Millennium Alaska June 16, 2017 LONG Trip Report photos - menus - schedules

[luckybecky]

Tuesday June 13

Today we went to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and then did a float on Spencer Lake and the Placer River.

We had breakfast in our condo and packed a picnic lunch. It was yet another overcast, damp and drizzly morning. It was only about a 15 minute drive from our condo to the Wildlife Center. I had read that we should allow about an hour here, so that's what we did. As it turned out, I felt that we rushed through and wished we had a bit more time. We did not have time to do the scenic Turnagain Arm boardwalk within the park, and missed a couple of animals.

Nevertheless, we got to see elk, black and grizzly bears, porcupines, reindeer, lynx, fox, a bald eagle, an owl, wood bison -- which were thought to be extinct until a small herd was found in Canada. The Conservation Center is helping to reintroduce them to Alaska.

Many of the animals are here because they have been injured or otherwise are unable to survive in the wild. For example, the eagle had been shot and had to have a wing amputated. The lynx had been orphaned and injured at a very young age in a forest fire. There was a fox which someone had tried to raise as a pet.

Here are some of them:

[deladane]

Why thank you! It's nice of you to remember that! I'm so disappointed because the photo server I was using has changed their terms and all my pictures have disappeared from that review, and all my reviews. I hope that won't happen to this one! I'm using Shutterfly to post my pics here.

 

I'm sure you are counting the days until your PG cruise! Tahiti is truly the most beautiful place I've ever seen. It was the trip of a lifetime.

 

It's so funny- I saw a new thread posted by luckybecky and my first thought was "wait, as in luckybecky from PG last year?!" There are so few detailed photo reviews for PG, so of course I remember you!! I plan to do a photo review after my cruise too, in hopes that I can help those who cruise after me :)

 

Such a bummer about the changes to photobucket :( I had that happen to my old reviews too when I used Webshots and a popular social media site to host my photos. I have been using Flickr for my reviews for the last few years, and so far so good. Since they are linked to Yahoo, I have high hopes that they will be around for a while and won't delete all my photos. Fingers crossed! Hopefully Shutterfly will work out well for you too- the photos are such an important part of these reviews, so it's so frustrating when they stop working (especially since you can't edit a post down the line if the photos do stop working!)

[luckybecky]

We had to leave the Conservation Center sooner than I wanted in order to make our appointed time for a Spencer Lake and Placer River float booked through Chugach Adventures. We drove about 2 minutes from the Wildlife Center to the Portage whistle stop.

We were outfitted with rubber boots to keep our feet dry and signed the necessary waivers. Our Alaska Railroad train arrived right on time. We had a 30 minute ride to the Spencer glacier area, and we used the time on board to eat our picnic lunch.

The train dropped us off near Spencer Lake. A bus took us down to the side of the lake. This area is very remote, with no roads. (The bus and other necessary supplies and vehicles are brought in on a flat bed rail car in the spring, and shipped back out in the fall.)

Here we are with Spencer Glacier in the background.

We were supplied with life vests and rain ponchos, given a brief safety instruction, and then boarded our rafts. There were about 6 rafts, each with 6-8 passengers.

The float was really cool. Our guide paddled us near the icebergs which were beautiful. We did not get very near the Spencer glacier but had good views of it. It was another overcast day but the rain had let up and the setting was beautiful. After rowing around the lake, we floated down the Placer River for several miles. There are snow-capped mountains in every direction you look. It was so peaceful. A few very mild rapids.

[luckybecky]

We did not see any wildlife at all, which surprised me given the remote location. We were on the water for about 2 hours total. It was cold, but we had dressed in several layers so we were fine. But all four of us complained that our feet got very cold. The rain boots they gave us kept our feet dry, but weren't good for warmth. You will remove your shoes to wear these boots, so be sure to wear the warmest socks you can find.

The train picked us up right where we got out of the water, and it took only about 10-15 minutes to get back to the Portage stop where we were parked, and were back at our condo in another 15 minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

We went to supper at Jack Sprats, right next door to our condo in Girdwood. They have a very eclectic menu. It was good, but expensive.

We have not had great weather so far. Friday was nice -- thank goodness! -- as that was our glacier trek and we really would NOT have enjoyed hiking on a cold, rainy, slippery glacier. So we are grateful for that! But every day since then -- Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday has been cold, completely overcast all day, with off-and-on rain or drizzle.

