Family Vacation to Alaska - Day 7

Wednesday, 30 May, 2007 – Ketchikan

Things had settled down quite a bit this morning as we were approaching Ketchikan and the ship no longer rocked back and forth. We woke Rhys up and got him dressed. Mimi and Amina had already eaten breakfast. They had anticipated that this morning would be a problem for room service as our time in port was extremely short and most of us had early excursion times. We had originally planned on ordering early room service but then changed our minds when we found out about the possible wait this morning. They opened the Lido Restaurant breakfast buffet early at 5:30 am to accommodate those with early excursions.

After breakfast, we made our way back to the Queen’s Lounge and received our tour stickers. We were anchored again at this port and would be tendering to town. After a short wait, we headed down to Deck A to board the tender. It was raining and our highs today would be in the 50’s. We then boarded a nice bus and were taken to the Saxman Village which was just a short drive from the port. The tour guide explained how groceries were imported via air or sea. Some women in town had formed a Costco shopping group who put their orders in twice a month and had their items shipped out of Seattle.

Our first stop was to watch a short film about the village.

We then took a short nature trail and walked to one of the largest long houses in Alaska – it was the house of the Beaver clan.

We watched a performance by the Saxman Natives representing many of the different clans: Raven, Eagle, Beaver, Phoenix, etc. They sang some traditional songs, danced, and explained some of their traditions including holding potlatches. At the end, they invited some audience members to put on their traditional regalia and participate in a dance with them.

We headed outside and our tour bus driver explained each of the totems located in front of the house.

We then walked a short distance to the Edwin C Dewitt Carving Center where 2 totem pole carvers were working on their totems. They answered questions and showed us some of the tools that the carvers used.

We then were allowed to shop in the gift shop but were warned at how slow the cash registers were and they weren’t exaggerating. We bought a Saxman village magnet, 2 beautfiful carved candle stick holders, and a set of Alaska placemats. The single cash register was overwhelmed with people trying to make their purchases.

We reboarded the bus and were taken back to town and dropped off near the Lumberjack show. We had a brief scare when we realized that Rhys had left his backpack on the bus but some nice passengers had taken his backpack and returned it to us. We found seats at the show under the shelter which had radiant warmers above which helped take the edge off the chilly weather. We were soon introduced to the 2 “teams” of lumberjacks making up the Spruce Mill team and the Dawson Creek team. Each team consisted of one larger lumberjack and one shorter/smaller lumberjack. They progressed through each of the contests and when one side “won”, a wood chip would be given to the audience. The lumberjacks, chopped, dragged stumps, used chain saws, climbed poles, and had a log rolling contest as we cheered for the Spruce Mill team.

The kids loved cheering on our team and boo-ing the other team. Our team won most of the contests.

After the show, it was almost 11:30 and the last tender back to the ship was at noon. We stopped to use the bathroom and then walked back the 3 or 4 blocks to the ship. One criticism I have about this tour is that there was no transportation provided back to the tender area. If we had had elderly members of our party travelling with us to see the show, I would not have been happy with the walk in the rain back to the pier. When we arrived at the pier, the line was very long and we joined it waiting about 20 minutes to get on a tender. We left the pier at about noon and the line was still quite long to get back to the ship.

We stopped by our cabins to drop things off and then made our way to the dining room for lunch. I had the Alaskan fritters and the hamburger with chipotle sauce.

We had scheduled the premium wine tasting for this afternoon. We sent the kids back to the cabin with Mimi to take a rest and Seth, Papa, and I went to the wine tasting which was considerably smaller than the first one.

There was just one table with about 10 people at this tasting. We tasted 6 items today – a champagne, 2 white, 2 red, and a brown muscat. I liked all of them but don’t really care for the champagne. My favorite was the brown Muscat paired with a small crème brulee. The Rioja red was also excellent paired with a chocolate truffle. I was incredibly tired during the wine tasting and couldn’t wait to get back to the cabin to take a nap. I ran the kids over to the Club at 3 pm and napped until about 5 pm and felt much better.

Tonight was our last Formal night and thankfully the seas were much calmer than the night before.

We got dressed and stopped by to have our portraits taken. I had the Escargot as an appetizer, then the cherry soup which was very good.

