sue117

Ok, Ok, I know this cruise is long over (boo), but I wanted to pass on a funny...my dad called the other day and asked for my advice since he was thinking about GOING ON ANOTHER CRUISE! lol

He hasn't cruised ever in his entire life, but he actually said to me "It might be nice to get away from the cold for a bit this spring". lol He is thinking about a Caribbean/Panama Canal cruise.

I just thought this was funny because I just don't see my dad as being a "cruise" type of person!

Oh and he has already informed me that he wants to come with my husband and I when we eventually do the "fall colors" cruise up in New England. It isn't even on our radar yet (as we planned a RIVER cruise for this Dec up the Rhine, very different for us), but he still wanted to make sure that I knew that he wanted to come with us!

And by the way...here was his final email to me about his journey home from this Alaskan Cruise:

After 421 miles on I-40 in Tennessee, I finally came to THE fork in the road, and I turned north into Virginia.

What a wonderful sign, greeting me at the border.

At home, I unpacked the Jeep, and am still working on unpacking the suitcases and containers I've been hauling across the country. All is well here at home; everything is as I left it. Mike has been watering my plants while I was away, so even the plants are fine and healthy.

On getting home, I checked the odometer, and compared it to the starting value. On this extended trip, I put 7,213 miles on the Jeep.

And it's wonderful to be home, and I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

Thanks for reading everyone! Now to plan our Christmas Cruise along the Rhine in December. :)

I hope that you guys have been able to find at least one geocache at your ports! We too are big cachers we are theTank Hounds) and we incorporate caching into all,our cruises ( especially when we cruise different countries!!) good to see another geocacher cruiser! Check out our cruise reviews (in our signature block--is there a signature blck when i reply using tapatalk?!? lol) to see some of the caches we have found while cruising.

Happy new year!!

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So for anyone that might be wondering, here is the update on my dad. :) (and yes, I wish that I was still on the ship! I could totally do a 120 day cruise and be juuuuuuuust fine. Unfortunately that is going to have to wait for retirement. poo)

It rained off and on for the two days I spent at Kalaloch in Washington. I know Kalaloch is known for rain, but this particular storm is the same one that this weekend brought so much snow to Wyoming and the Dakotas.

By the time I got to Oregon, the storm had moved on, and I have enjoyed bright, sunny days along the Pacific coast as I meander down the coast. I spent one evening in Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River. I spent two days in Newport, where I enjoyed wide expanses of beach right in front of the hotel, fine seafood dinners, and beautiful sunsets.

Today I continued on down the coast, passing headlands, interspersed with long expanses of beaches. At the Oregon Dunes Recreation Area, I turned in to see the dunes, but saw a sign that said the area was closed. As I was staring at the sign, an Oregon driver came by, rolled his window down, and said, "Ignore that. The gate is open and there's no one around to say otherwise." So, I drove on down the road and saw some of the magnificent dunes, sands accumulated over many, many milenia.

Tonight I am in Coos Bay, the largest town along this stretch of the coast (population about 15,000). At one time, I thought that I might continue on down the coast into California at Crescent City, but after six days along the coast, I've opted for some different scenery. Tomorrow I'll turn inland and head for Medford, Oregon.

Yes, dad is going down the coast through CA and then through Utah and AZ and NM and TX and back that way. He might stop by my house on the way. :) If he sends updates I'll post them here so you can see how he is doing too. :)

And by the way, work was ICKY today! lol Just because I WAS back at work. I had to get up with the alarm clock and everything.

BUT the doggies were VERY happy to see us. :)

No worries! We just landed at DFW and weather is sunny. Dad is staying in Seattle tonight and going to Kalaloch tomorrow (on the coast near Forks). He is staying there a few nights and headed down the coast on Tuesday when it's supposed to not be raining. :) he doesn't have definite plans on how long it will take him to get home. He's playing it by ear.

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Fish in Pikes Place Market

Thank you all for reading my review. I'm not sure it was much of a review since we didn't really DO anything, so thanks for reading my thoughts. :) If you have any questions please let me know.

