Our Day in Aruba

We have a full 12 hours in Aruba so we had lots of time to lounge around on the ship after taking a nice excursion and doing some shopping.Our first stop was a Butterfly Garden where they raise a large variety of butterflies. do community education, and encourage the residents to plant a variety of host plants to sustain wild butterflies. Check out Mary's photo of this blue butterfly!
After that we visited an aloe factory. Aloe is a major crop and this one factory makes up 3% of the Aruba economy. We about the history of aloe production and how they now strictly make cosmetic products.
Our tour wrapped up with a visit to Mt Ayo, one of the highest places on this island. This is a historic site and also contains some ancient cave drawings that are un-interpretted, but believed to indicate this was some kind of spiritual place.
To celebrate New Year's Eve, Aruban's like to light off these long chains of noisy firecrackers. They lay them out in a street and set them off. The noise is tremendous and goes on for a very long time. We saw one chain that had to be 50' long!
Our day wrapped up with some shopping in downtown Aruba, then back to the ship where we hit up the adults only pool, enjoyed afternoon cookies and milk, and are now getting ready for a lobster dinner.

No water volleyball today

It was a bit rough for the scheduled water volleyball game today. Too bad - would have been fun to do! Video to be added once I get home and have a good internet connection.
Added Jan 11: Here's the video:

It was a bit rough for the scheduled water volleyball game today. Too bad - would have been fun to do! Video to be added on I get home and have a good internet connection.

Second Day at Sea

Nothing new to say today, no pictures or anything. Just enjoying a second day at sea and conserving internet minutes for later on.
So far the evening dinners have been disappointing. We ate in the dining room the first night, but the last night and tonight have not had any entrees to entice us so we are enjoying the buffet.
Aruba tomorrow!!

Departing on our New Years Cruise'

Today we flew to Fort Lauderdale and on to the Emerald Princess for our 10 day Caribbean cruise. Despite all the trouble on the east coat, we had no issues with our flights, arriving on schedule. We had no lines for registration, but had very long lines at the elevators. Made us wish we were back on the Royal, a small ship with only 700 passengers as opposed to the 3200 on this ship.
We had a nice dinner this evening and are now watching a movie before turning in. But I just might have to make a dessert run to the buffet before we call it a night.
Tomorrow is a day at sea as we head to Aruba so I doubt I'll post tomorrow. We will be enjoying a full day at sea.

Back to Seattle

Our cruise is over. We are docked at Seattle and are preparing to disembark. iI's been a very nice vacation and we saw a lot of new things but now it's time to head back to reality.

Our heavy footed captain got us into Victoria 5 hours early at 11:00 so after packing our suitcases Mary and I took a walk towards town. After being in fog since Friday afternoon it was nice to get out in the sun. Victoria has a nice walking path with benches along the way so we walked about 2 miles along the harbor edge, but did not go all the way into town since there was a big festival going on. We watched several float planes land and take off as well as just enjoying the fresh air and sunshine.

Our evening visit to Buchardt Gardens was very nice. Here's the classic view from the Sunken Gardens overlook. We had a very nice time walking around the gardens. I was not going to take a lot of pictures this time, but the views were so pretty it was hard to resist; I ended up taking 22. 8-) They had some new things like animal figures made from natural-looking material staged in the woods. We had a very relaxing walk and gift shop visit.

So that's it for my travelogues. I plan to post a larger slide show, probably on my PIcassa site but that may take a few days to complete since I'm anticipating a very busy Tuesday doing post-vacation things. When it's ready I'll post a link here so check back in a week or so.

Cruising in the fog

We are in the middle of a 48 hour run from Tracy Arm to Victoria. Yesterday afternoon is started to get foggy and we've had a dense fog surrounding us ever since. At some times we cannot even see the front of the ship from our balcony. Also since we got further than expected into Tracy Arm, we left there behind schedule so the ship has been cruising quite fast - over 18 knots to make up the time. Sure glad we have radar otherwise we'd be creeping along due to limited visibility.

On the return helicopter flight I got a neat picture that should help put "small ship cruising" into perspective. We were docked next to the 3200 person Sapphire Princess which is a good 20' wider that our ship and also a bit longer as you can clearly see from this picture. We are actually enjoying the small ship. Only 2 staircases and elevator banks so getting around is quote easy. There are a few less amenities - the Princess Theater is much small and has tables and chairs instead of traditional auditorium seating - and a smaller staff. But with only 710 people on board you do recognize about everyone after a few days. Also we have yet to have to wait in line for anything. Getting on and off the ship has been a breeze. I'm sure we'll go back to Anytime Dining on a larger ship, but Mary likes our table for 2 and we have a very nice pair of waiters so that has worked out well. We've only skipped the main dining room 2 or 3 times.

