First trip to the final frontier - 8 night Alaska - 9/11/23 - completed

[ukintheus]

Welcome aboard on our very first adventure to Alaska! We have wanted to do an Alaskan cruise for what seems like forever, and the stars finally aligned for us and the planning began. Here is a goofy photo of the two of us that sums up this cruise. We had so much fun!!

This cruise started as an inaugural Wish sailing in July 2022 that ultimately was cancelled by DCL as the Wish sailings were pushed. I was torn between being disappointed and relieved as a) the Wish sailings were outrageously priced and b) my Mum’s health wasn’t great during that timeframe. But the real bonus was that we got 50% off a future cruise by leaving our deposit along with the placeholder, and it was a fairly easy decision to maximize that 50% off by using it for the pricey Alaska itineraries. We struggled with deciding between a summer sailing (warmer) and September knowing that it would be chilly for us as we are from south Texas, but ultimately the savings for September and the fact there was an 8 night cruise stopping in Sitka were the deciding factors and we pulled the plug on this last sailing of the season in March of 2023.

And so we patiently waited for September to roll around, especially as Texas had record heat for the entire summer. Those cooler Alaska temperatures were calling us all summer long as we hit triple digits for almost 2 consecutive months!

Our itinerary and excursions as planned:

Saturday, September 9th – Travel to Vancouver
Sunday, September 10th – Vancouver
Monday, September 11th – Embarkation
Tuesday, September 12th – At Sea
Wednesday, September 13th – Glacier Day: Excursion booked: Glacier Explorer $299 pp (DCL only)
Thursday, September 14th – Skagway: Glacier Discovery Helicopter Tour (Alaska Shore Tours) $379 pp + tax $795.90 ($479 pp with DCL $958 – savings of $162.10)
Friday, September 15th – Juneau: Taku Glacier Lodge Feast & 5-Glacier Discovery Seaplane (Alaska Shore Tours) $430 pp + tax $903.00 ($499 pp with DCL $998 – savings $95)
Saturday, September 16th – Sitka
Sunday, September 17th – Ketchikan
Monday, September 18th – At Sea
Tuesday, September 19th – Debarkation travel to Houston

To finish up on boring pre-trip stuff, I have to mention the clothes that I spent hours researching on the internet before our adventures - you can see most of them in the photo above. As I’ve said (plenty of times before ) we live in south Texas, we don’t do cold and we don’t spend much time in the rain, therefore our existing wardrobe needed to be expanded for this trip for sure. Here’s what I ended up buying us both and the resulting useful/waste of space and/or money. We did both have knitted beanies already and mine was hand knitted by my Mum so it was extra-special.

Columbia Bugaboo 3 in 1 jackets: The bomb – we both loved them. The fleece layer was nice to be able to separate and wear individually and the outer shell was waterproof and we needed it a couple of days.

Vessi waterproof shoes: Loved them – mine fit tighter than Scott’s and I need a shoe horn to get them on but we both found them comfortable enough to do a lot of walking and in the rain our feet never got wet.

Gloves: Scott’s were better than mine as mine where chenille and started to fall apart from all the pulling off and on I was doing in order to use my phone. Waterproof/resistant and able to use a cell phone with them on would have been better.

Waterproof cases for phones: Complete waste of money – we never used them.

Water resistant backpack: Lightweight and easy to pack when not in use. A waterproof one would probably have been better in some ways, but the ability to fold this one up to pack it outweighed that. It dried really quickly once we were back on the ship.

Inexpensive thermal leggings for me: Loved them – I wish I had taken another pair at least – I basically lived in them.

Quick-dry pants for both of us: Used them almost every day as they also acted as a windbreak in addition to keeping the rain off the pants we wore underneath.

OK, boring stuff is all done....to be continued with interesting stuff. LOL

 

[bcwife76]

Woohoo, first note! You KNOW I've been waiting for this one And yes I stink, I haven't written one for our Europe cruise

 

[disneyfaninaz]

I'm here! Can't wait to read your report. We've done 2 9-night Alaska cruises to Sitka!

 

[FamilyHolidayPlanner]

Following along in preparation for our Alaska cruise next August . Looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

 

[ukintheus]

Woohoo, first note! You KNOW I've been waiting for this one And yes I stink, I haven't written one for our Europe cruise

I was hoping to get further than I did. Oh well. I'd love to hear all about your European cruise but I get it that sometimes these just take a lot of time to put together. Maybe you could just post photos.

I'm here! Can't wait to read your report. We've done 2 9-night Alaska cruises to Sitka!

We loved Sitka. I'm pretty sure I read all the trip reports I could find before we left on this cruise.