[luckybecky]

Wednesday June 14

We awoke to another cloudy, gray day, but it wasn't raining. Just a very light mist coming down. So we drove to the trailhead of Winner Creek Trail for a hike. We wanted to see the hand tram and gorge. It was a nice, well-maintained trail, not difficult. There were very few people on the trail.

There are two ways to get to the gorge, one is longer than the other. We took the shorter route. It took us about 1 and a half hours to complete the trip starting from the trailhead at Crow Creek Road, go across the hand tram, to the gorge and back. The hand tram was really cool, a little scary, and harder than it looks!

In the photo below, Paul is pulling hard on the rope, Tara is in the background helping to pull from the platform, and I was also pulling from my platform on the other side (when I wasn't snapping photos!). It was a workout!!

We had hoped to ride the Alyseka tram, but it has been overcast the entire time we have been here. We didn't see the point of spending the money to go up, just to walk out into a fog. If the sky had been clear we would have done it. Instead, we just got in our car after our hike and headed for Seward.

[luckybecky]

The drive was beautiful! It took an hour and a half or so. It was past lunchtime when we arrived in Seward. We drove into town and happened to spot a Chinese place called Peking. We thought Chinese sounded good so we gave it a go. Bad choice. I don't recommend it.

After lunch we went to the Alaska SeaLife Center. It was awesome! They have outstanding exhibits, such as touch pools where you can stick your hand in the water to touch starfish, anemones, sea cucumbers, and other creatures. Very cool!

There are three large, deep pools housing different animals, where you can view the animals from above and below water. One contains sea lions, another seals, and the third is a bird enclosure with many varieties of fish below. I was able to photograph a puffin from less than 2 feet away.

The birds are accustomed to having humans so close, I guess. You aren't supposed to touch them, but they don't flee from you as they would in the wild. Down below, we watched a puffin diving deep into the water and chasing the fish. It was quite comical! I absolutely recommend this stop for people of all ages. Ask for a discount if you are an AAA member.

[luckybecky]

Here are a couple more photos from the SeaLife Center. If your cruise stops in Seward, you definitely should try to go here.

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

We checked into our condo which we had rented through VRBO, and then headed out for one more adventure.

We drove out to the Exit Glacier, which is just a few miles out of town. It was an easy hike on good trails, we spent about an hour. It was beautiful, but extremely troubling to see how much the glacier has melted. The park service does an excellent job here of showing just how much the glacier has receded and it is really terrifying! It is a fraction of what it was a hundred or so years ago.

As you can see in the photo below, it is still gray and drizzly. But tomorrow we will be in for a treat!

They have signs along the trail showing where the glacier was at different points in time. This one shows where it was in 1926, and we still had quite a lot further to walk before we got near the glacier.

We stopped at Safeway to pick up a few items for breakfast in our condo for the next 2 days. We made a picnic lunch for tomorrow, did some laundry (I made a point to choose a condo with a washer and dryer so we could have all clean clothes for the cruise), and we ate supper in our condo with groceries we had bought in Anchorage.

[luckybecky]

It's almost time for our cruise! One last day on land...

Thursday June 15

We woke up to sunshine and blue skies! The first pretty day we have seen in almost a week. And what great timing! We were out on a boat all day, and what a beautiful day it was! So glad we did not have the gray, damp, drizzly weather that we have been experiencing for the last several days.

We walked from our condo down to the port for our Kenai Fjords National Park cruise, pre-booked with Major Marine. It was an amazing day! We had the most perfect weather -- clear and sunny, with the calmest seas. Our captain said they often have 3-5 foot swells but we had glassy calm seas. It was quite cold when you got out on the open decks, so we were happy for sunshine. I would hate to think of doing this activity on a gray rainy day. Dress warmly!

The port is very picturesque.

We did the 7.5 hour Kenai Fjords NP tour. As we were leaving the port, we almost immediately spotted Humpback whales lunge feeding. We stopped for half an hour or so to watch them. I wasn't able to catch good photos but it was fun to watch.

[nimiq]

Following and the first pic got me hooked :-)

 

 

Envoyé de mon iPad en utilisant Forums

[riclop]

Thanks for the report.

