Live (sort of) from the Eclipse in Alaska 7/10

[abbydancer2003]

’m back and ready to start another live from thread, and resolved to finish this time.  

 

I’m starting this offline from the plane to Vancouver.  Usually I start before I leave, but this trip is postponed from May.  We had a great rate on a May Alaska cruise with friends, and a week before I got a bad cold.  Second morning I tested, and the test line was the color of a red firework.  So, we didn’t go.  It wasn’t a total loss because it was the California primary, and I’ve been a poll worker for the last several elections.  I was scheduled to work 2.5 days after I got back, so when I couldn’t go I was able to work most of the days, which was enough to cover the cost differential.  The other reason it wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been was that five days before the cruise, we got an email that Sitka had been replaced by Icy Straights due the ship breaking the dock (thanks Royal Caribbean).  So we rebooked onto the first cruise with Sitka back.  

 

I’m traveling with DH, Glen, who did not get covid when I did.  So I was a bit nervous about covid testing for this cruise.  Last night we used two home tests to avoid a nasty surprise this morning and to my relief both negative.  Which was good, because while all was well with Glen, I discovered I couldn’t check into the flight.  We’d flown United from Vancouver home to SF two months ago and it was fine.  This time, they wanted to scan my passport.  The scan failed, because my name didn’t match.  United, since I joined in the 1980’s has had my middle initial only.  I’ve flown many places with that, but now it’s a problem.  So I called.  The agent helpfully added my middle name and I was good to check in.  Checked in, saw my boarding pass and went to bed.

 

This morning, we did the proctored tests (stayed negative) and waited for our ride.  He came, and while having a nice conversation on our way to the airport, I noticed I didn’t have TSA precheck.  Glad we were early.  

 

We went to the kiosk to check in.  Glen checked in, but when I put in my Mileage Plus number, it said there were no reservations.  Fortunately Glen had my name on his, so he want back in and I got my luggage tag and boarding pass.  I didn’t see a way to get precheck in, so I went to the service line, waited about 7 or 8 minutes and she put it in for me.  She gave me a new boarding pass and off I went.

 

Security was uneventful, and we headed to the United Club.  I scanned my boarding pass, which usually works and has worked even in Air Canada lounges, but didn’t this time.  She said I don’t have lounge access.  I have the United Club credit card, so it should have.  They manually added me and sent me to the service desk, because I’d also fallen off the upgrade list.  (We weren’t high enough to get upgraded, but it was concerning).  The agent there told me that the name change had disconnected my milage plus number from the reservation.  She was able to put it back and gave me a new boarding pass with everything fixed.  So three boarding passes.

 

Boarding was fine, plane left a little late because of an issue with the onboard unit that supplies air conditioning and electric while the plane is at the gate, so they were using gate power.  That had to be disconnected before we left.  It was a little warm until the engine power kicked in, but now we’re on our way.

[chemmo]

Sincere best wishes for a fantastic cruise!

[abbydancer2003]

The day just kept getting funner.  We landed about 15 minutes early, pulled up to the gate and waited.  And waited. Apparently no one was there to drive the jetway.  Finally, after almost 30 minutes, the gate person came on and made announcements (my comment - stop talking and let us off). Eventually we got off the plane, went through a fairly easy customs, and headed to baggage claim.

 

And waited.  The kept announcing. a technical issue with the bags.  After about another 30 minutes, bags started coming, well over an hour after landing.

 

We took the air train to our hotel, and that step went pretty easily.

 

I'm currently taking an online technical class, and I was having a very hard time with a lab.  A fellow student and our instructor had offered to help, so after arriving in the room, getting settled, and ordering my two free weird concierge appetizers from the restaurant (the lounge was closed so they had a choice of 6 things like nori french fries, spicy chicken wings, green salad, etc) I settled into a zoom session.

 

Apparently, Canada had a major internet outage, and it was certainly affecting things.  The internet was slow. so it took about an hour and half from us to determine they couldn't figure out what was wrong either.

