Live from Princess Cruise Tour 20E - Ultimate Alaska Escape (Rather Long)

[cruiservictor]

Hi - I just sent this email to the folks back home and I thought someone out there might be interested in it.

 

 

Hello from the back seat of a bus on a dirt road somewhere in Alaska. Nancy and I are on day 4 of a 15-day Princess land tour/cruise of America’s 49th state. It is Thursday morning at about 10AM (2PM New York time) and we are heading (somewhat bumpily) from one Princess lodge (Denali) to another (Copper River). Today’s trip is about 9 or 10 hours on a bus, so I thought it would be a good time to fill you in on the details of our first few days.

 

We left home last Sunday (8/27), but the normally hectic days leading up to our departure were made even more so due to the heightened security restrictions at airports. Many of the things one might normally have in carry-on luggage (shampoo, toothpaste, water) are, of course, banned now, so we had to be extra careful when packing. Also, Princess has some restrictions of their own – in order to minimize the amount of baggage being shipped from lodge to lodge/hotel to hotel on our land tour (4 in all), they require that you keep only one bag per person with you and all remaining luggage is sent on to the ship which we will board next Monday, Labor Day, 9/4.

 

I was very pleased and relieved when we got through security quickly and efficiently on Sunday. We had a 2PM flight out of Newark (heading for Seattle and connecting on to Fairbanks, many hours later). We got to the airport at 11:10AM. The line at checkin was long but moved quickly. To save time, Continental (and this may be true for other airlines, too) has you first go to a computer screen, sign in with your confirmation number and (in theory) print off your own boarding passes. I say “in theory” because the printer on our terminal jammed or malfunctioned in some way, and an agent had to help us out. Another thing Continental does now (and, again, this may be true for other airlines as well) is the agents at checkin do not take your bags and put them on the conveyer belt behind them. Once you checkin and have your boarding passes, you schlep (Microsoft Word did not report “schlep” as misspelled so they must have it in their dictionary) your luggage down the hall and around the corner where you drop it off next to these humongous (another word in Word’s dictionary) scanning/x-ray machines. We would see these bags again, we hoped, in Fairbanks.

 

We then proceeded to the security checkpoint. We had heard and read stories of hours-long lines, but we breezed through. There were at least 4 stations open with no more than 1 or 2 passengers at each. We took our shoes off, took the laptop I am typing on out of its case, and proceeded through. I was briefly and professionally searched, our carry-on bags went through the x-ray, nothing was opened, nothing was questioned (not even Nancy’s knitting needles, which were on the list of things you could bring onboard), and we were done with security and heading for our gate at 11:55AM. That was a total of 45 minutes from the time we arrived at the airport to the time we cleared security. Not bad. We were both relieved at that point. True, we did have over 2 hours to kill until our flight, but we’d much rather have time to kill sitting at the gate, than to have to rush in a panic through checkin and security and go running down an airport corridor, hoping they will hold the plane.

 

We left the gate on time and took off just a few minutes later. The captain said midday on a Sunday is a quiet time at Newark. It gets busier later in the day as international flights to Europe leave for their overnight trips. The flight to Seattle (about 5 and ½ hours) was uneventful, except for the screaming/howling child behind me. One loud child on the whole plane and he is behind me. In fairness, there were many times he was so quiet you almost forgot he was there, but then he would wake up or be bothered by ear discomfort caused by the ascending/descending of the plane, and he would make his presence known again. Anyway, we arrived right on time in Seattle just after 4:30PM local time (7:30PM NY time). We connected to Alaska Air for a 6:17PM flight to Fairbanks. The first flight (Newark to Seattle) was on a 737 with 3-3 seating. We had a middle seat and an aisle seat. This second flight was on an MD-80 with 2-3 seating and we had one of the 2-seaters, so we had a window and an aisle. Nice. I was able to see the famous Space Needle as we took off, and even saw a cruise ship departing Seattle for a northbound cruise to Alaska. Also, no kids right behind us. One last thing about Seattle – when we touched down I was officially able to add Washington to the list of states I have visited. That makes, I think, 38. True I was only on the ground in the state of Washington for about 90 minutes and it was at the airport, but it counts. (Utah is on my list of states visited for the same reason – an hour or 2 at the airport in Salt Lake City many years ago).

 

Our flight to Fairbanks was smooth (there’d been a few bumps on the first leg, but nothing severe) and we arrived a little bit early, at about 8:45PM Alaska time (12:45AM Monday NY time). It was still broad daylight in Fairbanks – even though we are well past the summer solstice, sunset was still about 9:30. Around June 21, they have sunrise at about 3AM and sunset after midnight. (They make up for that, of course, in the winter when they have only about 3 hours of daylight around Christmas.) We were met by a Princess representative and shepherded (herded?) with several hundred other people to a waiting area. It seems 3 flights all arrived at about the same time, each with dozens and dozens of folks starting a cruise/land tour vacation. There were also passengers for Holland America and Celebrity too, so we had to make sure we were with the right group. When they called our flight number, I went to the baggage area to identify the 4 bags we had checked. Thankfully, they were all there. They were then shipped to the hotel separately and delivered to our room later in the evening. I should point out one significant improvement in this procedure compared to the last time we did it in 1995. Back then, you did not ID your luggage at the airport – we had put Princess luggage tags on before leaving home and the luggage was supposed to be automatically shipped to the hotel. Well, back then one of Nancy’s bags did not show up and we did not know it until we got to the hotel and saw that the rest of our bags had made it. We were told the bag would be found and it was, eventually, arriving at about 3AM. So we were very happy that this time we were able to verify that our bags had made it and that, in fact, they had all made it.

 

We were transported across the street to the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge, which looked somewhat familiar from our visit 11 years earlier. We are on what is called an “escorted” tour, something we paid extra for and includes many meals, some excursions and the services of an escort, dedicated to our group, which numbers 37. Our escort is a 20-ish woman named Kyla. We met her upon our arrival at the hotel and she gave out room keys and some other information, and asked that we join the whole group at a welcome breakfast the next morning at 7. Now remember, it was now about 11PM local time, 3AM Monday NY time, and had been up since 5AM Sunday, so it had been a long day and was going to be a short night. This hotel had free, wireless internet access in your room, and while we were unpacking, I listened to WINS (one of NY’s all-news radio stations) and WFAN (one of NY’s all-sports radio stations) on their web sites to see what had gone on in the world while we had been traveling the entire day. It struck me that had I been back home I would probably be listening to these same stations at that same moment (4AM Monday NY time) as I got ready for work.

 

An early start on Monday morning, as we attended our welcome breakfast buffet and formally met Kyla and the rest of our group. She gave out meal vouchers, name tags and other instructions, and told us what time to meet for our 2 outings that day. (A word about the 2 outings – they were exactly the same outings as on our first day in 1995, and we seriously considered skipping them this time and sleeping in, but we did not want to miss the breakfast. Hey, breakfast is the most important meal of the day!!)

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Taking a break now.

