Just off Spirit to Alaska- Great Trip! Long, Detailed Review with Pics!!

[amdmsk]

Well, we just got home yesterday (actually, I guess it really was very early this morning!) from a GREAT cruise on board the Spirit to Alaska. Before this cruise, I'd always be on these boards reading other's cruise reviews and looking at the pictures, so I thought I'd give it a try myself!

 

So...here's the start of my first CC review! It may take me a few days or so to get through everything...I took LOTS of pictures and am still uploading them to my computer. Feel free to ask me any questions! I'd be happy to answer.

 

Here it goes... :D

[amdmsk]

Well, we left for Seattle on Saturday morning so that we could spend two full days seeing Seattle before the cruise on Tuesday. There were 5 of us all together- myself (22), my sister, my aunt, my mom, and my dad. All in all, it was a great trip and I'd love to go back again! There were a few minor problems and one big disappointment, which I'll get to later, but nothing that ruined the trip :)

 

We are from eastern Pennsylvania and so spent the time in Seattle since we knew we probably wouldn't get back out to the west coast anytime too soon. We flew out of Philadelphia and left for the airport Saturday morning. All the flights went smoothly with no delays. We first flew from Philly to Detroit and then Detroit to Seattle, arriving in Seattle around 5:30. We claimed our luggage and made our way to the entrance to find a taxi to the hotel....

 

I'm not sure how much more I'll get to tonight (I guess jet lag and getting up early on the cruise is catching up to me!), so this might be it for today. So, I'll leave you all with this picture mid-flight on the way to Seattle....

 

 

MUCH more coming in the morning!!! :D

[picomullet]

Anxiously waiting..We will be doing this same crise in a few weeks!!:D

[amdmsk]

I see the picture didn't work, here it is again!

 

[amdmsk]

Okay, one more post for tonight...

Our first night in Seattle:

By the time we got to the hotel, it was a little after 6 and we were all tired from a long day of traveling. The taxi ride from the hotel took about 15-20 minutes and it was a very easy way to get to the hotel. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Seattle on 6th Avenue and Seneca Street. This was a great hotel and I would stay there again and recommend it to others. It was clean, conveniently located, and overall, a very nice place.

 

There were 34 (give or take a few floors), so we sometimes had to wait for an elevator (we were on floor 31), but never waited more than a few minutes. We also upgraded and stayed at club level in the hotel, which was especially great and worth the upgrade cost. Along with some extra amenities in the room, we were also able to have a complimentary continental breakfast each morning, which worked out great for us as we are not big breakfast people and like to get up, eat, and go to get the most out of our short time in Seattle. The breakfast included a great selection of items, much more than we were expecting. They had fruit, pastries, juice, soda, water, oatmeal, toast/bagels, muffins, and yogurt. This worked out perfect for us.

Here's a picture of the hotel,

 

 

After we got situated in our rooms and dropped off our luggage, we decided to head the few blocks into the heart of downtown to get something to eat. Our plan was to walk to the market, but seeing as we were very tired and the market was a few blocks further and down many more hills (I didn't know Seattle was so full of hills :confused:) than we expected, we stopped at a very nice plaza area in downtown to eat at a Mexican Cantina type restaurant. Tomorrow we realized we were only two blocks away from the market, but oh well, the resaurant was really great!! I can't remember the name of it right now, but it was very authentic and great and I had some awesome fajitas. If you like Mexican food, you would enjoy this place.

After dinner, it was just getting dark out and we slowly headed back up to the hotel to plan our day for tomorrow and rest up for one busy day!

 

Coming up tomorrow morning: Day 1 in Seattle!

[cruisinskier]

Looking forward to reading (and seeing) all about your trip. Thanks for taking the time to post a review.....I know these can be time consuming but we really appreciate the picture reviews! Thanks

[Inklight]

I'm looking forward to your review and photos! We (DH and I) will be on this cruise next May. We'll be flying into Vancouver but we'll eventually end up in Seattle. I'm hoping to attach a post-cruise visit.

 

Thank you for the time you are taking to review your trip! Can't wait for more! :D

[amdmsk]

Day 1 in Seattle!

 

We got up early this morning and started off with the continental breakfast in the hotel. Our goal was to get to the Space Needle by the time they open the observation deck at 9:00.

Just a side note: Before the trip, we decided to purchase the Seattle CityPass, where you pre-pay a certain price and get admission to six different attractions in Seattle for half the price of going to all of the attractions without the citypass. With it you got day and night admission to the Space Needle, admission to Pacific Science Center, Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum, an Argosy harbor cruise, either the Woodland Park Zoo or Museum of Flight admission, and Seattle Aquarium admission. It was a good deal for the price (we didn't spend a whole lot of time in any of the museums though) and you have 9 days to use it starting with the first attraction you visit. I would recommend it if you're looking to see the best of Seattle in a short amount of time, if you like museums, or if you are traveling with children, as some of the museums had a lot of interactive exhibits geared toward younger children.