Following along in preparation for our Alaska cruise next August . Looking forward to hearing more about your trip!

I did the same thing, it's helpful to see what others have done as everyone does things a little differently.

I will get some more done tomorrow, I just got busy at work today when I wasn't planning to.

 

[ukintheus]

Saturday, September 9th – Travel to Vancouver.

We got our packing done the night before except for the few last-minute liquidy things and it didn’t take long for us to get our two pieces of checked luggage finalized and our carry-on bags situated. We had a taxi booked for 6:45 am and were away from the house with a last minute flurry as the taxi arrived about 30 minutes early and we did our best to scramble and be ready to go by 6:30 am.

We had both been and got Global Entry for this trip and I had also pre-filed our arrival with the ArriveCAN app (awesome by the way ) so we were hoping for some good juju with our travel. With it being relatively early on a Saturday and our PreCheck status we got through security really fast, grabbed some snacks and water for the plane and were at the gate and waiting by just before 8 am for our 9:45 am flight.

The inbound plane arrived on time and boarding was hassle-free despite it being a full flight, and we settled into our seats for the 4ish hour flight direct to Vancouver. ✈

Scott had downloaded stuff to his ipad to watch and I had a book to read but I kept up with the map to see where we were and I think I maybe read one paragraph of my book, I'm not very good at concentrating when there is potential excitement ahead.

The flight showed that it was from Newark the entire way, despite the inbound plane not even coming from there…who knows , but by now we were about an hour out of Vancouver and had flown over some beautiful mountain ranges that I had managed to sneak a peak of out of the window despite the guy sitting next to me in the window seat.

We arrived on time and were soon on our way through the airport. It’s a really nice airport to arrive into compared to Houston, who seem to do nothing special except continually have parts of the airport shutdown with construction.

We made it! First time in Canada for both of us.

Getting through the Vancouver airport was pretty easy with the ArriveCAN stuff already done as they had special lanes dedicated to it and facial recognition machines that worked pretty well. We waited a short while for luggage and then stood in a fairly long line that was basically just everyone turning in their arrival slip of paperwork that the machines had spit out. Two people were collecting the pieces of paper for everyone that was trying to exit baggage claim - seems like that could be a little better thought out. That said, within an hour of landing we were out of baggage claim, through the bustle of people outside, and in a taxi and on our way to the Pinnacle Harbor Front hotel.

And the weather was AMAZING!! The taxi driver had the windows wound down and we got our first experience of being out of hotter-n-heck Texas.

We snapped all kinds of photos on our way to the hotel but all of them came out blurry or insignificant and I already am going to be in photo overload on this trip report, so they got nixed. It took a while to get from the airport and traffic was backed up significantly, which apparently is completely normal for Vancouver. It was strange to be in a big city and the roads be all side roads on major routes – so different from Texas where freeways are the norm. We made it to the hotel at just gone 2:15 pm, got checked in and were told our room was ready. The travel day really couldn’t have gone more smoothly and we were relaxed and just happy to be there!

The view from our room was great, although if you zoomed out a bit this is what we could really see.

Here are my random thoughts about the hotel because I had second guessed myself crazy about staying here. The Pan Pacific was almost $1400 for the two nights , and so was the Fairmont across the street from it. Those prices were just too crazy to justify staying there and the Pinnacle Harbor Front was a few blocks away but came in considerably cheaper at $786 for a harbor view king room. Verdict: Very glad that we saved the money. Everything we wanted to do was in easy walking distance and the hotel was nice enough for our needs and I would definitely book there again. Here I am taking the above photos.

Reviews were that the hotel was dated, but we didn’t think it was bad. We were glad that we could open the sliding windows though as the weather was beautiful and the room stunk of weed. It took a good 12+ hours to air it out.

Our views looking back towards the cruise terminal area.

Canada Place is on the very far left in this photo.

We got a few things unpacked, although our plan was to just work out of the suitcases basically, and then we headed out to explore and find a bite to eat. A 5 minute walk found us down at the harbor.



It was busy with a few cruise ships in port plus it seemed everyone and their dog (literally - it seemed like everyone had a dog! ) were just out enjoying the day. We continued to walk towards Canada Place. By this point I was well and truly in love with Vancouver, its beautiful weather and gorgeous mountains.

The seaplanes were a big attraction to watch coming and going, we could see and hear them from our room as well.

Following the harbor wall around brought us to Canada Place and the cruise terminal.

It was now about 3:30 pm and we had two things on our mind. One was food, the other was booze! @bcwife76 had been kind enough to give me all kinds of tips for this trip and she had let me know there was a liquor store very close to the cruise terminal so that was where we planned to buy our wine.