 

 

 

OK – back on the bumpy bus ride. Just had our first rest stop at milepost 82 of the Denali Highway. 2 hours to go until lunch. 11:45AM Thurs 8/31. Heard 2 loud explosions at the rest stop. Driver confirmed they were sonic booms produced by Air Force jets overhead. First time I have ever heard them, that I am aware of.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Back to Monday morning. Our morning outing consisted of a drive through downtown Fairbanks, a visit to the Alaska Pipeline and a tour of the El Dorado Gold Mine. Fairbanks only has a population of 30,000 or so, and one thing that struck me as we drove through downtown on a Monday morning at 9AM was that there was no one on the street. Where was everyone? It looked like a Sunday morning, but it was a regular work day. Maybe everyone was already at work, or maybe they start work later, or maybe it was a holiday of some kind. The difference between that sight and what NY streets and sidewalks would look like at that hour of a Monday morning (or any morning for that matter) was remarkable. At the Pipeline, we heard about its history and that it stretches for hundreds of miles from Prudhoe Bay to the north to Valdez to the south. The gold mine tour started on a tram that took us underground to show how mining on that site used to be done. Then we got a demonstration of current mining procedures, followed by a chance to pan for gold ourselves. You are given a batch of dirt and a pan, and instructions on how to pan for gold. Eventually you end up with a few flakes of gold at the bottom. The gold is yours to keep, but they “suggest” how nice it would be to have a nice necklace or a pair of earrings to store your gold in. So we ended up panning for about $14 of gold, and spending $24 for a pair of earrings to store it in. Sounds like they have quite a racket going at the gold mine. (They had the same racket going when we visited in 1995, so they must be doing something right.)

 

We had a brief stop back at the hotel, followed by the afternoon excursion – a paddlewheel boat ride on the Chena River. They talked a lot about the history of the area and we saw a bush pilot demo, a husky sled dog demo and also had a stop at a spot where they gave presentations on life in Alaska for the original natives, how they made their clothes, how they caught their food, etc.

 

Another early start on Tues 8/29. We had to make the 8AM departure of the Midnight Sun Express railroad. We were traveling from Fairbanks to Denali National Park, the home of the highest peak in North America, Mt. McKinley (AKA Denali, or “The Great One”). The train is the regularly scheduled Alaska Railroad run and the cruise lines (Princess, Holland America and Celebrity in this case) attach their own cars for the trip. (The railroad actually runs from Fairbanks in the north to Denali National Park (the portion we took), then on to a small village at the southern end of the park named Talkeetna, and finally on to Anchorage. The whole trip takes 12 hours, approx 4 hours per segment.) The Princess train cars were very nice – domed, observation cars on the top, dining rooms, a gift shop and outdoor observation platforms on the lower level. We had a nice breakfast, saw Mt.McKinley (a rare sight due to the clouds that normally obscure it), enjoyed the scenery and had a nice chat with our escort, Kyla, who shared a table with us.

 

We arrived at our stop a little late, just before 1. There were hundreds of people there, all waiting to board the train for Talkeetna and then Anchorage. We found our bus, got to the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge (a sprawling compound with 660+ rooms and many, many buildings), checked into our room (where our luggage had already arrived), had a quick bite of lunch and then departed, a little after 3, on what was advertised as a 6-8 hour Tundra Wilderness Tour of Denali National Park. This tour is by school bus (regular Princess buses are not allowed in the park) and followed the main road 53 miles into the park. It was interesting to see some caribou, a couple of moose (mooses?), some Dall sheep (all white, usually on the sides of mountains), and to hear the stories of “The Great One” (not Jackie Gleason). A box lunch was provided – it had a small bottle of water, a croissant, some cheese, some sausage, some pretzels and a granola bar. There are 2 versions of this tour – the 6-8 hour one we took (because we are on the escorted landtour) and a shorter 4-6 hour trip. Even though we enjoyed it, Nancy and I both felt we would have been satisfied with the shorter tour. We got back to the lodge at about 10:30PM, had a couple of slices of pizza (not much was open that late) and called it a night.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Just took a break for lunch at the Maclaren River Lodge at milepost 35 of the Denali Highway. Used the opportunity to recharge the laptop battery, too. Back on the road at 2:35PM, Thurs 8/31.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Yesterday, Wed 8/30, was our first really relaxing day of the trip – nowhere to go, no early tours. We slept until 8 (wow!), and had breakfast in the main dining room. Nancy went shopping in the lodge’s gift shop and I checked email in the lobby (their wireless internet access did not reach our room). At midday, we went on an optional land tour that was, so far at least, the highlight of the trip for Nancy. It was a visit to Jeff King’s Alaskan husky home and training site. Before yesterday I would not have know Jeff King from Alan King, but I now know he is the defending Iditarod champion. He and his wife offer tours of their facility where they raise and train Alaskan Huskies to be sled dogs. Immediately upon exiting the tour bus you are handed a husky puppy to cuddle. The one Nancy got was named Mouse and he was about 10 weeks old. They have a photographer there who takes your picture, and they are then happy to sell it to you at the end for $20. (We bought it.) Then she was handed a 10-day old puppy, not yet named, whose eyes had not even opened yet. I got several pictures of her with both dogs. Then we got a presentation on how they train the dogs and one on the life of a sled dog and of a sled dog racer. Then the champion, Jeff King, came in and spoke to us and answered questions for a while. Then they opened the gift shop where we made a contribution by buying the picture and a T-shirt, both of which Jeff autographed.

 

The rest of they day was free until last night, when we attended a performance of the Music of Denali Dinner Theater. We had a family-style meal of salmon, ribs, corn on the cob, cole slaw and potato salad. Then the waiters became actors and actresses and put on a show about the history and traditions and legends of Denali.

 

Yet another early start this morning – luggage outside the room at 6:30, breakfast at 7, on the road at 8. We are still on the bumpy, unpaved part of the road as I write at 3PM, Thurs 8/31.

 

We will be at the Copper River Princess Lodge tonight and tomorrow night with a sightseeing tour tomorrow. Saturday it’s back on the road – a 2 hour bus ride from the Copper River Lodge to Valdez, a catamaran ride across Prince William Sound to Whittier and then another 2 hour bus ride to the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge on the Kenai peninsula. We will be there Saturday night and Sunday night with a sightseeing tour on Sunday. On Monday 9/4 (Labor Day) we head back to Whittier to board the Coral Princess for a 7-day southbound cruise to Vancouver, stopping at Glacier Bay, Juneau, Ketchikan and Skagway.

 

For one of the few times in our cruising history, we will be joined by some friends of ours. Ralph and Teresa Adamson have always enjoyed hearing about our cruises and this time will be joining us, for their first cruise ever. They, too, are starting out with a land tour, one shorter than ours, that begins today. In fact right now they should be somewhere between Seattle and Anchorage, where they begin their tour. They will be traveling northbound to the lodge where we were last night, before taking the long train ride from Denali down to Whittier where we will meet on the Coral Princess on Monday.

 

The weather has been very nice so far. No rain at all (although that will probably change as we get further south). Temps have been cool in the morning and evening (40s) but a couple of the afternoons have been sunny into the 60s. I actually got a bit of a sunburn on the paddlewheel boat ride on Monday. Glad I brought a heavy jacket, though.

