9/12/10
After going out to breakfast with Leslie, she dropped us off at the terminal, which is near her house. Boarding went pretty smoothly. (It’s like at the airport, but you don’t have to remove your shoes.) You board in groups as on Southwest Airlines, except that they take your picture to sell you as a souvenir later. After we boarded, we had some time to kill. We explored the ship a little and Janie made a reservation for a massage. I was able to sign us up for a hands-on cooking class that will be held on Tuesday, but it was just luck. The person who runs the classes was surprised that she already had a dozen people (the maximum) pre-registered for one of the classes, when they were not supposed to be able to sign up ahead of time. She also commented to another woman who was inquiring that you pretty much have to sign up as soon as you board, or the classes will fill up. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
After exploring, we went to the buffet restaurant on the Lido deck. There is a wide variety of food available, but it wasn’t all good. In spite of the fact that a Rueben sandwich was available, I doubt that our deli server was very familiar with what a real one would taste like. It was edible though, and the rest of the food was good. Janie had a tuna sandwich that was fine. It seems that they are always looking to upsell you something. When I ordered a beer, I was offered a bucket of beer—5 bottles for $19. That’s a lot for a grocery store, but if you know you’ll be drinking them, not too much for a restaurant or cruise ship. The problem is, they brought me an open beer to have with my lunch and an ice bucket with another 4 bottles that I then had to carry to my stateroom. Then I had to remember to take a bottle with me to later meals to avoid having to buy more!
We got access to our stateroom pretty quickly, but never having cruised before, we weren’t sure what to make of everything. The door was open and we didn’t know why. We learned later that it was probably because our luggage hadn’t been delivered yet. We found our tickets to the shore excursions we’d previously reserved and a gift certificate from our kids for our anniversary. What a nice surprise!
The cabin is about the size of a small motel room, and is pretty efficiently laid out, but it requires moving things around at times to get at the things you need.
One thing that was distressing was that our stateroom had been poorly cleaned. Given how much they emphasize the need for cleanliness, we were dismayed to see that the counter was dirty, the chair was badly stained, and a clipboard with information about the ship was covered with dried food (or something). We called for housekeeping, but had to call twice and when they came, it was a little difficult to communicate with our Indonesian cabin steward. Once we got it across that we wanted the clipboard and chair removed (even if we didn’t get replacements) and showed where things had not been cleaned, the steward seemed to understand, and when we returned later, we found a clean chair and clipboard, and the rest of the cabin had been properly cleaned. We also called to ask for an extra blanket and were asked to check the drawers under the bed. We didn’t find the blanket but we were dismayed to find a couple of towels, as if the housekeeping staff had not checked for dirty towels. When they delivered the blanket, I asked about them, but the steward just said they were clean and were “for the animals.” This seemed weird to us, but we left them in the drawer. Later we discovered that they were for the staff to make towel animal creations for us (kind of like balloon animals) when they turned down our bed at night!
It was fun watching the ship back out of its berth and begin sail out of Elliot Bay. The ship left on time. Before we left, we had a safety briefing at our lifeboat station. There was another cruise ship at the same terminal and I could see a third one across the bay. Later, as we sailed up Puget Sound, I could see the other two ships following us. From then on, we just relaxed and explored more of the ship. I got in a nap and Janie played on her computer. I checked out our position occasionally on my phone’s GPS.
If we wanted to eat in the dining room, our dinner time was preset at 8 PM (we supposed for the steerage passengers). Of course, we can eat in other locations without waiting for our assigned dinner time. We got a snack during the afternoon and decided to wait. The food was good, but was not as ample as we had expected. We usually can share a meal with an appetizer, so we ordered a fruit appetizer and king crab expecting to share both, but the serving was not enough to feed both my regular appetite and Janie’s petite appetite. We wound up ordering a steak for me after we finished the crab. There was no objection from our waiter to getting another meal. The food came quickly—too quickly since our wine steward was quite slow. By the time he returned for our order, we had already finished the crab. At least that allowed me to order a red wine for the steak I was about to order. He also failed to bring Janie’s drink at all. By the time we got his attention again, we were done with dinner and she didn’t want it. Instead, he did not charge us for my wine. To be fair, these problems occurred only on this first night. The service was excellent for the rest of the trip. We also had the same waiters throughout the trip so we got to know each other and they took good care of us.
Finally, after dinner we visited the casino. It was fun. I was able to break even at blackjack and Janie didn’t do too badly on the slots. We stayed for a couple of hours and then headed for bed, where we found that the ship provided turndown service and left us an order form for room service for breakfast.
9/13/10
We slept well. Janie doesn’t always sleep so well, especially away from home, but slept soundly until room service came with our breakfast. The breakfast arrived on time and was hot, even though we had forgotten to put our cabin number on the order form. It was nice to enjoy a leisurely breakfast before getting dressed to get going. Janie got ready for her scheduled massage and I was heading off to a behind-the-scenes tour of the galley. It was interesting to see the galley setup, but the group was too large and many were unable to hear what our guide was saying. Still, we got to see people making fancy bread and pastry, carving fruit for displays and preparing food for lunch.