By this time, it was 7:30, and I'd been up since 5:30 (not sure why), so we decided to go to dinner.   I wanted to go to the Old Spaghetti factory, because the one near us had closed (and I love their spagetti with Mizirah cheese), so we walked to Gastown.  

 

After a brief wait, we were seated in the trolley car in the restaurant.  There was a family across from us with two women and two very cute little girls.  As they were finishing up, I heard the mom (her kids and one of her best friends) say "no you can't start a conversation with those people".  We said it was fine.

 

So we talked them about various things, the older one (5 yr old) shared that they were going to Disneyland, we said we'd just been and I offered to show them my Frozen costume pictures.  They asked if we had Disneyland pictures, so we showed them a bunch of those. It was very sweet and friendly.  

 

Next was back to the hotel, another attempt to do the lab, more internet issues, including sites not loading, etc.  I gave up and went to bed, after emailing my instructor about not getting anything finished until I got home.  Fortunately, he's very flexible.

Tomorrow, we get a tour of Vancouver.

[Barwick Cruiser]

Looking forward to following your postings. We sail on Eclipse in September, 11 nights as it’s the last of the Alaska season. Sounds like quite the adventure so far with your flights issues, glad you were able to get it all sorted. 
 

Im hoping you can find out if there is any Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc onboard or if they’re still having issues with the supply chain. It’s my go to wine on the ships so hoping they are getting it! 🤞

[asnaleah]

I hope you have a great cruise! Thanks for taking us along for the ride!

[abbydancer2003]

32 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Looking forward to following your postings. We sail on Eclipse in September, 11 nights as it’s the last of the Alaska season. Sounds like quite the adventure so far with your flights issues, glad you were able to get it all sorted. 
 

Im hoping you can find out if there is any Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc onboard or if they’re still having issues with the supply chain. It’s my go to wine on the ships so hoping they are getting it! 🤞

I'll try to remember to do it.  We got a bottle of Chilian Chardonnay in the room.

[Jim_Iain]

Have a great trip Abbey -  You are missing our little heat up -  luckily it will only be two days.

 

Have a wonderful cruise.

[Jldevlin]

What a beautiful day for sail away under the bridge   We get on in 2 weeks so looking forward to a great trip report.

[abbydancer2003]

Boarding day at last.  We woke up, dressed and headed down to breakfast.  Turns out that the hotel is a lot more busy on weekends in July than on weekdays in May, so there was a 10 minute wait.  So I left Glen down there and went up and finished packing.

 

The 10 minute was just about that, and we had our final "Canadian breakfast buffet".  Whatever that means.  Pretty much standard hotel breakfast buffet actually.

 

After breakfast we went back to the room grabbed our bags and walked down to the port.  In prior years, we'd shlep our bags down the side of the car driveway into Canada Place, but yesterday, during our tour, we saw the elevator to the ships.  So we went in through the Convention center.  As we walked through the garage, we saw a luggage drop for the Serenade of the Seas.  We kept walking into the building.  

We then saw some lines of people, with nothing really indicating what they were for.  We asked the port workers there and they said to hang on.  Then they said everyone going to the Eclipse, to move forward into the garage.  We went with them and found the luggage drop.

 

After the luggage drop, they sent us upstairs to do check in.  It was actually pretty fast to get to the front, but then we hit a problem.  I'd printed my covid test, but Glen was planning to use the Navica app.  The cellular coverage was not good, and he had some trouble getting in to show the test.  It took about 5 minutes,   I did ask if necessary that they could test him there, and they said yes.  Once he logged in to the port wifi, he was able to show his results.  We finished the checkin.  Two things from this. 1.  If you possibly can PRINT your test results.  2.  Be prepared to have your picture retaken.  She didn't like either of ours so they were redone.  

 

Following that, they sent us downstairs to go through security.  It took total no more than 7 or 8 minutes.  And after that - US customs.  

