Our cruise was a round-trip 7-day cruise from Seattle aboard the Star Princess, from June 3-June 10, 2012. It was a great trip despite the weather being cloudy throughout most of it, winds being high on deck while sailing, and with light rain the morning of Ketchikan and during the day in Skagway. Seas were often fairly calm, and although we felt some good movement once in awhile in our Deck 11 forward cabin (B-211), most of the time it was smooth sailing.
Out trip began in Sacramento several days prior, as we had elected to take Amtrak from central California to Seattle to enjoy the scenery ($205 per person round trip). Unfortunately the train was an hour and a half late, but by arriving in Seattle we had made up pretty much all of that time. We stayed two nights in the historic Moore Hotel on 2nd Ave. ($92 per night, cab ride there from Amtrak $8). It was a clean and neat old place to stay (I can't remember the last time I stayed in a hotel that actually had a hard key to unlock the deadbolt to your room). There was no bedside clock in the room, and the bathroom was quite small (not much larger than a cruise ship bathroom...) and only had a shower, no bath. There was surprisingly a towel animal in the bathroom, which would prove to be our only one, as we did not get one in our cabin on the Star. Unfortunately the bathroom lacked in water pressure and hot water was hit or miss. But, we enjoyed the stay and the convenience of being only a couple of blocks to Pike's Market. It's also only a 15-minute walk to Pier 66, though we sailed out of Pier 91.
Cruise check-in -- Take 1: We left via cab from the hotel at 10:45 on Sunday, and arrived at the pier at 10:55 ($11 fare). As there were no porters readily available in the lot, we walked into the main building to find there was a line to drop off luggage right at the scanners. It was not possible given the setup and activity here to stop and tip any one porter, so we gave our luggage over and proceeded upstairs to security. It was at this moment that I realized I had left my jacket in the closet of the hotel...so we turned around and took a round-trip taxi to go back and get it.