KSW78

We dined in the Main Dining Room for most of our dinners and I don’t remember seeing men wearing shorts. I did see jeans and more casual pants. My husband wore khakis, black trousers, and gray corduroy pants. I don’t think the dining room was very strict about the dress code. Honestly, it was a bit too cold for shorts. It got up to the low 60s outside but there was air conditioning onboard the ship. I wore a short-sleeved sweater on the first night and then had a couple of long-sleeved casual dresses and a 3/4 length sweater for the other nights. Layers are definitely key for the ports but you may want them for the air-conditioning as well. @Harleygirl77 I hope you have a fantastic cruisetour!

Thank you all for the reassurance that this rolling sensation is a real thing and will eventually pass! I was getting worried that this would be the new normal. Hopefully it’ll subside soon. I just have to look at my pictures to know it was all worth it. Here’s a little sampling (we really did luck out with the sunshine!)

Thank you all for the seasickness tips! My husband had prescription patches that went behind the ear. We saw a few others wearing those too. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to be enough to stave off the unpleasantness. We’ll have to look into meclizine and ginger too. Has anyone continued to feel as if you’re on a boat after you disembark? It’s been two days (and a couple of long flights) and I still feel a gentle lolling as if I’m still on the ship. I’ve never felt this before. It’s almost worse when sitting down but I feel it when standing and walking too. I suppose I still have my sea legs. I’m functional and don’t feel sick but it’s just kinda strange.

My husband and I just finished our very first cruise, a northbound journey on the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Whittier. We are in our mid-40s and work full-time so we had limited time off for this vacation. We like to travel internationally and usually pick a European city as a base and take day trips. We are not beach people and had never considered cruising before. In 2021 during the pandemic, we had to pivot a vacation from Europe to a week in Seattle. While there we heard a lot about cruising to Alaska and how great it is and started thinking that we’d like to see the glaciers before they disappear. So we visited AAA and got some brochures and started researching cruises. We have a history of sea-sickness on a ferry in the North Atlantic (in Iceland going up to the Arctic Circle) so the Inside Passage one-way trips sounded appealing as they seemed to hug the coast and limit the time in open water. We chose Holland America because of the itinerary and port times and chose the Noordam because of the smaller size ship. We booked on our own at the end of December, through Holland America’s website and were assigned to open seating (didn’t know there was anything to choose). We booked a Have It All package to get the room upgrade and had a verandah stateroom Deck 5 (forward, starboard side—knew that mid-ship would be better for combating sea-sickness but that wasn’t available). I did reach out to the PCC who started sending us emails and asked her to note that we were celebrating our anniversary on the trip. She was also really helpful in getting me set up with $100 onboard credit for being a health care worker. Although this is my first post here, I’ve been reading the boards and learning a lot from fellow travelers (such as that this health care worker credit existed). Thank you all for sharing your own stories and offering advice! I thought I’d take a minute or two to note some things in return. Embarkation Day: We had a late flight into Vancouver on June 10th and at the time we booked we thought we’d have most of Sunday to do some sightseeing around Vancouver before all-aboard at 4:00 pm. Wrong! I would’ve loved to have extra time in Vancouver to do more sightseeing but we couldn’t take anymore time off of work. We were assigned a check-in time of 10:40am, which seemed incredibly early and would kill any chance to see Vancouver. I had read a lot here about the mess in Vancouver and wasn’t interested in showing up early to wait in a holding room before being able to board the ship. We didn’t have any priority so we knew we’d be facing long lines. I reached out to the PCC again and asked if we could have a later arrival time. She replied that we could board anytime after our check-in time but couldn’t check-in before then. We stayed in the Days Inn by Wyndham Downtown Vancouver, which was walking distance to the port. We walked over to the Gastown steam clock late Saturday night and then checked out the Vancouver Lookout on Sunday morning. We didn’t know how long check-in would take and didn’t want to risk not being able to board so we didn’t leave it too late. We collected our bags from the hotel and walked over to Canada Place via Howe Street, which put us right at P2 and the baggage drop off. So we found the Noordam area and said goodbye to our suitcases and then proceeded to the check-in area and had our photos taken. All of this took 5 minutes (around 12:15 pm). Before joining the line for Security we asked the check-in staff if it was a long wait and if we might be able to go get lunch first and they said yes and that it’d be better if we came back at 2pm. We walked around the port, took pictures of the Noordam, and visited the food court across the street. We opted for burgers and poutine but there were plenty of options. We enjoyed our food outside in the courtyard, soaking up the sun and enjoying the 70-degree weather (which we thought would be the last of the nice weather for a while). We popped back in to the food court area, which also had a very handy Rexall drug store and made some last minute purchases (hubby wanted sunscreen and real Cadbury chocolate—he’s British and is always on the lookout for Cadbury not made by Hershey’s). We returned to the security area at port and joined the line. It took a solid hour to clear customs. The line did dwindle around 2:30 so had we come back then we probably could’ve walked right through. We headed right to our stateroom and we’re