When we got to customs, there was a global entry line.  To use it, though, you have to have your card.  And yes, they look at it.  When we got there there were two people in wheelchairs having their picture taken and signing things.  So I thought perhaps it was only a shorter line.  I then noticed they didn't have US passports, so I realized it was problem access assistance and GE.  This was confirmed when our processing simply the customs agent scanning the passports and saying have a nice trip.

 

From there, it was to the ship.  At the entrance to where you went to the gangway was the ubiquitous Celebrity crew members with water for you.  We passed.  

 

And as we walked onto the ship, several crew members were at the entrance clapping.  I've had this happen on both Celebrity and Princess and I have to admit, I could get used to it.  I probably shouldn't, though, because it will eventually wear off.

 

And with boarding I'm going to stop for now as the 3 days of little sleep are catching up with me.  Sea day tomorrow with morning items to finish my labs due tonight, and finish this Sunday post.

[abbydancer2003]

So I just spent a while talking about the afternoon.  The battery almost died, so while moving it  I lost the entire post.   Grrr, I'll redo it later.

 

[abbydancer2003]

Try 2 on the rest of the day.  

First stop was our room to drop our backpacks.  For Glen, this is his first time in a regular balcony (he’s been in suites and a short time in an infinite balcony.  He’s been in Princess balconies, and I pointed out that these are bigger, since they have a couch.

 

We dropped the bags and met Xaviar, our friendly room steward.

Our first stop after bag drop was Cafe Al Baccio,  one of our favorite places.  Because it was still early there were plenty of seats, and we enjoyed our first lattes of the cruise.

 

While there, we watched the safety videos on my phone.  I checked off both of us, but when Glen went back to his phone, his wasn’t done, so he did it.  We then went to the Ensemble lounge for our muster checkin.  Noticed (which I already knew, the the Eclipse still has Michaels club - which is fine for my next cruise, the retreat lounge on the Equinox reminds me of an airport lounge snack area).  We saw Murano and decided to have dinner there one night.  There were two crew members and one couple there, so the second crew member took us to the specialty restaurant booking area between the Ensemble lounge and the back restaurants and we got the date and time we wanted.  

 

We then looked at Blu and headed to the upper decks.  I told Glen we should see the Persian Garden since that’s an Aqua perk.  We went there, and one of the staff members offered to give us a tour of the spa and gym.  We took her up on it, and saw everything.  Of course we got some sales pitches.  Our answer to everything was that we’d think about it. 

 

I also asked what they’d charge for trimming my bangs, since they desperately needed trimming.  At the end of the tour, we found one of the hair dressers and she said 25.00 but she’d do it for 20 if I did it now.  I had nothing else to do, so I let her do it.  They look pretty good, although at the end she suggest that I come back for a hair do on the night of our specialty dinner (we’d told them we were celebrating our anniversary (actually would have been the day after the cancelled cruise, so we decided we could do it now).  I don’t think I’ll go back and do that.

 

Following the spa and gym tour we decided to see if the room was ready.  It was, and our luggage arrived soon after we did.  Glen unpacked his luggage while I started my assignment due yesterday.  It was at that point he saw the greatest disadvantage to the room.  There is very little storage.  On Princess, there’s a closet area by the entrance to the room.  There’s enough room to place two large suitcases on the floor, and a chest of drawers.  This ship has two storage compartments above the bed, and a small set of drawers as part of the desk unit.  Glen took the above the bed area and gave me the drawers, since he can reach the storage above the bed and I can’t.   Once he unpacked, we decided maybe we should have lunch, and a hot dog sounded good.  So we went up to the mast grill and had hotdogs.  We shared fries, and then I finished with a strawberry soft serve.

 

After that, another walk around the ship.  We ended up at the Solstice deck, which is 15 or 16 at the front of the ship.  It’s what will probably, if they ever revolutionize this ship, become the retreat sundeck.  We hung out there for a while, and then went back to the room.

