The Odyssey, on-the-sea, part II. (Alaska)

[shark b8]

Aloha, CC’ers.  Captain Shark Bait and the First Mate find ourselves onboard the Odyssey, sailing out of Juneau. Getting here was an adventure, unfortunately in both senses of the word.  Obviously lots of commentary about the Odyssey has surfaced on these pages over the months, not all of it positive.  This is our 12th Seabourn and so I will readily admit a strong bias, but I’ll at least try to be as objective as I can, reporting joys and warts alike. If anyone has specific questions I’d love to find the answers for them.

 

Later today I’ll detail the unpleasantness yesterday in trying to board, right now we’re enjoying a first-morning-after-sailing breakfast in the Colonnade, with glacier number 1 off in the distance.  First zodiac tour in a few hours, woohooo!

[SLSD]

18 minutes ago, shark b8 said:

Aloha, CC’ers.  Captain Shark Bait and the First Mate find ourselves onboard the Odyssey, sailing out of Juneau. Getting here was an adventure, unfortunately in both senses of the word.  Obviously lots of commentary about the Odyssey has surfaced on these pages over the months, not all of it positive.  This is our 12th Seabourn and so I will readily admit a strong bias, but I’ll at least try to be as objective as I can, reporting joys and warts alike. If anyone has specific questions I’d love to find the answers for them.

 

Later today I’ll detail the unpleasantness yesterday in trying to board, right now we’re enjoying a first-morning-after-sailing breakfast in the Colonnade, with glacier number 1 off in the distance.  First zodiac tour in a few hours, woohooo!

I really enjoy your commentary, so I welcome the fact that you are sailing again--new adventures, new adversities.  I have to ask--did you send your luggage ahead?  Or, did you decide to take it with you this time.  Both options are precarious!  

[shark b8]

25 minutes ago, SLSD said:

 I have to ask--did you send your luggage ahead? 

oh, noooooo.  “fool me once….” and all that.  No, we did the 5-day pre-cruise Denali package that Seabourn offers (more on that to come), and it included full porterage, plus we were able to store the “big stuff” at the Anchorage hotel where we stayed the first and last night.  So tried to “travel light” in between.  All worked out well. I’m still intrigued at the notion of luggage forwarding, seems it would be ideal in theory, but the Caribbean disaster soured the whole thing for me. Would love to hear reports from others about successes, though.

[marazul]

I am also looking forward to your next "odyssey."  

[MHF]

Following along!  Very interested as I board Sept 16 for the last 14 days of the Alaska season.  Would love to know more about the zodiac tours...did you sign up online ahead of time like a regular excursion or are these separate?  Thanks.

 

Missy

[shark b8]

Hi, Missy - yes, the zodiac tours are just like any other Seabourn shore excursion, you can reserve in advance, and probably a good idea to do so, they usually offer several starting-times throughout the day, and some of them fill up pretty quickly if you wait until you’re onboard. Really fun, but deceptively cold, today both the First Mate and I thought it seemed colder than Antarctica, although I’m quite sure it actually wasn’t even close to being the case. Layers, gloves, waterproof pants, woolly hat….all that stuff is good. They will give you an outer Seabourn blue parka when you board, and you can choose between sizes for the best fit.

 

Love the zodiacs!

 

[cruiseej]

7 hours ago, SLSD said:

I have to ask--did you send your luggage ahead?

 Haha, when I saw the new post from @shark b8 that was the first thought that popped into my mind as well. 😉 

[shark b8]

[shark b8]

[shark b8]

“Fifty Shades of Grey”

 

[shark b8]

12 minutes ago, cruiseej said:

 Haha, when I saw the new post from @shark b8 that was the first thought that popped into my mind as well. 😉 

Uh oh.  Is this to be my permanent CC identity going forward, “that dope who managed to have his luggage show up on a ship 12 days after it sailed”?   😂🤦‍♂️🛳️

[shark b8]

So, I mentioned difficulty the day we transitioned from the Denali tour, to the ship.  We flew out of Anchorage to Juneau, and the airport is not more than 15 minutes from the cruise terminal.  Collected luggage, got on the bus to the ship, which dropped us off at a convention center room a few blocks from the Odyssey (we saw her from there) for the usual pre-boarding rapid antigen Covid test. And there we sat……for nearly 3 hours.  🤬

 