Today's weather in Seattle is, you guessed it, rainy. Hopefully the airport won't have any issues with the roof leaking and whatnot and we can get out of here with no issues today. We HAVE to be able to get home as I have an interview at work tomorrow! lol Ugh, work. :) Anyway, if my dad gets his write up done of a first time cruiser and his thoughts I'll post it!

Goodbye to the Westerdam and she heads off for her next adventure.

(taken from our hotel room)

SATURDAY-SEATTLE-DISEMBARKATION DAY

We ate breakfast at 730 this morning in the PG. When we went downstairs they just called that people could get off the ship and there was a line of people patiently waiting already. We bypassed all of them and went in for our last breakfast. Of course it’s raining in Seattle. When I looked at the weather map the entire area was covered in green. So it’s a good thing that we’ll be inside at the Pikes Peak Market today.

After breakfast we had about 45 min before we decided to get off the ship. I was impressed that they were sanitizing the heck out of our room. I know, they are SUPPOSED to, but you know that in regular hotels they don’t run the bathtub, fill it with water, add bleach then run the Jacuzzi for 30 minutes. Now THAT is disinfection! So whoever has room 7151 next doesn’t have to worry about my bare butt in the bathtub! It’s all been wiped away! Ha!

Around 9 we grabbed up our stuff and headed down the stairs for the last time. I left an additional tip for Andy and Day the room stewards and we were gone. (the bar guy had already left the sparkling water and champagne for the next guests in our room by that time too! Efficient!)

Our bags were right there in the lime green area waiting for us and we were whisked away in a taxi that was waiting there. By 915am we were at the Homewood Suites and they actually had our rooms ready. Nice!!!

We went out about 10:30 after checking up on email and doing other internet stuff. We headed to Pikes Place market. It was a madhouse! Especially since it was raining! We wandered around a bit. Saw a fish being thrown. Bought some odds and ends (like jalapeno powder for my husband and some “stick” pencils for the stepdaughter). Then we ate at the Athenian for lunch. This restaurant was featured in the movie Sleepless in Seattle. Of course it was busier and louder than it was than when Meg and Tom sat on the red stools! But of course I took a picture anyway!

The Sleepless in Seattle Athenian

Dad and hubby outside the restaurant

me and hubby at Pikes Place Market

After lunch I bought some HUGE California white grapes. Yummy!! Any that we don’t finish before we get on the plane tomorrow my dad will eat (yes, he will have to finish them before he gets to California and their agriculture inspection stations, but I’m sure he will manage).

We then came back to the room. We had a while before dinner so hubby decided to take a nap! Lol We ARE still on vacation after all! I played around on the Internet for a while and read some.

HUGE yummy grapes

We went to dinner at a pizza place near the hotel. Since the University had a home game and the Mariners had a home game tomorrow we stuck close to the hotel. The pizza was delish and we had a pleasant meal. Of course we had to PAY for our food! What’s up with that!?!? Lol

Overall the whole cruise was great. I expected nothing else. My dad had a good time, even though we were fuddy duddies and didn’t do many activities. I told him that he had to do a write up of what he liked and what he didn’t and what he would tell people that might be cruising for the first time in the future. Stay tuned for that report!

So I told you that we "pick noses" for fun. Well this was funny. It was in the market in Seattle and it was showing the "worlds tallest man". I had my husband try to pick the nose, then my dad. You can see the results below.

I did forget to mention though that I really missed the days of the week in the elevators on the Zuiderdam. I loved seeing those.

 

Oh my gosh! I forgot to mention that as well! I can't believe they aren't using those rugs in the elevators anymore! I thought I had remembered reading it here on the forums somewhere that someone didn't see them. So sad that we couldn't show those to my dad. He was constantly asking what day it was. Not sure if it was because it was a 7 day cruise and not a longer one or what. I wonder if somehow they are "saving money" by not using them and that is why they aren't out? I can't imagine why they wouldn't be. But yes, we missed those too.

Dad's Saturday Report

(Mine will be forthcoming tomorrow morning).