As we came away from Canada Place we spied a Tim Hortons which of course is a Canadian staple, and so that was our first stop for coffee and a quick bite to eat. It was some type of pastry with herb filling and it hit the spot although I explained to Scott they are really known for their donuts, but we didn’t fancy any of them. Service here was slow though and we sat and enjoyed being amused by how slow the servers could actually be if they really put their minds to it. They also made zero eye contact, ever, so that was pretty interesting when Scott tried to get sugar and a stirrer out of them – he basically had to wave his hands to even get them to recognize he was standing there. But nothing was ruining the great mood of being on vacation and we had wine to shop for so...there's that.

With something in our tummies, we were ready to acquire the required wine for the cruise and get back to the hotel. The liquor store was suprisingly busy but we found four bottles of wine that looked good and got out of there. We were back at the hotel by 5 pm where we watched two of the three cruise ships leave. Princess went out first.

Then this unusual looking little gem, who apparently does river cruises (according to Google.)

The sea planes were coming and going really frequently by now as day excursions were ending (I’m assuming).

To be continued…

 

[ukintheus]

Dinner was next on the agenda and I had found some places close to the hotel when I was researching Vancouver. All of the restaurants down by the harbor were packed seeing as the weather was so nice, but I had found an Indian place called Indian Delicacy that was close to the hotel and we decided to give it a try. It was just gone 5 pm when we headed out to find it, and it didn’t take long to get there, maybe 5 minutes. Easy.

It was nothing fancy, but it was quiet and away from all the hustle and bustle. There were a couple of other tables with people there but it seemed like most of its business came from take out services like Door Dash.

And, finally, here are our first drinks of the trip!! I can’t believe it took us this long, but here they are, white wine for me and beer for Scott. He was a bit disappointed they didn’t have any Indian beers but this one worked in a pinch.

Samosas for a starter (half eaten before I remembered to take a photo – sorry about that ) and then a couple of curries although I’m not remembering what they were. We ended up with way too much food as we had a bit of trouble with the servers and understanding them, but the food was really good and we enjoyed it even though we couldn't eat it all.

We knew that if we went straight back to the hotel we would be toast for the night (Houston time zone was 2 hours ahead of us) and so we decided to take a stroll around for a bit longer and walk off some food as well as try and push ourselves to stay awake longer. Just walking around was so interesting and the city really is lovely.

There were so many parks and open spaces along this whole stretch of the harbor, you could spend ages just ambling around them. We did a ton of walking both days we were here but it was so nice just to be able to stroll around.

I will add in here that I had been prepared for the homelessness that we saw, there wasn’t anything that was shocking to us really, but what I hadn’t been prepared for was that weed is completely legal and everyone was smoking it everywhere! Scott, whose nose is completely useless, said he couldn’t smell a thing – I could smell it everywhere we walked.

Pretty views over the harbor of the mountains.

And the trees were gorgeous to see, especially seeing as we had spent the last two months basically trying to save all of ours from dying of drought.

Back full circle to where the sea planes go out of.

And back here again.

We stood watching the planes offloading for a while, it was good people watching.

And then we were back close to where we needed to head off to the hotel, so another quick photo before we left.

We decided to get a drink before heading up to the room (and I forgot to get a photo) on the patio of the hotel. It was overlooking the street and some high-rises but it was just nice to be able to enjoy the gorgeous weather (please don't count how many times I've mentioned the weather ). We met a really nice waitress there who we enjoyed talking to about the crazy-expensive cost of living in Vancouver. Hmm...maybe it’s not for me after all . Two glasses of wine later we called it quits and headed up to the room.

Having figured out our rough day tomorrow for Stanley Park I snapped these couple of photos before we finally flaked out at about 9:30 pm after a really great first day. We figured we had done pretty well staying up that late and were hopeful of a good time zone adjustment and a comfy night of sleep.

Coming up: Stanley Park...and we're walking...and walking...

 

[disneyfaninaz]

I love Vancouver and the harbor area is a great place to walk around. No trip to Vancouver is complete without a trip to Tim Horton's. We walked to them before both our cruises just to get the maple donuts!

The pot smell would have driven me crazy!

 

[ukintheus]

I love Vancouver and the harbor area is a great place to walk around. No trip to Vancouver is complete without a trip to Tim Horton's. We walked to them before both our cruises just to get the maple donuts!

The pot smell would have driven me crazy!

We should have got a maple donut just to say we did. We didn't. Vancouver was amazing - I could easily go back for a vacation there and the pot smell wasn't awful but it was just strange for it to be so openly used - Texas is super-conservative about it so we just aren't used to it.

