Solo on the Sun to Alaska June 7-17 2024

[cruiseny4life]

17 minutes ago, lepidoptera said:

I originally had dinner plans for La Cucina, but decided to change and eat in Four Seasons. I liked the menu they had more than La Cucina. I got a table by the window and we started our railway while I was dining. I didn’t get a pic of the dessert menu. I had the carrot cake, I believe the other choice was a cannoli. I also go the lemon sherbet. 

Yum!! That's exactly what I would have selected for dinner. And what great views with your meal. Good choice skipping out on La Cucina...or so says me.

[lepidoptera]

4 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

Have you had a chance to express your comments to either Bran or Hasan.  They would love to hear what you have to say.

Not yet! I plan on filling out some hero cards today though and calling out some especially wonderful staff. 

[lepidoptera]

Haines was very nice yesterday. Warning for anyone that has excursions, I would head to the pier pretty early. With the tides they switched which deck you were exiting on several times, including right before our excursion. 

 

I did the River float. Our guide did an amazing job keeping us safe. We stayed away from branches, rough water and shallow water. It was super relaxing. There were 8 per boat. They gave us boots to keep our feet dry and everyone wore life jackets the whole time.  

 

We saw some Bald eagles, including a pair that were probably mates that were flying together. Salmon should start running in a a week or 2 per our guides and then there will be way more animals.

 

After we put out, there were snacks and our shoes waiting for us on benches. My plan originally was to tour Haines after our return. We didn’t get back until like 6:40, all aboard was a 7:30 and the town was a little walk from the pier so I decided not to go. Instead I got ready for dinner at Le Bistro.

 

Le Bistro is one of my favorites, I used my platinum credit that included a bottle of wine. The menu was slightly different, it didn’t include the app I was planning on which was the scallops with the cauliflower. Still I had a good time and too much wine. 

 

[lepidoptera]

[lepidoptera]

Guess I forgot to take a pic of my dessert I went with the Ile Flottante.  

[lepidoptera]

Last night there was a little more shaking in my room as we moved through the bay of Alaska. It woke me up around 3ish. I was up for about an hour. I did end up being able to get back to sleep after the shaking was over for a bit. I slept until like 9! I took my time getting ready for the day and everything all set to go for my excursion and basically missed breakfast.

 

I hung out in the buffet until it opened for lunch. Tried to get on the internet but it was too slow. Yesterday they moved the Hubbard glacier excursion to meet at 1:00 pm. I ate lunch, went back to my room to throw on the extra layers before going to the Bliss lounge.

 

Everyone but one person was on time and prepared. When our straggler showed up, she then wanted to go to the bathroom 😡. We walked to the ground stairs and then down to deck 3 where we boarded the smaller ship. The deck was pretty steep. 
 

Not sure if they sent a bigger boat or if they don’t sell out purposefully but there was a ton of room in the St. Thedosius. It had 3 levels, and you could be outside on the second and 3rd level.

 

We got so much closer than the ship did. They were at about 6 miles from the glacier and didn’t look like they came closer where as we were half a mile. We also got to see some calving of the glacier, sea otters and seals. They brought glacier ice on board for people to hold and they made drinks with it ($12 for a drink). There was also free hot coco and coffee, donut holes and smoked salmon. Very enjoyable, and I would do it again.

[lepidoptera]

I included a pic of the Sun from the where we were doing glacier viewing and some pics of here when we were reboarding. One thru g that was fun was there was a lot of ship crew on the excursion-a mix of shore excursions staff that seemed to be semi on duty and it looked like several that were just on their day off from other departments. It was awesome to see them enjoying all the beauty as well.

 

When I went to dinner in the four seasons today there was a large pod of whales. At one point we counted 8 whales! All the diners and the waiters were glued to the window watching. Such a great day at Hubbard Glacier.

[lepidoptera]

Todays daily:  

 

Sorry these are probably out of order I was getting errors trying to upload. 

[lepidoptera]

Today we are Icy Straight Point with a RCL and a Disney ship. Not sure if anything will post. Couldn’t be get the sign on to go through this morning but the RCL ship left.