(I also asked my dad to write a "pros and cons" of his first cruise, we'll see if it does it! lol)

Saturday, September 28, 2013

The “all aboard” last night was at 11:15, and we pushed off from the dock in Victoria a few minutes later. When I woke in the morning we were docked at Pier 91 in Seattle. The disembarking routine is to allow those with air connections off the boat first. Since we were in no rush, our designated departure time was between 8:00 and 9:30.

We went down to the Pinnacle Grill at 7:30, and had a leisurely breakfast. We returned to our rooms, gathered our carry-on bags, and walked off the ship without having to wait in line, and made our way onto the docking area where our other luggage was waiting for us.

Going through customs was routine. They read our declaration forms, indicating that we were not bringing into the country any food products, any cash or purchases of greater than $10,000, and other restrictions. The agent glanced at my passport, glanced at the photograph, glanced at me, and we were back in the United States.

We didn’t have any trouble getting a cab, and the driver was happy it was a rainy day. It meant more fares for him.

We got the Homewood Suites about 9:15. I checked in at the desk, and discovered much to my pleasure that they were aware of our early arrival and had two rooms waiting for us, right across the hall from each other.

We settled in, and I brought up some luggage from the Jeep that I had left in “storage” while on the cruise.

About 10:30 or so, we drove to Pike Place Market and wandered through the crowds marveling, once again, at the fresh flowers, fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh fish. We watched the obligatory fish throwing, and wandered through the lower level shopping area.

For lunch we went to the Athenian. I had a nice cup of New England clam chowder, and some deep fried oysters. Leaving the Athenian, we stopped at a fruit stall and Sue bought a bag of nice, big juicy grapes.

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing two loads of laundry, watching football on TV, and reading more of “The Cuckoo’s Calling.”

It turns out that the University of Washington is playing a home football game today, and the Mariners are playing at home tomorrow. We didn’t try to eat at either Ivar’s or The Ram, but drove a short distance through the rain to Peso’s Restaurant on Queen Anne Avenue. It turned out we would have to wait an estimated 35 minutes, and we opted instead to try out Pagliacci Pizza on the corner. I had a nice, individually prepared Caesar salad, and we had a large pepperoni pizza. It was a very good pizza, nicely done, thin crust. Between the three of us, we ate the whole thing.

For the rest of the evening, there were football games being played in the background on TV while I read more of the novel.

Sue,

 

That seal was not only sticking his tongue out at you but look at his tail-I think he was not impressed that you liked the whales better!:rolleyes:

 

Regarding the surveys-we received the e-mail survey the same day we returned from our cruise. I found it much more relaxing to do it that way but that is just my opinion.

Hilarious! I hadn't noticed that but you are right! lol

And yeah, we got the survey emailed to us about 5 hours after we got off the ship, so they don't wait to send it, which is good. I also noticed that no longer does it go from 1-9 (because no one is perfect that is why we don't have a 10), but it's from like 1-7. A better Likert scale really. But I still say that I bet they have a lower percentage of people that fill it out. When doing research "they" say that your return on surveys is about 15% if you are lucky. I can see that. People get home after being gone for a week to find hundreds of junk mail emails in their in box...so they just start deleting...or people get back into the "grind" and don't have "time" to fill it out. Or nothing bad happened on the cruise and they dont feel the need to fill it out. etc.

Just for the record, both me and my husband filled it out today in our lazy day in Seattle. :)

RANDOM THOUGHT #247

I know I already mentioned this, but we like fixed dining SOOOO much better than the as-you-wish. I know it’s all relative and some people love being able to eat at whatever time they want each night. I do miss having the same servers each night though. I miss the banter back and forth between us and them. I miss them knowing our “preferences” each night. I highly recommend that people in the future do the fixed seating if you can swing it. I really think it “makes” the cruise and dining experience more fun.

Victoria Cont.

On the way back we stopped by the lighthouse and looked at the smelly sealions and seals that sit on the rocks around the un-manned lighthouse. They were fun to watch, but they weren’t breeching whales or a pod of 30 or so orcas. Beggers can’t be choosers though right?

