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Ovation of the Seas to Alaska - June 21-28 - The non-fabulous-photo version:


SpeedNoodles

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Ok you guys, I'm SO excited. Mr. SpeedNoodles and I have not been on a vacation for 10 years (yes, you read that correctly). We've had time off from work, hauling the hounds to dog shows, but those are work.  Lots of fun, but lots of work.  This year is our 25th wedding wedding anniversary, his 50th birthday, we found a hound(s)/house sitter, and we are READY TO GO!!!

I'll focus this blog mostly on the ship, since there's no way my photos of the scenery will do any justice of it, and Twangster did a superb job on his. Hats off to him - they were absolutely incredible!  I don't know that I'll be able to post daily, but I intend to do the best that I can.  We will have 36 hours in Seattle before we get on the ship, so we're super excited about that! 

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick .....

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Truth is pictures hardly do justice to Alaska.  

Enjoy your cruise.  Mine is a memory at this point and I'm super jealous that you are sailing to a part of the country that I enjoy so much.

Happy 25/50 or what ever else might be going on!  

From personal experience when the time is right leave this live blog be and live in the moment.  If so inclined come back later and update it.  Don't miss a moment of your cruise for this thread. It can and will wait for you.  

Woohoo!  Cruise day is near!

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On 6/13/2019 at 10:49 PM, SpeedNoodles said:

 Mr. SpeedNoodles and I have not been on a vacation for 10 years (yes, you read that correctly).

 

When we took our first cruise, that was the first time my wife and I had been on vacation, for more than 3 nights without our sons since before our oldest was born.... in 1994!

Enjoy! Looking forward to your live blog!

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@SpeedNoodles - hope you have a great cruise.  My dad just got off this one the last week in May and they seemed to enjoy it.  Which is funny, cause they seem to like the older ships.  I'm waiting on 2021 dates to come out for this cruise for our family to hit up ... interested to see your thoughts on the ship.  Like @twangster said, enjoy the cruise and blog when you can.  Just a thought, if you have a voice recorder on your phone - you could take 'voice' notes to remind yourself of stuff for blogging later ....  ? 

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14 minutes ago, TheHobbys said:

@SpeedNoodles - hope you have a great cruise.  My dad just got off this one the last week in May and they seemed to enjoy it.  Which is funny, cause they seem to like the older ships.  I'm waiting on 2021 dates to come out for this cruise for our family to hit up ... interested to see your thoughts on the ship.  Like @twangster said, enjoy the cruise and blog when you can.  Just a thought, if you have a voice recorder on your phone - you could take 'voice' notes to remind yourself of stuff for blogging later ....  ? 

Me too.

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Ok, finally finding a little time to hook up the keyboard to the iPad and update!

Days 1 and 2 - pre cruise:

We flew out of Terminal 2 at the Mpls/St Paul area on Wednesday afternoon - my husband is terrified of flying, but we had a very smooth flight and his drugs lasted almost long enough.  We’ll have to get another dose into him before landing next time - landing is not his favorite part of the flight!

We grabbed an Uber from SeaTac and scored a very entertaining Uber driver for the drive to our hotel. We stayed at The Inn at El Gaucho in Belltown on 1st Avenue.  I’ll add some photos in a bit (they are on my phone, I have to add them separately).  It was nothing short of wonderful.  It’s a small, 17-room, boutique hotel with a very laid-back, friendly atmosphere.  The only drawback that I could see is that if you cannot navigate two flights of stairs it’s not for you, as there is no elevator (there is a luggage elevator but it can hold no passengers. Even the staff just loads the luggage on and walks down the stairs to meet the elevator).

The evening front desk maven is Lee (fondly known by those who stay frequently/live there as Mama Lee).  She is a wealth of information, and extremely welcoming.  Each night in the beautiful lobby they have complimentary wine, which we took full advantage of. We will likely not consider staying anywhere else when we visit Seattle again in the future.  It was a reasonably close walk to Pike Place (4-5 blocks, but who’s counting after wine?)

On Wednesday night (after some wine, of course) we walked 2 blocks away and had dinner at Kaarage Satsuma - Mr SpeedNoodles had Kaarage Chcken and Setsuna fries - I had ramen.  Everything was pretty amazing, at a good price, and filling.  We then walked down to The Crocodile (home of grunge) where we had tickets to see Har Mar Superstar.  As a side note, Har Mar Superstar originated in the Twin Cities and performed in his home town of Owatonna a week before we sailed, which is very close to our house, but we decided to just see him in Seattle.  Prom Queen opened for him, and she was fabulous.

On Thursday we got up and walked down to Pike Place Market, had some breakfast, then walked down and jumped on an Argosy Locks Tour cruise.  It leaves out of the area next to the big Ferris wheel, goes north and takes you through the locks and Lake Union. I highly recommend this tour as well - it was the second time we’ve done it and it’s always enjoyable and informative.

We had some drinks and appetizers at Pike Brewery, did a little shopping (Metzger’s Maps, The Purple Store, and Robot Sloth were of particular interest to me), went back for happy hour and then just had dinner in the El Gaucho restaurant below the hotel, then turned in for the night.

The Inn at El Gaucho :

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"Wine" lobby

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Kaarage Satsuma:

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Plate that I wanted to steal, but didn't. 

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