 

I did what turned out to be the only independent shore excursion this trip. It was whale watching through Glacier Wind. I had originally booked with them on my ‘21 Alaska trip. They proactively cancelled that time due to the Encore getting in late trip. They were so helpful and nice that I decided to book with them this trip, and it was a fantastic decision. 
 

We were on their “big” boat with 11 passengers, the captain and one crew. It was uncrowded and I had a great view of whales using my binoculars and phone to take pictures. We got to see bubble feeding! 
 

My best pictures are actually videos and I can’t upload them. Highly recommend though. 

[lepidoptera]

We were at the wilderness landing dock, so I got on the gondola way too early. I thought we might be sharing the transporters with the RCL people and there would be a line, but I walked right on. 
 

Since I had time I grabbed some donuts from Lil Gem’s I went with Huckleberry and Mounds. They were very good when warm. 
 

After my excursion I had the chance to stay in Hoonah and walk back if I liked. I was wearing my crocs so I decided to take the van back. I did a little bit of shopping- got a handmade wooden toy for my niece and a few postcards. Everything seemed very expensive in Icy Straight Point, maybe I haven’t been through enough of the tourist shops yet but things seemed very high. A long sleeve t-shirt I thought was cute was like $45.  
 

I walked along the beach, there were lot of bees in the flowers along the beach. I tried using the plant identifier in my photos but it didn’t work, I’ll have to try again when I get back home. 
 

I decided to walk through the nature path back to the ship. There were signs up about bears but the group I walked with was loud and didn’t see any bears. 
 

When I got back to my room, there was a nasty surprise…customs forms for Canada. 

[lepidoptera]

[smurfm69]

Enjoying the review and pics!  We are doing our first Alaskan cruise next June and also our first non Carnival cruise.  Being from New Orleans, the thought of wearing a jacket or even long sleeves in the month of June sounds so good!  

[graphicguy]

Loving this review and your pics.

 

I'm thinking my next cruise to Alaska is going to be on one of NCL's small ships.  They all look like the perfect size for Alaska.

[www3traveler]

38 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

Loving this review and your pics.

 

I'm thinking my next cruise to Alaska is going to be on one of NCL's small ships.  They all look like the perfect size for Alaska.

Suggestion to you and anyone thinking of doing an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle, try to add a few days to see the city and maybe take in a Seattle Mariners baseball game.

[graphicguy]

Just now, www3traveler said:

Suggestion to you and anyone thinking of doing an Alaskan cruise out of Seattle, try to add a few days to see the city and maybe take in a Seattle Mariners baseball game.

Thanks!  Been to Seattle many times.  I like it.  

 

 

[lepidoptera]

Hi everyone, sorry for abandoning the thread for a few days. I had 2 different issues.

 

1-I wasn’t feeling well. Spent the last 3 days sleeping a lot and now I feel so much better. Plus my little travel pharmacy came in clutch.

 

2. I stepped off the ship on Sitka and something weird happened to the app on my phone. For some reason it wanted me to sign in, but then would give me an error. I tried just logging into the internet but that wasn’t working either. I could get online on my iPad, but I refuse to be that person who is taking pics with their iPad. 

[jrt.mom]

Sorry to hear you weren't feeling well, glad to hear you are better,  you were missed.

[lepidoptera]

5 hours ago, jrt.mom said:

Sorry to hear you weren't feeling well, glad to hear you are better,  you were missed.

Thank you! 

[lepidoptera]

All right it has been a fun travel day. We did the gate change tango with my flight changing between 3 gates. The flight was oversold, payload optimised and delayed. We had problems with the IFE and WiFi too. Now I am grabbing some dinner before my next flight that is also the d-word. At least my step counter is happy 😆 
 

On with the show:

 

I had basically had donuts for lunch and was pretty hungry so I went to dinner pretty early at about 6 pm. I ate in the four seasons again, I found I didn’t like eating in the seven seas- since that was at the act it shakes and rattles when we were pulling away which was most often during dinner. Also I made a friend with one of the hostesses Yuyu. 
 