This seal was sticking it's tongue out at us! ha!

On our way back to the ship from the tour we passed right behind our ship. :

Me and hubby hanging out on the whale watching ship...inside...warm...not in the rain...not in the cold...drinking free coffee and hot chocolate.....

After the tour we got back in the van. We thought we were going right back to the ship, but we detoured to let people off downtown. There was something going on in Victoria, where a huge chunk of streets was closed off. We tried to find out why, but all the news said was that it was a “police incident” and that “no body was in danger”.

I looked it up online and it seems as if there was a distraught woman who was on the Bay Centre's food court balcony. The police negotiators were able to talk her down and get her safe. It really snarled up traffic for 2 hours. the shuttle driver was just appalled, saying that the traffic was NEVER that bad!

We got back to the ship around 530 and had an hour before dinner in the PG. Just enough time to take showers and get ready. We were seated in an area with large tables, which was fine, but apparently everyone at all the other tables knew each other, so it was a bit awkward to be in the middle of their conversations between tables and whatnot.

We were STUFFED after dinner. OMG. Not sure why, but I think we have reached our limit of eating on this cruise. We had the bread, and the appetizer and the main dish (Filet Mignon for me) and then, of course, I got the Volcano Cake. Remember how I talked about this earlier in my review, well it wasn’t as good as Sunday night for some reason. The flour tasted different. Sad. BUT I did ask for a side of peanut butter and with the PB and ice cream, it was still good. (I told you, you HAVE to ask for that side of PB when you cruise next and have ice cream or a sundae. It MAKES it!).

So we were so full that we went back to our cabins with the thought of just lying there trying to digest. We had to pack though. Luckily it’s easier to pack to go home than it is to go. I didn’t worry about folding nicely or anything like that. Also, we aren’t going straight to the airport on Sat, so we can get stuff out of the suitcase when we get to the hotel Sat morning and even Sat night. Everything fit back in nicely, I just hope that the big suitcase doesn’t weigh over 50 lbs.

The last thing I did tonight was use up my Internet minutes that I had remaining. It’s certainly easier to have left over minutes when you are in US ports and can use your cell phone to check email and such and not have to rely on the ship’s Internet for all of it. By this time hubby was snoring away next to me so I figured it was time to call it a day.

FRIDAY-Sea/Victoria

We got up at our usual time this morning…about 730ish. The weather…is still foggy! But that’s ok because we are at sea! Nothing too interesting happened this morning.

Foggy morning off the back of the ship:

One thing that I have noticed is that there is no disembarkation talk on the schedule today! WEIRD! Every cruise we’ve had one of those. You know, where everyone is required to attend, or at least watch it on the TV after it’s over. They talk about what to do when and where to go. Yup. No disembarkation talk. What are we going to do without the jokes? The top 10 questions the CD receives on the cruise? How about the joke about the room steward? Where you get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and you come back and your bed is made? Or the joke about where the crew sleeps at night? Or the joke about wearing your bathrobe to breakfast Sat morning because you packed all your clothes? Ok, ok, so we have heard them over and over, but it’s just not the same without them! And we wanted my dad to hear them. Oh well.

The OTHER thing is that no longer do you fill out your end-of-the- cruise survey on board! They EMAIL it to you! Wow! I admit I would get annoyed when we were told over and over that we should give the highest ranking if we had a good time, but not to fill it out on board? I wonder what percentage LESS they get to fill it out this way. I bet most people just delete it. At least if you filled it out on board they could “entice” you to fill it out by having the drawing for the cheesy HA travel bags. lol

Anyway, we hung out and the lo and behold 3 hours after we finished breakfast we went to get something to eat before we got off the ship in Victoria at 1:20pm. Of course the Lido was completely packed and there were NO seats, so as usual we grabbed our lunches (sandwiches, salad) and went back to our room to eat.

I love my hubby. He had gotten a piece of cheesecake and was all finished with his food. All I had to do is look at him with a pout on my face and he got up to go get me ice cream.