 

I did some computer stuff and unpacked my suitcase.  We watched the spillway from the balcony and then, after dressing for dinner (we dress up a little bit).  At about 6:30, we went to the Sky Lounge for the recorded ballroom music.  It turned out it was rather like elevator music.  We did a couple of dances, and then Glen left a note at the DJ booth saying that there is much better current music.  He gave some examples and signed it “The ballroom dancers in 1650”.  We don’t expect anything from that.

 

Since the music was hard to listen to,  we decided to go back to Al Baccio for another coffee.  Glen ordered a vanilla soy latte.  He got his latte and decided they’d left the vanilla out.  He asked our server about it, and Noah (server) explained that it was made with vanilla soy.  I think Glen was expecting a soy latte with a shot of vanilla.  Noah took the drink back, popped in the shot and all was well.  

 

We had some time before the house band started, so we decided to get a drink.  First stop was the martini bar.  It was busy, but not as crowded as I’ve seen them pre pandemic.  We looked at the menu, Glen decided he didn’t really want a martini, so we went to the Passport bar on deck 3.  We had very friendly servers, and Glen tried a Singapore sling.  The X price was a lot less than at the Raffles hotel in Singapore,  which is over 25.00 US.

 

At 7:45 the band started and it appeared that they’d be a jazz band.  So we decided to take a walk around the deck before dinner.  At about 8:05 we headed in for dinner, and heard the band doing more danceable music.

We were seated promptly at the back of the restaurant.  The area was nice but in the middle of the bench was a seam between bench sections so we asked to move to the next table.  We were able to do that, and enjoyed dinner.  I started with Asparagus soup, followed by the baby spinach salad.  Both were very good.  Glen was happy with his calamari appetizer.  We both had the filet mignon, and Glen said it was the best he’s ever had.  It was seriously excellent.  For dessert, we both tried the Dulce de leche Catalina, which was really a dulce de leche creme brûlée.  It was also quite good.  The service was great, the food was great, so we were very happy with our first experience in Blu together.  (I’d been in Aqua once before).

 

After dinner we were going to take a walk outside, but we got back to the room and decided that we were both tired, so I wrote the previous post, and went to bed.

Day 1 is a wrap.  Sea day tomorrow.

[TeaBag]

Your dinner sounded delightful, Abbydancer.  Was your waiter Made?  Looks like you're in for a great cruise with sunny weather.  Enjoy every moment.

[boxkite]

Have a great cruise Abby and Glen!

 

Look forward to your posts for the rest of the cruise.

 

We board Eclipse in August, so all your tips and observations will be appreciated!

[abbydancer2003]

4 hours ago, TeaBag said:

Your dinner sounded delightful, Abbydancer.  Was your waiter Made?  Looks like you're in for a great cruise with sunny weather.  Enjoy every moment.

Yes, Made and Sein were our team both nights.  They are great!

 

[Mark_T]

Looking forward to your further thoughts and comments, as we will be on Eclipse in January.

 

Have a great cruise!

[kstetser]

Thank you so much - really enjoying your report.  We sail Eclipse on 7/31 - first Celebrity cruise.  This is giving me a much better idea of what to expect.   Hope you are having a great time!

[abbydancer2003]

8 minutes ago, kstetser said:

Thank you so much - really enjoying your report.  We sail Eclipse on 7/31 - first Celebrity cruise.  This is giving me a much better idea of what to expect.   Hope you are having a great time!

Thank you.  We are on that one too, and I'll be live reporting that one too.  I'm on with my sister and some friends.  

Edited July 12, 2022 by abbydancer

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

"the retreat lounge on the Equinox reminds me of an airport lounge snack area" 

 

I thought I was the only one who felt that way!

 

Hope you have a great cruise!

 

[abbydancer2003]

Day 2 - Maybe I'll get caught up tonight.

