Saturday, June 19 - Transition day - "The Wilderness to the Lap of Luxury!

We had a leisurely morning to pack up. Had breakfast with a couple from Washington State, then got our things together and drove over to the airport. We dropped our rental car and waited for our transfer bus to Whittier. Leaving the airport on basically the same route we took yesterday, we had the advantage this time of a recorded narration of the points of interest along the way. Unfortunately, the weather was not as nice as our previous trip, and by the time we arrived in Whittier, it was raining fairly steadily. Instead of the track to Seward, we took a track to the east once we reached Portage. We passed by Portage Glacier and then went through the tunnel which is the only land route to Whittier. There are certain times for each direction of traffic and also for cars/buses vs. trains. So, if you don't get there at the right time, you're in for a wait. Fortunately the shuttle plans this into their schedule, so we just sat for a few minutes waiting for our turn. It was at least a 5 minute trip, which is a very long time to travel through a very small space carved out of mountain. We finally popped out at the other end and there was Whittier. Not much to look at, there are very few buildings, two of which are cement buildings which is the only housing in town.
But, it is a cruise ship port....and there was our ship waiting for us! Check in was very painless - got our "Cruise Card", went through security, had our Embarkation photo taken and we were ready to go. Found our room - on B (Baja) Deck (level 11 out of 15) and were very pleasantly surprised - it was pretty much the largest room that we've stayed in so far this trip!! We have only been on Carnival/Royal Caribbean cruise with 2 kids in our room, so this was amazing - a Queen bed, desk, night stands, storage space, etc. And...a balcony! While waiting for our luggage to be brought up, we set out to explore the ship and admire all the common areas.
I was very relieved to find the our cabin was on a higher level than most of the common areas. As my kids might remember, I had a very hard time our last cruise understanding that we were going "down" to our room after dinner, rather than up like in a hotel. This time, only the buffet restaurant, pools, etc are above us and the rest (theatres, restaurants, shops, etc) are below. We had been given a card when we checked in that we had a 5:30 seating for dinner tonight, so we headed down to see what was in store for us. Although we will have set dining companions for the rest of the trip, tonight we were seated as we arrived. We were at a table for 6 with a couple from British Columbia and another from Stratford, CT. All were very nice, especially the lady from CT. We had a delicious dinner (crab pate, crimini soup and prime rib for me, with banana flambe a la mode for dessert for me) and then went to the theater for the evening's variety show. They had a production number and then the main act was the comedian (from Buffalo :-)), who was actually quite good - some very clever jokes. That wrapped up our first day on ship - I could definitely get used to this!