The Joneses Go Cruising, Part 1

Several months ago my wonderful in-laws invited all of their children and spouses to come together and take an Alaskan cruise.  After a great deal of arm-twisting, Stan and I agreed to eat great food to our heart's content, enjoy the company of family members, and view the beauties of the state of Alaska.

Ok, so there wasn't any arm-twisting going on.

I made a fast run down to Idaho to drop Megan off at the Pearson's, then turned around and unpacked my overnight bag on the left into my suitcase on the right, then emptied out my closet to fill the dead spaces of my luggage.

 When I got to the airport, I was amazed to see the two teensy bags brought by my mother and father in-law.  Two of these blue things were it. Each of them were the size of one of Megan's smaller purses. They were slightly bigger than the case I put my sunglasses in.

This was my luggage for the same trip.  I needed a double team of oxen to move it into the airport.

 When my in-laws said to pack light, I thought they meant.....

Oh, never mind. Let's just say I could have saved myself the trouble of packing some of the things I brought.

 

The twelve of us flew in to Seattle from various parts of the west and boarded the Celebrity Infinity on Friday, July 8.

It wasn't long before we began to eat.  Over the week we cruised, I tried escargot (yum!), frog legs (meh), and vichyssoise (someone forgot to warm it).

We spent the first two days at sea. This allowed time for us to tour the kitchen and see what they could do with a lump of bread dough

and how they carved fruit into food so beautiful you didn't want to eat it.

I was impressed by the way this man avoided slicing off a finger.

We saw the huge and immaculate kitchen

the vast supply of china

and the clever food preparers.  This man was making marzipan roses.  I forced myself to eat one. Then I forced myself not to take a second, third, and fourth one.

We viewed the art around the ship. I'm pretty sure this object dah arte was made by the captain's five year old daughter. It was slightly disturbing.

We also took a tour of the room where they made sure we don't run into icebergs.

They showed us the 2 inch joystick that was used to steer the 2,000,000 lb ship

and the Plexiglas peephole in the floor to watch fish, enemy submarines, and people who fall overboard.

We committed the ship motto to memory.

I am now certain I could steer us home if need be. Kind of.

It wasn't long before we found ourselves surrounded by sea.

The food system was a little different then our last cruise. We ate dinner every night at the same time at the same table.  These were our waiters, Mel and Suigy from Indonesia.  They were a lot of fun.  I instantly became accustomed to having someone unfold my napkin, provide me with enough silverware for 13 people, place food in front of me, and whisk dishes off to the kitchen for washing. I really wanted to bring them home with me, but for some reason they declined.

If you've ever been on a cruise, it won't surprise you to hear that we ate. A. LOT. This is how much food was purchased and consumed for our cruise.

 You should know that 175 gallons of ice cream is the amount I personally consumed while on board. 

Any food leftover is never taken back to the kitchen; it is held and dumped at sea for all of the hungry fish who prefer gourmet food to carp.

Our room steward was also a fabulous guy.  All of our rooms were in the same area and he started creating interesting bed turn downs for us while we were at supper. Here's one from our room. Those are chocolates on our pillows.

This one was my favorite from Tim and Konni's room.

We got home around 1am on Saturday morning. Stan ran down to Idaho on Saturday to pick up Megan; I spent Sunday in Forsyth on church assignment. We are bushed. I'll leave the rest of the story for tomorrow.