captain_hug99

thanks everyone. Yep, I missed that Inverness is really Invergordon. We booked with a tour company.

I'm not one for organized tours, has anyone taken the public bus to Loch Ness? 

Following, we will be taking the same cruise in July!

On 4/29/2023 at 3:38 PM, Lady Arwen said:

 

Where HAL excels the most is viewing areas both indoors and out.  The Crows Nest is a very large indoor area at the front of the ship with lots of seating and spectacular views with floor to ceiling windows on three sides.  Princess does not have anything to compare.

 

This is exactly what I was going to say, we cruised HAL to Alaska and this was our favorite spot to hang out. I was very disappointed that the Regal Princess doesn't have an area that is similar.

how much time does she have until her passport expires? If it is a while, why not keep it in maiden name until 6 months from expiration then change it. Passport name changes are not free and one needs to get a whole new passport. If she has many years left, keep the old one.

Chilled fruit soups in the dining room to start dinner. Usually they're yummy.

Yes!!! I was never disappointed with these.

I loved breakfast at the MDR, it was a relaxing way to start the day. The parfait was terrific. I really enjoyed the eggs Benedict with salmon on it. So so very good!

My favorite place was the Crow's Nest on a sea day with a book, looking out of the windows in one of the comfortable chairs. I could stay there all day.

My main issue with that is that I live so far inland that any booking last call rooms that morning would make getting to port that same day difficult. Is this the only way to book these so-called "cheap" rooms?

A friend of mine will book airfare to a embarkation port that offers several options for cruises, then watches fares.

Expired Driver's License + paper saying you have renewed it, even if you don't have your new driver's license yet, is a valid license.

HAL 3rd, I would not recommend to do this line with kids. It is for older people.

I respectfully disagree on this. We just sailed HAL with my 11 year old daughter. She had a GREAT time on the ship. Club HAL was terrific with her and she was able to get to know the children because of how few there were. The shows had clean language.

We chose HAL due to the itinerary (Glacier Bay, Wednesday departure, etc...). While we were some of the youngest on the ship, there were a number in our age bracket. We never felt out of place.

HAL Volendam, June 3-10: Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2221490

Thanks for the review.

I also appreciate the info on the lenses you took with. The pix were amazing.

You are welcome! I read a great tip in Outdoor Photography magazine before we left. If you are trying to catch action of wild animals, have your shutter speed 3 times your focal length. So, if you are at 300mm, have your shutter speed 1500. As soon as I did that, the shots came out extremely clear!

BTW, I grew up in CT, Danbury.

I didn't put on our luggage tags, I did have them ready and folded printed from our check in documents. As we approached the porter, I took them out and he stapled them onto the bags.

HAHA! Hi there, neighbor! I expect Alaska scenery and sights to be quite different than here. Am I correct?

 

Debi

As beautiful as driving through Rocky Mountain National Park, but you are on a ship with beverage service. :D

Thank you for your report

Two questions, did you schedule a taxi from hotel to Amtrak going back to Seattle? What time did you leave hotel to go to station?

We didn't have to schedule a taxi, one was waiting. We walked to Tim Horton's and saw lots of taxis around.

We left the hotel at 5:45, got there at 6a.m. filled out the USA immigration form, walked up to the check in, went through USA immigration and walked onto the train. 10 minutes all told. If we were going to Seattle or another station that allowed for check in luggage, the luggage compartment was on the way to business class. All we would have had to do is hand them our bags on the way to our seats.

When I go into port, I am not looking for diamonds or other jewelry. Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan had a number of stores with sales people from other countries. I would much rather help the local economy of the ports and purchase goods made by the people of Alaska that represent the culture. Walking down the street to have sales people shouting, “come in for your free gift!” left a bad taste in my mouth. That wasn’t what I expected Alaska to be about.

A dinner companion spoke to one of the sales representatives and was told that they come up to Alaska for the summer, then go to the Caribbean for the winters. They follow the cruise ships to sell for the diamond companies and kick back money back to the cruise lines. Even if De Beers takes a loss, they get to write it off as a business expense.

