ArcticKitty Tackles Alaska - Carnival Splendor 02-10 May 2022- Trip Planning, Trip Report, & Mehhhhbe Some LIVE

[arctickitty]

1 hour ago, Funsince1983 said:

 

 

How was your cruise??

[Funsince1983]

19 minutes ago, arctickitty said:

 

How was your cruise??

It was mostly good. Ports were great, we enjoyed our days off the ship but found we were bored a lot during the short port days onboard. Food and service both noticeably declined. Comedians were terrible. Shows were terrible. Andy was easily the best comedian of the week. Came home with covid, but I guess that’s the risk you take. 

[arctickitty]

5 hours ago, Funsince1983 said:

It was mostly good. Ports were great, we enjoyed our days off the ship but found we were bored a lot during the short port days onboard. Food and service both noticeably declined. Comedians were terrible. Shows were terrible. Andy was easily the best comedian of the week. Came home with covid, but I guess that’s the risk you take. 

Funsince 1983 thanks for reporting back!  Too bad we didn’t see Andy’s show!  Part of the reason I tried Carnival besides the crazy price was so that I wouldn’t know if anything had declined in quality…all new to me.  I hope you’re feeling better!

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9

 

Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada

 

Time for dinner!  In both real life and cruise time!  In real life dinner is going to be a kale & poblano stew with veggies that Special Someone helped me grow.

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9

 

Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada

 

We had a running joke that we were trying to eat “all the animals” as we kept a running mental list of all the species we’d consumed on board.  I ordered the frog legs because I could and to add to the list.

 

I did not like them.  I will admit that once it got placed in front of me, I felt intimidated.  I was advised to pick it up and eat it like a chicken leg.  I did.  So ew.  It was a stringy, chewy, rubbery in like bouncy ball tiny kind of chicken leg.  And the strands of flesh got stuck between my teeth.

 

You win some.  And you don’t win some.

 

 

Special Someone remembered to order the langostine because we were pretty sure that counted as a different species.  All our neighbors were wondering aloud what a langostine was on the menu so we helpfully showed them.  It was ok, clearly not memorable.

 

 

This is the Cobb salad.  It wasn’t really a Cobb but it was a decent salad.

 

 

These short ribs were the best of this dinner and I was lucky that Special Someone shared.  We could have eaten two.

 

 

He also got the enchiladas. 
 

 

I got the penne mariscos and the seafood was actually tender so this was a great dish.

 

We skipped dessert!  We ate late but it was getting close to time to arrive in Victoria.

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9

 

Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada

 

Some deck views sailing into Victoria, BC.

 

 

 

We listened to karaoke in Spectacular Spectacular while we waited to get off the ship.

 

And waited.

 

And waited.

 

 

 

Special Someone suggested I post this video from karaoke so John Heald can tell that lady who thinks he’s a sinner because Carnival doesn’t sponsor organized church services on board that indeed there is church on board.  And synagogue, too.

 

 

It was about 9:10pm when we made it off the ship into Victoria and started our evening walk.

Edited May 27, 2022 by arctickitty

[arctickitty]

Folks, I was in a vortex.  I wrote that post a couple of times and it kept disappearing but this morning it was there and it actually went live when I submitted it.  

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9

 

Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada

 

 

 

Immediately in the dock there are a million options for last minute tours.  I have never seen so many different types of transportation choices all lined up in one spot.  We’re not often tour people so we headed out the gate and followed the crossing guards’ directions towards the city.  I just had to love and laugh how Canada had reflective yellow-clad crossing guards for us.

 

 

A lot for people were grumbling about the delay in getting off further shortening this short port and to be honest I wasn’t entirely sure what we were headed towards or if it was worth it, but I wound up thinking it was because the main landmarks were all lit up and it was pretty in the dark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9

 

Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada

 

Finding and walking around on this bridge is what ultimately made Victoria completely worth it to me.  Walking into town in the dark for hordes of other people who were also questioning why we were walking into town just to get there and turn around, I was wondering that myself.

 

 

Once in downtown Victoria, it seemed like most shops and restaurants and whatnot were mostly closed.  I mean, it was 10pm on a Monday night.  We saw some very drunk, very well dressed business people trying to navigate their way on foot and that was about the extent of the nightlife.

 

 

We saw this bridge from a distance and decided to walk towards it, and based on the timing, that it would be our turnaround point.

 

 

 

I don’t know if I can fully explain why this bridge “made” our brief visit to Victoria but it’s something about the joy of discovery and I find those joys in odd places sometimes.  
 

 

Like the sign on the upper left.  I like that one.

 

 

These also might be my favorite pictures of Victoria.  Sure the lit-up buildings were pretty but anyone could have photographed them and uploaded them; these pictures are mine and mine alone.

 

 

Here is a picture of us, together.

 

 

I just love those swirls.

 

 

Time to walk back towards the ship.

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Trip Day 10 / Cruise Day 9

 

Fifth Port Day / More Like a Sea Day / Victoria, BC, Canada

 

Some final images of Victoria…a few shop windows that caught my eye.