For the entrée, I had the Chef’s recommended Osso Buco which was very good but I was absolutely stuffed. They also offered the traditional lobster tail this evening and after the entrees were cleared, they paraded the traditional Baked Alaska around the dining room. We were each served a slice of Baked Alaska for dessert.

I snapped a picture of Krish and Agus after dinner and tipped Krish an extra $20 for his excellent service. I also commented to the head Steward complementing Krish on what a great job he did. Seth and I have been on more than half a dozen cruises and Krish is definitely one of our favorites for being so friendly and efficient.

We stopped by the photo shop and found our pictures – some were quite good but we wanted to wait until our pictures from tonight were processed before purchasing any.

We went to the show this evening entitled “On the Air” which was a song and dance revue through the decades. The performers were quite good but Rhys was extremely tired and quickly fell asleep during the show.

We headed back to the cabin and called it a night. A towel rhino was sitting on Rhys' bed.

I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow I was so tired.

Family Vacation to Alaska - Day 6

Tuesday, 29 May, 2007 – Sitka

We were scheduled to dock in Sitka at 8 am and our excursion was to leave at 8:30. We would be tendering from the ship today. I did get up quite early again and was at the Fitness Center just before it opened at 6 am. I ran for 30 minutes on the treadmill then went back to the cabin right away to get ready for breakfast. We ate at the Lido Restaurant breakfast buffet again then went to the Queen’s Lounge theater to wait for our tender. I waited in line, showed our tickets, and we were issued colored stickers with a number on it. When our color and number were called, we headed down to deck A and onto the tender.

It was raining, of course, and the highs were to be in the low 50’s today. We were scheduled for the Tongass Rain Forest Nature Hike. We got to the pier and stopped to take a few pictures. We were directed across the street and met our tour guide, Bob, who handed out chocolate bars to each of us (locally made) and instantly befriended Amina and Rhys – quite easy to do with chocolates in hand. LOL.

We were also given homemade shoulder bags with a water bottle inside too. These were both very nice touches.

We boarded a van and drove out to the national park as Bob narrated some interesting info about Sitka including pointing out the only 2 stop lights in town primarily for the high school students to learn to recognize when learning to drive.

We saw some eagles along the way and a lonely swan in the estuary who some thought was waiting for its mate who had died. All of the other swans had already migrated away.

We reached the Starrigavan Recreation Area and took the 1.5 mile Mosquito Cove trail which involved quite a few steps but was a relatively easy hike.

Bob put the kids in front as his “Bear Spotters” which moved the hike along at a good clip. He had to reign the kids in from time to time to keep them from getting too far ahead of the group. There were probably 15 people in our group.

We stopped to examine the 2 different kinds of slugs in the area – the banana slug which was huge and native to the area and the black slug which was imported with some building wood. Apparently, the black slugs were proliferating and killing off the banana slugs so Bob gave each of us permission to squash as many black slugs as we liked although he warned that if we did, we’d be taking them home with us because of how slimy they are.

We learned about nurse trees and saw how some of the fallen, rotting trees were homes to new growth and baby trees. We reached Mosquito Cove

and Bob’s student took the kids out to the water’s dge to hunt for crabs.

They lifted various rocks and found the teensy crabs under them and the kids loved turning over the rocks and finding them.

We then headed back to the trail head, stopped to use the bathrooms, then made our way over to the next hike: the Estuary Life trail and the Forest and Muskeg trails. We stopped at the bird lookout over the Estuary but didn’t see many birds. We hiked in the rain through the forest into the Muskeg and it was very obvious when the forest gave way to the Muskeg made up of much smaller trees and lots of water bogs. This part of the hike was shorter – about a mile.

We finished up our hike and got back on the van to return to the pier and took the tender back to the ship to dry off and have some lunch. We stopped off before getting on the tender to see the eagles perched on top of the docked boats.

I threw our jackets into the dryer and we ate lunch at the Lido Restaurant buffet. We were finishing up and bumped into Mimi and Papa who were back from their excursion to the Raptor center and to see the Russian dancers. They enjoyed their excursion. We left them eating lunch and returned to our cabin to collect our things as we wanted to do some shopping in this port.