pleased to find our suitcases already delivered and waiting for us. We quickly watched the safety video and made it to our muster station about 2:50 pm (our welcome itinerary said we had to do this by 3:00. Oops!). It seemed fine though since there were multiple announcements over the next hour stating how many passengers still hadn’t completed their safety checks. We walked around the ship a bit and found a dining kiosk on Deck 3, near the Ocean Bar. The man taking reservations seemed irritated and announced he was closing the line. We did manage to make a reservation for a table for 2 in the Main Dining Room for 7:45. We headed up to deck 9 for the sail away celebration and got one of the drink specials. Two other cruise ships left before we did. The sail out of Vancouver was interesting and I took a lot of pictures. We changed for dinner and headed to the “We Are Alaska” talk at 7:00. This was a great introduction and helped get us hyped for what we’d see during the week. Dinner was fantastic. We finished up the day with the 9:00 Whale Watching Talk with the ship’s wildlife expert, Christy. She admitted that she was a naturalist and her title recently changed to Wildlife Expert so she was trying to read up on animal facts. Monday—day at sea We started the day with a pickle ball lesson, which was fun but it was so windy up on the sports deck and that made it hard to hit the ball. Jelena, the sports director, explained the rules and also said we could watch lessons on the stateroom TV. I thought I’d be a pickle ball expert by the end of the trip, but was too busy in ports and didn’t end up watching any other lessons. We had lunch in the Lido Market and then went to the EXC talk on “Breaking the Ice Ceiling: Pioneering Women of Alaska.” Another quality talk by cruise director Erin. I saw the announcement of the enhancements for the Alaska tours this summer and was pleased to see they were in place for our cruise. The EXC talks were all themed on Alaska and we had glacier ice drinks in the Ocean Bar. There was also a special event on Wednesday night in Juneau with Native Voices:Stories of the Tlingit People. A woman named Patricia spoke about her culture. It was really interesting and a nice touch. Sorry, I got ahead of myself. Back to Monday—we went to a session in the Crow’s Nest to learn how to use our binoculars. This was very helpful as I bought binoculars solely for this cruise and had no idea what to do with them. Christy helped us get them sighted and ready to use. Then we enjoyed the afternoon tea and said we were willing to share a table. I think this may get you a better table with a window view. However, no one ended up joining us. The tea was a nice touch. Overall, I like the European touches. I have no idea if yea is a thing on other cruise lines, but I’m glad Holland America does it. Oh, earlier in the day (lunchtime), we popped over to the Main Dining Room to make a dinner reservation. I had tried calling 88 for Reservations from our stateroom phone and two other phones around the ship and constantly got a busy signal. It was no problem to make a reservation in person. We requested a table for two around 7:30 and were told we could have 7:45 and it’d be a shared table. I’m not gonna lie, following afternoon tea I started getting a bit bored. We walked a mile on the promenade but there wasn’t much else going on at this point. I was looking forward to our first port day in Ketchikan. We went to the Captain’s Welcome at 6:45 and stayed in the World Stage for the Step One Dance Company’s show “Move.” We left a little early to make our dinner reservation time but enjoyed what we saw of the show. Lo and behold, we ended up at the exact same table as the night before and no one shared the table with us. Tuesday—Ketchikan We had an early excursion for a walk through the Alaska Rainforest Sanctuary. This was really informative and we even saw a black bear! We also visited a raptor sanctuary and visited with a person carving a totem. We had about 2 hours to wander around Ketchikan and walked around Creek Street and browsed the shops. I don’t understand why there are diamond shops in every port. It looks tacky. We suppose that the cruise ships must make a decent amount for it or they wouldn’t keep these shops. But who is buying their jewelry in Alaskan ports? It’s just weird. The weather was fantastic and my pictures of Creek Street look like postcards. We also went to the lumberjack show. It’s incredibly touristy but we are tourists. Honestly we didn’t know what else there was to do in Ketchikan so it was a good way to pass some time. Back onboard, we did the wildlife spotting session and learned how to look for bald eagles. It was a lot of fun and everyone pitched in looking for eagles as we left Ketchikan. Unfortunately it was at the same time as another EXC talk so we missed that one. We went to the Major Fourth production “Sing” and really enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to dinner in the Main Dining Room sans reservation and had no trouble getting a table for 2. Wednesday—Juneau This ended up being our favorite port. There was so much to see and do! I booked an excursion outside of Holland America because I wanted to go whale watching and have a longer stay at Mendenhall Glacier than what the cruise ship advertised. I booked with Alaska Shore Excursions but the tour operator was actually Juneau Tours. We had a whale watch with 2 hours on the water and great humpback whale sightings. We also went up to Benjamin Island and saw tons of sea lions. Awesome wildlife spotting on this trip! Then they took us by bus up to Mendenhall Glacier and we had unlimited time there (just had to be mindful that the last bus back to town was at 6:30). We walked a couple of trails and went out to Nugget Falls. We also watched the movie in the visitor center. The weather was spectacular with another sunny day. Back in town, we went on the Goldbelt Tram. There was a long line to get the tram back down so we didn’t spend much time at the top. It was 4:55 when we got to the top. We did the 30 minute walk on the Alpine trail and had awesome views. We decided to get in line to come back down. I looked