall of fog in the distance.	The wall of fog, slightly closer.	Closer still!	Aaaaaaaaaaand we're in the fog.
Fog.	The view of the ship's instruments in the fog, taken from the observation deck, immediately below and forward.

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