After relaxing for 5 days in Tacoma just seeing old sights and showing Paula where I had lived in the 1980’s, we drove up to Seattle to spend the night before actually boarding. We were very concerned about all of the violence that had going on in Seattle so we did our best to avoid the normal tourist areas and most of downtown. The only hotel that was relatively close to the cruise ship pier was downtown- they had full time security for the hotel and the parking area and locked their doors after 5:00pm-a fortress mentality to keep people safe. We took a couple of photos of the Space Needle as we were driving to our ship. The cruise ship had a long-term parking area where we could leave our car for the 2 months that we would be gone, with valet service to handle our excessive number of bags, transport us to the ship and unload our bags to a ship porter-a lifesaver!😁 All of the Holland America cruise ships, based in Amsterdam cutely have their ship’s names end in Dam since Holland is surrounded by dams to keep the sea out. Our ship this time is the Westerdam, 2000 guests and 1000 crew. We paid for a large suite for our trip since it was going to be so long and it was worth it.This is the longest cruise that either of us had ever taken so we are very excited to be here!🙏❤️😁Read more