[cheflauraleh]

Loving your review! We leave in about 10 days for this cruise and I can't wait!

[luckybecky]

After spending some time watching the humpbacks, we continued on our route to see the Holgate and Aialik glaciers with beautiful scenery along the way. There was a stop where we saw puffins and other birds up close, including an amazing scene when Kittiwake birds were all flying in every direction, going nuts right beside and over us. Tom was our NP ranger and he did a nice job narrating the trip. The glaciers were just beautiful.

We also saw quite a few sea otters and lions lounging on icebergs near the glaciers. They would hop into the water when we got close to them. We saw a group of sea lions on some rocks on the way back, too. And we even spotted some orcas! Ranger Tom said it is unusual to see both humpbacks and orcas in one day. This, along with the other wildlife we spotted and the calm seas made for a fantastic day! This was one of our favorite activities of the entire trip, with amazing scenery and lots of wildlife. I highly recommend it.

I thought I took a hundred pictures today, but somehow when we got home I have only a few. This was one of the most beautiful days of our trip, so I'm disappointed with my photos. But one thing I try to be careful about is seeing the world only through my camera and failing to just live in the moment. Sometimes I just set the camera down and take in whatever experience I'm lucky enough to be involved in at the moment. So here are a few pics, not always the best.

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

 

 

 

 

[hubofhockey]

We are doing your cruise itinerary next June, but I wonder whether you even needed a cruise with being able to see so much during your pre-cruise vacation. It seems impressive.

[luckybecky]

We are doing your cruise itinerary next June, but I wonder whether you even needed a cruise with being able to see so much during your pre-cruise vacation. It seems impressive.

 

We were so lucky to be able to do this. Our daughter joked that we had "a vacation before our vacation."

 

We knew this might be the only time we will ever be able to go to Alaska, so we wanted to make the most of it. It was amazing.

[luckybecky]

By the way, they offer a prime rib and salmon buffet on this Kenai Fjords cruise for an extra $19. We elected to carry on a picnic lunch but the buffet looked good, and considering the price of restaurants, this was probably a good deal. After everyone had a chance to go through the line once, they opened it up for seconds (and thirds!) if you wanted.

We walked back to our condo and then went out for dinner at Seward Brewing Company. It was OK. Then we went back to our condo to do some laundry and pack for the next morning.

We had to drop off our rental car before 9:30 am the next day, or else be charged for another full day. The Hertz place was about a 15 minute walk from our condo, so I figured it would be no problem to drop it off early, and then later get a cab to take us from our condo to the pier.

I called a taxi company to pre-arrange a cab to the port in the morning. The first one I called was booked. The second one said he doesn't take reservations after 7am. What?! He said none of the taxi operators take reservations on cruise days -- the reason being that if someone gets off the boat and wants a ride to Anchorage, they want to be able to take that booking, which would pay far more than our 5 minute ride to the pier. He said to just call in the morning and see what we could get.

So now I was really nervous! I called Celebrity to ask if it was possible to drop off our luggage early -- that way, we could return our car on time and just spend the morning on foot, shopping or whatever in the pier area. I waited 20 minutes on hold, and then the representative wasn't able to fully answer my question. He said we could check in for our cruise at 10:30 am. I said we didn't need to check in, we just wanted to know if there was a place to drop our luggage in the morning. He did not know the answer. Recalling our last experience trying to contact Celebrity, I haven't been greatly impressed with their customer service. This surprised me, because I thought they were renowned for customer service.

OK, so we can't arrange a cab, and we don't know if we can drop off our luggage early. One of the taxi operators I called said that if all else failed, we could use the free Seward shuttle. I googled it and found that there was a shuttle stop a couple of blocks from our condo. So that became our back-up plan to get to the pier.

[luckybecky]

Friday June 16 Embarkation Day!!

So for those who have been waiting for me to talk about the cruise, we have finally arrived at embarkation day!

We had breakfast in our condo. We left our kids and luggage there while we went to return our rental car. There were a lot of people there from the ship who were renting cars. We walked back to the condo and I immediately started calling cab companies, because we had to check out of our condo by 11am. We ended up with "Mike's Taxi," the third or fourth one I called.

Mike appeared to be disabled, and did not get out of the car to help us load our luggage. This was no problem for us, but don't call this service if you need help with your luggage. Mike had a little dog riding shotgun. It cost $10 to get to the pier.