 

Anyway, we got to the Space Needle at 9:00 and went up to the observation deck for our daytime visit. We took the Seattle Center Monorail for $4.00 per person round trip. It was very convenient and located close to the hotel. You'll see from the pictures below that it was pretty cloudy this morning. This eventually turned to rain for most of the late morning and afternoon. It stopped a little later in the evening, though it was very cool out all day. Even though it was cloudy/rainy, the views were still great from the top, though Mount Rainier was not visible, which was disappointing.

 

 

 

Coming up next: Camera troubles! :eek:

[amdmsk]

While we were up in the Space Needle, I was taking lots of pictures and we were up there about 20 minutes when my camera battery was already flashing that it was low! Now I had it charging all night in the hotel, so I knew that something was wrong with it, but there wasn't anything I could do at the moment so I just tried not to take as many pictures for the time being. My camera is pretty old and I'm looking to get a new one soon, so the battery dying was not surprising, just unfortunate.

After the Space Needle, we wanted to continue visiting the museums in Seattle Center so that we could head back downtown to the market later, so we went to the Pacific Science Center. Walked through the science center kind of quickly (many of the exhibits here were geared toward younger children, but they did have some neat interactive exhibits that were worth looking at). There was a neat butterfly house as well.

 

 

After the science center, we got lunch in the Seattle Center, where they had many different quick restaurant options. Then, we headed to the experience music project/science fiction museum, also nearby. This was a neat museum, especially if you are interested in the exhibits, but again, we didn't spend all that much time there. In the meantime, I was still having trouble with my camera and didn't want it to die completely before I got to take pictures at the market, so I talked my family into trying to find a camera store so I could attempt to get a new battery. Sure enough, we found a great little camera shop and luckily, they had a battery and told me that my battery was in fact broken. They charged it for me and I was on my way!! :D

We then headed back on the monorail to downtown Seattle and made our way to the Pike Place Market. Walked through the market for a while, had some mac and cheese from Beecher's, saw the fish market, gum wall, and just enjoyed the atmosphere in spite of the rain and cool weather.

 

 

When we were done at the market, it was raining again and it was only about 4:00, so we opted to walk down to the aquarium hoping that tomorrow would be nice and we would be able to spend more time outside. The aquarium was nice, not that big, but still neat. It sits on a pier with a perfect view of one of the Seattle cruise piers, so I got to see this Norwegian ship sail away...

 

 

After the aquarium, we headed to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, just near the market again. I won't get into detail here because I don't want to scare anyone away from eating there, but I'll just say that I certainly won't be eating at a Hard Rock Cafe anytime soon :eek: I have a collection of their keychains from each Hard Rock I've been to, so I'll still go to get those...I just won't be eating there.

 

From there, we walked back to the hotel and rested for a little while before heading back out to the Space Needle for our night visit. Went back out just before it got dark and made our way to the monorail again and back to the Space Needle. By then it had stopped raining and was cloudy again. It was neat to see the city lights come on from the observation deck and it looked just as awesome at night as it did during the day. We stayed up there for a while just enjoying the city lights (they are open until midnight I believe) and then headed back down, to the monorail, and back to the hotel to call it a night.

 

 

Up a little later: Day 2 and getting ready for the Spirit!!!

[Room Service!]

Thanks for the review. Hope to do it...someday.

My niece and her husband are doing it right now! This is their 2nd ever cruise. They won it on their first last year.

Looking forward to more pics. :)

[JaniceB]

Can't wait to read the rest!

 

You mentioned how tired you are and I am doing this cruise in May, live on the East Coast, and was wondering if we should stay a night in Seattle when the cruise is over and get an early flight home instead of leaving the day the cruise ends. What time were you off the ship and what time was your flight?

[chaser84]

Show me Tracy Arm!!!!!! I miss that lovely piece of scenery!

[pbmsmile]

I am really enjoying the review so far..keep it coming :) I am planning a suprise Alaska cruise for my husbands 50th July 2013 ( I know I am starting way early) and have a notebook started!

[amdmsk]

Can't wait to read the rest!

 

You mentioned how tired you are and I am doing this cruise in May, live on the East Coast, and was wondering if we should stay a night in Seattle when the cruise is over and get an early flight home instead of leaving the day the cruise ends. What time were you off the ship and what time was your flight?

