4.29.2018 NCL Pearl to Alaska live writeup- and I don’t even sail for 75 days!

fastpitchdad · May 3, 2018

Note: I am a miso snob. Most miso soup you get included in meals at japanese restaurant are gross. They did a good job with this.

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Miso soup is also a fantastic hangover cure :) .

OctoberSky · May 3, 2018

Following along. Have fun!!

Weetahbugdotcom · May 3, 2018

Wow, this is getting hard to keep up on! Images take a long time to upload on this internet. It really sucks. Tip: I wouldn’t bother with the streaming premium package. It’s not like you can actually do it.

Anyway, heading back to my room, it smelled like sour milk. Someone got sea sick and they were cleaning it up.

Day 2 towel animal:

Dailies for day 3:

Anyway, this is how i spent most of the rest of the night:

You are going to have to imagine me in a hoodie hanging out at dusk on my balcony. I have tried uploading this photo like 100 times.

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Weetahbugdotcom · May 3, 2018

Ahh, here it is!

So, so that this post is not just a photo of me, I’m going to share a few observations.

1.) I am not sure the spa pass is worth it on this trip. The outdoor hot tubs are mostly empty and kind of nicer!

2.) pet peeve, and not the room steward’s fault. I hate that they shut the curtains every time they make up the room. I always want to see out the window. I want the light to wake me up.

3.) canon’s DSLRs are not weather sealed. Bring a weather package if cameras don’t grow on trees for you.

4.) i have only cruised once before with unlimited beverage, but in my experience, and in that of everyone I have read, after awhile they play kind of loosey goosey with your card. And if you get a drink that has coffee in it, they don’t charge you for the coffee. Not so here. They take the card every time here, and when they were selling boozy coffee and hot chocolate at glacier bay, they charged a nominal fee for the coffee part.

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bgood651 · May 3, 2018

Add me to the class of '78, taking an Alaskan cruise to celebrate! It'll be my first cruise ever, on the Pearl leaving July 29, so I'm loving all your pictures and commentary! Keep it coming!!! (y)

Beachiekeen · May 3, 2018

Well I got impatient so I went to Instagram. Your pictures are great and it's bringing back so many memories! :loudcry: I love seeing all the snow.

Oh I loved having the spa access for Alaska--I'm a wimp and it was too cold for me to get in the public hot tubs. On our cruise, they were pretty crowded too.

Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

Ok, day 3: Juneau.

Writers note: the internet is really sucking. I am going to just Catch up without photos and then sometime when I have better internet, heck, even 4g, I will post photos.

The weather is grey and cold and wet. The rocking has stopped.

I have a nice breakfast of eggs in moderno, with a Bloody Mary, and explored the ship some more before my facial.

I have a facial in the morning. I go, and don’t have to fill out a consult form because they have the one I did already. The one that says do not sell me any product.

I hate when people giving facials (or doing hair) give you a science lesson. A. It’s often stuff I already know, and B. It’s often geared towards selling stuff later. C. It’s not usually accurate, or at least it’s skewed towards B. If I never hear the word “toxins” again I’ll be happy.

She had an accent, and I was uninterested, so I couldn’t understand a lot of what she was saying but there is no “teenager” layer of the skin. I just let my eyes glaze over and shook my head as quickly as possible so we could get on with it.

The facial felt amazing, and my skin looked and felt great after. Microdermabrasion, massage, oxygen, some sort of probably BS red and blue light, extractions, I don’t care, it felt good.

She does not try to sell me anything, besides another facial, but does bring me a box of all of the things she used on me to “show” me.

Sure, like I just wanted to “show” my grandma the new Jem doll at ChildWorld in 1986.

I got on the defensive and got out of it pretty easily.

I wandered the ship some more.

Soon it was time to go out into the pea soup. Priority disembarkation is awesome.

Here’s where I do my sales pitch. Although I have no stake in things.

If you have not booked an excursion in Juneau, and want to, please consider Alaska Humpback Adventures.

I was actually their first client. But that’s not to say Captain Steve is inexperienced, far from

It.

Steve’s brother in law started Harv and Marv’s, and he was a customer favorite captain under the new owners. He has branched out and opened his own company, piloting the Merlin.

The Merlin fits 6 people besides the captain. I had 2 others on the excursion with me, which was amazing. I am really bad at seeing quick things. Like, it was always a joke that something happened right in front of me and I didn’t see it. Steve made sure I saw the action. You don’t get that kind of focus on a larger tour, and there is absolutely no advantage to a larger tour- the little boat can go everywhere the big boats can.

He showed us several bald eagles, buoys full of sea lions and some swimming ones. 3 humpback whales, that we watched multiple times. There was even one that came up every 4 minutes, which is quick!

I had my camera with me and he was focused on me getting shots.

Steve clearly loves what he does, he got as excited as the rest of us about each whale sighting.

