North to Alaska!
The idea behind the recent journey my wife and I have just completed actually had its genesis about six months ago. We were eating at a restaurant on Friday night, like we usually do. This time, along with some other friends, my ex-boss (we’re both retired) and his wife had joined us. Larry and Sally, the aforementioned boss and wife were chitchatting with my wife and I and the subject of cruises came up. He said that they were contemplating sailing again some time soon. Since my wife and I were also thinking along those lines, I asked where in particular they might be going. He said they were probably heading back to Alaska. They had been there before, loved most everything about that region and felt like going back. I said, half in jest and half in earnest, that we might be persuaded to head that way also if they didn’t mind us joining them. We agreed that, if they did book a cruise up that way, they’d let us know and yes, they said they would of course enjoy our company.
Not too long after that I received a call from Larry telling us that they had booked the cruise they’d been talking about for the upcoming summer. Furthermore, their whole family would be accompanying them. This would consist of six more people plus them and plus us. There would be ten sitting at the dinner table onboard ship. We got the information as to the ship name, where we would be cruising from and what date it would be leaving.
We went to our travel agent that week and booked it.
Our ship would be the Coral Princess, out of Vancouver, British Columbia on June 10th. We were going to Alaska!
So time passed, payments were made on the cruise and many pleasant hours were spent online studying the ship we would be on, the ports she would stop in while we were onboard and all other aspects of the upcoming cruise we could think of. Plus buying some appropriate clothing and gear for the cruise. We’d never cruised to a cold area before, always the warm Caribbean, so a different plan of attack had to be formulated. New waterproof winter coats, of course, (it rains a lot in southeast Alaska) were bought along with some other warmer clothes to wear during the daytime both on the ship and at the ports. Along with a new camera, some binoculars, and a few other this-and-thats. Soon we were as well equipped as we could figure out we had to be and then it was the night before we were to leave home.
Once again, dear reader, if you don’t like travelogues, I’ll kindly say goodbye now, as that’s what the rest of this blog is. Thanks for joining us this far and hopefully I’ll start blogging more in the upcoming days. Adios!
So are we alone now? Good. Let’s get started!
As usual, Judy and I were pretty excited by this time and had a hard time getting any sleep at all. Besides the fact that we had to be up and out our door by 3:30 am to drive to Columbus for our westbound flight. There were many reasons why we usually flew out of Columbus, but the main one was that it was that the flights were cheaper and so was the parking. Not sure exactly why, but Cleveland and Akron-Canton airports were usually more expensive. So in the darkness of a too early Ohio day we grabbed some McDonalds and pointed the Toyota southward. Please note that this travel day was NOT the day we would sail, but the day before - Friday. We’ve heard so many horror stories about people missing their boats due to travel misadventures that we always traveled a day early and stayed at a hotel. Then it’s usually a short cab ride to the docks. Smart, eh?
Our first layover was in Los Angeles. That’s a semi-long flight from Columbus, especially since our plane had a bit of an overabundance of infants. Loud, crying infants. Even one “opera singer in training” who liked to scream for the apparent joy of screaming, or so that’s what her sheepish parents said. Los Angeles couldn’t come soon enough! Finally we bid adieu to our younger flight companions, enjoyed (!?!?) the comforts (!?!?) of LAX and after some hours found ourselves on a Vancouver-bound flight. That leg of the journey was a little shorter than the first and soon we found ourselves in beautiful British Columbia.
Our cab driver from the YVR airport to downtown was “interesting” to say the least. He was a Sikh – I assumed this due to his turban and beard – and seemed to be on a quest to get us to our hotel in the shortest possible time. I bravely muffled my moans of terror as he narrowly missed killing all of us multiple times during the journey downtown. Judy was smiling the whole ride knowing the anguish I was going through.
She was serene the whole trip, dammit!
Finally we arrived at our upscale downtown hotel. I wanted to sort of live it up that night, so I used Priceline to get us a “4-star or better” place to stay. It was called the Pinnacle Harbor Front and it was a hum-dinger! Very nice. After arrival, I walked on down to the building on the waterfront called Canada Place. This would be where we would catch our ship tomorrow and was also a place where a geocache was hidden that I wanted to find. It wasn’t a terribly long walk and soon I had the geocache in hand and British Columbia was in my geocaching logbook as a “new place”. I wandered back to the hotel then, admiring this clean, cosmopolitan city. I woke Judy from a nap and we enjoyed supper at a restaurant across the street. Not long after we were catching some zzz’s as the previous night had been very short and our travels long.
