28-day Westerdam Arctic Summer Solstice Live from the ship June 9-July 7

[SunandShade]

5 hours ago, xLibLabLady said:

Oops!   Typo!  LOL!

 

5 hours ago, xLibLabLady said:

Oops!   Typo!  LOL!

Please, tell us what it should have been.  We’re dying to find out!

[xLibLabLady]

52 minutes ago, SunandShade said:

 

Please, tell us what it should have been.  We’re dying to find out!

@SunandShade and others, It should have been "Make a right when you are by the bank. You'll now be facing the Trident Processing Plant."

 

Susan (xLibLabLady)

[DonnyD-JJ]

10 hours ago, xLibLabLady said:

@SunandShade and others, It should have been "Make a right when you are by the bank. You'll now be facing the Trident Processing Plant."

 

Susan (xLibLabLady)

I love spell check & Siri, both make writing and texting hysterical some times

[VacationCharlene]

We have been having a wonderful cruise, lots of wildlife!  Few bumps in the road with tendering but trying to stay positive. Food is good, waiters etc friendly as always!!  Have been so fortunate with pretty good weather. Lots more to see

[Ken the cruiser]

Just now, VacationCharlene said:

We have been having a wonderful cruise, lots of wildlife!  Few bumps in the road with tendering but trying to stay positive. Food is good, waiters etc friendly as always!!  Have been so fortunate with pretty good weather. Lots more to see

Have they been offering any lectures on sea days?

[VacationCharlene]

2 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Have they been offering any lectures on sea days?

Absolutely!  Many I Love Alaska presentations by numerous people. Lots of interesting information and photos

[Ken the cruiser]

2 minutes ago, VacationCharlene said:

Absolutely!  Many I Love Alaska presentations by numerous people. Lots of interesting information and photos

That is awesome news! We're planning on going on the 2026 version of this cruise and very much enjoy quality lectures! Have a great cruise!!!

[The-Inside-Cabin]

We had zero wait for tenders in Rolling stone at 8 am.   Did anyone experience big delays later?  

[oaktreerb]

1 hour ago, The-Inside-Cabin said:

We had zero wait for tenders in Rolling stone at 8 am.   Did anyone experience big delays later?  

By 8:45 Stone indicated they were having some delays.  We were on a bus excursion meeting onshore at 9:30 so we had to get to the meeting place on time, and we did.  There was a pretty long line for tenders returning to the ship just after 2:00 but there were tenders constantly picking up.

 

 In Nome HAL seemed to stop the return tenders for about an hour mid-day which caused passengers a long wait before the tenders started coming again.   Lesson learned?

[xLibLabLady]

To those on the 2025 cruise:

 

Do not hesitate to book 1 or more tours with Ani Thomas of Kodiak Connections.  http://www.kodiakwalkingtours.com   She is a remarkable guide, has a very outgoing personality yet is professional, is a fabulous story teller, has had a very interesting life, obviously enjoys sharing history, nature, and culture.  We and many  Cruise Critic members took the "History and Culture" Tour in the morning, then the "Tastes and Tales of the Sea."  During the tour, those who have gone on other tours I organized and/or found thanked me with enthusiasm. We learned so much, yet were never overloaded.   Among other things, we will never think of seafood we bu at home in the same way again. At the end of the 2nd tour at a brewery, Ani laid out quite the spread of different kinds of salmon, dips, crackers, locally grown and made goat cheese, pickled spruce tips, fresh spruce tips, spruce tip jelly, and crackers.

 

Before the day, Ani also sent everyone great information about Kodiak for activities, eating, and sightseeing.

Susan (xLibLabLady)

[edmonton2]

We had zero wait for tenders in Rolling stone at 8 am.   Did anyone experience big delays later?  
 

We went to the Ocean Bar at about 8:45am to get tickets and went straight to the tender - no line up at all. 

We came back on the ship briefly at 11:30 to retrieve something for our afternoon excursion. We ended up in a line-up for the tender with about a 30 min. delay (we heard they were refuelling the tenders). This seemed to back things up on shore as the line to get back on the ship was somewhat long.

[RetiredMustang]

We took the HAL tour called "Kodiak Highlights".  I will review in three sections, to keep it from being one over-long post.  We met in the World Stage at 9:30 for a scheduled 10:15 tour start.  We boarded our tender just before 10, and it was only a few minutes to the port, but we had to wait for space at the pier to tie up.

 

Our group was 69 people, according to the Shore excursions officer that sent us on our way.  When we got ashore, they split us into two school buses, with one bus starting one place and the other at a different place, so as not to clobber on site with all 69 of us at once.

