Alaska Cruise - Day 11: Going out strong!

It was the last full cruising day today. Last lunch, last dinner, last evening drinks, last trivia and game shows! Maybe because it was the last opportunity, but both twins volunteered for the top/middle/bottom game show today! R did not last very long...

But L won!

Celebrating with chocolate banana milkshakes and more strawberry daiquiris.

Since I once again didn't take many photos on this sea, I thought I'd close out with some overall thoughts about the cruise.

1. Princess Cruise Lines -- maybe it was the itinerary, or maybe it's just all cruise lines besides Disney, but the makeup of the cruising passengers was noticeably different. Lots of older couples, some large multi generational groups, but very few people our age and not that many kids either.  The food was...sort of meh. I liked a few things but maybe I'm overly critical because they never had crab legs EVER the entire cruise -- and this was a cruise to Alaska!! The medallion service was actually really nice/useful (where you can order a drink or food from anywhere on the ship and they use your medallion to track you and deliver it to you). Entertainment...was lacking. There was actually one night with a comic/magician who was REALLY funny (ah the three ping pong balls...) but otherwise all the shows were kind of mediocre. Definitely not up to Disney caliber. The public spaces were okay...but nothing that was themed really memorably. The service was better than the Pride of America but definitely not at the level of Disney. 

2. Our staterooms - it was kind of a game changer having two staterooms for the four of us. The kids stayed up till midnight more often, but I guess that's what vacations are for? The layout was sufficient given that and our balcony I did think had more space than the ones on Disney. But the rooms otherwise felt a little bit dated (like there were so few plugs outlets!). But the stateroom service was always very prompt and effective.

3. Alaska - I was maybe expecting too much? I thought the glaciers were cool...but didn't wow me the way I thought they would. Maybe we needed to go deeper into Alaska? I felt like a lot of it was fairly similar to Montana. It was interesting having a cruise that wasn't going to islands and beaches all the time, that bit I think I liked (weather in the 60s and 70s instead of 90s). It would have been nice separating the port days more though, as is it felt a bit go go go for that stretch of Ketchikan, Haines, Juneau, Glacier Bay. I do want to do that 21 day solstice cruise someday though, then I can say I gave Alaska a fair shake.

4. Phones - definitely not getting the twins phones before high school. They were addicted to those things even when they didn't have full Internet connectivity all the time. Screens bad! Next cruise, back to old fashioned "leave me a note on the whiteboard door" perhaps... 😆 

5. Leaving from SF - SO nice. Seriously. We will definitely do this again, doesn't even really matter where the cruise goes. 

6. Longer cruises -- I'm totally down for them. This did NOT feel that long at 11 days. I could have gone for another week. There were people on this cruise who had been on back to backs continuously such that they were on for months! That might be a bit much for me. I would get bored of always cruising the same areas, but 60 days around Asia/Africa? Totally down for that. 

Photos from the twins of the departure morning breakfast:

Those expressions about sum it up for us. Summer vacation over!

Alaska Cruise - Day 10: Birthday at Sea

Birthday day for Ian! Luckily, it's another sea day, so he doesn't have to wake up early. But - nature had some plans in store - there was a huge pod of whales that came by this morning, so Ian woke up (at least briefly) for that:

The rest of the day was spent in a combination of card playing, eating, drinking, and laying around again. Some highlights of note:

Kids enjoying the silent dance party (it was fun but not as enjoyable as Disney's because it wasn't in a dark room, so some folks were more self conscious).

Seeing a very nice sunset from the dinner table. I think we were on the wrong side for most of the pretty sunsets each night.

But we snagged a good spot this time!

L discovering strawberry daiquiris (yes, the non-alcoholic version!)

And of course, the attention drawing birthday celebration cake and song:

We didn't opt for any photo packages this cruise, so this is as close as we get to a formal night portrait!

Tomorrow is our last full day at sea. Sniffle. All good things must come to an end eventually...

Alaska Cruise - Day 9: Victoria

For those who don't cruise much, you may find it interesting to learn that every US cruise must include an international port. Why you ask? There is this law that requires every foreign flagged cruise ship (ie, you're technically "based" in that foreign country) to visit an international port on a journey before returning to a US port to pick up more passengers. Foreign flagged by ships are able to avoid various US employment, gambling, etc laws. This is why the Pride of America cruise by Norwegian, which only cruises amongst the Hawaiian islands, is the only major cruise ship that is a US flagged ship, does not have a casino, and is staffed entirely by US workers. 