Seth found a nice t-shirt and Alaskan Brewing Co. cap and I picked an Alaskan Ulu set with chopping bowl and Bear Claws (salad tongs) for Rene. Rhys spent his money on an Alaskan husky mechanical toy. We returned to the ship which was scheduled to leave Sitka at 5 pm. I called American Airline baggage service again after receiving a voicemail inquiring about our luggage. The voice was very snotty sounding asking us to call to confirm whether we had received our bag OR NOT. When I got a hold of an agent who informed us that our case was “closed” again that morning after someone had spoken with us to confirm that we had received our bag the day before, I blew my top. The woman was so flustered that she hung up on me. I angrily called them back and went through the whole story again giving them the itinerary for the rest of the week. I asked for the zillionth time if our bag had even been located never mind trying to get it to us here in Alaska. The woman had “no more information” which was the catch phrase anytime we had called.

At this point, it dawned on me why there might be the discrepancy with our case being open or closed. I called Uncle Tony to find out about our bag and it turns out that our missing bag had been delivered to his house THREE days ago! The airlines had no clue that it was delivered and apparently Uncle Tony had called and left me a voicemail but for whatever reason, I didn’t get it. The mystery was solved and I’m still not impressed with how American Airlines handled this situation having NO RECORD that our bag was located much less already delivered.

We got ready for dinner and headed to the dining room at 5:45 pm instead of our usual 5:30. Tonight, the upper and lower levels were open at the same time because of the special dinner and crew show - it was the Master Chef's Dinner.

Unfortunately, the ship was already rocking wildly and Amina was looking green. I returned to the cabin to get some Bonine and gave one to Rhys, Seth, and ½ to Rhys and for myself. Both kids started feeling sick quickly and didn’t have a chance to even eat their appetizers before I took them back to the cabin. When I returned to the dining room, Seth left for the cabin as well taking some green apples, crackers, and ginger ale for the kids – feeling nauseous and sick. This was the most rocking we had ever experienced on a cruise. Even a steward dropped a tray of wine glasses with a loud crash, passengers were leaving the dining room in droves, and we could frequently hear a large “BOOM” as the ship teetered and tottered in the water and was, what I assumed to be, slammed by a wave. We heard later that the wind exceeded 50 mph and the waves were topping 20 feet.

Mimi, Papa, and I stayed through dessert and watched the crew/chefs show off their foods.

I had the Golden Baked Brie in Phyllo dough and Duck Breast a l’Orange. For dessert, we were given special chef’s hat shaped white chocolate boats with chocolate mousse and a brownie inside.

By this time, I was starting to feel nauseous too.

I returned back to the cabin and found Rhys sitting on the floor in the bathroom hugging the toilet. He had not thrown up but was very nauseous. I gave him some green apple which really did seem to help. I sent Amina back to Mimi and Papa’s room where she climbed immediately into bed and went back to help Rhys get his pajamas on. Just bending over and picking up clothes off the floor sent waves of nausea through me so I got Rhys in bed, changed quickly, and also climbed into bed. I kep the TV on to have something to focus on, drifting in and out of sleep getting nauseous each time I woke up. Finally, by about 11:30 pm, I turned the tv off and fell asleep. I had set the alarm early because we had a very early excursion and were to meet at 7 am.

Family Vacation to Alaska - Day 5

Monday, 28 May, 2007 – Glacier Bay

I hit the fitness center again this morning at about 6:15 am and used the elliptical machine then lifted weights for about 25 minutes. We had already entered the Bay and I spotted otters, whales, and birds on the water. Pretty cool. I returned to the cabin at about 7:30 and soon our breakfast arrived. I don’t remember Seth and I utilizing room service when we last cruised on HAL – of course, we were pretty “green” then and not the seasoned cruisers we are now. ;-) Room service was great and on time each morning. I ate my usual cereal with 2% milk, sliced bananas, coffee, and fruit. I got showered and we then headed up to the Lido restaurant to meet up with Mimi, Papa, and Amina. Rhys ate breakfast again with them and then we moved to the aft deck to “stake out” our spots for viewing Glacier Bay.

