Southbound Millennium Cruise and Excursions Photo Review

[BugsyCruiser]

Paul, these are excellent pictures of your Alaskan adventure! Thank you for taking the time to do this and now I am looking forward to my Alaska cruise next year even more now! :)

[d4m]

Paul, these are terrific pictures! I would love to have been there.

 

Can you share what kind of camera you used? Likely, beyond me;)

[Germancruiser]

Thanks for those great pictures. So good to see the " new " interiour of my favorite Celebrity Ship- post refurbishment. I do hope they stick with their Millenium Class vessels for a long time to come- since I very much prefer them to their newer Solstice Class sisters!

Michael

[breeezy]

OK, Now I REALLY REALLY want to go on an Alaskan cruise. Amazing photos!! Thanks so much for posting all of this!

[dalitos]

Great photos, great review, and those whales are scary! Can't wait for more. Thanks!

[GeorgiaPeach51]

Paul, so glad you had a great time! I'm loving seeing the photos...you really got some fantastic ones. Looking forward to the rest. Glad you enjoyed the Sockeye Cycle tour; that's the company owned by my husband's cousin, who we saw when we went to Skagway. He has some really interesting, unusual bike tours, and a wonderful staff.

 

Interested to see your further observations about the ship! Thanks for posting this review and the photos...makes me want to go again!

[Aquahound]

Paul, these are terrific pictures! I would love to have been there.

 

Can you share what kind of camera you used? Likely, beyond me;)

 

Hello, and thank you! :) The majority of the pictures were taken with a Nikon P510. It has a 42x zoom.

 

Paul, so glad you had a great time! I'm loving seeing the photos...you really got some fantastic ones. Looking forward to the rest. Glad you enjoyed the Sockeye Cycle tour; that's the company owned by my husband's cousin, who we saw when we went to Skagway. He has some really interesting, unusual bike tours, and a wonderful staff.

 

Interested to see your further observations about the ship! Thanks for posting this review and the photos...makes me want to go again!

 

Thanks GeorgiaPeach. I can't say enough good things about them. We had a mother/daughter combo on our tour who complained about everything and were very difficult. They ended up quiting the tour. Our guide, Nikki, was a rock star in the way she showed patience.

[Aquahound]

Next, we pulled in to Ketchikan. It was another beautiful, warm day. We were joined there by the Norwegian Sun.

 

[Aquahound]

In Ketchikan, we did the Bering Sea Crab tour on the Alleutian Ballad. This was another excellent excursion. The boat was run by men who actually work the Bering Sea. For those who watch the Deadliest Catch, Alleutian Ballad was one of the boats in season 2. Our Captain, Derrick Ray, was the guy who replaced Phil on the Cornelia Marie when Phil died. These guys were exactly the rough, tough, hard nosed men you would expect and it made the tour all that much better. Here are a couple pictures of Captain Derrick talking to us.

 

 

Edited June 25, 2013 by Aquahound

[Aquahound]

The first thing they did was pull in a line, hoping to land a nice Halibut. There was no Halibut, but there were a couple Rock Fish and a Rat Fish.

 

 

[Aquahound]

Next, we went close to an island and fed the eagles. Having a couple dozen bald eagles flying low over us was a pretty cool sight.

 

 

 

 

 

[Aquahound]

When they were done feeding, the eagles perched up in the trees.

 

 

 

[Aquahound]

Then, it was on to the crab.

 

 

 

[Aquahound]

King Crab.

 

 

[Aquahound]

Next, we pulled a trap full of snow crab and box crab.

 

 

These, they let us hold. Here I am holding a Snow Crab while DW photo bombs me with a box crab.

 

[micruiser12]

LOVE your review and pictures, Paul! Keep reporting! We will be southbound on the Millennium in August and can't wait!

[Aquahound]

After the crab, came this guy.

 

 

[Aquahound]

Were were docked on the port side in Ketchikan. Here are some shots of town from our balcony.

 

 

 

[Aquahound]

Thursday started of with an Engine Control Room tour. We had eaten with the Chief Engineer earlier in the cruise and he followed dinner by inviting us to his space.

 

 

This is Nickolaus, the Chief Engineer. He was a fantastic and very personable senior officer.

 

[Aquahound]

Shortly after, was the Captain's Q&A session in the main theater with the Captain (Costas), Chief Engineer, and Hotel Director.

 

 

Captain Costas:

 

 

Chief Engineer:

 

[Aquahound]

Later in the day, we approached the Inside Passage, which brings me to my first scheduling complaint about the Millennium. People were starting to gather in Cosmos, the lounge at the top, front of the ship. We had a light rain that day, so what better viewing location than Cosmos, right? Well, they thought it would be a good idea to do the kids talent show in Cosmos at that time. One of the acts included playing the extremely annoying song, Harlem Shake. If you don't know this song, Google it and try to bear it for 5 seconds. In my opinion, this was a very poor planning decision on their part because while I have nothing against kids, this show really took away from the beauty of cruising the inside Passage. I did take one picture before I joined all the others evacuating the lounge.

 

[Aquahound]

Let me address one more complaint before getting back in happy mode. I've seen in other threads people complaining about a recent apparent lack of maintanance on Millennium. I also noticed this because every now and then, I ran into things that just weren't Celebrity standard in my opinion. After leaving Cosmos, we walked across the pool deck and stopped to look out the starboard side windows. It was at this point, I noticed the entire starboard side wood railings were gone, exposing this thin, metal base that was loose. Leaning on it was not a good idea because, aside from it being loose, it had sharp edges.

 

[Aquahound]

So, we decided to just go kick our feet up on our balcony and enjoy the port side views in the Passage.

 

 

 

[Aquahound]

Fog started to settle in. At one point, we came pretty close to this ship. I'm not sure of the name, but it did look pretty cool seeing it sailing in the fog.

 

 

[Aquahound]

Here is a photo of the Pool Deck in the fog.