So we are on our last full day at sea. We get into Victoria tomorrow afternoon and have an excursion to visit Buchart Gardens at night. The captain announced today that they are expecting a sunny day in Victoria. But we need top spend the day packing - and figuring our how to pack all the souvenirs we did not intend to buy. Princess has a nice option where, for a $20 fee, they take your bags from the ship to the airline so once we set them our Sunday before our excursion, we won't see them again until we pick them up at DTW.

Cruising Tracy Arm Fjord

Today we cruised the Tracy Arm Fjord, hoping ice would not stop is from getting back to South Saywer glacier. We heard that the much larger Sapphire Princess made it back to the glacier 2 days ago so I was pretty confident our smaller ship would make it.

The scenery on the way in was spectacular! Towering mountains and very long, steep waterfalls as you can see from these pictures. There was also lots of floating ice, including some very large ones as you can see in the first picture. White ice, blue ice, deep blue ice, green ice, dirty grey ice, all kinds of ice in all sizes. The ship steered clear of most of it, but one 2 occasions had to plow through scattered fields of small ice floes. There were also too many waterfalls to count, running down in deep cuts into the mountain from the high ice fields. Pictured here is just one of hundreds of similar multi-step waterfalls. The naturalist who spoke yesterday say this fjord is more impressive that those in Norway. I find that hard to believe, but now feel compelled to check it out on a future cruise.

As we approached the glacier, we passed an island that the ship had never been able to pass before. I'm pretty sure the Sapphire Princess had stopped there. But we were able to continue on maybe another mile past that island and got fairly close to the glacier when ice forced us to turn around. It was very impressive to get this far into this fjord and to see this glacier form a distance few others had seen it.

On the way back, we saw the "other" side of the fjord from our balcony and Mary caught some rays on our second sunny day in a row. Isn't she cute all bundled up!

Glacier Trekking in Skagway

The SUN! The SUN! We actually had a sunny day today!! 10 days into our cruise, we had our first sunny day. After overcast days and many rainy days, the sun was very welcome. Any since this is our glacier helicopter day, it came none too soon. Today's first picture is Mary and I on the helicopter, ready to take off. As you can see we were pretty excited to be repeating this excursion that we enjoyed so much in 2005. We spent the morning shopping in Skagway, followed by lunch on the ship, then we got ready for our afternoon excursion.

Once on the glacier, we were lead on a stroll across its very rocky surface. There were actually very large bounders, up to 4 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet in size. Quite amazing.

We were also shown several large holes (called moulins) in the ice, leading deep into the glacier and often several hundred feet to the bottom. It always amazing me to see streams and waterfalls like these on a glacier. But when you are in the melt zone, that's what happens. When we were watching Marjorie Glacier in Glacier Bay I took some video of a large water flow running out from under the center of the glacier.

Re-Crossing the Gulf of Alaska

Another quiet day at sea. A bit cold to be out on deck very much, altho the swimming pool is heated. A few lectures, playing some bridge, watching a movie or two and Mary busy at the $10 bargain shopping in the lounge...
We've had a few isolated whale sightings. Last night at dinner Mary casually looked out the window and say a beautiful whale dive. Today we were looking off our balcony and saw a whale spout about 75 yards from our ship. Very cool to see these unplanned casual encounters.
On to Skagway tomorrow!

Our Day in Kodiak

We had a nice, dry day in Kodiak today. We had a nearly full day, arriving at dawn and departing mid afternoon to cross the Gulf of Alaska once again on our way to Skagway.

Our excursion was titled Russian Heritage Tour and it covered many Russian sights as well as a general tour of Kodiak.  We visited a Russian Orthodox seminary (one of three in North America) as well as attended a Russian tea with entertainment by a local group dressed in Russian costumes and playing Russian instruments. They played several familiar numbers and was very entertaining and interesting.

The trappings of crab fishing are all around.  Kodiak hosts several large canneries (a.k.a fish processing plants) and we had a large stack of crab pots on our dock, just opposite the ship. Our guide had a lot to say about this being the home port for the Cornelia Marie, made famous on The Deadliest Catch, but it was not in port.  I did spot the Polar Star which was mentioned on a few episodes.

We also saw an eagle nest with 2 baby eagles in it, the Kodiak fishing docks, Coat Guard base, and many other sighs of this town.

Dog Sledding in Seward

We were scheduled to take a flat trip on the Resurrection River today,
but when we pulled in, it was raining and c-c-cold (upper 40's - 9 C).
We met our group anyhow, but thankfully the tour operator offered to
cancel and refund our $$$.
While talking about what to do, I saw a table for Ididaride Dog
Sledding. This camp is run by the 2004 winner of the Ididarod race who
also has several top 5 finishes. This was one of our alternate
excursions so we signed up. The lady called ahead, and drove us to
the place. They have 85 husky's there, many of which have actually
run the Ididarod race. We had a very nice tour guide - had has run
several Ididarod races who explained the background and about the dogs.
Rick hooked up a team of 15 dogs and took our group on a 2 mile ride.
They use these carts to train the dogs in the summer when there is no
snow. You always picture these dog teams all pulling and working
together. Apparently that takes a lot of training because our team
had a couple of dogs who were jumping all over the place and getting
tangled up with their neighbor. After climbing one slope, Rick said
"we did pretty good with only 10 dogs pulling". He noted that fully
loaded with him and 7 passengers, our sled weighed about 2,000 lbs.