 

Today was the first of 2.7 sea days.  My definition of a sea day one where you can have lunch in a dining room.  On this cruise, there are two full sea days,  A third day is Hubbard Glacier, so scenic cruising only, and then Ketchikan arrival is 2:00 pm.  So lunches available both those days.

 

The clocks went to Alaska time last night, so we did get an extra hour to sleep.  We set the alarm for 8 am but were up a few minutes before that.  We dressed, and headed to breakfast in Blu.  This was the second time I’ve had breakfast in Blu.  (My sister and I ate there with friends we’d run into on the ship earlier.  We were in a Sky Suite, they were in Aqua, so we had breakfast together).  It was quite the production.  We were seated and with in a few minutes of that, assistant waiters came by with coffee, water, a tray of juice and smoothie choices and pastries.  Martin, one of the waiters took our order.  I ordered French toast.  The menu said it had muddled berries, but there was no sign of them on the plate.  I’m sure I could have had them bring some but it was still good.  

 

When we left for breakfast, Glen realized he didn’t have his room card.  He went back, but couldn’t find it, so after breakfast we headed down to guest services to get him a new one.  There was a line there, so we joined it.  It was pretty well organized, actually.  There was a separate area for people with credit card issues, and a representative was walking the line to see if he could help.  For example, the people ahead of us only wanted to know if their tour time was in Pacific time or ship time ( they seemed far more confused than I thought possible).  He told Glen he had to stay in line, which we expected.

 

It took maybe 20 minutes, and then we went back up to the room.  My plan for the morning was get the chapter that was due Sunday done before lunch.  We relocated to the sky lounge, and I completed the last exercise, but I still had the lab that gets turned in to do.  So, I went on to cruise critic and started my second post for boarding day.  I hadn’t charged my laptop since leaving the hotel on Sunday and I was getting the messages that the computer was about to shut down, so I moved to the room.  I’d left the laptop partially open, so when I came back, my post was gone.  

 

Going forward, I’m writing in a text window and cutting and pasting when ready.

 

I plugged the laptop in and started again.  About 15 minutes later Glen. came down with all my stuff.  We decided (well, mostly I decided) that at 1:00 we’d go to the Captain’s Club officer toast, stay for 15 minutes, and then get lunch.  So at 1 we headed up.  We walked the line of officers standing there.  To be honest, Captain Leo looked like he wasn’t old enough to be a captain.  Glen commented that, and Captain Leo said it was the mask.  We sat down, and were offered some drinks and appetizers.  I miss the nightly cocktail reception.  At about 1:10 the captain spoke, thanked us all for being on the ship, etc etc.  We left when they did the most traveled passenger presentation, so we could do lunch.  Honestly, I thought 1pm was a stupid time, as it cut right in the middle of lunch time.  

 

We made our way to the dining room, and got there with about 5 minutes to spare.  We did say we would share, but I think we were the last in.  It was, I believe, Glen’s first time in the main dining room.    I started with mozzarella sticks (I’ve ordered them in Luminae before), and Glen started with a salad.  He had duck teriyaki for his main, and I had the entree Cobb salad.  Both were good, and Glen liked that it was variation from chicken teriyaki.  For dessert we both had strawberry shortcake.  It wasn’t exactly a short cake, but it was a good strawberry cake.  Our Blu waiter Made came by to say hello.  At one point I looked over at the waiter station and realized there were at least 10 or more waiters there.  Never seen that before.

 

The next thing we wanted to go to was a future cruise presentation on the Galapagos.  So we spent the afternoon going between room and events.  The Galapagos presentation was interesting.  We’re actually booked on the Xpediation with the Macchu Pichu extension late next year, so it was useful.  The talk was centered on the Flora, but the wildlife pictures were great, and we appreciated the explanation of the Peru extension.  When she mentioned the current sale, I noticed that it was higher than what we booked at last year,.