So, because of this rule, all Alaska cruises include some stop in Canada. For us, it's Victoria, BC. 

We dock at 3 pm today so it's more like a half day again. That meant we had time in the morning for more shipboard activities. I actually made the kids go line dancing with me today! I had a good time...the kids...lasted two songs at least. 

They were very happy to escape off the ship to Canada.

I was sad I couldn't make it to the famous Butchart gardens (they close early on Mondays) but it left us more than enough time for High Tea at the Fairmont Empress! 

Here is a shot of the twins being duly impressed by the tea set on display that was used by Queen Elizabeth when she visited.

The tea was a fairly typical high tea get up -- I thought the scones were particularly nice -- nice and fluffy and soft. The kids were partial to the coronation chicken sandwiches.

The Empress tea blend was a surprise -- since we had a group of eight, we actually tried out a bunch of different teas and the Empress was by far my favorite. Since it was the day before Ian's birthday, they actually gifted Ian a box of the Empress tea as a special birthday gift! 

After downing a lot of clotted cream and sweets...we reconsidered my original plan to take a tour of the city by horse drawn carriage and opted to walk instead. They were very pretty horses though!

Here's a family shot with the Parliament building. 

Twins at the harbor. I will credit the twins with this -- they may be tired and cranky and complaining...but as soon as I say I'm taking a picture, they immediately pose with very nice smiles. 😆 

Yes, that is in fact a boba tea cup in each of their hands. Apparently pots of tea and trays of scones do not fill up the extra stomach each twin keeps just for boba. 

Nor apparently does afternoon tea fill Ian's special stomach compartment for pork buns. 

Are you thinking...boba tea...bbq pork bao...yes that's right, we walked to Victoria's Chinatown -- the oldest a Chinatown in Canada and the second oldest in North America! (Second only to our very own San Francisco).

After the Chinatown visit we slowly walked back to the ship - this was our last port day. 

The end of the cruise is creeping up on us. Thank goodness we still have two whole sea days left before we get back home though!

Alaska Cruise - Day 8: Back to Sea Days!

Well....when you miss a few days and try to catch up on blogging, you become VERY reliant on pictures. Unfortunately, this was a sea day after a string of port days, so there were only three photos total for this day...

There has been a lot of phone using for the twins this trip. We had to give them phones so that they could text us on the ship...I think they will be very sad when we disembark and lose the phones...

Apparently I went to check out the art auction this day. People spend a lot of money on art on cruise ships! Surprising, because a lot of the artists are ONLY represented on cruise ships. Apparently some of the people buy so much art they get free cruises (like big spenders in casinos). 

This was the first day the kids went to the pool -- and it was NOT a warm day. I was very impressed that they were willing to jump in. I think the long hot tub soaks in between helped. 

The rest of the day...was spent in some combination of eating...sleeping...drinking...laying around...generally resting and relaxing. 

I promise tomorrow's post will be more exciting -- Victoria!
 

Alaska Cruise - Day 7: Glacier Bay

We passed into Glacier Bay at 6 am this morning -- I wasn't awake to see it, but apparently a little boat came by and did a "controlled collision" with our boat and then traveled at the same speed alongside it so that the National Park Rangers could climb from the little boat on the big boat using rope ladders on the side. Once they got onboard, they started announcing sightings of wildlife and describing the different islands and glaciers that we were passing. We traveled north through the bay very quickly and then parked at the end of Tarr Inlet for about an hour. This was the view out of our balcony - not bad, right?

But the actual star of the show was the OTHER side of the ship -- Marjorie Glacier!

I didn't make it to a viewing spot early enough to catch good shots of the ice calving, but there were some big ones -- the waves from the huge chunks of ice falling off got halfway to the ship even. After half an hour the ship turned so that the people waiting in the balconies on the other side could get a view:

I was able to catch an action shot this time - it wasn't nearly as impressive as the big ones earlier, but you can still hear the thundering sound of the ice falling.

 

The kids didn't have much patience for watching ice fall all day but we managed to snag at least one shot to prove they were there. 

I'm afraid all the other shots today are just of the scenery. Here's a close up of I think the Lamplugh glacier?