So we weren’t going to do anything in Victoria since we were only scheduled to be there from 6-midnight, but since we had longer we decided to go with the ship’s whale watching excursion. I was afraid that there would be 100’s of people with us, but I think there were only like 50-60 of us. Not too bad.

We were picked up at the pier and whisked away to the marina where the boat was waiting. I was a bit sad at first because it was a BIG boat. With tables and seats on the first level and then seats on the top level with a bit of room along the sides and the back to stand outside. I thought it would be way too crowded once we did see a whale.

Anyway, we motored out into the ocean along the shore for about an hour before we saw our first whale. The boat wasn’t to capacity and we could easily all get a spot to take pictures. AND since it was a bit cold I was glad that we weren’t in one of the little open zodiacs. Yes, those tours only had like 8-10 people in the boats, but they were all bundled up like we were in Ketchikan. No cover and again, it was cold and drizzling. As I said, our boat turned out to be perfect after all.

Ok, so some IDIOT (yes, that was me) FORGOT the zoom lens! Seriously!?!? How could I go on a WHALE watching tour and NOT bring my ZOOM lens?!? GRRRRRRRR. So I had no zoom lens and had to rely on my husband with his point and shoot camera to get some close ups. He did ok; it’s just really hard to zoom on that thing and focus. I got some shots with mine then had to manipulate them a bit on the computer to get a more zoomed in shot.

That being said, we DID see whales. But it was the same 2 whales. I thought that once we saw some whales we would be off to another spot to find different whales, but I was wrong. We followed those 2 whales and saw them surface and then go back down about 4-5 times. Then we were done. I was kinda sad. Again, can’t get mad because we saw whales, but it would have been nice to have seen a pod, or even a group of orcas. But no. I also would have LIKED to have seen them breech or do SOMETHING interesting, but alas, they were ignoring us and just going about their day. lol

WHALES!!!

RANDOM THOUGHT

Overall the service on board has been good. Our room stewards get to our room in a timely manner each day and night. We haven't really "talked" to them though as we have in the past. They never really said "Hello Susan" or "Hello Mr. and Mrs. XX" as they have in the past. I guess it's because they are busy busy busy, but I miss "talking" to our room guys.

We have had some issues with reservations for meals. On Sunday we made reservations for the dining room Mon night and the PG Tuesday night. Well Mon afternoon we got both a reminder card for both the DR and PG! Whoops! We had to call and say we were eating in the dining room that night and not the PG. Then later that night Michael called and said that he messed up our PG reservation for Tues night and accidentally put us on the waitlist instead of the regular list, and that our 7pm reservation wasn’t available. Would we like to make it for 9pm instead? Um no. That was way too late for us. So we are eating in the DR instead. Kinda a bummer, but not enough to make us mad. We ARE on vacation. And besides, that saves us about $60 right? I did think it was a bit odd that we weren’t offered any kind of compensation for his screw up. Not that we EXPECTED it, well, ok we kinda did. In the past when HA staff have messed something up, or if they have had to inconvenience us for some reason they usually give us chocolate covered strawberries, a bottle of champagne, a free PG dinner…something. And this time. Nothing. Again, nothing to ruin our vacation, but it was those little things that typically makes us feel better about the screw up and like HA.

We also had to wait for 30 extra minutes, even though we had a reservation, on Thursday night in the dining room. It seemed like EVERYONE was eating in the DR on formal night. I guess you can’t control how fast people eat and thus clear the tables for the people coming in behind them. By the time WE ate and left it was pretty empty in the DR.

THURSDAY-SEA DAY

Do not read this post!

It’s sooooo boring! I’m embarrassed to say we did NOTHING today. We didn’t go to Bingo, we didn’t go to the show, we didn’t go to a talk, we literally were slugs all day. So if you were hoping to be entertained by what we did today I apologize in advance. So don’t read this post because it’s so boring! (except for the part about the peanut butter and ice cream, THAT is interesting!)