Our breakfast Saturday morning was across the street again and before long we hailed a cab and traveled to the dock for embarkation. We experienced long lines, but they moved along fairly rapidly and we were soon onboard the ship. Our stateroom was clean and ready for us and we eagerly checked it out. Our luggage wouldn’t arrive for some hours, so our unpacking was postponed until later that day. We had an enjoyable lunch at the buffet on the Lido deck and chatted with our room steward soon afterward. He would “take care” of us quite well for the upcoming week with made beds, a cleaned room and ice in our ‘fridge daily. Nice guy. By the way, Princess still puts a chocolate on your pillow every evening. Carnival has apparently stopped this practice. While we were in the room we happily checked out our own private balcony. This was so very cool! We’d never sailed in a balcony room before, but we’ll probably make sure to do so in the future. We were amidships and on deck 10, so we had good views of the whole portside panorama. We did some ship exploring then and enjoyed a sail-away drink as we watched Vancouver grow smaller and smaller in our wake. Larry and Sally had arrived sometime after we came aboard. They had flown in the same day and we met for supper in “our” dining room. Their kids and grandkids had elected to eat in the buffet rather than join us for more formal dining, so it was just the four of us plus six strangers at a 10-top table. Supper was prime rib – excellent by the way – and the six strangers soon became shipboard friends. Most of them were New Yorkers. We went to the Princess Theater after eating to watch an impressionist comedian and to hear some ship info from our Cruise Director Lexi. She was a stunning slim blond Aussie and we’d see her all over the ship during the coming week. She was a true asset to our cruise. As a note, this was Lexi’s last cruise for this contract. She left the ship with us on completion of the cruise. We stopped at the shipboard casino on the way back to our cabin and dropped a few dollars. They allow smoking there and the smell was quite noticeable. We hit the hay around eleven to a gently rocking bed and a quite enjoyable sleep.
Sunday was a sea day. Our ship was traversing the southern part of the inland waterway system on its way to Ketchikan, Alaska. This is a path for ships that keeps islands between the ship and the Pacific Ocean and provides a smoother waterway for them to travel. After breakfast we attended a talk in the theater about the upcoming ports. I’d read up on them online the previous months, so knew a lot of what Lexi was talking about. The talk also was encouraging the passengers to purchase an upcoming cruise. We’ve been cruising before and pretty much know how the system works. There is always something that the cruise line would like you to buy and you have to decide whether you want to or not. It’s just the way cruises work. The cruise fares apparently are not enough to support the line, so they have to promote things onboard. The shops, the casino, the drinks, future cruises, photos they take, what shops to buy stuff at the ports and on and on. It is what it is and its up to you how you let it make you feel. We know how it works and are able to pick and choose what we want to purchase.
On Sunday the sun popped out of the clouds in the early morning, so we grabbed some time on our balcony, which was fairly comfortable as long as we stayed out of the wind. That night was our first formal dinner. Larry and Sally were going to eat early, so Judy and I went later. We put on our good duds and headed out. We had a couple formal pictures taken of us by the onboard photographers and ate at another 10-top table with more strangers. Most of them were Ohio folks (Cincinnati and Mansfield) along with three Aussies on a 24-day tour of Canada and Alaska. We chatted a lot and enjoyed our dinners and our new friends. We also got a kick out of watching our captain and cruise director fooling around by sneaking into the formal photos being taken of other cruisers and making funny faces. They seemed to be having a ball! The captain’s first name was Michele, but, being Italian, was pronounced Mik-kel-ay. He and Lexi were around the ship a lot during the week.
We went to the theater again and watched a production with the staff singers and dancers. Pretty talented folks! Not long afterward we were snug in our little cabin and fast asleep.
Monday was our first port, Ketchikan. After a quick breakfast we were off the ship around 7:30. Judy went souvenir shopping at a nearby shop as I walked down the waterfront about a half-mile to collect a geocache, our first for Alaska! We’d worn our heavier jackets that morning and actually were a bit warm at times. We found our duck tour and were pleased to see that Larry and Sally were also on that same tour. The driver and commentator were funny and knew their stuff about their interesting hometown. We were driven around and shown the sights, then down the ramp into the water. We putted around the harbor for a while, seeing this and that. Along the way we saw some eagles, which are very common around there and a few harbor seals. After this tour we jumped on a shuttle bus which took us to the Creek Street area of Ketchikan. This is the part of the town that was the “red light” district back in the gold rush days. It even had a back entrance to the street called “married man’s trail”, where the aforementioned men would sneak in, take care of business then sneak out supposedly without their spouses knowing. Supposedly. At least that was the tale told nowadays. The area now is an eclectic mix of souvenir shops and other crafty-kind of businesses. One of the bordellos, Dolly’s House, has even been left very close to how it looked back “in the day” and you can tour it. Very interesting!
