I booked our Alaskan cruise on the Jewel of the Seas well over a year in advance, so I had plenty of time to plan. We are a married couple (I am 49, my husband is 50), and we have cruised for the past eleven years. Over the years that we have cruised, we have met many people who told us we really HAD to do an Alaskan cruise. We decided we would probably only do the Alaskan cruise out of Seattle ONCE, so we opted to spend five nights in Seattle pre-cruise, and we booked a flight out of Seattle after midnight for our return flight so we could spend one more day in the area. We love Royal Caribbean the most, but we have cruised on other lines when we have found a good deal or an itinerary we like.

For our days in Seattle before the cruise, we stayed at the Ramada Inn by SeaTac, which is pretty close to the light rail. We decided to book a less expensive room in the SeaTac area rather than paying over double the cost to stay in the city. This hotel was clean, the bed was comfortable, and the staff was friendly and helpful. Each morning, we would walk a few blocks to the SeaTac light rail station to travel into the city. We purchased Orca cards that allowed us to easily transfer between the light rail and buses. While in Seattle before the cruise, we visited the Pike Place Market, the Columbia Tower, Pioneer Square, the Ballard Locks, took the ferry to Bainbridge Island, and ate at various local restaurants. We also participated in several tours: the Underground Tour, a Shutter Tour of Seattle and Snoqualmie Falls, and Road Dogs brewery tour. We had a great time in the beautiful city.

On our embarkation day, we were picked up by the Seattle Express shuttle that I had booked online weeks ahead (scheduled to leave at 10:15). They were about 20 minutes late, but it wasn’t a huge deal to us since we were on vacation. When we got into the shuttle, the driver told us all to put on our seat belts, and we all realized there were none. Everyone had a good laugh. It was a pretty short drive to the pier. He unloaded our luggage, we paid him, and a porter took our luggage to the ship. We walked into the terminal, were told to go to the priority line (we were Platinum at the beginning of this cruise and made Emerald during the cruise), and we were through the terminal and onto the ship in under 30 minutes. We walked around a bit to explore the ship although the Jewel is pretty much set up the same way the Serenade is (and we had been on the Serenade last spring—and at the time the same cruise director and activities director, John and Katrina, were on staff). We ate lunch in the Windjammer, and then took a few photos on the deck, since we could finally see Mount Rainier, which we hadn’t been able to see on the previous five days we were in the city. Our room (deck 7 forward balcony) was ready at about 1 p.m., and we stopped by to put our carry-on luggage in the room and check things out. The room was very clean and our expanded balcony comfortably contained two chairs and a table while allowing plenty of room to move around. Read more