I theoretically knew that glaciers were rivers of ice created by years and years of packed snowfall but having now seen them, I feel like only now so I really understand how they are literally "rivers" that are slowly moving down the mountains. 

I think this is the end of Johns Hopkins Inlet. The colors would have been more impressive if we had some sun...

Close up of Johns Hopkins Glacier.

A shot of one of the many runoff streams -- it was so quiet passing through the Bay that often the only thing you could hear was the sound of these little waterfalls.

A picture of the lower half of Glacier Bay - lots of floating ice all along the way.

We also did a close pass by Marble Island, where dozens and dozens of seals were sunning themselves. 

At this point, the clouds also parted and the sun came out -- all of us in our parkas and mittens suddenly shed all the layers and felt like it was a Caribbean cruise!

While technically there was no "port" today, it still felt kind of activity-filled. All of us are looking forward to having a restful sea day tomorrow!

Alaska Cruise - Day 6: Juneau

Today is the official middle of our cruise -- happy because that means we have half to go still but sad because that means it's half over.  

Our breakfast routine has become solidified...Ian orders coffee and cereal and pastries delivered to the room and the twins and I head up to the buffet...because we've become obsessed with the chicken congee there. They add green onions; I also add seaweed and crumbled eggs. They say it tastes like 皮蛋瘦肉粥 and therefore devour huge bowls of it every morning. 

The main attraction in Juneau seemed to be the Mendenhall Glacier.  We could have done the shuttle or tried to catch a cab, but many people recommended renting a car to explore Juneau with more flexibility. Given that Juneau doesn't even have roads connecting it to any other town, the number of rental cars is limited...leading to a healthy supply of Turo cars. This was our first experience renting with Turo and I have to say it was pretty seamless!

To get to the parking garage where we picked up the car though, we had to walk past about 30 jewelry stores and some sort of fish packing/hatching facility. The smell was...very powerful. 

Once we got ourselves in the car and out of town, it was about a 20 minute drive to Mendenhall. Drumroll please!

The twins insisted on an "eating the glacier" shot. I applauded the creativity. 

To give you a sense of perspective, this entire lake used to be all glacier a mere fifty or so years ago. Shocking....and pretty depressing. 

I tried to force the twins to do the Trail of Time hike with me...they countered by promising to cooperate on photo taking if we only did the shorter Nugget Falls and photo point hikes instead. So here's them standing in awe of where the glacial field used to reach back in 1938.

Family shot with the glacier:

Here's L's masterpiece on the beach.

They told me that there are three rules for hiking: 1) there must be a destination. 2) it must not be more than 4 miles. 3) it must all be flat or end with downhill. The Nugget Falls trail, being only 2 miles and ending in a waterfall, was satisfactory. Here's the destination!

I also took them on the photo point walk -- because the destination for this 0.5 mile hike was definitely worth it:

After all that hiking, we thought we'd try to catch some famous Alaskan crab. Unfortunately...the four other cruise ships docked at Juneau today were filled with folks who all had the same idea it seemed. So...back to the ship buffet for lunch it was. 

When we came back out for our afternoon adventure, we decided to check out the jewelry stores, which all seemed to offer free pendants or gifts for stopping in...so I tried out a TON of rings and the twins picked up a dozen or so free souvenirs. I ended up realizing how good of a deal I got on the Sri Lankans sapphire ring (that I lost, sob). We later heard that all of the diamond stores were actually owned by the cruise ships. Made sense, as I didn't think Alaska was exactly known for the mining of diamonds...

Random shot with the bear seats outside one of the dozen jewelry stores we stopped in:

Our afternoon destination was the National Shrine of St. Therese, the patron saint of Alaska, who advocated for everyone doing little acts of goodness. The grounds were supposed to be quite beautiful (and often were a good vantage point for whale spotting too).

No whales today, but it was an enjoyable little destination.  Great time for gardens in Alaska right now. Here's the labyrinth, which had a very impressive array of flowers all around.

Someone is cheating!

Parting shot of Juneau pier:

The pier actually had a pretty impressive outline map of the United States with little nails. We weren't 100% sure what we were looking at until we saw Michigan. 

Today was the last port day in Alaska, but tomorrow will be the highlight of the entire cruise: Glacier Bay!