 

It’s really great being a sports fan in this time zone (4 hours behind NY, 1 hour behind LA). Even the west coast baseball games are done by 9PM. The Yankees are playing a day game today at home against the Tigers that started at 9AM our time. Does take some getting used to.

 

Very strong cellphone service at both of our first 2 stops. We called the Adamsons last night to wish them a bon voyage and answer a few last minute questions. They sounded excited and a little apprehensive at the same time, very understandable for first time cruisers doing a land tour first so far from home.

 

Well, what do you know – back on a paved highway (at 3:15PM). Must be approaching civilization. That’s about it for now. I am told that the Copper River Princess Lodge, our destination for tonight, has wireless internet access. If so, I hope to copy and paste this into AOL and get it to you sometime tonight (Thurs 8/31).

 

We’ll try to write again in a few days.

 

 

 

Victor and Nancy

 

 

 

(P.S. 8:30PM Thurs 8/31 update – the Copper River Lodge does have wireless internet access in the rooms and strong cellphone service, we made it safely and our friends the Adamsons emailed us and left us a voice mail that they made to Anchorage and all is well with them, too.)

 

 

 

I will try to post again in a few days, and I will be happy to answer ny questions anyone may have.

[Stokeset]

Dear Victor: Was sooooo very happy to read your report. DH and I are leaving 9/7 for the same tour as yours, and will be cruising on the SB Island Princess. As much as I've read on this board, it's great to read a report that so exactly matches! Looking forward to any other info you're prepared to share. I'm way passed the state of Excitement about this trip and fast approaching the realm of High Anxiety! Bless you and yours on your continued journey.....

[cruiservictor]

Thanks for the kind words, Stokeset. Have a great time yourself. For you and for everyone else, here is email #2 to the folks back home, live from the Coral Princess.

 

 

 

Hello again from the 49th state, Alaska. Before I pick up from where I left off the last time, a thank you to those who sent along comments regarding my first email. Nice to know so many of you enjoyed it. Nancy was especially impressed that so many of you commented on specific parts of the email, way down towards the end. It showed that you read the whole thing. Again, thanks.

 

My last email ended with our arrival Thursday night 8/31 at the Copper River Princess Lodge. That began 4 nights at 2 lodges that were noticeably different from the first 2 we stayed at, in Fairbanks and Denali National Park.

 

The Fairbanks Princess Hotel is what I would describe as a standard hotel. It is 1 building, 3 stories high, contains several hundred rooms, has 1 main dining room, 1 smaller pub/coffee shop/snack bar, conference/meeting rooms, etc. – all the amenities you would expect from a major hotel. The Denali Princess Hotel also contains several hundred rooms, but is much more spread out than the one in Fairbanks. The dining room is in one small building, the dinner theater is in another, most of the guest rooms are in small building scattered throughout the property. We stayed in a new building in the lodge, called Canyon Station. It was up the hill from the main lodge and the other parts of the hotel. It had 3 floors and its own snack bar in the lobby. They ran trolley cars as shuttles to and from the various parts of the property. We walked down a couple of times (to the dinner theater and the dining room) and took the shuttle back up. It took a little getting used to, not having everything in one building.

 

The Copper River Lodge, where we arrived Thursday night, was a smaller version of the Fairbanks hotel – only 85 rooms, but everything in one building. It had a beautiful view of the mountains of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, in the southeast corner of the state. When the mountains were not obscured by clouds and fog, that is, as they were for a good part of the time we were there. We had a tour scheduled on Friday afternoon, so in the late morning we took a round trip on the hotel’s shuttle bus. It made 2 stops – the first in downtown Copper Center and the second at the visitor’s center for Wrangell-St. Elias Park. We did not get off at either stop – frankly there would have not been much to see in Copper Center, anyway. Most of Alaska is comprised of very small towns, whose whole telephone directory can take up one page or less in the phone book.

 

Speaking of small towns, our afternoon tour was to Chitina, pronounced CHIT-nuh (not Chuh-TEE-na, as I called it initially). Population 150, this used to be a small, bustling town when the railroad ended here, but that was a long time ago. Now it is nearly a ghost town – the main intersection features the Hotel Chitina (maybe half a dozen rooms) and the post office. En route to and from Chitina, we made a couple of shopping stops at local crafts shop, saw the Alaska Pipeline (several hundred miles south of where we saw it a few days earlier in Fairbanks), stopped at the Chitina River to see fish wheels in action (they are wooden contraptions set up at the river’s edge that turn with the flow of the river almost like windmills and catch the salmon in the top basket and drop them into another basket where they are picked up by the fishermen. We did not see this actually happen but we did see a video of it somewhere (I’ve lost track of exactly where we saw that video.) Our tour escort had set up a cocktail party that night at the lodge, but our tour returned about a half hour late and, unfortunately, we missed it.

 

Another early start on Saturday 9/2. We left the Copper River Lodge by bus for about a 2 hour ride south to Valdez, on the east side of Prince William Sound. It rained the whole way (and it would rain most of this day), but we could not complain, considering the luck we’d had with the weather so far. We arrived in the fog and rain at the Valdez Ferry terminal. We were there to take the Klondike Express catamaran for a ride across the Sound to Whittier. Except, there was no catamaran. We sat on the bus for about half an hour before it arrived. It had apparently been delayed by fog in its crossing from Whittier. When they were finally ready for us to board we got on last, even though our bus had the left the lodge first and had arrived at the Ferry Terminal first. We made up for it when we got to Whittier, though, after a smooth crossing, when our group was allowed off first. (There were several hundred other people on the catamaran and they were boarding their cruise ship that day in Whittier – the Sapphire Princess, a couple of years newer and significantly larger than the one we would board a few days later at the same dock in Whittier.) We had a quick buffet lunch in “The Inn at Whittier”, a small old hotel at pierside. Then onto a bus for the ride to our last stop on land, the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge.

 

One quick item about leaving Whittier – the port is separated from the nearby area by a mountain range, so a tunnel was dug through the mountains. So far, nothing unusual. What is different is that it is a 2.5 mile long, one way tunnel that carries both vehicles and trains. You line up in about 8 lanes at either side of the tunnel and wait for the traffic lights to turn green in your lane. The traffic is allowed out of Whittier on the top of the hour, and into Whittier on the bottom of the hour. You miss your chance, you have to wait until the next time you can go through. The ride in the tunnel takes about 7 minutes, and there are evacuation spots along the way in the event of some kind of emergency. Interesting the way it works.

 

We arrived at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge in the late afternoon Saturday. Kenai is pronounced KEEN-eye, not Kih-NYE as I had been calling it. We had never been to this part of Alaska before (the same as for Copper River). The Kenai Peninsula is located south and west of Anchorage and is filled with mountains and salmon-filled rivers. The Kenai Princess Lodge was probably the most unique and rustic of all the places we stayed. It was spread out like the Denali Lodge was, but much more so. The “rooms” are actually attached bungalows with a small porch in the back that overlooks the property. Our room was in the 1200-series and required a van ride to get to way up the hill. It was a long walk downhill and down stairs to get to the main lodge where the dining room was. I don’t think we ever got used to being so far from the main lodge and having to plan your outings. That is, you could not just go upstairs to your room if you forgot something. The Lodge was in a beautiful area, on the banks of the Kenai River surrounded by mountains. Like one of the other places we stayed (Copper River, I think), they had a sign posted that a bear had been recently sighted on the property. We did not see one in either place, thankfully.