 

This was something that we considered doing as well because of the time difference and not having much choice with flights...we didn't want to book anything before 12:00. But, we found a flight that left at a great time and decided not to stay the extra day and it worked out very well. I think I'm actually more tired from having to get up at 6 or 7 every day on the cruise than I am from the flight (my family likes to book things very early in the morning) lol ;)

Our flight left Seattle at 12:45 and we were off the ship by 9:30 and in the airport a little after 10:00, so there was plenty of time. We were also debarkation zone number 22, so most others were off the ship well before us. Hope this helps! :)

[amdmsk]

Show me Tracy Arm!!!!!! I miss that lovely piece of scenery!

 

Tracy Arm is coming up!!! I miss it as well...this time last week, I was there! It definitely was a highlight of the cruise...I took tons and tons of pictures there, so I'll definitely be posting a lot! :D

[amdmsk]

I am really enjoying the review so far..keep it coming :) I am planning a suprise Alaska cruise for my husbands 50th July 2013 ( I know I am starting way early) and have a notebook started!

 

Thanks! and thanks to everyone who has been reading so far! I'm enjoying writing this...reliving the wonderful trip all over again!

 

It's never too early to start planning!! We planned this trip about a year and a half in advance.

 

Keep reading, there's MUCH more coming :D

[spideyfam]

Great review and you are not even on the ship yet. Thank you for posting!!

[FloridaMimi]

Well, we just got home yesterday (actually, I guess it really was very early this morning!) from a GREAT cruise on board the Spirit to Alaska. Before this cruise, I'd always be on these boards reading other's cruise reviews and looking at the pictures, so I thought I'd give it a try myself!

 

So...here's the start of my first CC review! It may take me a few days or so to get through everything...I took LOTS of pictures and am still uploading them to my computer. Feel free to ask me any questions! I'd be happy to answer.

 

Here it goes...

 

 

 

I'm enjoying your review, but it is also making very sad:(. My husband and I were supposed to be on that exact same Alaskan cruise to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. But, we both ended up having to have surgery when we were ready to book and between the two of us we were out of work fore 8 months:mad:. We had to postpone our trip. Thank you for showing me what we missed:rolleyes:. Just teasing.... I like it. I will cruise vicariously through your review and photo's. Keep it coming.;) We are planning our Alaskan cruise for July 2013:D. I refuse to use a credit card for a vacation and since we were out of work so long we have to save up for it again.:o

[amdmsk]

Day 2 in Seattle:

Again, we started off our second day in Seattle early (anyone see a pattern emerging?? :rolleyes:), I think it was about 7:00. We had the breakfast in the hotel and went on our way to downtown, this time beginning our day in Pioneer Square (for anyone who remembers the places I said were on the CityPass on an earlier post and is following where we've been, there are two attractions that we haven't visited yet: the harbor cruise and the zoo/flight museum. Today we did the harbor cruise, but we never got to the zoo or flight museum- they were too far to walk to and we didn't really want to have to bother with taxis for 5 people).

We walked down to Pioneer Square as the sun came up. It was a beautiful morning- a little cool and foggy with some low clouds covering up the tall buildings, but soon enough, the sun came out and it was gorgeous all day. Much better than the rain yesterday! I loved this building that we passed in Pioneer Square:

 

 

We walked around a little and decided that we would try to get tickets for the 10:00 Underground Tour. Found the building, bought the tickets, and went on the tour. Overall, we all enjoyed the tour a lot. It was really neat to see the buildings that once were Seattle and to hear how the Underground came to be. Our guide was really great and made the tour fun, educational, and interesting. A great way to spend the morning!

From there, we asked the guide for a good local restaurant to eat that was nearby. He recommended Ivar's Fish Bar on the waterfront, which was not too far away and served a variety of different fish and chips as well as chicken and chips. We walked down to the waterfront, found the restaurant, and really enjoyed this place. The food was great and the outdoor seating was perfect for a beautiful day like today. Now, I don't eat fish, so I had the chicken and chips (well, okay, it was what I would call french fries :D) but it was great. My family all had different kinds of fish from clams to salmon and enjoyed all of it. Here's the front of the restaurant:

 

 

We then walked down the street on the waterfront and made our way to the Argosy cruises pier. We took the one hour harbor cruise tour that was part of the CityPass and got to see some great views of the entire skyline of Seattle. The cruise circled all around the harbor and gave everyone great views of the cruise terminals (I didn't see any ships in today), space needle, baseball and football stadiums, harbor, and buildings in Seattle. It was an enjoyable time. Here's a view of the entire city from the boat:

 

 

From there, we had a few more hours so we opted to go take yet another tour...this time, we did the Seattle Duck Tour. This was a very enjoyable two hours with a great guide who made the tour lots of fun and encouraged everyone to act like a little kid again!! :) We saw all the major attractions in Seattle and then crossed over to the residential areas, where we went into Lake Washington and circled around the lake for quite some time. Saw lots of boats, the Sleepless in Seattle house boat, some floatplanes taking off and landing, and enjoyed great views of the bridges and city. By then it was getting late, so we made our way back to the hotel and stopped at a Benihana for dinner. I've never been there before as there aren't any close by where we live, and I thought it was very good. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and packed up for the big day tomorrow!!!