HAL needs to put a fan in the bathroom! Seriously, this isn’t even about smell, it is about foggy mirrors from showers.

Our stateroom (1945). When I see many of the comments on CC, it seems many posts are from those who are in suites, I was nervous that I’d hate our room. If you are in “steerage” like we were, don’t fret! Most of the guests I met were on the Dolphin deck. The room is small, there is no way to get around it. I’ve stayed in Disney World Pop Century rooms and this room might have been a bit smaller if you can believe it. However, I think it looked and felt larger with the beds separated, plus, we slept a lot better that way. The room has a couch which Katie thought was quite comfortable, desk/vanity, a small tear drop table, two nightstands, and plenty of closet space. Our room also had a pull down bunk, but frankly, four people would have made that room incredibly tight.

The beds are extremely comfortable! The pillows are terrific. I don’t usually sleep well when I’m traveling, but I was asleep quickly every night.

There was a little bit of noise in the room, but nothing more than a level of white noise. You heard the fans running and something that made the room sound as if you were on a train, so a repetitive mechanical sound. It wasn’t distracting and never woke me up. Reed is a light sleeper and he zonked out easily, several times a day. The only time we heard a lot of noise is when there was a reversal and the whole ship shook. I don’t think any room would be immune to that noise.

Also, since we were near the end of the hallway, we didn’t hear any noise of people coming and going. In fact, it made me wonder about the third level or promenade deck, whether it would become annoying for those staying in them would get tired of others walking around, and the potential lack of privacy.

Our room had an unobstructed window. That became one of Katie’s favorite places to relax and read. She’d use the fancy pillows to make herself a little reading nook. It was amazing to watch the water go by. The only time we ever felt any lack of privacy was when we were docked on that side and others could see right into our room.

The bathroom was not one of the newly renovated ones. There is a high tub/shower combination. It took me a day to realize one side of the mirror is a medicine cabinet. It took me lot less to realize how to make a small yet private changing area, open the bathroom door, open the door to the closet and you have a little more room to get ready.

Food: The vast majority of the food was wonderful, there were only a few disappointments along the way. Our favorite place to eat was the main dining room for breakfast and dinner. We did have lunch there one day and didn’t like the Reuben. I found it dry. We much preferred to eat at the Dive-in. We had their burgers which were amazing, the fries are just perfect, crisp on the outside while soft on the inside. The dive-in sauce is just terrific with enough kick to make it quite tasty. We ordered the regular hamburger and the mushroom burger. The only thing missing was a place to get a milk shake (HAL are you listening???).

The taco bar near the Dive-in was very good as well. The mango salsa is to die for.

Breakfast: the yogurt parfait! My daughter is not a huge fan of yogurt, yet she looked forward to having one of these nearly every day. Eggs benedict, and the one with salmon, absolutely wonderful. In fact, any of the egg dishes we had were terrific. I had the omelet several times and it was perfect.

Lunch: lido or dive-in. Burgers and fries at the dive in were wonderful. You could request the string onion on the other burgers if you wanted. We didn’t try the hot dogs. On the last day, I did look at the menu for the MDR and thought, “damn, we should have gone there today!”

Dinner: MDR all the way! We had great steaks, soups, and the service was wonderful. Not too fast, not too slow. I could have just ordered the wrong food at the Pinnacle, but I didn’t think the options were that much more creative than what the MDR offered. I’m not sure I would have gone there if it wasn’t for the Explore 4 package.

Favorite Places: Crow’s Nest, what a great place most of the day to bring a book and read. You have a fantastic view of the ocean. However, there are games played and in the late afternoon it does get noisy with the bar traffic. HAL could put in more of the comfortable chairs and they would be taken all the time. The other chairs are OK, but not nearly as comfortable as the 5th deck club chairs near the Ocean’s Bar.

Exploration’s Café- whole area discovered on the last day. Comfortable chairs there!

Things I wish I brought: flip flops, I thought long and hard about them and decided to not bring them, I often wanted them and likely didn’t go swimming or in the hot tub because I didn’t have them.