 

[ukintheus]

Sunday, September 10th - Vancouver

We both had a good night of sleep and woke up to the pretty view of the harbor feeling relaxed and rested.

Scott made a coffee using the in-room coffee maker and we took our time getting ready to go to Stanley Park. We had looked into bike rentals and decided that “if” we were going to rent bikes we would do it closer to the park. I had found a horse-drawn carriage tour that took you around so that was also on the short list of options. We decided to skip breakfast in the hotel as it was pricey and we just wanted a bite really and so we headed out at about 9:15 am.

It was shaping up to be another great day weather-wise. We got so lucky, and I promise I will try and not mention the weather for at least a few more paragraphs! It’s an easy walk around the harbor wall to get to Stanley Park although it’s slightly longer to go that way, but we enjoyed the scenery and the relaxed vibe.

We found a café close to the marina called Caviar Bistro that had a small outside seating area where we stopped and got a couple of coffees and we split a croissant and a pork belly breakfast sandwich. I didn’t get any photos here. It was a lazy kind of Sunday and we were enjoying every minute of it. Food in bellies we continued our walk and as we got closer we found ourselves with a bunch of folks heading the same way.

We debated bikes, but decided to take the horse drawn carriage tour instead. We bought our tickets and had about a half hour wait for the 11 am tour. The website has these listed as it’s highlights: Deadman's Island, Vancouver's Harbour, Lions Gate Bridge, a Coastal Red Cedar Forest, and includes stops at the Totem Poles, the Girl in a Wet Suit Statue, the S.S. Empress of Japan Figurehead, and the Rose Garden.

These guys were very chill, and they seemed very well taken care of.

Our tour guide was funny and she did a good job of keeping us all entertained. Plus there was a Canadian man sitting in front of us who was good aboot (<- had to ) chiming in and helping her out with her banter. The first stop was at the totem poles. We had about five minutes to take some quick pics which was probably a few minutes shorter than we would have liked/needed (someone has a DSLR and it takes a while ), but it was good enough.

There were quite a few people there, so getting photos without anyone in them was challenging and you really didn’t have long enough to read about the various totem poles, but it was good enough for been there/done that.

The tour cut through the middle part of the park and over to the other shoreline. We did stop at the Girl in a Wetsuit statue but not to be able to get out, this was true of all the other “stops”, they were basically a pause to take photos.



Lions Gate Bridge



I know Scott got photos of everything but I don’t see the Empress of Japan figurehead in there so who knows. LOL

Rose Gardens – I must add that all the gardens looked really pretty and worth a walk around.

I think this was part of the "cedar forest” but the tour guide told us that these trees have grown out of an existing stump and there was a name of it, but I’ve forgotten it now – my brain can only hold so many useless facts at a time and apparently I’ve exceeded my limit!

A statue of Robert Burns (I’m forgetting the significance)

And finally a memorial to Queen Victoria

The tour took about an hour and it was a way to get an overview of the park. If we ever make it back we would definitely want to see more, but we were happy with our nice, relaxed day and so we began to stroll back to the hotel along the harbor wall. Decision making wasn’t our thing today and we ended up back in our room where we attempted to watch the Nascar race via ipad seeing as it wasn’t on the TV and we chilled out for a couple of hours.

The Celebrity Eclipse headed out at about 4:30 pm while we were getting ready for dinner.

Tonight we had a reservation at Cardero’s which was going back in the direction towards Stanley Park, but again totally walkable. I had made it for 5 pm as I wasn’t sure how our time change would be going but it worked out well because we hadn’t eaten since our breakfast and we were hungry (and not to mention thirsty – zero drinks yet today! )

We had a nice table overlooking the marina and our waiter was a really nice guy, which pretty much summed up most of the people we met in Vancouver (except you, Timmy Horton’s peeps – you didn’t make the list. )

The specials all looked really good, which is not surprising as the paper menu itself was looking fairly edible to me by now.

We ended up going with a local wine that the waiter helped us pick out – really good too!

Not a great photo of us, and also a dead soldier plate in there that we forgot to take a photo of which had been Crispy Green Beans – as I mentioned – we were hungry!

I got the Wild B.C. Halibut and Scott got the Wild B.C. Soho Salmon. We traded half way through, which became a regular thing for us on this trip – sharing is caring. Both were really good and tasty.

It was a really enjoyable meal and the restaurant was casual but with really good food so it worked perfectly for us. We rolled out of there and wandered back along the harbor to the hotel where the bar called our name for dessert drinks. Plus it was only 7:30 pm so we really needed to up our game if we weren’t going to crater too early.