While I was on the elliptical machine, I watched as a small boat pulled up to the ship carrying the Park Service Rangers and Tlingit interpreter who would be spending the day on our ship narrating and telling us about the glaciers that we would be seeing today. We had “Ranger Rick” doing most of the narrating over the ship’s PA system. We first saw the Lanplugh glacier and saw a small part of it calving.

As we studied the glaciers, we were purchased HAL coffee mugs which they filled with hot chocolate and we were also given bowls of Dutch pea soup which I enjoyed immensely.

It was chilly out again – high 40’s, low 50’s today but it was mostly clear and dry. Our next viewing was the Johns Hopkins glacier then the Margerie and Grand Pacific glaciers.

As we came upon the Margerie glacier there were 2 episodes of calving – a smaller one followed by a much larger one. It was awesome and almost on cue.

The Grand Pacific glacier was covered in black silt.

As we were cruising to the Margerie glacier, Ranger Rick pointed out 3 brown bears on the mountain side which were tricky to see but we were thrilled that we had finally seen some bears.

After viewing all of the glaciers, we packed our things up and went for lunch in the dining room. They were setting up for an Alaskan salmon bake on the Lido deck but we wanted to eat in the dining room today. I stopped by to take a picture of the largest pie I’ve ever seen (or maybe it was cobbler).

In the dining room, I had the peach soup which was delicious.

It seemed like all of the fruit based soups were very tasty. I went with the gourmet burger and fries which was very good.

After lunch, Rhys went to the kids’ Club to meet the park rangers while Amina went with Mimi and Papa to the National Park Rangers and Tlinglit Hoonah Interpreter presentation at 2:15. I parked myself in the library and worked on my journal and actually took a brief nap too. At 4 pm, I picked Rhys up from Club HAL and we went back to the cabin to change as the kids were dying to go swimming.

We went up to the 8th deck, Lido, and snapped some pictures by the bears in the pool.

It was quite chilly – the air temp outside being only in the low 50’s. The ceiling of the pool area is retractable but was actually partially open this afternoon. Nevertheless, the kids enjoyed themselves hopping in and out of the pool and hot tub.

The pool was heated. As they were swimming, they did slide the ceiling closed with a loud metallic thud. At 5 pm, we headed back to the cabin to get ready for dinner.

This evening was a casual evening and we were treated to Dutch night. We all donned our Dutch caps – black caps for the boys and white ones for the ladies – and took pictures.

I did remember to take pictures of the menu this evening.

This evening I tried the crab and artichoke dip which was very good.

I had another bowl of Dutch pea soup which I had really enjoyed up on deck this morning. For the entrée, I chose Nasi Goreng Rijstaffel which was an Indonesian combination plate with Indonesian fried rice, spicy chicken drumstick, beef Sumatra, prawn crackers, and a fried banana.

It was absolutely delicious – spicy but not too spicy. I remarked to Krish, our dining steward, that this was my favorite entrée of the entire trip thus far. He mentioned that this was the food that he frequently ate for breakfast each morning. You really can’t go wrong in a dining room full of Indonesians ordering Indonesian food. For dessert, I had the Bananas Foster which was very good.

This evening we split up from the kids sending Rhys to Club HAL and Amina with Mimi and Papa to see the show. Seth and I wanted to catch the movie in the theater this evening at 8:00 pm. We missed the complimentary popcorn. Krish had mentioned that for dinner tomorrow night the crew was planning a special show/presentation “not to be missed”. It was the Master Chef dinner but we were scheduled to have dinner at the Pinnacle Grill. Seth and I stopped off at the Pinnacle Grill and changed our reservations for a second time to Thursday evening at 6 pm. Since this was our evening in Victoria and many people were going ashore on excursions, we had no trouble changing our reservations. We had no plans to leave the ship this evening since we were docking so late.

We watched Freedom Writers in the Wajang theater which was very good. It resembled Morgan Freeman’s “Lean on Me” somewhat and starred Hilary Swank who, at times, seemed a little too girlish and cheerleader-like. It was based on a true story and was inspiring. We returned to the cabin after the movie and called it a night. A very relaxing day with wonderful views of glaciers that we’d not seen before.