Things I brought that I didn’t need: I brought 4 pairs of shoes, 1 hiking, 1 sneaker, 1 fancy, and 1 that can be fancy if I need it. Katie decided she really liked my “can be fancy shoes” and stole them for most of the trip. If she didn’t take them, they would have been redundant.

Lenses I brought: I have a Nikon D7000, I brought my 18-55mm kit lens, 28-75mm f2.8, 70-300mm. I only used the 27-75mm and the 70-300mm. I only time I wanted a wider lens was when we were at Totem Bight park. I used the 28-75 most of the time (as I usually do) and the 70-300mm when we went whale watching or when we were in Glacier Bay.

We woke up EARLY for our 6:30a.m. train to Seattle. We visited Tim Horton’s for breakfast (learned what a double double is), took a taxi to the train station. Since we were traveling to Tukwila, we couldn’t check our bags, finding space for our things was interesting. There was a problem with one of the trail road tracks so we had to stop for a little bit, but it ended up being a 5 minute delay.

I had called a taxi company for service from the station to the airport, I saw the cab as we got off the train and someone got to it before we did and stole our taxi! Grrrrr… I called again and waited for our new taxi. Thank goodness we had plenty of time before our flight. It was a simple ride to SeaTac.

This is where the fun begins. We knew we were going to have some time at the airport, but due to weather in Denver, we were delayed an additional THREE HOURS!!! We didn’t get onto the plane until 7 and got in the driveway at 1:45a.m. UGH. Denver International was a nightmare, it was worse than LaGuardia in New York.

We made sure to eat breakfast in the MDR for our final meal, grabbed our carry ons, and said goodbye. Our steward Sumo gave us a heartfelt goodbye, I think he enjoyed having Katie as a guest in one of his rooms. As we walked off the ship, several of the crew were waving goodbye. Picking up bags, going through immigration, and grabbing a taxi were all simple and quick. We were at our hotel by 9a.m.

We stayed at the Best Western Plus on Drake Street. The hotel allowed us to keep our bags in their luggage area and we were off to see the town. Unfortunately, they didn’t tell us that we could borrow bikes from them, so we walked, A LOT! We walked down to Grandville Island to the public market. This is much like Pike’s Place Market, except better laid out. There are a number of fruit, seafood, bread, etc.. stands around. Everything looked fresh.

We then walked back to the hotel taking the seawall route. We had hoped to see the Olympic Village, but I didn’t realize we passed it until we were at the science center. Oh well, it was a beautiful walk. On the way we saw Rodney’s Oysterhouse. One of our tablemates from Calgary told us that in Vancouver that is one of his favorite restaurants. We stumbled upon it by accident and it was marvelous. Fresh shucked oysters at the bar, their beer was great, and so were the oyster po boys. Oh yeah, and the view of the guys doing the shucking wasn’t bad either! Just saying ladies.

I looked at my fitbit and it said we walked 21,000 steps by 2p.m. My feet were hurting!! Katie and I went to the hot tub. Once I recovered a bit, we decided we would borrow bikes from the hotel and bike to Stanley Park. I asked Reed if he wanted to join us but he was battling the oysters.

What a joy biking the seawall is. We had a beautiful day, not too hot. We biked from where Drake meets the seawall, up to Stanley Park, around some of the park to the interior road near Beaver Lake and then took roads back to the hotel. It took us about 2.5 hours and I bet we biked between 15-20 miles.

I wish we had such a nice bike ride near our house, we have several great local rides, but nothing that flat and easy. Even Katie was asking if we could move to Vancouver!

After our ride, it was time for dessert, we went to Tim Horton’s. This was our first time visiting one, and when in Canada, that’s the coffee shop you should go to, eh? Good coffee, great donuts, and decent prices. It reminds me a lot of Dunkin Donuts, at least what it used to be until they changed their donut recipe.

