Cruising Alaska...part 1 (and a giveaway)

 Several years ago we took a cruise to the Caribbean.  It was my first cruise.  I wasn't really impressed.  We had rough seas, motor issues and I was very (repeat that), very dizzy.

Lat month, we took our second cruise.  It was exceptional (although I still had some dizziness).  We flew to Seattle and boarded the MS Westerdam and cruised to Alaska.  Our trip was 2015 nautical miles. The ship was 935 feet long! It carried 2036 guests (and never felt crowded) and 807 crew members. It used 216 tons of diesel a day and 90 tons of gasoline a day.  WOW, that is a lot of fuel!

 Our cabin was lovely!

There was even a desk for me to write at, with a window view.

We were greeted with fresh flowers, fruit, chocolate covered strawberries, and champagne. 

(Nice start, right?)

We had a lovely patio, which I spent a lot of time on.

We had cruise TV.  We could watch a TV channel that showed the view from the front or rear of the ship.  (Totally cool!) We could also watch where we were on another channel and get all the ship stats.

The ship was beautiful!  It even had a retractable roof over one of the pools.

I did find time most days to work on NOT A HOLIDAY, although the beautiful views out my window were a bit distracting.

Most days we had a cute critter in our rooms when they came in to turn down our bed at night. 

This cool life boat took us to shore in one port. 

 The town was too small to have a dock big enough for our ship.

The food was beautiful and tasty.  I can't believe I forgot to photograph every meal. 

(hangs head in shame)

There were 84 people preparing food for us each day.

We consumed 11,830 lbs of meat and meat products, 3,814 lbs of poultry, 3,000 lbs of fish, 2,575 lbs of seafood, and 23,040 eggs.  (I'm pretty sure I made a big dent in the fish and seafood totals.  I had one or the other (or both) every evening at dinner.)

These were part of the crew that made sure we had a wonderful time.

My favorite thing to do while we were on the ship was to go to the piano bar.  Derek Floyd made every night exceptionally fun.  On the last night, I was exhausted, but I wanted to stop by and chat with Derek.  He was looking forward to his wife and son getting on the ship when we returned to Seattle and then he would have a week with them.  I hope he had a wonderful time.  

If you would like to hear Derek, you can hop over to this  clip.

And now for the giveaway....Jewelry was the big item on this cruise.  Every port had loads of jewelry stores, plus they sold it on the ship.  I bought this pair of gold flake earrings to give away to you guys.  I know you might be a guy and think, well what kind of fun is this?  Think of it this way...you can surprise someone you care about with these lovely earrings.

All you have to do is be a follower, comment on this post and your in...On September, 6th I'll let random.org chose a winner.

I hope you have been having a wonderful summer.