We returned to the ship soon after as it was leaving in the early afternoon. The captain made an announcement for us to watch for the whales when the ship traveled through a particular stretch of water, but I didn’t see any at that time. A number of folks did see some a bit later though.
While we were at dinner, of course. Bummer!
Larry’s entire family joined us that evening and there were ten of us around the table. His three young granddaughters were perfect ladies during our meal and would remain so for the rest of the cruise. Judy and I later talked about what a nice family they were. We attended another show in the theater then stopped for a while in a lounge to have a drink and listen to the singers and musicians performing there. We were constantly amazed at the talented folks sailing with us! Back in the cabin we could see another cruise ship sailing near us looking like a fabulous Christmas tree ornament all lit up in the deep Alaskan night.
Tuesday was Juneau, the state capitol, and our time for whale watching! The Coral docked around 8 am. I walked to the buffet to grab a cup of coffee and bring back to the room to drink it. On the way back I ran into Captain Michele in the elevator. We chatted for a minute or two – a very nice gentleman. Soon it was time to get off the boat and catch our whale-watching tour. That day in the capitol city it was cold and somewhat rainy and windy. We were wearing all we had brought with us and it was just barely enough. Had a nice bus ride to where the whale-watching boat was waiting, listening to the lady bus driver and laughing at her stories and jokes. The boat took 50 or maybe a bit more passengers on two decks. The lower one was enclosed, warm and had a snack bar! The upper was mostly exposed to the wind and the off-and-on again rain. Guess which one we stayed on? Soon we saw our first humpback whale while it was blowing (thar she blows I thought!). Took scads of pictures, but was slow on the draw most of the time. I did end up with a number of halfway decent pictures though, considering. Some humpback whale facts: these whales would winter in the ocean near Hawaii, eating nothing, mating and losing about a third of their body weight. When they returned to Alaskan waters in the summer they would eat 20 hours a day, approximately one million calories daily. For being so huge, the throat on these giants is only the size of a basketball, so their food is small fish and krill. We also observed eagles and sea lions. The local scenery – the snow-covered mountain and evergreen-covered islands and teeming wildlife were very picturesque.
We were back on the ship around 5 and supper was at 7 with the Baileys. This was king crab night and it was wonderful! The kitchen staff had even opened up each crab leg so no one had to crack them themselves, just pop the meat out and enjoy. I introduced Larry to Fireball whiskey for our after-dinner drink, then we adjourned to the theater for a comedy magician who worked with a little white dog. They put on quite a good show and he had a full house to see him. The ship departed Juneau around 9 p.m.
Wednesday was Skagway, the jumping off point for the gold miners of the late 1890’s and our last real port where we would be able to exit the ship. We were booked on a tour of the Yukon highway and the White Pass. This was the trail the gold miners had to traverse to get to the gold fields in Dawson. First up and over the White Pass (or Chilcoot Pass) and down to the Yukon River then a long way down to Dawson. Canada would not let the prospectors in unless they had enough gear to survive there, so many of the men had to make 50 trips or more carrying the gear they would need on their backs. Then they had to fell their own trees and build their own boat. Those guys who made it were tough!
We caught our small 24-passenger bus outside on the dock and soon were on the road with our driver. He was a younger fellow and boy did he have stories to tell, some about the gold rush days and others about how things were thereabouts now. He soon was driving upward and onward toward the White Pass. He stopped a number of times for us to get out and take pictures of the stunning mountainous landscape. We were required to bring our passports along with us, as this tour would enter Canada. The formalities at the Canadian border were pretty much non-existent and we were then in the Yukon Territory of Canada. Hurray, another province to color in on my maps! Soon he turned around and headed for U.S. Customs. The procedure for getting back into the United States was to stop at a drive-through window of the U.S. customs station, smile at the border guard and motor on our way. Our guide says this is kind of normal, but occasionally they would actually enter the bus and check passports. You just never knew. Our driver dropped us off in town, which was actually about a half-mile from the ship. Judy and I walked a bit then stopped at a bar and grill for some lunch. Had three fish tacos (very good) and a local brew (Alaska Amber). Pretty good! We ambled on to the end of the main drag, bought some stuff then caught a shuttle bus to take us back to the ship. Skagway was very interesting and just chock full of tourists. There were I believe 4 ships in port that day! 10,000 to 12,000 people. Wowser! Called Larry around suppertime and they were waiting on some of their family to return to the ship, so Judy and I went by ourselves. We sat at a 2-top. The show that night after dinner was New Orleans-themed and was in the big lounge instead of the theater. Great show! Stopped in the casino after the show and was lucky enough to win some money on the roulette table! Back to the cabin then and took a few pictures from the balcony. It was around 11 and since we were getting pretty far north by then, there was still quite a bit of light out. I took some very cool pictures of the mountains passing by in the northern twilight. Very surrealistic.