 

Coming up: THE CARNIVAL SPIRIT!!!

[tonit964]

Great review! Can't wait for the rest.

We will be on the Spirit in 11 days!!!

Toni

[amdmsk]

The long awaited day was finally here! We again had breakfast at the hotel and returned to our rooms to pack up for the cruise. We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up at the hotel at 9:45 to take us to the pier. Our goal was the arrive at the pier around 10:00 or shortly thereafter. We've arrived at the pier around that time on several previous cruises and always find that it is a good time to arrive if you don't mind waiting in the pier a while. By 10, most people are off the ship, but most haven't arrived yet so check-in is quick and you get to be one of the first on board.

On a side note, while we did have a taxi at 9:45, this was where we had the only problem with the hotel. Nothing major that would stop me from staying again though. The day before the cruise, we went down to the hotel lobby to ask for them to arrange the taxi at 9:45. Well, the hotel said that they have a shuttle to the cruise pier each week, but the shuttle didn't leave until either 11:45 or 12:45 and they weren't too willing to change this for us. We explained to them that this is too late for what we were looking for (you'll learn soon that we were in fact on board before the first shuttle would even have left the hotel), and eventually, got them to agree to arrange the car for us at 9:45.

 

Well, the car came and we got to the pier a little after 10. It seemed like most of the people from the last week had left already and a few were beginning to arrive. We dropped off our luggage, checked-in, and were waiting in the seating area not long after. We were in zone 2 for embarkation. Before we knew it, boarding started and we were in the Spirit atrium on board just before 11:30. The first thing we did was book the Behind the Fun Tour that I read so much about on CC and then headed to the Lido deck for an early lunch before the crowd arrived.

Had a welcome aboard drink...I'm not sure what it was or what was in it, but it was pretty good!

 

 

After lunch, we went to walk around the ship and get some inside photos before we could get into our rooms. Took lots of photos around the ship...there weren't many people around yet. Here's just a few:

 

The water slide was open on embarkation day for anyone who is interested. Since it was cloudy again, but not raining, it was cool outside and I didn't see anyone on it, but there was a crew member at the top and water running in the slide. The only other time it was open was on the last day at sea.

 

The pools, even the outside ones, were always open each day. The dome pool was covered the entire time and I occasionally saw people in it. Rarely saw anyone in the outside pools, but saw lots and lots of people using the hot tubs both inside and outside.

 

 

 

My post couldn't be complete without this one (taken later in the cruise):

[densol]

Loving your review - we go on this cruise in 3 weeks time and cannot wait !!!

 

Thanks for sharing :D

[zanydoc]

More! More! We are cruising the Spirit to Mexican Riviera in October...would you mind (when you get to it) being really specific about the Spirit herself since you are so good at describing? Thank you! Great review!

[amdmsk]

At 1:30, we headed to our rooms. We had two rooms booked on the Verandah deck 7 forward, 7108 and 7106. My aunt also had a room next to us as well. We really love these rooms and this is the third cruise we've taken where we've had these two rooms (have them booked in Jan as well!). The rooms were great! Our stateroom steward was great as well. We really love these rooms because they are adjoining staterooms with a connecting door inside them. One is an inside room and one is a balcony room. This is very convenient for us because my sister and I stay in the inside room while my parents stay in the balcony room and it is easy for us to talk to one another, go out on the balcony without having to go into the hallway, but still have our space.

 

Soon, it was time for the safety briefing and sail away. Watched sail away from the balcony even though it was a little cold. Here's some sail away pics I took from the balcony:

 

 

 

 

As Seattle got further and further away, it was soon time for dinner. We had early seating and had a table for the 5 of us near the back of the dining room. Jorge, our waiter, was absolutely wonderful and was certainly one of the biggest highlights of the cruise. He was great and so friendly and personable. We were all sad to leave him on the last night and he, along with his assistant, Donny, made dinner each night a wonderful experience. Of course, the food was great too!!! :D

 

After dinner, went outside to see if the sun had come out at all, but no luck. It was a pretty calm night as we headed out to sea though

 

 

Unfortunately, the weather and seas got worse before they got better...to be continued...

[MrsHeart]

The water slide was open on embarkation day for anyone who is interested. Since it was cloudy again, but not raining, it was cool outside and I didn't see anyone on it, but there was a crew member at the top and water running in the slide. The only other time it was open was on the last day at sea.

 

 

I actually went on the slide when we departed Juneau. It was a blast... took me back to being 10 again. I could not believe how warm we had it in Skagway and Juneau-- we really lucked out.:D