 

I’d decided that I wanted to try to attend my class on Zoom.  However, I got the time change backwards (happens rarely, but it does happen).  I thought my 6pm class was at 7 our time, but it was at 5.  I, of course, figured it out at 6:30.  Oh well.  So, blissfully unaware I was missing class, we decided to go to see  the movie at Celebrity Central.  It was Luca, the Pixar movie about a sea monster boy who wanted to go to the surface.  I’d seen part of it on a plane, so I enjoyed the whole thing.

 

From there, we went to the theater to see Topper.  We got there as the Captain was onstage introducing the staff.  It was pretty much the same as the last time we saw it in October.  I might be done with it.

 

After that, dinner.  We were seated at a table near the window block, but still, I was happy to see, in Made’s section.  I started with a spinach salad with goat cheese dressing, Glen had a tomato salad.  Mine was good, but the dressing was very rich so I only at part of it.  We both had the lamb shoulder in phyllo dough.  It was good.  

 

When we’d walked in the woman at the next table had the strawberry soup as appetizer.  For her entree, she had a steak, which I didn’t see on the menu.  She said it was from the kids menu.  Good to know.  I knew there is a Luminae kids menu, but good to know I can get a steak if nothing else appeals.

 

The soup looked good, so I had that for dessert.  Glen had the phyllo dough fruit cup.  Both were good.  

 

After dinner, back to the room where I finished the lab that was due Sunday.  Turned it in and now I’m caught up.  Two more due next Sunday, but I’ve got time.

 

We tried to find a movie to watch, but the TV on this ship isn’t great  Although, I haven’t checked if there’s on demand movies (found it today).  So we gave up and went to bed.  Tomorrow - Sitka.  Finally.

 

 

 

[abbydancer2003]

Day 3

Actually starting this at the end of the day.

 

Breakfast in Blu, Today I tried my modified eggs Benedict.  I use bacon, as I don’t like ham.  I had a starter of watermelon and that.  Glen had pancakes with a side of bacon.  Not quite the same efficiency as yesterday, but close enough.  (We had to order juice - first world problem).  When the food came, I got 1/2 of a muffin with Benedict.  It was correct and the egg wasn’t over done, which can happen a lot.

 

After breakfast I went back to the room to watch MSNBC and the 1/6/21 hearing.  Midway through Xavier came in to do the room, so I tried streaming it from my laptop in the library.  I missed some of it due to internet issues, but watched what I could.

 

During all this, we arrived in Sitka, along with the Ovation of the Seas, one of Royal’s Quantum class ships, with just under 5,000 guests.  This will matter in a few minutes.

 

We waited until the hearing concluded, and then, around 12:30 or so, decided to head into town.  The pier is about 5 miles from the pier.  The port provides shuttle busses.  I was hoping that by waiting over 90 minutes there wouldn’t be much of a wait. 

 

Wrong - when we got to the dock area there was a Disney style line for the buses.  Fortunately they were coming reasonably frequently, but it still took 30 minutes to get on the bus.  It was about a 20 minute ride, and we were dropped off by the Public Library and a Community building.  

 

We first walked along the water behind the building, and noticed that the line to take the shuttle back went all the way around the building.  I was hopeful that maybe by the time we left, it would be shorter (silly me).  First stop was an ATM for Glen to get cash.  We exited from the back of the bank onto one of the main streets.  Mostly shops and a few restaurants, but there was the cathedral.  St. Michael’s Cathedral in Sitka is a Russian Orthodox Church, and one of the main sights in town.  We stopped in.  It’s very elaborately decorated and lots of icons of saints.  Very ornate as well.  They layout was similar to a church near home where I’d attended a Greek Orthodox wedding a few years ago (church was Russian, but close enough for them).