Thursday would see us in Glacier Bay National Park. We were blessed with absolutely perfect weather, sunny with some decorative cumulus clouds. Chilly though… but that’s normal. When we entered the bay, a small boat came alongside and three park rangers came aboard. They would be there the entire time we were in the bay to talk about the park, the glaciers and the wildlife. They used the loudspeakers, the television and were all over the ship talking to the cruisers and answering questions. We cruised up to a very pretty glacier named Margery Glacier and spent some time there looking at it. And it was very impressive – about 250 feet high, a mile wide and about 20 miles long. We watched some ice fall – that’s called calving – and listened to the groans and booms as the giant ice river moved its 10 feet a day. We also saw some wildlife along the shores of the bay – a trio of moose, a lone wolf and three bears – a mama and two cubs. Plus eagles and seals of course. And whales too! We left the rangers off the ship on our way out of the bay. We would be sailing in the open Gulf of Alaska tonight.
The day had started to cloud up then and there was a mist in the air. Weather changes quickly up there. Supper tonight was lobster or Beef Wellington. I also had escargot for an appetizer. Didn’t care for them as much this time as I did some years ago when I first tried ‘em. The show tonight was Motown based and had a lot of the old favorites performed. Had another nightcap at one of the ship’s lounges and then went back to the cabin. We were only getting about four hours of darkness in the evenings then, so the days seemed very, very long! We received our written instructions for disembarkation today in our mailbox. Hard to believe we only had one more day aboard our Coral Princess.
Friday we sailed up College Fjord, another gorgeous slice of Alaska. We were up early thanks to the aforementioned lack of night. While we were cruising the fjord we attended a cooking demonstration put on by the head chef and head maitre d’. They cooked a few things and made a lot of jokes. When they were done, they led us through a tour of the galley onboard. Lots and lots of spotless stainless steel! The galley is huge and I think I actually could have got lost in there! Since the two main dining rooms are on separate decks, they even had an escalator in the galley to move from floor to floor. Afterward we stopped by the photo shop and bought some pictures of us and a DVD of our voyage. Got burgers and fries for lunch and that tasted pretty good. We stopped at the big glacier at the head of the fjord and it was also very majestic. Huge walls and lots of floating ice that had calved off the glacier. The captain stopped the ship and we just drifted there quietly listening to the voice of the glacier as it boomed and groaned and rumbled. It was creepy and spectacular all at once! The captain spun the ship so both sides could see the glacier easily. It was an incredible sight and a wonderful capper for the week’s cruise. We had eaten supper earlier tonight as we all wanted to be finished so we could watch the glaciers. The cooks and the servers had a parade through the dining room after the meal and it was very reminiscent of how Carnival does it every night. We said our good-byes to the Baileys after dinner as they would be continuing their vacation the next morning by catching a train up to Denali National Park and we would be flying home. It was nice having friends to share this voyage with. To tell the truth, we were about ready to return home. We were tiring of the fancy food and such. We placed our homeward-bound suitcases out in the hall that evening and they disappeared soon afterward. We docked at Whittier, Alaska around midnight.
It was still light out.
Disembarkation in Whittier went quite smoothly. Up early, last breakfast in the buffet then we grabbed our carry-ons and went to our disembarkation staging area, one of the main dining rooms. Soon our group was called and we made our way off the ship for the last time. We entered a large barn-like structure and saw all our luggage lined up on the floor. We retrieved ours and then joined a long line of folks who were going to the Anchorage airport with us. We eventually were loaded onto busses and headed off on the 65-mile trip to Anchorage. We rode through the longest tunnel in North America when we were leaving Whittier. It’s 2.7 miles long and only one lane. They take turns traveling the tunnel northbound and southbound. It was a bit creepy in the big tunnel, but soon we were out of it and on the beautiful Seward Highway heading to Anchorage.
The rest of the journey home was long flights and long waits in the airports for our next long flight. Anchorage to San Francisco to Chicago to Columbus. We eventually arrived home about 12:30 on Sunday afternoon.
And napped most of the rest of the day.
A parting thought:
If you can, make time and save money for a trip to our beautiful 49th state. It should be on everyone’s bucket list. You’ll never regret it!