 

We had a very memorable first hour or so, at the Kenai Lodge - we got locked out of our room. We had just arrived, we put our key down in the bedroom and walked out onto the porch to check out the view. The porch door closed behind us and it was locked from the inside. The porch was enclosed and elevated so there was no way for us to get off, and the front door was locked anyway. Fortunately, a couple of minutes later one of our neighbors came out to check out their porch, too, and we asked them to call the front desk to have them come and rescue us. As it turned out, the gentleman who came to rescue us could not get in the front door. He came around to the back where we were and gave us the housekeeping master key and it unlocked the porch door and we were saved. Welcome to Kenai.

 

We spent a wild and crazy Saturday night doing laundry. The Kenai lodge had 4 coin-operated washers and 4 dryers, plus vending machines for detergent. We had been on the road for a week and had another 9 days to go so we needed some clean clothes. It brought back memories of when we lived in the apartment in Yonkers and had to do our wash in the laundry room in the basement. Here in Kenai, we rushed to the laundry room after dinner to check on availability – there were 2 washers and 2 dryers available. Perfect. We rushed up the hill and stairs to our room (we did not want to take time to wait for the shuttle), got our wash together and rushed back down the hill and stairs to the laundry room to find that one of the 2 free machines had been taken. Nancy started her wash in the one remaining machine, I followed with mine when another machine became available and I finally finished at about 10:15PM. I was going to walk slowly up the hill and stairs in the dark, but then I remembered about the bear sighting and took the shuttle.

 

Sunday 9/3 was probably the nicest weather day of the trip. After some morning fog, the skies turned blue and it got quite warm, probably up to around 70. We were out on the deck behind the main lodge at some point and had to go inside because it got so warm. For the first time since Fairbanks, we had some radio reception. I found a station in Anchorage that carries the Yankee games (yes, the Yankee Radio Network is widespread), and listened to the Yankee-Twins game while getting dressed just after 9AM. Our tour in Kenai was a horse-drawn carriage ride through the area. It took us through the nearby woods and to the shore of Kenai Lake and ended with a small snack back where the carriage ride began.

 

Sunday night, after dinner, we attended a presentation in the Lodge called “The Husky Spirit”. Nancy got to play with more huskies. A woman who has raced huskies spoke about raising huskies and actually brought 3 of them with her. One of them was older and enjoyed lying there and having Nancy scratch her belly. One was very young and excited and had to be constantly restrained by her handler. In fact she took a playful swipe at Nancy at one point and Nancy still has the marks on her leg 3 days later. Fortunately the skin was not broken. Anyway, Nancy got the chance to saddle up the dogs as if they were preparing for a race. She had a very good time.

 

The Kenai Lodge does not have wireless internet access, and they have just one PC in the main lodge that everyone has to share. The internet access is very slow. They hope to have wireless by next summer. They did have strong cell phone service. While doing laundry, we spoke to our friends the Adamsons, who were on a different land tour and who we were to meet on the ship. They were enjoying themselves and looked forward to getting the long train ride Monday behind them and boarding the ship.

 

Monday 9/4 marked the end of our land tour and the beginning of our cruise. After breakfast we left the hotel at about 10, made a brief stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Society (where we saw moose, bears, eagles, foxes) and got in line for the 12:30 tunnel back into Whittier. As soon as we exited the tunnel, we saw our ship – the Coral Princess. We were one of the first buses to arrive at the pier. We said goodbye to our escort, Kyla, and entered the terminal building at about 12:45PM. Because we had sailed with Princess 4 times before and because we had splurged and gotten ourselves a suite for this cruise, we had “preferred check-in”, so we were allowed to go right to the front of the line. We were checked in and boarding the ship by 1PM. Nice.

 

(One side note here – at the beginning of our land tour, the escort had “suggested” we rotate seats in the bus so that everyone had a chance to sit up front. We noticed over the 8 days that one couple always sat in the seat right behind the lady who used a wheelchair. They would somehow push their way through to board early enough each time to get that second row seat. I nicknamed them Mr. and Mrs. Elbows. Anyway, as we boarded quickly due to our preferred check-in status, I was happy to look back and see Mr. and Mrs. Elbows still on line in the terminal.)

 

We made our way to our cabin, on deck 10 all the way in the back of the ship (aft, as they say nautically). We boarded on the 5th deck in the middle of the ship (midships) so we had a bit of a walk. The Coral Princess is smaller than some ships we’ve been on, but is still plenty long when you are going from one end to the other. When we finally got to our cabin and walked in, it was like déjà vu all over again, to quote Yogi Berra. The layout of our cabin was exactly the same as the cabin we had on another Princess ship 2 years ago, the Grand Princess. Nancy and I noticed it right away.

 

We went and had lunch in the “Horizon Court” buffet area and then took a tour of the ship using the full, detailed deck plan I tore from the Princess Alaska brochure. (They do give you a small, pocket-sized guide to the ship but the full one from the brochure gives you a lot more detail.) When we returned to our cabin, we met our room steward, Nestor. He did a few quick things for us, including exchanging some of the free sodas and small bottles of alcohol for other varieties, and giving us our complimentary welcome aboard champagne toast. Nancy enjoyed them both.

 

We were very happy when all of our luggage arrived. This included the 2 bags we had with us for the whole land tour, plus the 2 we had tagged with “meet me on the ship” luggage tags. We had last seen these bags a week ago in Fairbanks and they were sent ahead to meet us on the ship – and they did. An attaboy to Princess for getting everyone their bags. (Some of the clothes in the bags sent ahead a week ago were a bit wrinkled, but you couldn’t be surprised about that.)

 

We left a cell phone message for the Adamsons, telling them we had boarded and asking them to call us when they had an idea when they would be getting to the ship. We checked out the Internet center onboard and found they have about 15-20 PCs that you can use for 35 cents a minute. That is a flat rate – we have been on ships before where they had packages of minutes that would reduce the per-minute cost. Not here, though. However, another perk of this suite we splurged on is free internet usage. This does not apply to wireless usage, though, which is 35 cents per minute even for suite occupants.

 

Your dinner time for this first night was different than for the rest of the nights – it was based on when you arrived at the ship. Our time was 5:30. During dinner, our cell phone buzzed and it was the Adamsons. They had arrived. They came down and had a quick dinner starting at about 6:15, because we had to go to our muster/lifeboat drill at 7:45.

 

The muster drill is required by maritime law, and involves taking your life jacket and going to the place on the ship where you would be sent in the event of an emergency. Our muster location was the show lounge at the back of the ship. A lot of people kid around at these, but all you have to do is think back to the pictures of the fire on the Star Princess last spring and you realize you have to take it seriously. It was comfortable sitting in the lounge. We once attended a muster drill that was held outside on a warm day, and with everyone standing shoulder to shoulder, in a line 4 deep, a woman fainted. She was OK but it is always more comfortable having these inside in air conditioned lounges.