 

The tour was to go to three places-- the Kodiak History Museum, the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center, and Fort Abercrombie State Park.  Our bus started at the Kodiak Museum.  It was only a short way from the pier, and we drove by the Trident (not rodent) processing station.  Our guide said that, after the 1964 Good Friday earthquake that devastated Anchorage and cause a lot of damage to Kodiak as well, they brought in a WWII Liberty ship as a temporary processing plant.  It is still there, although Trident has added to it.

 

Our guide said the history museum was in the oldest existing building in Alaska.  It was built as a magazine and is about the size of nice house -- in face it was used as a house at some point.  Inside were several rooms of displays that were actually quite informative, including things such as furnishings and dishes from when it was used as a house, as well as ones about the Russian history, the fur trade, and a stuffed Kodiak bear, plus lots of others,

 

 

 

 

 

As a practical matter, we had to climb a concrete stairway of 15 steps to get from the street to the museum entry.  It would be difficult for mobility impaired people.  The only alternative I saw was to go uphill on the street to the back of the museum, but that would mean crossing a large lawn to get to the entry.

 

We had enough time to visit a fourth place on the tour -- across the street from the museum is the National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center. 

 

 

This is a relatively small building, but has several exhibits, including carvings of a Kodiak bear standing upright and a tableau of a mother bear teaching cubs how to catch salmon.  (There was also a gift shop).

 

 

 

 

The museum had a toilet, and the visitor center had toilets as well.

 

More in the next post,

Dave

[RetiredMustang]

Part 2 of 3

 

After visiting the museum and visitor center, we rode the bus about 6 miles to Fort Abercrombie State Park.  This was fortified during World War II in anticipation of attack from Japan.  There were tours offered that allowed more time for hiking the extensive trail network, and you could hire a taxi to come on your own and take as much time as you like, but our tour went to the end of the trail, by the Kodiak Military History Museum:

 

 

This is an old concrete bunker that now exhibits the history of the military in Kodiak, primarily from World War II, but also of other times, such as the Alaska National Guard deployments to Iraq.

 

They had lots of displays describing the living and working conditions, including bunks (I'm not sure I totally buy the pin-ups, whether they were real or reflecting movies about the time), and the equipment they used.

 

 

 

Nearby on the headland is an old naval gun emplacement and the gun that presumably was the one that was there:

 

 

We were here in 2014 and had spectacular views out to sea; this time, not so much:

 

 

The road was fairly level and easy to maneuver from the parking lot to the museum and the gun.  There were outdoor toilets at the parking lot (so you might want to use the indoor ones at the other locations).

 

More in the next post,

Dave

Edited Wednesday at 05:25 PM by RetiredMustang
add forgotten photo

[RetiredMustang]

Part 3 of 3

 

After leaving the fort, we drove back through town and across the bridge to Near Island, to the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center.  Again, this is relatively small building, but it was worth visiting.

 

We were greeted in the lobby, and then walked down a triple flight of stairs (there was also an elevator).  At the bottom was a large cylindrical tank filled with, our guide said, plants and animals native to the Kodiak region.  It was well done, and had lots of species, including one guy I got a close-up of (not sure his Latin name, but I fondly called him Lunch):

 

 

 

 

There is also a touch tank, where you could feel several sea creatures:

 

 

Upstairs, off the lobby, is a nice terrace/sunroom that has a pretty view.  The fog had lifted east of Near Island, and we could actually see the view:

 

 

There are also toilets available at the research center.

 

We then got back on the school bus and rode back to the dock.  There we had a wait for tenders, as many tours were returning at the same time.  We got on the third one, and got back aboard Westerdam about an hour after ending the tour.

 

All the places we visited were small but excellent.  You could see them on your own, but this tour puts them together in a way to see everything, but not spend a lot of time gettting to, from and between.

 

Dave

 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:39 PM by RetiredMustang

[LAFFNVEGAS]

2 hours ago, RetiredMustang said:

  It was well done, and had lots of species, including one guy I got a close-up of (not sure his Latin name, but I fondly called him Lunch):

 

 

 

 

Dave

 

 

 

Dave I would call him Lunch as well 😁😂

[VacationCharlene]

We had an outstanding second day in Anchorage. We reserved with CARIBOU TOURS (Tim) a 6 hour tour for 8-10 people. He was very prompt in picking us up next door to Egan Center, drop off spot in town.  Tim is very personable and highly educated about Alaska!  We visited the AWCC (Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center). You had a choice of walking around by yourself or driving with him and stopping at the animals with his narrative. We also visited beautiful photo stops along Turnagain Arm. Visite

d Portage Valley. We went to Girdwood for an awesome meal (included)!and drinks (at your own expense). Was a wonderful excursion and we would recommend you setting up a visit next year. Was a great day. www.cariboutours.com

Edited 11 hours ago by VacationCharlene