At sea heading towards Vancouver:

Today the mood on the ship was to try to squeak out as much enjoyment as possible on the last day of the cruise. We joined in the trivia game, scavenger hunt, and name that tune. Katie went to the HAL Kids, while there I spoke with one of the HAL kid’s supervisors, she said that on next cruise, the number of children is going to double and the week after it will triple from this week’s cruise!

The last night’s dinner was International night. While some less common meats were available, I didn’t find anything international about the menu. Lamb and quail were both available with beef. We were hoping for a more Polynesian flair, one tablemate was hoping for something Dutch. Everything was quite good, the presentation of the salmon tartar was beautiful. I had the quail, Reed had the lamb (it was excellent), Katie had the trout which she said was terrific.

After packing our bags, we went to the night’s show, Liar’s Game. “Hello, my name is Mark, I come from a small town in Texas….. Dallas.” The words which the crew had to define or lie about were hilarious. Clinchpoop, tittup, and chubble just to name a few.

It was today we found out that Chase, one of the cruise showmen is from Parker, Colorado, just an hour to the north of us. Small world!

Here is one of the amazing towel animals we had. This one scared me until I realized what it was.

We docked in Ketchikan an hour earlier than expected, in no time we were off the ship and ready to explore. We hadn’t booked any formal tours, I had read enough on CC to know we could hop onto the bus to go to Totem Bight Park for just $2. We could have continued onto Saxman if we wanted, but we had our fill of totems.

The bus was FULL. Four ships were in Ketchikan that day, Volendam, Grand Princess, Coral Princess, and the Norwegian Jewel. One of the Princess ships was letting off just as we were getting off as well which added to the number trying to take the bus to the park, add in the local traffic and it was scrunched standing room only. The driver even had to stop people from getting on because he couldn’t take any more passengers.

We saw a Walmart! LOL The bus passes the small Walmart in town. On the bus we did speak to a few people who were taking the Alaska Marine Highway system to see the state. What a neat experience.

Totem Bight is a free park to visit. We were astounded by the beauty of the carvings. Katie was in charge of our map and read the descriptions of each totem as we passed by. The park takes less than an hour and by the time we were finished the next bus was on its way. Luckily, this one had fewer people.

We spent the rest of our time seeing the city. We shopped on Creek Street which is such a neat place. The shops and historic buildings were exactly what I was looking for when I wanted to see Alaska. The souvenir we coveted was a totem pole. However, if you also would like one, be prepared to pay for it. It is difficult to purchase one for under $100. We wanted the authentic made in Alaska ones, not the cheap imitation.

I was also amazed by the walrus bone carvings. They were gorgeous! However, again, be prepared to open your wallet.

We did look at the salmon prices and I was surprised that the prices were no better than what I could get at Costco. Needless to say, we didn’t purchase any.

All shopped out, we went back to the ship to get ready for dinner. Reed had the seafood cake (it was delicious), the Caesar salad, the strip (so tender and juicy), apple something. Katie had the strawberry bisque minus the green peppercorn (VERY GOOD!), turkey dinner (it was OK, but the turkey was very dry), and the watermelon sorbet (OMG I WANT THE RECIPE!). I had the pesto ziti and the crème brule (very good!).

We had another amazing night doing a little laundry, don’t be jealous folks! In the middle of the laundry, Reed came to tell me, “grab your camera and go outside!” I did and was treated to a beautiful sunset behind the mountains.

Which ocean view room did you have? Did you like it? Any issues with noise etc?

1945 It was a great room. A little bit of noise that never got above what I would call white noise. Just a fan type of noise. However, when there was a course change or turn, we did hear quite a bit of noise, but I think everyone on the ship would hear it. I don't normally sleep well in new places, but I slept like a baby every night.

You are welcome! we are in Colorado Springs.

Scenic Cruising through Glacier Bay:

When we woke up, were in Glacier Bay, hoping to see calving glaciers and wildlife. The day started cold and cloudy but as we approached John’s Hopkins glacier the sun came out and things warmed up considerably. Just when Katie was getting too cold to stay outside, stewards came around with hot pea soup. It was excellent.