If we had had someplace to store our luggage, we would not have been in such a hurry to get on board. But it worked out ok.

[luckybecky]

We arrived at the dock about 11am. The Celebrity rep had told me we could check in at 10:30, but we were dropped in the parking lot next to a locked storage compartment with no staff in sight. There were a handful of other passengers milling about with their luggage. In a few minutes, someone arrived to accept our luggage and we went inside. They were not quite ready to check us in yet but we had only a few minutes' wait. The lady who checked us in happened to be the wife of Ranger Tom who guided our tour yesterday!

Security was super fast and easy since we were so early and so few passengers were about. We took 2 bottles of wine, and our daughter carried 2 bottles of wine. She also had a 1.75 L bottle of Canadian Whiskey which she expected to have to deposit with security, to be picked up at the end of the cruise. But the security guy only asked her, "where's the party?" and allowed her to proceed. They did not open our suitcases to inspect the bottles.

I also had a refillable water bottle which I had forgotten to empty of water, and they did not question that either. It could have been anything, but they didn't seem concerned.

We have had mixed results with carrying on alcohol on our various cruises. In some cases, they were extremely strict, carefully inspecting every container. In other cases, as today, there seemed to be no concern whatsoever about how much we carried on.

So we finally have arrived! I'll be back tomorrow to post about our first day on board. :)

Here's our ship docked in Seward

[luckybecky]

We were among the first on board. It was nice to board so early. We were greeted with choice of champagne or mimosa. We headed up to deck 10. The buffet wasn't open yet, so Paul found a shady spot to sit with our hand luggage while I took a quick tour of the upper decks. Here are some photos from that time. My overall impression of the ship was that she is beautiful! I loved the decor. One thing we noticed in particular was how much art was displayed all over the ship. My husband is an artist, and we really appreciated the fine art everywhere.

 

 

 

Pool bar:

 

 

 

One of several hot tubs (I think there were 4)

 

 

 

 

Cosmos Lounge:

 

 

[luckybecky]

I wasn't able to get a good photo of the indoor pool during this time because there were people working on it; it had been drained and had caution tape around it. The area was beautiful and was very popular during this cruise since of course it was too cold to use the outdoor pool. I later snapped this photo of the inside pool, it's not the greatest.

 

 

Here are more photos of the ship that I took during my quick tour on that first morning:

 

Sports deck:

 

 

Only half of the basketball court was open. The other half was closed off thusly:

 

 

 

Here's where they showed rooftop movies. We never took advantage of this -- it was often cold, and we were always busy doing other things. They provided plenty of blankets.

 

 

 

This next photo is looking down at the outdoor seating area of the buffet, and you can see the aft balconies.

 

 

 

My son was very disappointed in the arcade. There were only a very few machines, and 2 or 3 of those had "out of order" signs on them. He loves video games but ended up never going to the arcade because it had so little to offer.

 

[luckybecky]

The buffet opened at noon and we had some lunch. We think the quality of the food was good, especially for a buffet. We usually avoid buffet style restaurants because the food just isn't that good, but here it was not bad at all. And it was always presented very attractively. Here are a bunch of pictures of the buffet.

 

As soon as you walked in the door, the first thing you saw was this tempting display:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

A few more photos from the buffet:

 

 

[luckybecky]

There was a small bar, where the server showed me this brochure listing the drinks included in our classic drink package. She didn't have extra copies, so I awkwardly snapped a photo. Sorry, I didn't get the part that had the premium drinks listed. They weren't included in our package so I wasn't concerned about that part, and I wasn't thinking ahead about having it to post here.

 

 

 

By the way, I just noticed that it only lists "fountain sodas" -- not canned drinks. However, we got canned diet coke several times and were never charged for it.

[luckybecky]

After lunch, I continued my ship tour. Here's the casino:

 

 

And the casino bar:

 

 

The theater:

 

 

The shopping area, which looks pretty plain now with hardly anyone on board and all the shops closed:

 

 

 

The gelateria:

 

 

Notice the cookie jars on top of the ice cream case. The cookies were free, as well as cookies and pastries at Café al Bacio right nearby. The coffees at Café al Bacio were not free unless you had a drink package, but you could enjoy the sweets at no cost.