There was ONE woman who was showing everyone how to download yet another Covid travel app/form to fill out, with travel info etc, and in between showing people, she would administer the test to someone.  5-10 minutes later, she’d administer the test to another person.  There were only 28 of us on the Denali tour (and we were the only ones in this building for this test session), and it was AGONIZINGLY slow.  The bus we were on decided to take people in groups to the ship, come back and take the next 6, etc.  As it happens (natch), we were the last group, and we finally arrived at the pier.  There was then another line at the gangway, which was also very slow to move, and by this time it had gotten colder and was raining.  Probably waited another 20 minutes in the cold and rain, and finally boarded the ship. As I said, the Anchorage/Juneau flight landed a little after 12:00p noon, the ship was 15-20 minutes away, and it took us well over 4 hours to finally get onboard. Unfair to blame Seabourn for the Covid test stuff nightmare, of course, but I’ve always loved the boarding moment so much, that this left me in an atypically sour cruise-mood for 24 hours. Oh well, “first world problems”, I suppose.

[shark b8]

Then once onboard, I started getting the letters from the Ventures team about changing times, etc, for the shore excursions. I had gotten many of these notifications over the last month or two from Seabourn, either changing or canceling the excursions I had bought (always due to the rather opaque “operational reasons”)  - so many that a week or two ago I just gave up trying to keep it straight, figured I’d wait until being onboard and get an “official” schedule.  When we got back from dinner last night (the Keller Grill, yum) I had two letters waiting for me, one telling me that today’s zodiac tour time had been changed to 1:00p, and the other one telling me that the same tour had been changed to 2:00p.  So I went back up to the Square - the rep was unaware of these letters, and also seemed to need my explanation that if the tour was actually 1:00p, it would conflict with the 11:30a tour we had also booked, that one of them had to go. We eventually settled on the one zodiac tour today, and it was great fun, but it just didn’t seem like we were off to a particularly Seabourn-quality start.

[shark b8]

On a brighter note……nothing like a little 15,000-year-old glacier ice to make Happy Hour even a little bit happier!
 

 

[shark b8]

The Denali pre-cruise tour was AMAZING.  The first night is spent in the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, which seems like one of those old “Grand Dame” hotels from a previous era.  One can check 80% of your luggage so as to travel light the next 4 days.  Then we took the train for the 6-hour journey to the National Park - I love trains (almost) as much as ships so this was great fun. The next few days were spent exploring the Park, lots of different tours to choose from, similar to being onboard the ship in different ports.  We’re dog-people so we had to take the tour of the dog sled kennel, one which had won the Iditarod several times.  The dogs are wonderful, and just go into a frenzy of excitement when they are hitched onto something they can pull.  We got lucky with weather only one day, but fortunately it was the day we traveled furthest into the interior, so we got to see the Denali peak(s) clearly and without cloud cover - we’re told that’s the case only about 25% of the time.  All highly recommended, and the guide we had was as good a guide as we’ve ever had anywhere, David Barger.  Superbly organized, knowledgeable, witty, and with a charming Mississippi twang.  Some pics to follow.

[shark b8]

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by shark b8

[shark b8]

Mt Denali itself, in increasing zoom:

 

 

 

 

[saminina]

👍👍

[PaulMCO]

We had mixed results with the Zodiac team. Yes they changed times and they cancelled one. 

Our issue was the quality of the staff.  We had one great one who was very interactive with the guests and we address all passengers front and rear.  Then there are the type that like to lecture and speak only to the front of the zodiac.  Group at the rear could not even hear him.

 

But Zodiacs are the big plus in doing Alaska with Seabourn.

[adolfo2]

Are the Odyssey, on-board pools open & HEATED in Alaska??? 

[highplanesdrifters]

Thanks for taking us along Sharkb8! Love the pics.

[shark b8]

Will check on the pools, adolfo2. I didn’t notice open/closed/heated one way or the other, but I wasn’t really looking.  🤷‍♂️
 

And for those interested, we’re told pax count is 280, so a little over 60%. Fine by me!

Edited July 24, 2022 by shark b8

[shark b8]

Steam coming off the pool, and not roped off, so……

 

(but no takers, unsurprisingly)

 

 

[shark b8]

My grandfather would have said…..”take away the waterfalls and icebergs and mountains and pine trees…..it’s pretty much the same as Kansas City”.   😇

[SDuckers]

Thanks for the report and the amazing pictures.  DH and I will be on the Odyssey Sept. 16-30, so I am really appreciating your reports!