at my watch and it was still 4:55. Ugh. My watch battery died! We had to wait about 40 minutes to come back down but that was much better than the 2 hours we’d initially been told. We had plenty of time to walk around Juneau and shop. So now I became one of those people going to a jewelry store, looking for a new watch battery. The place on the main drag that advertised batteries was out but they gave me directions to go to their distributor (Sam’s—down the street, upstairs, down a hallway in a floor filled with offices). They could help and got my watch back in working order. Phew! We dined in the Lido for fish and chips and salmon bake night. It was excellent! It also was the only time the Lido wasn’t crowded and we could easily find a table. Thursday—Skagway We did the ship’s Yukon Experience and White Pass Railroad trip. We had a narrated bus ride up to the Yukon, with picture stops along the way. We stopped for a chicken BBQ lunch at a very touristy area called Caribou Crossing Trading Post. There was an opportunity to have a sled dog ride (on dirt), which we passed on. We did pan for gold and got to keep what we found. There were also puppies available for adoption which we could play with. The train ride was great but we clearly sat on the wrong side (left). The narration got repetitive with “on your right you’ll see….”. If getting the train in Fraser, sit on the right. Lesson learned. We had 15 minutes back in town to run over to the Skagway National Historic Park and get my National Park stamp. We got Klondike fry bread, which was delicious! At this point it was 6pm and the sidewalks were pretty much rolled up except for a couple of shops. I wish more stores had stayed open longer since we were in port until 7:30. We headed back to the ship and caught the 7pm comedy show. It was ok. Somewhat funny if you like jokes that cater to ailments of older people and the aging process. I heard someone comment later that “I don’t need to be reminded of these things!” We headed over to dinner at the Main Dining Room and had our first shared table experience with another couple. They were nice and was a good experience. We changed into our orange clothes and checked out the Orange Party. There were some orange themed drinks. The Rolling Stone lounge served as the venue and was a bit small for the number of people there, but the band was great as always. There were mostly teenagers out on the dance floor, but they seemed to be having fun. I think this event was hyped up a bit more than what it turned out to be but I’m glad we checked it out. Friday—Glacier Bay The reason we picked this cruise and it did not disappoint! It was awesome! I got another National Park stamp and had fun shopping the pop up gift shop (all billed to onboard credit). I had another Glacier Ice drink. We took tons of photos of glaciers. During the afternoon wildlife spotting, we saw otters floating by. We also saw the park rangers get picked up and head to another ship. This was our first rainy day all week. The seas got rough—really rough. We dressed for the gala night dinner and stumbled downstairs for the 7:00 pm Step One dance show only to find it’d been canceled because the ship was really rocking. So we made the treacherous walk to the dining room and had to grab hand rails along the way. We had no problem getting a table for two without a reservation but as we sat down, my husband asked if I was hungry. I actually wasn’t—had lost all appetite on the walk over. The menu looked great but I didn’t think I’d be able to eat. We asked just for starters to see how we did. My husband had one bite and had to run out. I managed to eat my salad slowly and then declined anything further. I really wanted the rhubarb crumble dessert but there was no way I’d be able to enjoy it. It was not a good night. It was Iceland ferry ride all over again with very rough seas and lots of sickness. The Chocolate Surprise was supposed to be at 9:30 but we were in no shape to check that out. It’s a bummer that we had a rough ride on the gala night, but at least it was only one day. Saturday—at sea, College Fjord This was our anniversary. We still felt rough from the night before so we missed a couple of interesting-sounding talks in the morning (Polar Biomass and A City on the Sea). We gingerly tried breakfast at the Lido and everything stayed down. We did go to the EXC talk on the Iditarod and that was interesting. I went to the next EXC talk on the Holland America origin story and enjoyed this one too. I learned about the ships’ godmothers and then randomly noticed a picture of Marlee Matlin, who is indeed the Noordam’s godmother. I ordered a metal print at the photo lab and we went to Major Fourth’s matinee performance. Our room stewards made a beautiful towel animal display complete with rose petals and we received cards from them plus one from Captain Allen too. Guest Services also called to wish us a happy anniversary. We saved our HIA specialty meal for tonight and has a fancy meal at the Pinnacle Grill. We were cruising College Fjord at this point so it was extra special to have that scenery during dinner. It’ll be hard to top for sure! All in all, we really enjoyed this cruise. The weather was fantastic (aside from the one rough night). My husband said we can never do this cruise again because we were spoiled with the sunny weather and it’ll probably never be this good again. I’d still like to do a land tour at some point and get up to Denali, as many fellow travelers did. I’ve got more National Park passport stamps to get 🙂 We enjoyed the food and the entertainment. Yes, the clientele was older but that wasn’t an issue. I wasn’t looking to travel with lots of families and kids or with a hard-partying crowd. We have nothing to compare this with but Holland America gave us a great experience and a trip to remember. I’m not sure when we’ll cruise again—we’ve decided we can’t really handle open water itineraries if it means more nights like Friday night. But maybe river cruising or other itineraries that hug a coastline would work for us. Does anyone have recommendations for more gentle water itineraries? If you made it this far, thanks for reading!