Manhattan for him and an Old Fashioned for me.

We reluctantly called it a night at about 8 pm and went up to find something on TV to keep us awake, which didn’t happen. I know I was asleep before 9 pm despite swearing I could stay awake.

Coming up: Time to get on the ship!

 

[bcwife76]

I'm so glad the weather was great for your pre cruise days here in Vancouver. Mid September is usually pretty good, but hey in the PNW you just never know
That service is par for the course at Tim's, not just the location you visited. We rarely go to any location now, the food quality and service has gone down hill so much the past decade or so.

Glad you found the liquor store ok and that the Pinnacle Harbour worked out well!

 

[ukintheus]

I'm so glad the weather was great for your pre cruise days here in Vancouver. Mid September is usually pretty good, but hey in the PNW you just never know
That service is par for the course at Tim's, not just the location you visited. We rarely go to any location now, the food quality and service has gone down hill so much the past decade or so.

Glad you found the liquor store ok and that the Pinnacle Harbour worked out well!

Your ears had to have been burning the whole time we were in Vancouver...."the lady from the Disney boards" was basically how I explained everything to Scott. Everything worked out great, thanks for all the tips!!

 

[ukintheus]

Monday, September 11th – Embarkation Day!

The good news about falling asleep early last night was that I was up really early and was able to check on the progress of the Wonder as she came into port. The bad news is that I was up REALLY early, like 4 am, LOL and had ages to wait as she sllllloooooowwwwwlllly made her way in. Finally, at about 6:15 am I could see her coming past Deadman’s Island and I got “all the feels” of seeing our favorite ship again.

Scott was sound asleep and I was trying to be as quiet as I could all while rustling in and out of the curtains so I’m sure he was just playing possum at this point.

Pretty much right before 6:30 am when she was going past us. I know the Pan Pacific people got better views than this, but I’ll keep my $700 in my wallet and happily post these.

I finally managed to make enough noise to wake Scott up and we began to get ready and throw the last of our toiletries in. We had managed to stay awake long enough last night to get the wine in our carry-on – priorities! LOL We decided to go and grab some breakfast and coffee from the restaurant in the hotel, and we met the same waitress who had served us drinks on Saturday night. So nice and friendly. No photos of food or her though. The weather was “iffy” and we had been watching some people walking with umbrellas while we were debating between grabbing a taxi or Uber or just walking to the port with our luggage. In the end, as we walked out of the hotel at about 10:15 am, we made the decision just to walk, and it ended up being really easy and we didn’t get wet at all.

We hadn’t really tried to figure out where we needed to go while we wandered around on Saturday, so this morning it was a case of just figure it out. Thankfully, Scott is really good at “figuring it out” and we found the ramp down to the entrance of the terminal to drop our bags. It was very easy, there very few people there, and someone was directing you where to go next. We made it to the check in area at about 10:45 am.

By 11 am we were all checked in and sitting in the waiting area. This was our first time as Pearl since they made the new Castaway Club status changes, so we could arrive at any time and our boarding group number was 2. I got logged into ship wifi and checked the navigator and Scott wandered around.

Scott noticed that they had a Silver Anniversary at Sea backdrop in the terminal and we went and got our photo taken, but I couldn’t remember our cabin number and so it never did show up on our cruise photographs. Oh well. We have this one as we walked onto the ship instead.

It was about 11:45 am when we boarded, which went smoothly (compared to Port Canaveral where I will never get over the people who block the entrance…ever! ) and we were met by a couple of characters in their Shimmering Seas outfits. To be honest, it was a complete coincidence that this ended up being a Silver Anniversary cruise, and it didn’t make any difference to us.

We are ON!!! Fun times ahead!

There was a brief discussion about where to have lunch but Tiana’s wasn’t sounding good and we just wanted to graze what they had in Cabanas, so up to Deck 9 we went. Quick photo just because.

Scott’s randomness of choices

And mine…it rarely happens that I don’t see these photos afterwards and think…what was I thinking?? So many choices and this is what I came up with?!?! I do remember that the lamb wasn’t that great and the beef was a lot of fat and not much else, but the fries were good!

But who needs food when you can walk outside and get these? Scott’s was an Alaskan Amber and mine was a Pina Colava…and they were both delicious!!

We sat up on deck 9 for a while and watched the world go by. Specifically the refueling tanker.