He was totally professional, totally nice, very knowledgeable and shares that knowledge. He lives a really interesting, meaningful life and it was interesting to talk to him about that. He lives off the grid on a remote island and has several adopted native children (some Are adults.) he does local ministry and helps out the community. As an atheist (me) I found myself in awe of the good he does in the name of religion. Being a good guy is not a reason to book his excursion, but all of the other things about the service you get from him is. I guarantee you, there is no better. Check out Alaskahumpbackadventures.com. Tell him lisa sent you. (Or don’t- I don’t get anything out of it )but his tour is great and I saw some great things with my eyes (and some ok things with my camera. It’s a bucket list thing for sure.

We stayed a little longer than the excursion was supposed to be- because we all agreed to. We had 2 of the 3 whales all to ourselves.

It was cold and rainy and grey, but I almost didn’t notice. There were binoculars and snacks aplenty.

After the tour was over, Steve gave us a very sweet gift, as we were his inaugural tour.

He and I had prearranged for him to drop me near mendenhall glacier on the way back. I don’t know that this can happen all the time- I am early in the season- but it can’t hurt to ask.

I took the hike to nugget falls. A couple people on here have asked me via Instagram and here how long it takes- Instagram is being really slow because the internet sucks so it’s hard for me to answer there- but it took me about 15 minutes to get to the falls. I walk fast- about 4mph. If you walk average, it will take you 20 (3 mph) and if you are slow, (2mph) then 30 minutes.

When I got to the falls, there wasn’t another soul there. I spent about 30 minutes taking photos with my tripod, some longer exposures, some timed photos of myself, and some regular photos. The otherwise Impressive glacier played second fiddle because of visibility. Honestly, for a whole

Area that should have left me very awestruck, it was kind of mediocre because of the weather. It was pea soup. What should have taken my breath away was sadly, just ok.

I walked back to the visitor’s center area, and got ready to call an uber. Uber has recently taken on Juneau. It was a $60 ride back to the port. A tour bus driver told me not to worry about it and to jump on her bus. Score.

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Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

I hope the trip is going well. I read somewhere that weather in Juneau was pretty yucky. Can't wait to hear all about the whale watching (and if you got to go).

Oh god. It was awful. It didn’t stop me from doing anything I wanted to do, but the visibility really diminished the magnificence of the glacier and falls. Well, and something potentially terrible happened, but I haven’t gotten that far in the story yet...

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Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

Add me to the class of '78, taking an Alaskan cruise to celebrate! It'll be my first cruise ever, on the Pearl leaving July 29, so I'm loving all your pictures and commentary! Keep it coming!!! (y)

Yay! 40 is the new 28, I am convinced, and 28 is probably my favorite age for no real reason. My boyfriend sometimes talks about how he wishes he was born in [insert variable year here] but I think we were born in the best time ever. Old enough that we have solid pre-internet roots and young enough that we can be cutting edge with the internet (I invented Instagram in my head when i was a kid, and I am so happy that it is a thing now. I will never get over that we live in the future, forever.)

Disclaimer: a bad influence bartender named jamesmichael (confirmed) got me drunk by suggesting delicious libations. I am currently drinking something called the getaway that I highly reccommend.

To be Continued! Sadly without photos! For now... (dun dun DUN!)

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Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

Well I got impatient so I went to Instagram. Your pictures are great and it's bringing back so many memories! :loudcry: I love seeing all the snow.

Oh I loved having the spa access for Alaska--I'm a wimp and it was too cold for me to get in the public hot tubs. On our cruise, they were pretty crowded too.

Fair assessment! Today I was enroute to the spa and I said “F it! I want to be outside!” It wasn’t that windy (except for the gust that made my card go flying...) but your mileage may vary, (ymmv, as the kids say.)

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Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

and thanks, about your kind words about my photos. I have a bad habit of barfing all over Instagram! I basically queued all the photos up this morning and it’s taking all day to actually post them. The videos- faggeddaboudit. Shame, I have some awesome time lapses.

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Beachiekeen · May 4, 2018

and thanks, about your kind words about my photos. I have a bad habit of barfing all over Instagram! I basically queued all the photos up this morning and it’s taking all day to actually post them. The videos- faggeddaboudit. Shame, I have some awesome time lapses.

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They are beautiful!

Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

I know it’s weird I am answering IG questions here, but the IG people came from here, and the internet is really sucking for anything graphical.)

The hot tubs are hot!

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Dave&Ronda · May 4, 2018

Loving the information and photos. Do you find the need for hiking/snow boots? How many layers of clothes? Cell phone connection in US ports? TIA

Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

Loving the information and photos. Do you find the need for hiking/snow boots? How many layers of clothes? Cell phone connection in US ports? TIA

I didn’t bring any, but if I had, my Skagway trip would have been a little different. I’ll get there, but I drove up to the Yukon, and there was a lot of snow. Ironically not up there, but just north of Skagway.

A reasonable winter coat was fine over my regular clothes, today if it wasn’t rainy I would probably skip the coat all together and Just wear a hoodie over my clothes. Tomorrow is going to be 66 in Victoria and I expect to bring a hoodie only because I will be on a bike.

Cell phone connection in ports no problem. At least for me with AT&T. You lose that pretty quickly outside of Skagway.

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Weetahbugdotcom · May 4, 2018

Ok, day 3: Juneau. Now with photos.