siblingrousness: day 0 (or 1)

day nothing - seattle. we all slept at the marriott by the seatac airport, which was kind of crowded. but the continental breakfast was great - they had the automatic waffle makers and lots of fruit. while we waited for the shuttle bus to the airport (to catch a bus downtown), nathan and i stepped out to the street for a second, then headed back up to the hotel. a guy was walking down the sidewalk & when he saw us turn back he asked us where we wanted to go. we said thanks, we had it covered, and he insisted on helping us . . . kind of typical for seattle. maybe it was just the good weather - apparently it was the unhumidest, sunniest, unhottest day ever. it was nice. we caught the shuttle to the airport, chara found a royal caribbean area at the airport that took all our bags to the boat for free, and we went downtown. we went to borders for way too long, then walked down to Public Market Center on Pike St., by the ocean. It's full of local foods and crafts, we got doughnuts and photos and things. We also went to Left Bank Bookstore for amusement and zines. Then we went to try to find our boat, which we'd heard might be in any of three places. It turned out to be in the farthest of the three, but we had plenty of time and a bike path led about a mile along the water straight to the pier, so we took that. We arrived in plenty of time, went through the huge warehouse to check in (I hadn't realized how many people would be on the boat - 1,800 + crew, which was under capacity), and went onboard. We got our seapass cards (basically hotel room keys, but they also functioned as debit cards onboard and linked to photographs of us, taken as we went onboard the first time). The room was smaller than we'd anticipated - 7 or 8 feet by probably 14 feet, but the balcony was nice. We were hungry and there was supposedly a free buffet upstairs, so we went for our first of many feasts, then were told to report back to our cabins for the safety drill. We put on live preservers, lined up at our muster stations (we were #5) on the 5th deck, and were told what to do if the boat exploded. or sunk. then we went back down to our rooms and the boat left. the harbor was pretty & full of sailboats; we were surprised by how long it took us to get out of having land on each side of us - we were sailing through a strait, i guess, with Victoria B.C. on our west. Once we were settled we explored the boat some, then went to find out about our formal dinner (we were scheduled for the 6:00 feast). Everyone at the counter resolutely told us we'd prefer to eat at 8:30, so we switched our time and were assigned a table in the middle of the huge dining hall. The meal was good, we explored the boat some more, and we went to sleep. End of day nothing. or one.