After the tour, I hung out and listened to a book on my iPod, while Janie finished her massage. We got together in the early afternoon for lunch at the buffet, and then relaxed with a game of chess, reading and dozing. Monday was an at-sea day, so we spent from 4 PM Sunday and all day Monday sailing. The was very calm and we didn’t have to worry at all about motion sickness. Around noon, I saw land and the Captain announced that it was the Queen Charlotte Islands. We spent much of the afternoon sailing by them.
If we were going to dinner in the dining room, we need to get a snack in the late afternoon because our dinner time is not until 8 PM. Monday, we headed to dinner a little early because we wanted to stop at the office and ask a question. When we got to the main lobby, we saw a bunch of people standing around in suits, tuxes and glitter. We had missed the memo about dress-up night and had to hurry back to our stateroom to change. A few minutes later we emerged looking presentable and then went to dinner, where we sat by ourselves anyway. Still, we were able to tell each other how nice we looked!
Finally, we retired to our cabin to watch a movie we’d brought with us. Maybe it wasn’t the best movie to choose to watch at sea—The Perfect Storm—but we enjoyed the quiet evening.
9/14/10
Tuesday we got up and decided to go to the dining room for breakfast. We both decided it was a mistake. First we were seated at a large table with others, which was not our first choice. We decided to go with the flow and mingle, but the dining room was crowded and it was difficult to hear our tablemates because of the background noise. The other problem was the service. It was difficult to get coffee and once we did order our breakfast, some of the food came immediately, but most of the food took nearly an hour to arrive. I got my oatmeal quickly, but my bacon didn’t come until the end. One of our tablemates got up more than once to check on it and another just left. We all concluded that they lost our order and it wasn’t that they were just very busy. By the time some at our table ate, many at other tables who had arrived after we did had finished and the dining room was clearing out.
After breakfast, we spent some time on deck looking at the beautiful scenery, and got to see whales, dolphins and sea otters. Fascinating! We had arrived at our first destination of the cruise, Glacier Bay. The weather was spectacular. The scenery was spectacular. We spent the rest of the day cruising up to the end of the bay and back. The entrance is apparently a place where the currents concentrate a lot of feed, which is why we were able to see as many sea animals as we did. Glacier Bay is also part of a national park, and we brought a couple of park rangers on board who acted as guides.
Next on the agenda was our hands-on cooking class. A group of 12 of us were guided by one of the chefs on board, who provided recipes and showed us how to make crab cakes, an Asian marinated beef salad and a Yukon bread pudding. I worked on the bread pudding and Janie worked on the crab cakes. At the end of the class, we all sat down and enjoyed the meal we’d prepared for our lunch. We all did an excellent job!
After cooking and lunch, we returned to the cabin. Janie was going to take it easy but I wanted to go out to the bow to watch the Glacier Bay scenery. I saw various glaciers concluding with the Johns Hopkins Glacier. It is a mile wide, but the scale of the surrounding area makes it hard to judge. There was another ship in front of the glacier as we approached, and seeing the ship up against the glacier enabled us to get some sense of the glacier’s size. I stayed out on the bow of the ship for a couple of hours as we approached the glacier and then stayed in front of it for a while watching it “calve” or drop large chunks of ice into the water. The sound of the cracking ice was like thunder!
Also on an ice sheet in front of the glacier were hundreds of harbor seals. This is a place that they are able to raise their young, protected from killer whales and other predators. The park ranger also explained that while the seals are giving birth and weaning the young, the Park Service does not allow ships to approach the glacier so we were double lucky. Only a half dozen or so ships had been able to approach the glacier closely this season and not only did we get the chance but we had the beautiful weather as a bonus. After heading back down to the mouth of the bay, we dropped off the rangers and headed for Juneau.
9/15/10
The weather in Glacier Bay was just the beginning of a whole week of perfect weather. We learned that Southeast Alaska is in one of the largest rain forests in the world, and the rainfall in this area puts Seattle to shame. The locals couldn’t get over the kind of weather they were enjoying and we benefitted from blue skies for the entire Alaska part of the cruise.
We arrived in Juneau during the night, and Janie and I had to get up early to meet a tour we had pre-arranged for whale watching and a visit to the Mendenhall Glacier. We just went to the buffet for breakfast to ensure we’d be ready to leave the ship on time. Meeting our tour was easy. There were not a huge number of people exiting the ship and the tours were all waiting dockside. We got on a bus and were taken to Auk Bay to meet the whale watching boat. Once again, the tour guides kept remarking how good the weather was. It turned out to be a fortuitous day for whale watching! Another boat had reported a group of humpback whales feeding in a good location. Often, humpbacks are solitary, but it turned out that there were 8 of them together. The guide explained that humpbacks do not jump out of the water, but it’s pretty easy to tell when they are about to make a deep dive and flip their tail in the air. They arch their back (creating a hump) just before the dive. I was able to get some really good pictures.
