Pre-Cruise: To facilitate travel to Seattle from North Florida, we drove to Atlanta and flew to Seattle on a direct Delta Flight. Prior to driving to Atlanta, we completed our COVID testing via Leon County Health. We arrived in Seattle the day before the cruise and stayed at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle. Taxi fare from the airport to hotel was $40. The Westin is a luxury hotel ($290/night) in a great location in downtown Seattle. The hotel was about 4 blocks from Pike Place Market and the monorail was near the hotel. We explored Pike Place Market in the afternoon and had a great seafood lunch at Lowell’s Grill in the Market.

We found downtown Seattle to be an interesting place and similar to other big cities we have visited. While there was no shortage of street people, or trash on the streets, or security guards at the door in almost all building and businesses, or police vehicles, or neon vested ambassadors, we did not feel unsafe during the day or early evening hours. The biggest hazard we noted were the crazy riders of the electric scooters and the scooters laying on the sidewalks. Not only do you have to watch for cars and buses in the street, you also have to watch for the near silent scooters in the bike lanes and on the sidewalks.

Embarkation: Celebrity had assigned us a 12:30 terminal arrival time, so we arranged for Aces Town Car Service to pick us up at 10:30 am. After the 10 minute ride to the port entrance, we spent 30 minutes trying to get to the drop-off point. The luggage drop-off area was poorly signed, and it was major chaos trying to gain access to the terminal. No one was managing the flow of passengers outside the terminal. This embarkation process was the worst process we have ever experienced in 27 cruises. We were told that both ships at Pier 91 arrived 1.5 hrs late, an elevator and escalator in the terminal was broken, and both ships were at greater than 90% capacity. Obviously, these contributed to the chaos. However, the pier and terminal are inadequate to handle two large ships at the same time. Read more