They had told us at check in that our cabins would be ready at 2 pm, and although that seemed a bit later than usual we weren’t in any hurry and so it was gone 2 pm when we made our way down to check out our cabin for the week. Deck 7, and yes, we usually stay on Deck 6 on the Wonder, but I changed it up…I know..wild!! We had this Castaway Club bag…

And right next to it was another, identical Castaway Club bag but this one was inside a pink bag along with some goodies inside that were duplicated. So strange. We got two towels, two dry bags and two Pearl cups (that I forgot to get a photo of). And, of course, the new lanyards (that I wasn’t super fond of as the huge Mickey head attached to the bottom was a bit cumbersome to just stick in a pocket.)

Our digs for the next 8 nights looked pretty good. A small bit of wear and tear here and there but overall the cabin was in great condition as usual and despite being one floor up, it felt like “home.”

Interestingly we already had a notice about our Glacier Explorer excursion where they are mainly making sure that you know that for your $300 per person tour you may see the ship getting pretty close as well, and, you may not get to see the intended glacier at all. I had seen a Youtube video from someone this past summer complaining about that exact thing, and so that left me going hmmmm….

Time to move on to much more interesting stuff and I got our door magnets put up. All of the images are courtesy of way more talented people than me, and I just print them, laminate them and throw magnets on the back for which I am very grateful.

And here we are in Vancouver!

We were going to head out to explore a bit but our luggage had already turned up outside so we got everything unpacked before making our way to muster, which is sadly back to being in person. I loved the virtual one, it was so nice and easy!

Coming up…sail away.

 

[ukintheus]

We were a little late getting up to Deck 10 for the sail away party due to 1. Unpacking and 2. Stopping at Pinocchio’s to grab a drink , and so we tucked away on the far rail to watch everything as best we could without really minding if we didn’t.

It seemed about the same as the usual Sail a Wave party although maybe they threw the Shimmering Seas song in there, to be honest I can’t remember.

Quick pic of the Canadian flag.

A photographer came around, which I’ve never recalled seeing before, and was a nice bonus seeing as we got the photo package “for free” this time around as a Pearl benefit. I’m so glad my reusable water mug got in on the act (front right) as this was the first time we had taken them and we swore we’d never go Disney again without one.

Almost 4:30 pm and we were pushing away from the pier, they were sneaky though and we almost missed it! (Despite standing right next to the rail, which is kind of embarrassing.)

Vancouver made a great back drop to sail away from.

We had seen these mounds of sulfur a couple of times, especially from Stanley Park, but they really stood out today. I know someone told us the story about them, but I also know that I don’t remember it!

Sailing around Stanley Park…very cool indeed.

It was pretty crowded with people wanting to get photos of going under Lions Gate bridge. Which also reminds me as I write this, that there were a LOT of adults on the trip and very few children, it reminded me of Panama Canal a bit.

Scott was able to get this good zoomed in photo of people waving, especially seeing as I didn’t see them at all.

Busy top deck.

Once we were under the bridge we were sailing into bigger waterways with a view we are much more familiar with….tankers.

There were some type of something…porpoises maybe? that we could see as we sailed out but they were fast, just under the water, and very hard to get on camera. We still don’t really know what we saw. And, as another not-our-normal cruise move, we were on first seating this time around! It was something else that I fretted about constantly before we left, but I just couldn’t see us making an 8:15 pm dinner every night with the time change difference and enjoying it. And so here we were ambling off to our 5:45 pm dinner which tonight was in Tiana’s and had the Let the Magic Begin menu with some stuff that was new to us which is always nice.

Pretty much every night we ordered something we both wanted and then switched half way through for appetizers and entrees. Tonight we had the Alaskan Crab Cakes and the Fried Spiced Calamari followed by Roasted Alaskan Salmon Filet and Pork Tenderloin Wrapped in Pastry.

We both agreed the calamari and pork got top vote, the salmon and crab cake were just OK. Time for dessert but I’m forgetting what we got and the outside of a menu photo is oh-so-helpful…ugg! Mango cheesecake I think, and some type of crumbly fruit something based on the photo.

 

[ukintheus]

It was shortly after 7 pm when we got finished and we went back to the cabin to take a look at what would end up being the best sunset that we saw of the cruise.

Sunset over, it was about 8:15 pm and we needed to stay awake a bit longer, so we went and checked out Crown & Fin. It was pretty quiet in there with second seating started, and we are so used to it being busy at night, it was strange.

Manhattan for him and Old Fashioned for me…not exactly straying from our comfort zone.

It was a one and done for us as there was nothing going on and we had had enough of trying to make small talk with each other. We stopped on our way up the stairs at about 9 pm to see what everyone was up to. Daisy was showing up her Shimmering Seas outfit in the atrium.