Margerie glacier didn’t disappoint us. Several times in the hour we were there we saw calving. After we turned, in one of the inlets, there was a pod of whales, we saw whale spout after spout while we were in the Crow’s Nest. The ranger suspected that there must have been 5 or 6 whales there. Some with binoculars could see the tails as the whale dove. We also saw moose, bear, sea lions, and puffins. It was an amazing trip. The beauty of the glaciers isn’t to be missed.

If we didn’t have enough to eat, we attended the Dutch tea at 3p.m. I had expected trays of food on the tables with sandwiches, etc… This was more of a buffet line to get treats and sit for the tea. The food and tea were good, just not what I expected.

Tonight was the Gala attire/formal night. We had made a reservation for 5:15 but after eating all day, none of us were hungry, I cancelled the reservation and decided we would take our chances when it came to getting a table. We got to dinner at 6:30 and were seated almost immediately. Katie and Reed had the shrimp cocktail (the same HUGE shrimp we had a Pinnacle), I had the fois gras. I don’t know how you can make fois gras light, but HAL did. There was just enough apple to give it a lighter taste. I then had the salad which was good. Of course, I’m a seafood fan, so I had to have the surf and turf. I asked for a second lobster tail which was kindly obliged. Everyone at the table thought I was a genius for ordering two. The waiter was trying to get the meat out of the tail and I said, “go ahead and help the others, I’ve got this.” I had expected the lobster to be over cooked, but it was beautiful. The filet was amazing, tender and juicy. Dessert was the flourless chocolate cake which was wonderful.

We sat with some very interesting people, a young lady who was going to Georgia Tech and two from Calgary. We talked until 9:30. I joked with our waiter that we had been there so long we ought to have more lobster.

Tonight the magician performed, he was quite good. However, I think he was a little unnerved because of two incidents. First, just as the show was starting, a very large group of people came late and then walked in front of people trying to find empty seats. Guests started getting irritated and one lady even jumped up and started saying, “There’s a show on, go around!” One of the latecomers started arguing with her. Once he moved on a little, he saw some seats and went to go sit, but a gentleman was saving for his wife. This same latecomer started arguing with the man about the open seat and the man began gently, “this is for my wife.” I thought it was about to come to blows when the man stood up and had to tell the latecomer quite forcefully, “MOVE ON!”

If that wasn’t enough, about 10 minutes into the show, we hear the alarm. I start thinking, “crap, I don’t remember what each alarm means.” The captain of the watch came on to say a fire had been detected on the seventh floor in a stateroom. You could sense the audience tense up and begin to fidget. Several minutes later the captain comes on to explain that there was an electrical fire started with some wiring in one of the staterooms. It was put out and a crew was there to fix the issue.

Skagway, Emerald Lake:

A few months before the trip, we decided we wanted to visit Emerald Lake, so I rented a car from Avis. We thought about the train, but the idea of being able to stop when and where we wanted, plus saving over $200 appealed to my frugal nature.

Throughout the trip, we’ve found that we enjoy dining in the Rotterdam (main dining hall) more than trying to fight people at the buffet. We’ve only eaten at the buffet (Lido) twice. I was afraid that dining in the MDR would take hours, however, courses come out at an appropriate pace, you don’t feel as if you are waiting an eternity for your food, nor do you feel rushed.

From the ship, we walked to Avis, got in and out quickly, and started the easy drive up the Klondike Highway. For those that are nervous about driving this route, don’t be, it is a very easy mountain drive, there are guardrails in places where there should be rails. Don’t forget your passport! Since we didn’t have to think about passports for a while, I almost forgot that one would be needed to enter Canada.

The drive up was AMAZING!! I’ve driven Rocky Mountain National Park and other mountain scenery, but wow. This was truly spectacular. At almost every turn there was a jaw dropping view. For you shutterbugs, don’t forget to turn around and look behind you.

Crossing the border was simple, just stopped in the correct lane showed passports and we were on our way into British Columbia. We used Murray’s guide to help us navigate through some of the more scenic sections. Don’t buy the guide for directions, it is a simple one road up, one road down, turn left at Carcross if you want to stop somewhere.