We were incredibly lucky to also see a pod of orca whales on the trip. The guides explained that they are much less likely to be seen and that this late in the season, they were lucky to see them more than once every couple of weeks. We watched them and took pictures until the boat had to return to the base.
After the whale watching, our bus driver took to the Mendenhall Glacier and explained the history of Juneau on the way. I was surprised to learn that access to all of the cities on our cruise was only by air or by sea. What roads existed in Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan are only local. I think I would go stir crazy!
Mendenhall was a pretty impressive glacier, but it would have been more impressive if I had not already seen the Johns Hopkins and watched the calving. Many cruises do not go to Glacier Bay, so this would be impressive for those who hadn’t been there.
After returning to the pier, we took a tram ride up Mt. Roberts, which had a really good view of the bay. We ate lunch and did a little shopping, headed back down and did some more shopping, and returned to the ship. This was a good night for a quiet evening. I did go to the casino for a while, but Janie checked out movies (free) and I eventually came back and watched them.
9/16/10
During the night, we arrived in Sitka. We had another tour scheduled here, but we had scheduled it later in the day, so we were able to have a leisurely breakfast before leaving the ship to walk around on our own. In Sitka, there is no deep-water dock, so getting to shore was by way of tender boats. These were the same boats that were to be used as the ship’s life boats. Getting to shore only took about 15 minutes and the boats ran fairly regularly, so it was not a problem.
We did some more shopping, looked around and enjoyed a long lunch before meeting our tour. Although we enjoyed what we saw on the tour, we both felt that too much time was spent on some uninteresting driving around and getting the history and geography of Sitka, while not enough time was allowed for some of the really interesting cultural stuff, like a tour of the beautiful Russian Orthodox cathedral. In this case, if we had scheduled the tour earlier, at least we could have gone back to the cathedral, but by the time our tour was over, we didn’t have enough time. While on the tour, we also saw the Sheldon Jackson Museum containing a great collection of Alaska Native artifacts, and we also attended a show of Russian dancing.
We returned to the ship for our daily nap and this was another formal night. This time we paid attention and did not have to rush back to change. This night was also lobster night in the dining room and it was really good! It was actually “surf and turf,” served with filet mignon, but we concentrated mostly on the lobster.
After dinner, we decided to attend our first show. This was a very impressive and funny magician-comedian, and the show was very enjoyable. The theater on the ship is huge, taking up the bow portion of 3 decks.
9/17/10
Once again, the ship relocated during the night, and we arrived in Ketchikan early in the morning. Here we had only ½ day in port so we had to schedule our tour early. This tour was of the Saxman native village and totem pole park. The good weather continued, and we both liked this tour a lot. When we arrived at the village, we watched a short film of the history and culture of this Tlingit community, and then we were led to a native lodge for a dance demonstration. When they asked for volunteers to share in the dance, Janie volunteered! She looked great in the traditional cloak and did a good job in the dance.
We had an explanation of the various totem poles in the village, including one of Abraham Lincoln and one of Secretary of State William Seward. Finally, we were brought to the carving center to hear an explanation of the traditional tools for totem pole carving and watch a master carver at work.
We had a little time for shopping at the end of the tour before heading back to the ship. On board, we went to a pool-side salmon bake and buffet lunch. The salmon was delicious and I also enjoyed mussels, salads and veggies.
As the ship left Ketchikan, I was able to watch from the observation deck, and I got another view of the Saxman Village as the ship passed by.
We were headed home. Except for a few hours in Victoria, BC, the rest of the cruise would be cruising for a day and a half.
9/18/10
We arrived in Victoria a little late. We had encountered fog most of the way from Ketchikan. Right at the end, we passed a Princess ship. We watched as the harbor pilot boarded the Princess ship. A few minutes later the captain came on the PA and said that we had to make a 360 degree turn because the Princess’ captain had reneged on an agreement (I assume as to who entered the port first) and we wound up being further delayed because of it. At any rate, we made it into Victoria, and we took advantage of our time to go to the Provincial Museum for a couple of hours.
9/19/10
By the time we got up, we were docked in Seattle. Disembarking went smoothly, except that once we got out to the pickup point, we had to wait for nearly an hour until Leslie could get into the pickup area. After a short stop at Leslie’s we left and were glad to be home by about 10:30 AM.
Epilogue
Although this isn’t directly related to the trip, it happened on the day of our return. After unpacking and settling back in at home, we decided to take dinner over to Mom’s. When we left around 6 PM, everything was fine, but when we returned about 1/2 hour later, there was water pouring out of our ceiling! I ran up to the upstairs neighbors who had just gotten home from being away for the weekend. They weren’t even aware of the problem until I knocked. Their water heater was leaking. By the end of the night we had had a contractor come out, cut out a big chunk of our ceiling and set up a giant dehumidifier. We’ll be putting up with a big hole in our ceiling for a couple of weeks.