Donald, on the other hand was getting into some kind of trouble trying to move boxes with a hand cart, and at one point the CM with him genuinely looked a bit nervous as boxes were about to topple everywhere. I have no clue if it was genuine or not, but it looked funny.

And lastly Cinders was stalking kids outside the kids club. She had a hard time getting anyone to talk to her as they all stood there just staring, and, did I mention there were hardly any kids.

We called it a night and got ourselves tucked into the sooooo comfy bed. It was a bit warm in the cabin (and we had the AC on as cold as it would go every night) so we opened the verandah door for a bit to cool the cabin off. I know it’s a no-no but we ended up doing this almost every night to get the cabin good and chilly. Rebels.

Coming up: At sea day

 

[bcwife76]

haha the Lady from the Disboards, that's me I actually did think of you guys a couple of times that weekend wondering how you were getting on ;-)

Glad the weather was decent for sailaway that day, beautiful sunset photos!

 

[tennesseemo]

As usual, I love reading your trip reports! Always makes me smile. The scenery in Vancouver was gorgeous!! I’m surprised at you guys changing up some things, like dinner time , but I bet it worked out well with the time zones. Can’t wait to read the rest

 

[ukintheus]

As usual, I love reading your trip reports! Always makes me smile. The scenery in Vancouver was gorgeous!! I’m surprised at you guys changing up some things, like dinner time , but I bet it worked out well with the time zones. Can’t wait to read the rest

I'm glad we did early dining, late would have just been too late for us with the 3 hour time change after leaving Vancouver.

 

[ukintheus]

Tuesday, September 12th – At Sea Day

We started our lazy at sea day off with a nice relaxing start to the morning and didn’t get up until about 8 am. The weather was decent, not raining and not too cold but the sun had disappeared.

We (meaning me ) ordered room service instead of fighting the crowds at Cabanas plus we had Palo brunch at 11 am so we didn’t want much anyway. Lazy sea days are just the best!

And then, for some reason (which continued throughout this cruise by the way) we decided to stop being lazy and go for a walk. Shocker I know! A lot of times we just felt that we were limited on what we were seeing from the verandah, and Miss FOMO had to make sure there wasn’t a massive pod of whales on the other side of the ship that we couldn’t see. We went down to Deck 4 and took a (very) leisurely walk around.

There wasn’t much to see and because we had to get ready for brunch we did about 30 minutes and then headed inside to go back to the cabin. Greetings and Meetings were in progress but the lines didn’t seem too long.

Our room had already been cleaned by the time we got back. Our host was “excellent” on this trip and I’m forgetting his name (I’ll try to remember add it in later). He had just got back from vacation the day that we left so I was feeling a bit sorry for him – I know it’s so hard on them when they just get back. He also left us this notice about the Castaway Club reception which was being held tomorrow, Glacier Day, at 9:30 am, plus the usual stuff about CC gifts etc.

We got ourselves tarted up a bit, although we hadn’t packed anything “fancy” for this trip as we really needed to minimize packing space, and we got to Palo right on time – not exactly difficult when everything is a few minutes away.

I had called yesterday and requested Duan as our server. She’s about the only Palo server that we know/remember any more, as so many of the crew has moved around since the launch of the Wish. Anyway, we were seated in her section and Scott dutifully got this photo of the plate before it was whisked away.

This is much more like us…drinks before noon.

The parade of food began with the breads and the pastries. We tried really hard not to eat too much but it’s just too tempting and those almond croissants are soooo good. I could pass up the sticky buns any day for those croissants.

We got both of the antipasti and shared them. Scott ate all the seafood though if I remember right – I know I didn’t eat the cold mussel…bleckk….I also know that I ate all the cheese.

Scott got the Tomato and Onion Omlet and I got Eggs Benedict (because it’s delicious, even though I always get the same thing).

We followed it up with the Red Snapper for Scott and the Mushroom Ravioli for me, which, I admit I wasn’t paying real attention when I ordered, and thought this was artichoke ravioli (my favorite), so this didn’t quite hit the spot the way my brain was expecting it to if that makes sense.

We got the Panna Cotta and Zabaglione for dessert and Tuan threw in a Limoncello Torte because she said it’s her favorite. They changed up the Panna Cotta a bit from the last time we were at Palo (which was ages ago – 18 months maybe?) It was still good but the Zabaglione was our favorite.

All done with stuffing our faces we went back down to the cabin to change and see if the weather looked like it would improve at all. Based on the people walking past Palo it was drizzling and breezy the whole time we were in there. Yup, still the same.

Normally, this would be where we would flop onto the bed, put on a movie and act like beached whales for a good couple of hours. However, there was the potential for us to see REAL whales outside and so that spurred us into getting ourselves Alaskafied and getting out onto Deck 4 to see what there was to see.