 

After that we wandered around for a while.  We looked at a few restaurants but nothing appealed, so we decided to try the restaurant in the biggest hotel in Sitka, called the Westmark.  Wait was an hour and half, so we passed, and decided to go back to the ship after stopping at the local fudge shop.  Turns out they only had chocolate flavors so I passed, since (gasp) I don’t like chocolate.  I did buy some huckleberry caramels.  We then got in line to go back.  The line now went around the building and down half a block.  We discussed redoing finding food and coming back later.  Glen suggested the tamale stand, but I don’t particularly like them, and we live in California, where tamales are plentiful and good.  So we stayed in line.  We spent it chatting with a family on the Ovation.  They had to be on a 4pm shuttle while we had until 7:30.  I wondered if someone on the Ovation showed up around 4, expecting to get right on would be screwed, or we’d see pier runners. 

 

The line was about 40 minutes.  I suspect that if we’d spent the afternoon on the ship, and maybe tried to go in after lunch we might have had a better experience, but based on what I did and saw, I can now check Sitka off.  Maybe also if we hadn’t been there with a 5000 passenger ship, I might have enjoyed the town more.  We did however, buy some Claritin so it wasn’t a total waste.

 

After dropping our stuff, we went up to the buffet, but by that time lunch was over, and it was pizza and pasta.  (Point to Princess on that, they run lunch until after 4pm).  This started our sweet eating frenzy, sort of.  Glen had a cookie and I had some ice cream.  He wanted a Red Velvet cupcake, though, so down to Al Baccio for lattes and sweets.  

 

Then back to the room for a while.  We decided to brave the recorded ballroom again, so dressed and headed up.  We did dance a few, and got a thumbs up from Dave, the cruise director.   When that ended, the bad was starting in the grand foyer so we went to the passport bar.  We were able to dance a couple of songs, but when the played the waltz, we didn’t because the floor was too crowded for us.  

 

At about 8:15 we decided we were hungry enough for dinner, so we went to Blu.  It was a little crowded, as all aboard was 8pm, so lots of people eating later.  We asked to be seated in Made’s section and said we’d be willing to wait, but there was a table in the corner of the back room along a sofa, and we were seated there.  It was  away from others, and quiet.  I started with the baked brie, one of my very favorite appetizers (I asked if on my next cruise, which is in a sky suite, I could come in early for a snack of baked brie.  I think I can.  Glen started with a white gazpacho soup that he said was good.  For entrees, I had cabernet glazed short ribs, which were excellent.  Once I finished, I realized that it was supposed to have green beans, but I didn’t care.  Glen ordered the steak salad, which was a steak alongside a salad.  It was a thin steak, which can sometimes be a bit of a problem, but he said it was cooked perfectly.  For dessert I had cherries Jubilee, making this my favorite dinner in Blu, and Glen had the panda cotta, no sugar added dessert.  We had a nice conversation with Sein, our lovely assistant waiter.  She’s from Myanmar, and was impressed that I knew it used to be Burma.  

 

After dinner we went back to the room and watched a stupid world war 2 movie from on Demand.  

 

Sitka in the books, and I’m not sure I need to go back, but I’m glad I was there.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Sitka is a lovely little town, but not with 5000 other pax in addition to the pax from your ship wandering around!  There's a lovely national historic park with lots of wonderful totems and an interesting raptor center.

 

[abbydancer2003]

1 minute ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

Sitka is a lovely little town, but not with 5000 other pax in addition to the pax from your ship wandering around!  There's a lovely national historic park with lots of wonderful totems and an interesting raptor center.

 

Yeah, I said to Glen maybe next time we'll see some of the not in town center things.  It was a bigger town than I expected, though.

[twincheryl]

2 hours ago, abbydancer said:

Yeah, I said to Glen maybe next time we'll see some of the not in town center things.  It was a bigger town than I expected, though.

Did you notice if there were taxis or any other transport to/from town?  We are not fond of lines or busses… lol

[abbydancer2003]

2 hours ago, twincheryl said:

Did you notice if there were taxis or any other transport to/from town?  We are not fond of lines or busses… lol

I didn't see any at the port.  I did see some taxi companies with tour signs at the drop off.  Glen heard someone ask a local about taking at taxi and the local said that he could call a cab company use them if they answer the phone.  