 

 

Small boat harbor…didn’t have enough time to explore it…

 

 

 

 

And on the walk back, I found a Little Free Library!

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back to Seattle

 

Sob.  The final breakfast.  One last burnt grapefruit and one last opportunity to have fruit that someone else cut up for me and made look pretty.

 

 After our late night visit to Victoria, everyone else had the idea to line up for pizza, so we didn’t line up and got some soft serve and ate snacks I’d stashed in the fridge like cucumber and peanut chaat from Masala Tiger.

 

 

This is Special Someone’s omelet.  He asked for “everything” and he got a lot of things in it, but not everything.

 

 

This is the Belgian waffle and the French toast from the port day breakfast menu served with wayyyyy too much molasses syrup. They were both pretty good.

 

 

This is avocado toast no eggs, served on wheat toast instead of sourdough this time.  I also got my hashbrown fix in.  I liked the chicken sausage last time so I got more and also asked for turkey bacon just to try it but they brought me regular pork bacon.  No bacation here!  We also got two of their scrumptious granolas, and had gotten smart to request “no milk” so we wouldn’t waste the milk we didn’t pour on it.  The stuff is so jam packed full of nuts and seeds…yum.

 

And then we went up to the buffet so that I could eat second breakfast.  I don’t remember when exactly I filled my thermos with soft serve, but I’m pretty sure that happened.

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back in Seattle
 

 

After second breakfast I went one last exploring expedition around the ship.

 

 

Pizza was not open disembarkation morning.

 

 

This was when I noticed that outside the spa plays spa music seemingly 24/7.

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back in Seattle
 

 

Disembarkation morning was also when I finally got around to playing mini golf.

 

 

I really enjoyed this course.  I’m not very good at it so I liked that I could hit the ball in the hole after about 4 putts. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

I savored the Seattle views.

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back in Seattle
 

 

I took some more pictures of the water slides to give the green one some justice in attempting to capture just what happens on it.

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back in Seattle
 

 

I took this picture to represent SeaTac.

 

We took a conventional taxi to the airport.  With our original flight cancellation, we got out of a super early flight and onto a 3pm one, which gave us plenty of leisure time.  Lots of people in line were ornery but not us.

 

 

This was my first time visiting a Centurion lounge and for whatever reason I felt I should share the bathroom with you.  And that was before we tried to drink their whole cocktail menu.

 

 

Here’s the menu so that you know the plan for the afternoon:

 

 

Their espresso machine was also top notch.

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back in Seattle
 

 

Food etc from the Centurion lounge in SeaTac.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back in Seattle
 

 

Now it’s time for the glory that was trying to drink our way through the Centurion lounge cocktail menu.  I am usually a one drink wonder as I only drink occasionally and then not much at a time.  But this was the last day of vacation and also the day that back in real life that a secret hearing was supposed to be being held to determine if I was guilty at work or not.    I knew that I could get a call with the verdict any moment but I was throughly holding onto vacation mode and drinking in every last drop of fun.

 

 

I did realized just now that it may be a little tough to tell you which cocktail is which.  We started with the bourbon/whiskey recipes so these first three are the Capitol Hill, Copper Claw, and the Blue Door.

 

 

All three were excellent.

 

 

We paced ourselves with all the savory yummies like steak tips and asparagus and collard greens and chicken soup and cheese its.  Cheese it’s are a rare guilty pleasure for me so it was fun to have them.  I tried their berry refresher too and eventually found the fancy space ship like water machine that had a choice of flat or sparkling water. After I mastered it, I became the designated ambassador for it as I kept encountering lost souls wandering around looking for water.  I’d point them in the correct direction and then they’d stare it at just like I did as the “on” buttons aren’t obvious.

 

This was the Weizen Up and probably my first ever beer cocktail.  It had local beer so points for that, but it just wasn’t as much my taste as the others.  
 

 

Wow I am now going to do a horrible job reporting.  I was going to get the Team Spirit because I’ve never had blue Curaçao before and I’d heard the bartender saying you could sub soda water for the Mountain Dew but Special Someone wanted me to try some cocktail with a name that is not family friendly.  All I have to say is it was a ridiculous drink.  
 

 

Meanwhile we saw another guest wander off with this and we asked the bartender what it was.  Espresso martini.  We already knew they didn’t have the ingredients to make the Via Veneto so we ordered one of these instead.  The bartender has you go get your own double espresso shot from the machine and then they do their magic.  This drink was magic and we couldn’t stop saying holy cow while we worked on it.

 

 

We calculated we had time for one last drink before boarding and I chose espresso martini again.  It was a different bartender and she said “with Baileys or without?” so I said with.  This was very good but the without martini was excellent. 
 

And then it was time to fly to Alaska.  Because our nonstop flight home was cancelled, we were flying to Anchorage.