Not exactly the majestic sweeping view, but we were game to just keep walking around Deck 4 as it was dry and as long as you just kept circling you could check out both sides of the ship.

About half an hour later our patience paid off and we spotted a pod of humpback whales not too far from the ship. It was so cool because there was hardly anybody else down there for quite a while, and I’m glad Scott had his camera as the cell phone just didn’t capture them very well. Then the Captain came on and announced that the whales were there and several more people showed up, but by the time they announced it the whales had pretty much gone, and everyone that had piled out to look were a bit disappointed.

I was really happy we got to see them as we didn’t have any whale watching tours booked, but this checked the box for me and I could happily say that we saw whales in Alaska. Check! Happy whale-spotters.

 

[ukintheus]

We continued to walk around “just in case” but we didn’t see any others. The scenery was beginning to change as we were closer to land and Scott got a few nicer photos as the low clouds began to lift.

We decided to go up to Deck 10 as there was definitely more to see now that the cloud was clearing, and this was such a cool place to sail through. Also, fun fact (not really) we only used the elevators twice the entire trip. Fun fact #2, we discovered if you exercise even slightly during a cruise you don’t gain anywhere near as much weight.

Mountain tops from the back of the ship.

And Mountain tops from the front of the ship.

We decided we had probably done enough walking as it had been a couple of hours and it was now about 4:30 pm, so we headed back to the cabin and promptly got onto the verandah to watch outside some more. We did see a few more whales in the distance while we were out there but they were too far away to get good photos.

Hmm…threatening but never actually did anything.

Diligent whale watching while talking to the neighbors who were on their first cruise with their Dad and Mom. He celebrated his 91st birthday on the ship, (#lifegoal) and his daughter had been in the FB group and people dropped cards and stuff off into a gift bag hanging on the door the whole cruise. I had put some magnets on their door as a surprise on the first day.

Reminder that we turned the clocks back an hour tonight before we headed out to dinner.

There was a photographer by the stairs on our way down so we stopped and got a photo. I’m going to be a negative nelly here, but it’s hard to find a photographer on the ship that really takes a good photo IMO. This one was the best of the bunch because we were behind the life preserver. I don’t know what I expect to be different really, some photoshopped version of me that looks 20 years younger and 15 lbs skinnier would be a good start though.

Tonight, we were in Tritons with the usual rotational menu, which is one of our favorites.

Neither of us really fancied the escargot tonight, which is kind of a first, and I also couldn’t get myself excited about the baked brie. And then Scott didn’t fancy the Duck Confit either! So we skipped appetizers and I got the Leek and Potato soup and Scott got the Farmhouse Salad (I think) – no sharing of these.

We did share the Rack of Lamb and the Chateaubriand though and both were really good.

The photographer arrived right in the middle of dinner, oh so convenient, and got this GREAT photo of us where Scott looks like he’s plotting murder moves on me.

Neither of us could pass up the soufflé though, so we split this one and it was as delicious as I remember. This menu is just soooo good, you really can’t go wrong on any of the choices.

We got our first trick/puzzle tonight, which turned into a nightly thing and we really enjoyed having fun with our servers. Sam was our our server, I think he was from Indonesia, and Eoin (Owen), our Assistant Server was from Ireland. Both of them were great all week and really warmed up as the week went on to doing silly things. Scott is good at these puzzles (or we’d seen them before) and so they were thrilled when they finally stumped him towards the end of the week.

We popped back to the cabin to check on the sunset but it wasn’t going to be great. The cabin had already been turned down for the evening but towel animals go at the end of the day in trip reports.

It didn’t take long for the watery, pink sky to fade out to a non-event.

It was about 8:30 pm so we figured we had better go and do something so that we didn’t end up in bed asleep at 8:45 pm! By go and do something, I mean go and get a drink, and we ended up at French Quarter which was about as quiet as it could be.

If I had to guess…Manhattan for him and an Old Fashioned for me…just a guess. OMG we are boring!!

Speaking of boring….it was so quiet in French Quarter that after about 15 minutes of talking to our server Nick, and nothing else really going on, we decided to take our drinks back to the cabin to finish them. I’m popping this photo in here because tonight we got this laundry offer where you could get up to 30 pieces washed and folded for $25.00. I jumped on this and shoved in everything I could that we had worn, so it was ready to go for the next morning.

Here’s the towel stingray in his rightful place at the end of the day. We called it a night, knowing that tomorrow was going to be busy with all that glacier watching and we were both really looking forward to it. Not before I opened the door to cool off the cabin though.