Sorry I don't have better information.

[abbydancer2003]

Day 4

Today  was Hubbard Glacier.  We stared with breakfast in Blu, today was bacon and eggs for Glen and a cheese omelette for me.  We were seated next to a couple from London, and had a very nice chat with them through breakfast.  I mentioned we had tickets for the Warner Brothers studio when we’re in London.  They said it was fabulous, but did tell us we were staying rather far away (we know - we based the hotel on getting to Southhampton).  

 

After breakfast, we were on approach to the glacier, so we went back to the room and got our jackets and headed to the top decks.  Hubbard Glacier is, I think, one of the longest glaciers in the state, and it was spectacular.  We spent a couple of hours watching it and trying to see the harbor seals the naturalist said were there.  I guess he had better binoculars than we do. We stayed around the top decks until the ship turned so that our balcony was facing the secondary glacier (Valerie glacier) heading toward Hubbard.  Xavier, our room steward was cleaning the room, so we headed to the balcony.  On his way out, he stopped and chatted for a while.  He said he might be moving to the back of the ship, so may be my steward in three weeks.  We’ll see.

 

It was around 12:30, so we decided to go get a coffee and then lunch in the dining room.  At Al Baccio, Glen looked at some of the pastries, until I pointed out that we were going to lunch in 20 minutes.  So coffees only for us.

 

We went to the dining room for lunch, and there was a line of about 20-30 people.  Shorter than some of the line I used to see on the Princess coastal so we joined it.  It was only about about a 10 minute wait, and we were seated at a table for two next to a table for two with one person. He was from Australia and we had a nice conversation with him during lunch.

 

Glen had broccoli and cheese soup and some sort of fish.  I opted for a wedge salad and meatloaf.  It was good,   For dessert, I ordered a passion fruit and lemon mousse, and Glen opted for Maple Pecan pie.  They brought my mousse, but they brought Glen a cheesecake because they were out of pie.  Then a few minutes later, they brought out a piece of the pie and we split it.

 

After lunch, I went to the casino for a few minutes to burn my OBC.  Glen went upstairs.  After that, I went to the sky lounge to work on my thread and try to do some homework.  Wile I was up there, one of the cruise staff was doing some games so I listened to the Yes No game, and 80’s music trivia.  If playing, I would have done OK on the trivia.  

 

After an hour I went downstairs, and decided to watch a bit of TV.  It just happened that a movie was starting on the movie channel, I saw part of the cast list, including America’s favorite murderer - O.J. Simpson.  I googled the cast and it turned it was the Towering Inferno, a movie I enjoyed back in my childhood.  So we watched it.

 

After that, we went up to the recorded ballroom music, and did some dancing.  Then when wandering around downstairs, we decided to see most of the show, which was Broadway.  As usual, mostly shows that weren’t very big, although they did do one of the few songs that I think should be banned from ever being preformed in figure skating - Memory from Cats (My Heart will go On from Titanic is another).  It was the typical X Broadway show - a few good songs and lots of irrelevant 

 ones. Following that, we headed to dinner.  We were seated in Made and Seen section, in the window section.  Dinner was nice, as we had views of mountains and small glaciers coming down them throughout.  Glen did point out that on this class of ships, Blue has the best views.  For dinner I had two starters - the eggplant tapenade (Made said it was like a ratatouille (he was right) and butternut squash soup.  Glen had the kale Caesar salad (Kale, a green that should have stayed a garnish in my opinion).  We both had the ribeye steak for dinner and it was quite good.  On this ship Blu has very good steaks in general.

 

After dinner, we were heading to the stairs, when we heard the house band playing a very good west coast swing, so we danced to that, plus a few more til they finished.  After that we danced to the band that followed them and called it a night.  Back in the room we watched the first half of A League of their Own.  (I highly recommend it).