*****************************

We had a weird thing happen this morning. We were sleeping and I heard knocking on the door. Pretty insistent knocking, not a tentative knock. I said “Coming” and groggily got out of bed and made my way to the door. As I was getting there I heard “never mind, wrong door” or something like that. I looked out the peep hole and saw a woman in a skirt walking away from the door. Huh? What time is it? 550am. Hummmm. I wouldn’t think that you would confuse the END room on the very BACK of the ship with another room. Lol. I went back to sleep immediately.

We finally got out of bed around 8. We met my dad at 830 for breakfast. Service was a bit slower this morning, but really….where else did we have to be? We saw a whale while at breakfast…well, correction, we saw some whale snot. You know, the spout that goes up when they come to the surface and blow their nose? Yeah, that’s what we saw. The weather was super foggy all day. First I accused my husband of lying. There was no whale and even if there WAS a whale, how could you see it in the little white caps of the ocean and the fog? Oh. There is the whale snot. Ok, hubby wasn’t lying. :)

After breakfast I graded some papers and we watched more Criminal Minds. Then we ate lunch in the Lido. Then we watched more Criminal Minds (we are watching Season 8. I can’t believe they did that to Spencer’s “Girlfriend”. It was sooo mean! I’m still not recovered!). I then decided that I had been too much of a slug all day, so I went down and took a 2 mile walk.

I don’t feel as bad about the cushions on our balcony, since they had all the cushions on the chairs on the promenade deck. They were soaked.

Wet cushions on the promenade deck. Obviously no one was out there in the wind and cold and rain!

We had dinner reservations at 715 in the dining room. We got there at 705, so we were early. It was formal night tonight. We didn’t get seated until 745am. Grrrrr. Again, we didn’t have any place to GO, but still. Obviously as the Master Chef dinner tonight and everyone all dressed up they were packed. Dinner was good. Surf and Turf for my hubby and dad. I had spaghetti from the kids menu.

My new favorite desert is asking them to put a glob of peanut butter in the bottom of the sundae glass, then vanilla ice cream, then chocolate sauce. The PB just makes that desert. It was very yummy.

And that’s IT. Pathetic really. But I’m on vacation so I’m allowed to do nothing….right? J

I'm still working on the last 3 days! Not sure I will have as good of photos that I have already posted but I will try. Today we are in Seattle and its raining raining raining...but we are inside pikes place market so all is good! :)

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RANDOM THOUGHT:

The wrap around balcony is great for avoiding wind. If it’s too windy on the “side” part of the balcony it’s easy to move to the back corner. If it’s raining and hitting the back balcony, you can move to the side balcony. It’s really rather nice!

Juneau Cont.

After the trip we called a local artist, named Susan M. Smith. I hadn’t ever met her, but did have 2 awesome wood carvings that she had done of our own doggies. I knew that she lived in Juneau and I wanted to meet her. Since the airport is about 20 minutes from the ship and her studio is near the ship, she was nice enough to come and pick us up at the airport. It is very frustrating that we had so little time in port. Even if we didn’t meet with Susan we wouldn’t have had any time to walk around town and shop. It’s pathetic that even doing a HA excursion we had no free time to do whatever. Eat a snack, shop, go up the mountain on Mt Roberts Tram or whatever. Rant over, I know many people feel the same way.

Anyway, do Susan the artist picked us up and took us to her studio. She is soooooo talented. I swear if you have $300 or so to spend you should look her up and commission her to do a carving of your dog, cat, horse, etc. She usually includes Santas in her carvings. The first one she did for us was our 6 dogs, pulling a dog sled with Santa driving. It was AWESOME. Seriously. The dog carvings look exactly like our dogs and had great facial expressions. We then commission her to do another of our current 3 dogs. Again, awesome. I don’t work for her, just a happy customer. But you won’t be disappointed in what she does for you.

