All Aboard & A Special Anniversary
The extra 3 hours sleep due to the time zone change was welcome after our long travel day. The beds felt so comfortable, or maybe it was just we were so tired. When we awoke we could see the Celebrity Millennium from our hotel window. Bell services provided transfer of luggage directly to the Millennium, and despite the added cost we were most happy to use it given that a trip to Alaska requires considerably more luggage than our Caribbean trips. With our bags headed off to the ship we headed down to the restaurant for the breakfast buffet. There was just a short wait after breakfast before we could gather our carry on bags and head down to the ground floor where there was a short walk to the cruise check-in area. Check-in went smoothly followed by a few musical chair waits while passengers were called for boarding.
Once on board the ship we checked into our muster station and then we were free to enjoy the ship. We dropped off our carry on bags in our staterooms and headed up to the pool deck to enjoy the beautiful day. Given that this will likely be the only warm day of the the cruise, Charlie and Ruth took advantage of the opportunity to swim in the outdoor pool and take a dip in the hot tubs. Lunch at the buffet was pretty decent with a good variety for everyone.
Our checked bags arrived at our stateroom door with plenty of time to unpack prior to sail-away. Once we unpacked it felt like we were really on vacation.
The Millennium is a medium size ship with a capacity of about 2500 which is about the number of passengers on board . We pulled away from the Port of Vancouver at 4:30 PM, right on time and there were a lot of people on the outdoor decks enjoying the sail-away. It didn’t feel overly crowded. On the way out to the open waters the ship passed under a bridge that felt closer to the top of the ship than it actually was.
We then had a chance to just relax and enjoy the ship before getting ready for dinner.
We had dinner thiis evening at the Tuscan Grille, one of the ship’s specialty restaurants. David and I were celebrating our 50th Anniversary and we wanted to do something extra special. Dinner was spectacular and our server Asri was delightful. She did a wonderful job entertaining Charlie which delighted him. In turn Charlie likely entertained Asri as much as she entertained him. Charlie loved the food and said it was the best food we had eaten. I asked if it was better than my cooking and he diplomatically responded that while the restaurant food was 99 out of 100, mine ranked 100 out of 100.. After our main course Asri set a chocolate anniversary dessert in front of us and 4 of the servers sang Happy Anniversary. We had a wonderful time.
The meatballs were the best.
The sun was getting low in the sky but had not set when we finsihed dinner so we took a walk outside to enjoy the beautiful warm light as the sun set. It was quite a perfect day.