 

We were scheduled to leave Whittier at 9:30PM, so we made arrangements to meet our friends at about 9:15 to watch the sailaway. I went ahead to stake out a good spot and, much to my disappointment, I noticed at about 9 that we were already moving. No announcement was made about an early departure and I was kind of upset about it because I enjoy watching the whole departure process. Oh well, it was raining and the welcome aboard show was about to start.

 

The welcome aboard show is usually one where the cruise director introduces himself (usually it is a man) and his cruise staff. They are the ones that do all of the entertainment during the cruise – the production shows at night, bingo, trivia games, karaoke, line dancing, pool games, etc. The CD on this cruise is Scott Roberts, a young gentleman from England. Seems kind of goofy so far – maybe he will grow on us.

 

Had a bit of an embarrassing experience late at night just before going to bed. I was in the bathroom and saw a cord hanging down next to the bathtub. I thought it was a laundry line you might hang wet clothes on so I pulled on it to try to get it to roll up back into its compartment. Only then did I notice the sign under it that said ‘emergency cord’. Almost at the same moment, Nancy knocked at the door. The front desk was calling to say they had received an emergency notification from the bathroom and was everything OK. I asked her to apologize to them and to say that everything is OK. Very reassuring to know that the cord works and that there is an immediate response.

 

We woke up Tues 9/5 for a day at sea. This is usually a relaxing day where you can do any or none of the many activities onboard. The day was supposed to begin with a sail through College Fjord, a bay filled with many glaciers. My first inkling that something was up was when I sensed at 7:30AM when we woke up that we were moving at full speed. If we were in College Fjord, we would be moving very slowly. Then we looked out over our deck and saw nothing but water – no glaciers. Only when we were eating breakfast did we find out we slept through a major storm. The captain came on the PA and announced that due to the strong winds and high speeds we experienced through the night (that we slept through), we had to bypass College Fjord and were heading at full speed towards Glacier Bay to get away from the storm. The captain said the winds during the night had reached 87 knots, which is about 75MPH, hurricane strength. Either this is an extremely stable ship, we are very sound sleepers, or both.

 

Then it was bingo time. Nancy and I enjoy bingo on cruises and we are usually pretty lucky. No luck in the morning session, though. Twenty dollars for each of us down the drain.

 

After lunch I went to a presentation on Princess’s 2007 Europe itineraries. A darkened theater right after lunch, though, combined to cause a bit of drowsiness and I missed a part of the seminar. Life at sea is exhausting.

 

Eventually it was time for afternoon bingo and our luck returned. Nancy won the first game by herself - $100. I shared the second game with someone and won $62.50. Nancy won the third game by herself - $150. We let other people win the last 2 games. We came out with $312.50. Not bad for a $40 investment. We are going to try to buy our tickets from the same person and sit in the same seats for all future bingo games this week.

 

Tuesday night was formal night. Everyone is supposed to get dressed up for dinner. Most people did. Maybe I am getting old and grouchy, though, but it seemed more people did not follow the dress code this time than ever before on a cruise we’ve been on. Come on folks, it would kill you to dress up a little bit? At least take off the sweatpants and put on a decent pair of pants for a couple of hours.

 

The Captain is Giorgio Pomata and he made some brief remarks in the atrium. He has a very thick Italian accent and was a bit hard to make out, but it was probably the standard “welcome aboard and we hope you have a great time”. I brought the daily ship programs (called the Princess Patter) from our 4 other Princess cruises and, interestingly enough, on our last cruise to Alaska in 1997, Captain Pomata was the Staff Captain, second in command. I guess he did such a good job in 1997 that he earned a promotion.

 

Today (Wed 9/6) we spent in Glacier Bay, a huge national park in southeast Alaska with many huge glaciers. We sailed right up next to some of them and sat there for a while. Then they turned the ship around 180 degrees so the other side of the ship had the good view. We made good use of our private balcony today. The Adamsons joined us since the initial good view was from our side of the ship. Then when the captain turned the ship around, we went to the Adamson’s cabin and watched from their balcony.

 

The next 3 days, Thurs to Sat, 9/7 to 9/9, we are in 3 different ports in Alaska – Skagway, Juneau (the state capitol) and Ketchikan. Then we have a sea day on Sun 9/10 and fly home from Vancouver on Mon 9/11.

 

Some observations – There is a heavy push to sell things. Every meal in the dining room you are specifically asked up front if you would like bottled water or sparkling water. We always choose regular water. The only way to get ice cream other than in the dining room is to buy it at the ice cream shop. It is not available at the buffet or at any time the ice cream shop is closed. We used to like to have a little bit of ice cream as a nightcap right before bed. Not here. They are constantly advertising the spa. In fact the whole morning TV show on board today, which used to be a lighthearted look at the day ahead, was a commercial for the spa. There is a TV channel devoted 24X7 to shopping in the upcoming ports. It tells you the preferred stores, the ones the cruise line no doubt gets a kickback from. There used to be wine stewards at dinner to handle the drink orders. Now the waiter/waitress has to do that in addition to his/her other duties. That leads to delays and to problems like we had last night when we asked the waiter if a specific bottle of wine we had a coupon for was red or white. He said white and it was red. Don’t get me wrong – these types of issues are not specific to Princess. Read any cruise message board and you will see that.

 

We are still having a very good time and I think our friends, the Adamsons, are too. (Don’t tell Princess but we are letting them use our free internet so they can keep in touch with the kids and grandkids.)

 

You know what they say (or maybe you don’t) – the worst day on a cruise is still better than your best day at work.

 

That’s it for now – I will try to send a final report on Sunday or perhaps after we get home. Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Victor

[Stokeset]

We're leaving in a couple of hours to begin the first leg of our Alaskan journey. Hope you continue with a safe and happy trip!

[cruiservictor]

Hope you are having a good time, Stokeset.

 

Here is the 3rd and final note to the folks back home:

 

 

 

I am starting this final installment from the Vancouver International Airport on Monday afternoon 9/11, using the free wireless access here to check up on the NY all-news and all-sports radio stations as we prepare to fly home. We just finished disembarkation from the Coral Princess – a process with 2 rather unpleasant occurrences, but a process that nevertheless got us here long before our scheduled 2:15PM departure for Kennedy Airport.

 

When I last wrote, we were about to visit 3 Alaskan ports in 3 days.

 

Skagway was first, on Thurs 9/7. Skagway is the gateway to the gold rush – it is from there that many men took off in search of their fortune up the White Pass Yukon Trail. There were 3 other ships in port that day – the Sun Princess directly behind us (when we last visited Alaska in 1997 we were aboard that ship), Holland America’s Veendam and Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Wind. All, like us, were in port shortly after dawn, and this was the maximum number of ships this port can handle. (The Alaska cruise season ends in a couple of weeks, so the merchants in each port are happy to welcome as many ships as they can.)