ANYWAY, so we looked at some of the pieces she had around her studio. She is kinda a hoarder. Lol Her words, not mine. She goes to estate sales and yard sales and stuff. She recently acquired a morticians table…complete with drain hole! Ha! She also had a 6 feet long 5 feet wide reindeer that she MADE herself. Used wood for the legs and paper mache as well. Covered it with fur. It’s really cool. She said that last year she brought it down to where Santa was and they would put kids on it that were scared of Santa, and while the kids were distracted Santa inched up next to the kid so the parents could get the requisite picture with Santa (and reindeer!) lol

My dad with Susan Smith in her studio with the VERY cheap one of a kind wood carving of a bear.

Just so you can see what she did for us...there was a picture of our dogs early in this thread. Well here they are with Santa. Even the expressions on their face were perfect. I'm glad that we got to meet with her even if it was only for a little bit.

While we were there my dad looked for his cell phone and couldn’t find it. Did he have it? Did he leave it on the helicopter? Did he leave it in the fanny pack? Did he leave it on the ship? We called the helicopter company and they said they would look for it. Now it was time for us to get back to the ship for the 230 all aboard. On the way back the company called and they had dad’s cell! They said that they were bringing a group back at 2 and they would meet us at the boat at 220. My hubby was nice enough to stand in the wind and wait for them. It was about 140 at this time.

Dad and I went up to our rooms and went to the Lido for a quick sandwich. I got my husband a Ruben with Jalapeños and fries. We watched him from our room. He was pacing back and forth. It got to be 230 (all aboard time) and no van from the helicopter company. FINALLY they pulled up around 235. Whew! Dad’s phone returned and husband back on the ship. Nice.

We actually didn’t pull away from the dock until around 330. Not sure who/what we were waiting for as we were watching and didn’t see any vans/taxis pull up with late people.

Tonight we had a reservation at the dining room again. We went around 715. The dining room was pretty empty compared to the other nights. Not sure if it was because of the time or because people were tired from being in port today. I ordered off the big girl menu tonight. I spared my dad and husband the agony of me having weird orderings off the kids menu. Lol I DID go outside the box a bit with dessert though. I ordered a hot fudge sundae with no whipped cream and no almonds. I DID ask for peanut butter to go with it. The waiter said it might be 15 minutes or so while they went to get some (where else did we have to go?!? Lol). It came quickly and it was GOOD! They put the PB on the bottom of the glass and the ice cream on top. It was delish. I love how the waiters and really everyone is always so accommodating.You HAVE to try asking for the PB with your ice cream. It MAKES the sundaes!

Empty Dining Room:

Tonight there was a comedian. We went to the 10:00 show. It definitely wasn’t as full as the 8 o’clock show! Ha! The guy was pretty funny, although he did like to laugh at himself too much.

Before the show we had a weird thing happen. The wind was blowing pretty hard outside (as it would be when you are on the ocean on a boat and going about 20 knots) and we heard the chairs scraping across the floor (you know, that annoying sound when someone scrapes the chair across the deck and it makes THAT noise). I opened the curtain and checked it out and didn’t see the chairs moving. I closed the curtains again and soon I heard it again. Was it the neighbors sitting outside, in the cold, in the wind, in the dark? Not likely. I looked again, nothing. I even went outside and stood there and didn’t see the chairs moving. Came back inside…heard it again! This time my husband checked it out and he saw nothing. Grrrr. Annoying.

For some reason after being awake all day, hiking on a glacier and staying up and watching the night show…I’m tired. Luckily tomorrow is another “sea day” and we get to sleep in and not have to set the alarm. Yay!

Juneau Cont.

Looking down into a large crevasse

Of course I took a million more pictures, but I'll stop torturing you now. ha. This is us at the end of the tour in front of the helicopter.

Juneau CONT.

More photos of the Glacier/Helicopter Trip

Love the apps where you change color photos into black and white. This COULD have been taken 70 years ago on the glacier! lol

Getting the crampons put on.

Glacier hiking

WEDNESDAY-JUNEAU

The ship arrived in Juneau early this morning, around 6am. Of course we weren’t awake to see it. I got up about 645 and looked out the window and saw….nothing. Literally, nothing but fog. I couldn’t even tell if we were still moving or not. I had to look at the tv channel with the info on the ship. Nope. 0 knots was our speed, so we were docked, but we couldn’t see anything. This didn’t boad well for the helicopter tour, but we also had another 2 hours before we were supposed to get off the ship.