[arctickitty]

Carnival Splendor Alaska Cruise

 

Final Trip Day

 

Back in Seattle
 

 

One thing that was fun about our trip was that I used Cruise Critic as a resource and since Special Someone FBs and I do not, I suggested he find our sailing on there and then we’d share things we found/learned.  He showed me that someone posted that she found ALL THESE DUCKS on our cruise.  Where???  I did not see a single one except for in the duck game/vending machine in the Warehouse Arcade.  And, of course, wherever I took Alien.  I’m impressed.  But not jealous; Alien is enough for me.

 

 

In the Anchorage airport, we found out that the Delta Sky Club “pop up” would not let us into their extremely empty lounge because they only accept Priority Pass WITH a Delta boarding pass.  The only real lounge in Anchorage is Alaska and this location doesn’t accept Priority Pass anymore.  So we were out of luck on the free food front.  Because of the limited choices with our flight cancellation, we were facing a 4 hour layover, and while Anchorage has more than Fairbanks it doesn’t have much.

 

 

For those of you who do have access to the Delta Sky Club “pop up” it’s on the mezzanine and you access it from the staircase behind Starbucks.  It irritates me a lot that they took the art gallery and roped it off.  To me that’s taking a public space and making it private.  They have some really nice art up there, most of it Alaska Native, that’s not on display elsewhere so to me it’s highly lame to limit access to it.  I did ask the Delta gatekeeper if we could still look at the art and she said yes we could, we just couldn’t sit down.  Awkward!!!  We went and looked at the art quickly anyway mostly because I wanted to show Special Someone an ivory carving by the woman who owned my house on the island before me, but after many years of it being on display, they’d changed things and it wasn’t there anymore.  However, folks, if you have time in Anchorage, whether or not you have Delta Sky Club access, I do still recommend going up there and checking out the art!!

 

 

You can see the art display cases in the Delta Sky Club pop up.

 

 

I always forget how gorgeous the mountains in Anchorage are until I see them again and instantly remember.

 

I spent a good deal of time walking around and doing what I called yogic sitting which was sitting on the floor in different ways to stretch out my muscles.  We ate at Silver Gulch, which always sounds better than it is, and this was not the first time that I found the server to be a combination of indifferent and rude.  
 

In the boarding area my frustration with feeling like people had been staring at me the whole time I’d been in Anchorage came to a head and then I realized I’d kind of asked for it because that morning, faced with limited laundry choices and the desire to keep the vacation vibe going, I’d chosen to wear sparkly mermaid leggings with running shorts over them.  Somehow these didn’t cause any turned heads in Seattle but the stares were constant in Anchorage and it was driving me crazy until I remembered why people were looking.  I was cranky and done with transportation and waiting for it.

 

Special Someone wanted to do early boarding and I’d previously won the decision to not do it, but he won this one and sat down right in front of the boarding podium.  I told him there’s a term for people who have such behavior and I don’t think he really believed me, but it’s called gate lice.  I was cranky enough to sit down and be gate lice right next to him, mermaid leggings on full display so the whole airport could glare at our atrocious manners.  Special Someone’s method for qualifying for early boarding is to put his special ID under his boarding pass, peeking out a little so it’s not super obvious but the gate agent sees it and gives him the special nod.  I have a special ID, too, but I’d never used it in this manner before but like I said, I was done with transportation and I was done with trying to win the battle that relaxing in the boarding area was better than sitting on the airplane so I tried the ID trick right behind Special Someone and I almost died of embarrassment when the gate agent ate it all up and said “Thank you for your service” and then Special Someone fell asleep.  He slept through the excitement of sitting on the plane for an hour while we were on mechanical hold and I was full of see, I told you sos, because if we hadn’t boarded early we would have still been in the gate area with all the other people who stayed on the ground when they paused boarding.

 

 

The mechanic duct taped the offending piece of broken plastic and then it took a very long time to get the paperwork filed.  It’s always the paperwork.  Eventually we did take off and fly for like all of 40 minutes to get back to Fairbanks.

[YVRteacher]

On 5/17/2022 at 3:32 PM, luvcruzing said:

 

YVRteacher said the same thing in her review. 😀

 

No I didn’t.

[slimbyspring]

Thanks for the review!  We are going on the Splendor at the end of August and are avid hikers.  Going to copy Juneau hike.  Curious on ISP, are there hikes around that area.  We are having trouble figuring out what to do that day.

[The Collie]

Were the trails in Skagway and Juneau walking distance from the docks?

[lennythenose]

@arctickitty thank you for all your work on this awesome review!  I was “with” you from the beginning and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have a question for you. We are on a cruise next summer with friends who will have daughters 12 and 15 yo. Very active family and they enjoy hiking which is NOT my thing so I’ve never researched it before. We will be in all the same ports except ISP. If you were to recommend one port and/or trail they should not miss what would it be?

Edited September 4, 2022 by lennythenose

[Anyislandwilldo]

Thank you for all the time and effort you put into this review.  I enjoyed it.

[cruisequeen4ever]

Such an outstanding cruise report; you’re a fantastic story teller! 😀 Thank you for sharing and hope you cruise and report again soon! 

[KmomChicago]

Great review @arctickitty. Looks like you have left the building.