 

We were docked right next to the White Pass Yukon Railroad, a popular tourist attraction and a ride that we took the last time we were here. This time we took an interesting 8 hour bus trip up to the Canadian Yukon. We started the day on our ship in Skagway, Alaska, USA in the Alaska Daylight timezone (4 hours behind NY), drove into the province of British Columbia, Canada (in the Pacific Daylight timezone) and ended up in the Yukon Territory of Canada at a town called Carcross. A territory in Canada is a large area like a province but one that does not have nearly as many people as a province does. Carcross apparently used to be called Caribou Crossing but we were told there are so many Caribou Crossings that this one was changed to Carcross to make it unique. The road we followed to get to Carcross (65 miles from Skagway) paralleled the White Pass Yukon Railroad tracks for a while and we had some nice views of the train across the valley. The drive to Carcross was very pretty and we stopped for pictures several times along the way. We were in Carcross for a couple of hours, where we had a BBQ chicken lunch (at a place called the Caribou Crossing Trading Post, which served about 700 cruise ship passengers that day from the many buses that were there). They had Alaskan huskies for us to play with, too, and Nancy enjoyed playing with the puppies once again. After lunch, we stopped in “downtown” Carcross (such as it is) for a brief visit there. Not much except a visitor’s center and a couple of shops. On the way back to the ship we took a walk off the new Yukon Suspension Bridge which crosses a raging river. Nice views from both sides and from the middle looking down at the river. When we left the bridge, we drove through some of the thickest fog I have ever seen. At one point I couldn’t see anything out either side of the bus. The driver handled it very well (I guess he is used to it). The weather was really very nice for the rest of the day, though.

 

We got back to the ship around 4 and I went out on the aft deck and listened to and watched the Sun Princess leave. I may have mentioned this before but I have a Radio Shack scanner that I bring on cruises that I use to listen to the communications between the bridge (where they steer from) and other parts of the ship. I listened in to the instructions from the Sun Princess’s officers as they pushed sideways away from pier (always interesting how they do that), turned 180 degrees (fascinating to watch, too) and sailed away. After dinner, the Norwegian Wind sailed away, followed closely by us and then the Veendam. An interesting sidebar regarding our departure was that one passenger showed up as missing. When you leave and enter a cruise ship these days, you use your cabin key/credit card to swipe in and out, so at any moment they can tell who is on and who is off the ship. Well the computer said that, at the time we were supposed to sail, there was still one passenger not on board. Listening in on the conversations over the radio, it seems the one passenger was an 80-year old man traveling with a large family group. The senior officers decided that the chances that the large family group (all of whom the computer showed were on board) would leave the 80-year old man ashore all alone were very slim and off we went.

 

Later in the evening I had a brief chat with the ship’s musical director, Paolo Nonnis. I may have mentioned that I brought with us the daily ship’s program from the first day of all the other Princess cruises we’ve been on (in which they identify some of the ship’s crew), in case I saw a familiar name. I noticed that Paolo was the musical director of the Grand Princess when we sailed on it 2 years ago. He seemed very nice and got a kick out of the names he saw listed in the daily program from back then.

 

The ship’s internet service was down all day today. I’m sure Princess was not happy about it since they make a lot of money on it when it is working.

 

Just before going to bed, we heard the ship’s foghorn sounding. I believe that is some kind of requirement in bad weather, even with the ultra-sophisticated radar ships have nowadays.

 

A few words about docking – I mentioned we and the 3 other ships were docked today. There are times when a ship is too big or a port is too small for a ship to dock. In that case, the ship anchors out in the harbor and lowers some of its lifeboats which serve as shuttles or “tenders” to shore. This is very inconvenient for several reasons. First of all you cannot simply walk on and off the ship whenever you’d like. You have to line up to wait for the tender to arrive, then you have to wait for 100 or so people to load onto it (while the small tender is bobbing up and down in the water), then you have to endure the sometimes long, bouncy ride to shore or the ship, then you have to wait to get off while the tender bounces up and down again. You get the idea. Not a lot of fun. Fortunately on this cruise, we docked in all 3 ports. We have been on some cruises where we did not get off at certain stops because it was a tender port.

 

 

OK – just back from a break now – I spent too much time in the airport in Vancouver using the wireless internet that the laptop’s battery almost ran out. However, thanks to modern technology, I am now writing from seat 21D aboard Air Canada’s flight 548 to JFK. In the back of the seat in front of me is an outlet for plugging in laptops. So, I can continue. (Aren’t you lucky?) By the way, I am also enjoying one of the rare pleasures of flying these days, an empty middle seat next to me. Nancy and I both have aisle seats across from each other. She has what appears to be a nice couple from Canada next to her, who are going to NY on vacation. I have the empty middle seat next to me. I think I got the better deal….

 

 

On Fri 9/8, we docked before dawn again, this time in Juneau, Alaska’s capitol. We were the only ship in town up until 2PM, when 2 others arrived. The day started foggy with a bit of rain. We took a tour in the morning – the Juneau Sled Dog Summer Camp. Yep, more huskies. This time, though, with a twist. We heard again about raising them and racing them, and about how sled dog racers train. However this time we actually got to experience it. We and 5 other people sat in a small, open ATV and went for about a 5 minute ride being pulled by 14 huskies. Quite exhilarating. We almost lost Nancy going around the first bend. For real. I grabbed a hold of her arm and held on. After that we learned how to lean to be able to handle the turns better. One of the staff at the camp took picture as we flew by her at one point, which we bought as a souvenir. Among the highlights of the whole vacation.

 

We had lunch back on the ship with the Adamsons and watched from the restaurant as the other 2 ships approached – the Carnival Spirit (which docked in front of us off to the starboard (right) side) and Holland America’s Volendam (which docked behind us. The Volendam is similar to the Veendam, which we saw yesterday in Skagway.). After lunch, the 4 of us walked down the block and boarded a tram ride 1800 feet up the side of Mount Roberts. This is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Juneau, and we had also done it in 1997, when we were last here. The main attraction for me is the view of the ships and the city below. By now the fog/clouds had lifted and we could clearly see from way down the channel to our left, to the ships and the harbor below to the airport way off to our right.

 

Back at the ship, I caught a few minutes of the Mets and Dodgers on ESPN’s Friday Night Baseball. It was just after 7 in NY, but just after 3 in Juneau. Again, great being in this time zone if you are a baseball fan. The games are over so early.

 

We had “all aboard” at 3:30 for a 4PM departure. At this port our balcony faced the pier and we always like, in that situation, to watch as late-comers come running from the town towards the ship. Sure enough, a couple of ladies came running along at 3:45. Fortunately the ship was still there. If they had come along much after 4, though, they would have been out of luck. Cruise ships do not wait for missing passengers, unless they are on one of the ship’s tours that was delayed in returning.

 

Another winless bingo session followed. Can’t complain, though, after our luck the first day. They play 5 games of bingo in each session. The final game is a jackpot game. To win the jackpot you have to get all the numbers on your card within 51-54 balls (the number goes up each session). If no one wins, they roll the jackpot over to the next session and play for a consolation prize of $250. Not a bad consolation. The hope is the jackpot will snowball to the final session in which they will keep calling numbers until someone wins the jackpot. I don’t think we have ever been on a cruise in which the jackpot was won before the final session. And, then, it seems to be frequently won by one person, even though more people are playing than ever before, drawn by the final jackpot.