See? foggy!

Again, VERY foggy this morning.

We had breakfast in the Pinnacle (I love breakfasts down there!!) and the fog was SLOWLY lifting. When it got to be 850, when we were supposed to meet our excursion people, it was bright and sunny and really beautiful. Off we went to the airport

There were only 5 of us on the trip, which was nice, probably because it was so expensive! Lol We got to the Northstar Helicopter place and it looked familiar…yes, this was the same company we used when we did this before I think in 2005! We even have a picture from back then. You can see both the 05 picture and today’s picture below.

Here is us in 2005 when we were at the SAME company doing the SAME excursion.

And this was us here this week. You can see the same wooden bench and everything.

We put on the boots and the pants, and the shirt and the fanny pack and the gloves and we were ready to go! Of course the helicopter trip was great, too short, but good. We landed on Mendenhall Glacier and got outfitted with our crampons for our boots. After a short safety talk on how to use our ice picks and how to go up and down hills with the crampons, we were off. As I said, we did this same excursion in 2005 and it was good this year too. I think in the past it was more “exciting”. I think we did more hills and went further “back” into the glacier, but of course every year the glacier is different because it’s moving like 3 feet a year! It was still beautiful and we got to drink some glacier water and looked down a huge crevasse. Overall my 74ish year old father had no trouble in the little hike and seemed to enjoy himself. The last time he was on a glacier was around 54 years ago when he climbed Mt Rainer.

Us in the helicopter on the way to Mendenhall Glacier.

Glacier photo

RANDOM THOUGHT

I forgot to talk about our free champagne in our room. Since we are in a Neptune Suite we were gifted a bottle of “sparkling wine” at checkin. I had learned on this board that we could exchange it not only for non-alcoholic wine, but also for cokes. So we brought it down to the Neptune Lounge and Michael said that he would have the cokes delivered to our room. For those who want to know, apparently that bottle of sparkling wine is either very cheap, or the cokes are very expensive. Lol. We got 4 cokes in exchange for the bottle of sparkling wine.

Enjoying both of your reviews. Wonderful pictures of Glacier Bay! What camera and lens are you using?

It's a Nikon D60. The lens for the upclose glacier pictures was a Nikon 55-200 autofocus lens.

What the heck is this closer for? It's on the room right after you enter the room. It has a key hole to open it, but it's not locked. There are no shelves or anything in it. I thought it might be where the room steward hides, but I wasn't sure. lol :)

DAD's REPORT

Thursday, September 26, 2013

When I awoke this morning it was cloudy and the sea was choppy, but not too bad. Our route today took us south toward Victoria on the seaward side of Graham Island. We are back in Canadian waters.

On this sea day, we’ve tracked southeast all day at about 19 kts through dreary skies, rain, and mild seas. Pat and Sue watched “Criminal Minds” in their cabin all morning. I’ve been reading “The Cuckoo’s Calling”. We took a break for lunch on the Lido Deck, and then retreated to our cabins for more “down” time most of the afternoon.

Most of the afternoon I read, but about 5:00 I turned on the television and found that the Thursday evening NCAA football game on ESPN this week was between Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. Imagine! Out here in the Pacific off the coast of British Columbia, I got to watch Virginia Tech beat Georgia Tech, 17 – 10.

Dinner this evening was formal wear. After the football game, I dressed and we went to dinner in the Vista Restaurant. Even with reservations we had to wait a while for our table. I had an appetizer of escargot, with French onion soup, and the entrée was a comparatively thinly sliced portion of filet mignon and a lobster tail. Sue had spaghetti from the children’s menu.

This evening we are still out at sea, of

f the coast of British Columbia, at 50°08.63’ N, 128°12.85’ W on a southeast course of 134°, at a speed of 18.5 kts. Sometime early in the morning we will enter the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and will dock in Victoria, B.C., at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow. So far on this cruise, we have traveled 1748 nautical miles.