We stopped at Carcross. It is a tiny town (village?) with a few places to eat and shop. There is a shop which sells laser cut metal. Amazing work! We shopped at the general store and ate lunch at the Bistro. The burgers are wonderful, we tried poutine (YUM!), but I didn’t like their beer cheese soup.

A high school aged girl was trying to make some extra money by selling cookies and juice. We could hear her booming voice calling over and over, “Cookies, cookies for sale, and orange juice and lemonade too.” Thank goodness we didn’t need to hear her all day long!

We moved on up to Emerald Lake. Wow. Just Wow. I could have sat there all day watching the colors on the lake change. We then made the drive back down to Skagway. The views were still amazing coming back. Dropped off the rental and decided to shop around.

There are lots of places in Skagway to go if you are looking to spend a lot of money. I’m a frugal tightwad, not only were the prices I saw not in the same ballpark, we weren’t even playing the same sport. The vases with the gold leaf tips were amazing, but we aren’t the kind of family that can just say, “wrap it up!” when it costs $800. We did buy some things, but I was very surprised at the high cost of some of the souvenirs. I was also surprised that some places had a Cancun market feel, “here come into my shop… We have something special just for cruise guests….”

We were back on the ship around 6p.m. tired but felt that we had seen everything we could. I was excited because that night we had a reservation at the Pinnacle Grill as a part of our Explore 4 package. I heeded the advice of other CC members and if I saw two appetizers I liked, I ordered them! I had the Lobster Bisque (very good with an earthy undertone), crab cakes (good, but the sauce really stole the show), Reed had the lobster bisque and the shrimp cocktail (the shrimp were HUGE!).

We both ordered the bone in rib-eye. I’m sorry to say, I didn’t like it. Now, I LOVE ribeye. It is one of my favorite cuts of beef, but this was tough. I barely ate half of it. I was very surprised that it was that tough, Reed had the prime rib a few nights previously and it was wonderful. I had the tenderloin at the first formal night, though I didn’t care for the sauce, the steak was cooked perfectly and extremely tender. I thought this was a different cut of steak masquerading as a ribeye.

Dessert was wonderful, Reed had the lemon brulee and I had the chocolate volcano. The lemon dish was divine, just the right amount of lemon flavor. My chocolate volcano was extremely rich and decadent. We did order the cheese plate as well. The swiss and the brie were wonderful, the hard cheese (not sure what it was) and blue cheese were not. As I bit into the blue cheese I thought, “this is what a barnyard smell tastes like.” Don’t get me wrong, I love blue cheese, this one was earthy!

Katie stayed in our stateroom as Reed and I went to dinner. We showed her what she could order, etc… When we got back she was half asleep watching a movie. She went to bed and we went to the comedian, Lee Bayless. He was pretty good! Clean comedy. He spoke of the minor annoyances of the ship, not being able to find his room again, how to use the shower, and the fall he took just trying to get into the bathroom because of the step. He was happy to see all the hair gel available all over the ship (sanitizer) but couldn’t understand why the people on the ship had to remind him what day it was in the elevators. He thought there should just be one mat that says, “Today.” I get it, you are on vacation!

We just got back, our highs were around 60 and varying degrees of cloudy vs. sunny weather. The only time we were cold was when we were in Glacier Bay. Here is what we brought for outer layers:

light jacket/ hoodie

fleece vest

outer waterproof shell (Columbia)

The only time we needed our gloves, hats, and scarves were in Glacier Bay.

Those are just a few of the ones I took on the trip!

Sea Lions hanging out on the channel marker:

Captain Terry drove us to Mendenhall Glacier where we walked to Nugget Falls (easy 1 mile hike!). Seeing the glacier was amazing and there were several icebergs as well.

We thought about walking around downtown Juneau but we were beat. We took a taxi back to the ship, ate the Klondike dinner at the Lido, and I went through some of my pictures and sat to write up more of this report. Tomorrow is an early day in Skagway and the drive up to Emerald Lake.