 

Tonight the crew put on a show. Several of them sang and very well, too. These were not the entertainers, but a cabin steward, a bartender, a casino dealer, etc. Then, the cruise staff put on a short skit we had seen many years earlier called “If I Were Not Upon the Sea”. The idea is what they might be doing if they were not working on a cruise ship. It is not for real, but it is very funny. One of the verses, sung by someone who says she would a blackjack dealer in Vegas if she was not upon the sea, goes “hit me once, hit me twice, 21 or bust”. On the “hit me once”, she (playfully) belts the poor singer next to her, on the “hit me twice” she hits the singer on the other side and on “21 or bust”, she grabs her own…. Well, you get the idea. This is a family email. At the end of this skit, the Cruise Director, Scott Roberts, came out dressed as a ballerina, tutu and all. He’s still a bit goofy, but he’s starting to grow on us.

 

A brief word about dining. Princess has what is called “Personal Choice Dining”. You can choose traditional cruise ship dining in which you eat at the same time each night (5:45 or 8:15) at the same table with the same people and same waitstaff. You can also choose “Anytime Dining”, in which you eat when you want and with whom you want, somewhat like at a regular restaurant. There are plusses and minuses to both. For traditional dining, one big plus is that you have the same waitstaff, and you develop camaraderie with them and they quickly get to know your likes and dislikes. For example, neither Nancy nor I drinks coffee or tea and if we’d had the same waitstaff each night they would have gotten to know that after the first night. A minus for traditional dining is that you are on a fixed eating schedule. You eat either at 5:45 or 8:15. Sometimes you are not ready at 5:45 (maybe you’ve been out sightseeing all day) or 8:15 is too late. Also if the same people you eat with each night are not personable or don’t speak English, etc., it can be a long cruise. (In this case, you can ask the Maitre d to switch your table.) The big plus for the anytime dining is the flexibility of eating whenever you want. (You do have to realize that if you go at peak time, say 7:30, and want a table for 2, you may have to wait. Some people get very upset at this. We always like to share a table other people and I don’t think we have ever had to wait to be seated, no matter when we went.) A minus, in my view, for anytime dining is the loss of that camaraderie with the waitstaff. I missed that on this cruise, although we did sit with very interesting people every night (in addition to the Adamsons).

 

Sat 9/9 brought us to Ketchikan, dubbed Alaska’s first city because it is the first major Alaskan city you reach on the way north up the Inside Passage. It is also know as Alaska’s rainiest city, for good reason. They get something like 160 inches of rain (more than 15 feet) a year. And that’s rain, not snow. And it seems like most of those 160 inches fell the day we were there. If rained pretty steadily from time we arrived at 10AM to the time we left at 6PM.

 

They had strong cellphone service here, as they did in all 3 ports. Somewhat surprisingly, and pleasantly so, I did not see many people walking around the ship yakking on their cellphones when we were in port.

 

We took 2 tours here. A brief walk in the morning rain brought us to the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. I had seen a brief feature on this on the Travel Channel once and it looked like it might be fun, and it was. It is a competition between 2 teams of lumberjacks at events like ax-throwing, pole-climbing, log-rolling (trying to stay on top of a rolling log the longest), etc. They divide the audience into 2 groups, each rooting for one team of lumberjacks. Our team “won”. Their little stadium is built for Ketchikan’s cool, damp weather. The seating area is covered and heated from above. The lumberjacks are exposed to the elements, though.

 

After the show, I went back to the ship while Nancy checked out the shops in town. This was the only port in which we actually docked downtown. The other 2 required a bit of a walk to get to the shops. Nancy came back onboard soaking wet without having made any purchases.

 

A half hour or so later, we went on our second tour of the day and last of the cruise, and it was a somewhat appropriate tour, considering the rainforest we were in. It was a 90 minute walking tour through the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary. It rained steadily the whole time. They gave you ponchos to wear, but I stuck with my umbrella. Looking back I should have used the poncho, too, as my jacket got soaking wet. It was a very interesting walk. I saw at least half a dozen bears in the wild (Nancy even saw one of them and she usually is not lucky at seeing wildlife). We also fed some reindeer (maybe they should be called “raindeer” here), saw a totem pole carving demo and saw a video about lumber mills.

 

The rain was blowing sideways as we went back up the gangway to the ship.

 

We left for our final destination of Vancouver at 6PM. We had a quick dinner and then attended the Captain’s Circle Party. The Captain’s Circle is Princess’s “frequent cruiser” program. Everyone becomes a member of the Captain’s Circle after their first cruise with Princess. One of the perks is this cocktail party. (Even though it was a cocktail party, we went after dinner, because it started at 7:45 and ended at 8:30. Can’t eat as late as I used to when I was younger, unless I want to wake up with heartburn in the middle of the night.) At the party, they give champagne to randomly-drawn winners and they also salute those aboard who have sailed the most days with Princess. The winning couple had something like 35 cruises with Princess totaling over 400 days. Something for us to strive for. At the end of the party, we had our picture taken with the captain, Giorgio Pomata, and I showed him the ship’s daily program from our 1997 cruise which listed him as the second in command, the Staff Captain. He seemed to enjoy seeing it and told me the captain on that 1997 cruise, Giuseppe Romano, is now master of the huge Caribbean Princess.

 

Cruising these days is a cashless society. When you board, you give them a credit card number and anything you buy on board is charged at the end to that credit card. You have to be careful as you go along, because it is easy to just keep signing for your purchases and you could get a whopper of a bill at the end. I always keep track of our purchases so there are no surprises. An example of things that get charged to your shipboard account are drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), tours, pictures taken by the ship’s photographers, plus a $10 per person per day service charge that is then distributed to the ship’s, waiters, room stewards, behind the scenes personnel, etc. This mostly replaces the “tipping” that used to be done at the end of each cruise, although we still gave something extra to our cabin steward.

 

Sun 9/9 was a day at sea and our last full day on board. There was an interdenominational church service on board, but its 8:15AM start time and a loss of an hour’s sleep the night before as we moved from Alaska time to Pacific time, combined to make us decide to skip it. The morning’s big event was a galley (kitchen) tour. They did a culinary demonstration first on the stage and then they walked all 3 or 4 hundred of us through one of the main galleys. You’re not in there for long but it is always interesting to see and they give you a handout that lists how much meat they use, how many eggs they use, etc., on a typical 7 day cruise. Plus, this time at the pastry station in the galley, we all got a sample of what they were preparing.

 

Due to a combination of bingo winnings and some extra cash we had with us, I was able to pay off about half of our shipboard account around midday. This way it won’t be as bad when the credit card bill arrives. Also we bought 2 of the pictures the ship’s photographer had taken – the aforementioned one with the captain from last night, plus a nice one of us and the Adamsons in the dining room on last night’s formal night.

 

A highlight of the cruise occurred Sunday afternoon. It was a “backstage tour” with the entertainment staff. It started out as a Q&A with the cruise director and a singer, a dancer and a couple of behind-the-scenes technical people. Then we walked through backstage and one of the dressing rooms. Not much room there. We then chatted in a small group for a while with Scott Roberts, the cruise director. It was fascinating.