The only main that sounded decent also sounded small-so I got 3 appetisers. The scallops were fine but served in too much sauce. The blue cheese soup was weirdly sweet from the apple I think, but the Cesar was fine. The shrimp was really good. I was still hungry and got both desserts-they were the best part of the meal. 
 

I was weirdly tired (foreshadowing) so I went back to my room to read and fell asleep with the lights on. 

[lepidoptera]

The next morning I woke up with a scratchy throat and runny nose. I thought it was just post-nasal drip since I hadn’t taken my allergy meds the night before. 
 

We were in Sitka today and this is where I had booked an excursion that NCL emailed me it was cancelled but then I had the original excursion’s tickets. The name was originally Fin Island Lodge and Zodiac Adventure and it changed to Fin Island and Expedition Vessel Adventure. I really wanted to be in a zodiac, so if it was gonna just be a regular boat I didn’t want to go. 
 

I skipped breakfast since I tend to get a little motion sick on little boats AND there was food on the tour, if I went. 

 

The ship was cleared a little bit after 8 and meeting time was around 9:30 (sorry I through away the tickets when I was packing). I got off the ship right before 9 and it was drizzling! This was the ONLY rain I ran into on my trip. Someone did there was a little bit of rain when we were in Skagway, but it must have happened when I was riding the 🚂.

 

We were in the Sitka sound cruise terminal. There was a shuttle to town, but I didn’t have time to go before our tour was scheduled. I was hoping to catch the tour guides early and see if we were on Zodiacs, but they were not there yet. So I decided to take a look through the stores in the shops. There was it a lot of unique things, but I felt like the prices were a little better than ISP.

 

Our guides were there promptly at the meeting time, and they had us stand in front of the Captain Bob shop (the tour is run by Allen Marine and so is the store) while we waited for stragglers. 
 

We were taking Zodiacs! Everyone had to put on gear they provided-pants and a jacket in case we got wet.
 

The zodiacs we were taking were basically right there, it was nice not to have to take transport to get on the boat. They broke us up into groups-there was a max of 8 tourists on each zodiac with a naturalist and a captain. Our captain had a trash bag to keep our bags dry and it did work well. The only thing that got wet on me were my feet. Our feet had to go under a strap to help hold us on the boat and the strap was wet. This was the only boat tour I didn’t wear my crocs on, and it was the only one where my feet got wet. Although they did provide gear, they didn’t provide binoculars, I really got a lot of use out of mine on this tour. 
 

The tour was really good. We had about 2 hours on the water before lunch. Our tour saw Grey Whales, otters and Sea Lions. I saw more otters in ISP, the Sea Lions were just chilling on a channel marker and apparently the Grey Whales should have moved to the Bering Sea already. It could also be difficult to take pictures/see without being able to stand up and move around. All this to say, if you are only doing one wildlife viewing excursion, I probably wouldn’t do this one as much as I enjoyed it. 
 

After we viewed the Sea Lions, we headed to Fin Island for our lunch buffet. I was most looking forward to the Crab, but the Salmon was really, really fantastic! Cooked beautifully and it was seasoned so nicely. 
 

After everyone ate their fill, we had just a short skip over to the harbour.

 

By the time we got back and out of the gear it was after 2 and all aboard was 3:30. I really had wanted to go to downtown Sitka, but didn’t feel like it was enough time. I did end up running into the shops at the terminal, I had decided I wasn’t getting off in Ketchikan if it was raining, and I wanted to grab some gifts that I had been planning on picking up. 

I was feeling even more run down, so I ended up taking a nap, but didn’t sleep well because they were practicing in the theatre directly below my room. 
 

Woke up late, and the only thing that got me out of bed was the fact it was my favorite MDR meal tonight, Hungarian Goulash. 
 

I got the bruschetta, French onion, goulash and raspberry sherbet. So good! Sorry I don’t have pics of the menu, I told Yuyu I was excited for the goulash and she and my waiter had my order in basically as I sat down 😊

[lepidoptera]

Sorry no pics of Sitka tonight, I just tried to upload a bunch and almost lost the post I typed out with a much of error messages when I try and upload them.
 

Plus I need to go find a plug for my phone.