 

 

Got to stop for now. Approaching JFK. Will resume and send out tomorrow.

 

 

Resuming from home on Tues 9/12. Just got to see the beginning of the “CBS Evening News with Katie Couric” for the first time. She took over the program last week when we were away.

 

 

Back to the chat with cruise director Scott Roberts from Sunday evening. We found out that this was his very first cruise as cruise director. He had worked for Princess for several years, finally leaving the company last November. Then out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, he got a call from Princess asking to come back with a promotion to cruise director. He accepted, although his wife was somewhat disappointed that the plans she had made to observe his 30th birthday (Sat 9/9) would have to be postponed. This was a dream come true for him. He had just come on board a few days before this cruise to learn his way around and meet his staff. The deputy cruise director, Brett Siborne, and he had never worked together before, although it appeared like they had. We found him to be a charming young man, and we wish him the best in his career as cruise director. Perhaps we will sail with him again.

 

Next came the final bingo session. It was not nearly as crowded as other final bingo sessions we had attended in the past. The snowball jackpot in the final game had grown to $2250, and it was won by ----- neither Nancy nor me. It was won by one person, a lady who was first to get all the numbers on her card. Again, I am always amazed how often there is a single winner of these final bingo games, considering how many people play and how few numbers are left at the end.

 

I had seen a familiar face in the last 24 hours. He looked like the Maitre d we had on a previous cruise many years ago. I brought with me to dinner tonight the daily ship’s program from that long-ago cruise, and when I saw the familiar face I went to speak with him. Sure enough I was right. He’d been the Maitre D on our first Princess Cruise, taken in 1991. He enjoyed looking through the list of other staff from that cruise, mentioning who was now doing what, and also mentioning, sadly, who had passed away in the last 15 years.

 

We ate our last dinner with a nice couple from Tallahassee. He was an ordained Baptist minister. One of the benefits of the anytime dining is that you can sit with different people every night and almost everyone is quite interesting to speak to.

 

After dinner – time to pack. It’s a lot easier packing to go home than it was packing to leave home. Tonight there was no thinking about what to take and what to leave home. It was basically put everything in one suitcase or another. You put your luggage outside your door with special tags on them, and all evening ship’s staff come through the corridors collecting them. A backbreaking job.

 

We entered Vancouver harbor at about 6:10AM Mon 9/11, sailing under the Lion’s Gate Bridge at sunrise. Just over an hour later we had docked at the Canada Place Cruise Terminal. We had our final breakfast at the Horizon Court buffet and then returned to our cabin to pick up our hand luggage. We then waited for the announcement to disembark.

 

We had signed up for a special onboard checkin program, that promised a quick and easy trip home – receiving our airline boarding passes onboard the ship, not having to deal with our luggage after putting it outside our cabin last night until we arrived at JFK, a quick pass through Customs (avoiding normally long lines). It worked out pretty well, with 2 big problems. When we did hear our group called, we did go to the Universe Lounge onboard and they did have our actual boarding passes. We then proceeded downstairs to get on our special bus, one reserved just for those who signed up for this program. This is where we ran into the first problem. No bus. We stood somewhere in the bowels of the cruise ship terminal for half an hour before a bus showed up. I think they could have kept us informed a little more than they did. I think people don’t mind waiting as much if they are told what is going on. Once we got on the bus, we did go to our separate customs/security checkin at the airport. A very small pair of manicure scissors I had in my bag was confiscated – it had been allowed at the security checkpoint at Newark Airport at the beginning of our trip, but the agent here in Vancouver said the rules are different in Canada. Not worth arguing about, not that it would have done any good even if I had. After we left security, we went through a door and found ourselves in the middle of the airport gate area. The one problem was that we had no idea where to go. The video screens were only displaying the flights for the next hour and a half or so. It was now 10AM and our flight on Air Canada was at 2:15PM. We wandered around for a while before we decided to have Nancy sit with our hand luggage while tried to find out where to go. I got on line at the first gate I could find, gate 86, where people were waiting for an American Airlines flight to Minneapolis. I just hoped the agent could point me to a place where I could find out what our gate was. Fortunately, Air Canada had a first class lounge just down the corridor. I went there and the rep inside looked up our flight and said it would be at gate ----- 86, right where we had started. Once the American flight boarded, we found seats near the gate and waited for our flight to board.

 

We left just a few minutes late and had an uneventful flight to JFK. We arrived at Kennedy a few minutes late (10:40PM or so) but had to wait for what seemed like forever before we got to our gate around 11. We got to our luggage claim area and after a while all 4 of our bags came around on the belt. So the onboard checkin worked well, except for wait for the bus and being dumped in the middle of the airport with no idea where to go. I would do that onboard checkin again, though, because it did save time and we did not have to deal with our luggage from when we put it outside our cabin on Sunday night until now when we arrived at JFK.

 

The driver from our car service was waiting just past the baggage claim area with a sign that said “EICHERN”. I hope Mr. and Mrs. Eichern are not still at the airport waiting for their ride home. We were on the road by 11:30 and home by 12:30. We saw the spotlights being sent heavenward from Ground Zero on the way, on the 5th anniversary of 9/11.

 

Since we got home, we have been dealing with unpacking, 2 weeks of mail, doing laundry, and reacquainting ourselves with our 2 cats, Sunny and Cloudy. They are fine now, but it was interesting that Cloudy became comfortable with us before Sunny, who seemed a bit tentative at first. We had had a pet sitter come in twice a day to take care of them and they seem to have been well fed.

 

That’s it for Alaska 2006. Thanks for coming along. We already have our next cruise scheduled, from New York to Seattle through the Panama Canal next April and May. I have a big birthday coming up next April 27th, and I can’t think of a better place to spend it than on a cruise. Hope to talk to you then.

 

 

Victor

[NancyIL]

Wow, Victor - what a wonderfully detailed review of your trip! Thanks so much for sharing it with us!

[tapia]

WOW. Thank you so much for writing. I just found the thread & started reading. I'm glad you had a great time!

 

You said you had good cell service--I was curious what carrier you have.

 

Wow, it seems like you had an adventure in Kenai--at least you weren't stuck on the balcony long!

 

I'm glad for the warning about the emergency cord--as I would probably be the next one to pull it!

 

CONGRATULATIONS at Bingo!

 

I'm very curious to think what you thought of the difference between the trips in Skagway? I'm still considering between train / train-bus / and car rental. Thanks for your observations!

 

I've never heard of anyone bringing a scanner--but, it must have been cool to listen to their instructions on sailaway!

 

I'm sure that trip from NY will be amazing.

 

Sounds like you had a great time. Thank you so much for sharing with us!

[cruiservictor]

Thanks for the comments, NancyIL and tapia.

 

Regarding the cell service, we have Verizon Wireless, but my recollection is that except for one stop early in the 15 days (Fairbanks, perhaps?) our phone said "Roaming" the whole time. So we may not have had Verizon Wireless but it was a strong signal nevertheless, and we were able to easily call home.

 

Re Skagway, some people we spoke to took the combination train/bus tour. I would consider that, since it gives you the best of both worlds.

 

 

Victor