After our ride, he showed us two Ididarod sleds, then took us to the puppy pen. Here's a shot of Mary holding an 8 month old husky.

Even with the raincoats, we were cold and wet at the end so we headed back to the ship to warm up and have some lunch. Tonight we sail to Kodiak for a Russian Heritage tour.

Day at Sea #2

Today we are crossing the Gulf of Alaska on a 450 mile run to Seward, AK. Except for a few hours during our first night, this is our first open water cruising. The constant movement of the ship made it a bit difficult on the treadmill this morning. 8-)
We have a few ship board activities planned for the day and there's a Captain's reception tonight before formal dinner #2.
Looking forward to Seward and our Resurrection River float trip tomorrow!

Glacier Bay

Today we enjoyed Glacier Bay. It was quite overcast for most of the day. We saw 5 glaciers and spent 1 hour in front of Margerie Glacier and saw 3 significant "calving"s, one of which is pictured below. I have a better video of it, but that will have to wait.
All in all, a quiet relaxing day with a full day at sea ahead of us tomorrow as we sail to Seward.

Icy Point Whale Watching

Today was Whale Watching at a new cruise port, Icy Straight Point. This is a private, native indian funded port and only 3 ships a week call at it. No cruise ship dock as of yet so we needed to tender in. The advantages of a small ship were evident today: no wait to tender to shore or back to the ship and only 50 people on the whale watching excursion on a boat with a capacity of 150 so we had a lot of room to move around and get in position for good shots.
Below are three Humpback whale pictures I've picked as my pictures of the day. The first is two whales blowing at the same time, the second is an enlargement of my best "tail shot", and the third shows different tail coloration.
The weather was pretty miserable - intermittent rain and temperature in the mid 50's. Had to take great care to keep the camera lens dry. But all in all, it was rather thrilling. I sure appreciated the 12x zoom on my camera! The boat had to stay at least 100 yards away by regulation.
Below you can see evidence that the coloration of humpback tails is unique to each individual whale. The boat had a chart of known whales and their tail markings. The last picture is a shot of whale 445 with a nearly all white under-tail but it's not quite in focus so I can't zoom in on it very well.


In addition to 40+ pictures I shot a dozen videos, some of which turned out pretty good but will need some editing so I won't be posting them until I get back home.
The crew reported that we had 12 active whales today, an unusually high number.
All in all, in spite of the inclement weather, it was a good day and a great excursion.
This evening as we headed to Glacier Bay, our ship passed the same whale watching area. We had some great whale sightings this evening, including two whales that jumped out of the water! We also saw some sea lions pass very close to the ship as well as a humpback whale that surfaced just 50' from our balcony.

Juneau

We had an extended stay in Juneau so today was a very relaxed day with only one excursion, glacier flightseeing, in the afternoon. We spent the morning going up the Mount Roberts Tramway (great views of Juneau and the bay) followed by some shopping (of course!). While in town we heard some people shouting. When we looked up that staircase we saw 3 black bar cubs! A few seconds later mama bear appeared and began to direct her cubs away from all the humans. Later, Mary treated me to a birthday lunch at a local restaurant then we headed back to the ship.
Our glacier flightseeing trip was very cool. We saw 5 glaciers (Taku, Norris, Hole-in-the-Wall, East and West). Taku had recently calved (see picture) It was quite different seeing glaciers from the air. Overall it was quite the experience.
Tonight we had a great dinner and now we're watching the movie, UP.
Tomorrow is a new port setup by an Indian tribe called Icy Point.
Now if we could just keep track of what day of the week it is.....

What a Great Excursion!

We took a ride on the Aleutian Ballard (pictured above) today for our Ketchikan excursion. What a super trip it was! This ship was on early seasons of The Deadliest Catch and has been converted into a tourist ship. Not only did they show how Long Line fishing works, but they pulled three kinds of crab pots while telling their stories about fishing on the Bearing Sea. They had some great stories about fishing and surviving over their many years of experience on the waters. All that was expected.
What was quite unexpected was an Eagle Show! It turns out that the ship has a deal with a neighboring indian tribe to pull crab pots from their waters.
Since indian reserves are not subject to state or federal law, they can legally feed the eagles. Both Mary and I got some great pictures and I took some short videos of the eagles swooping in about 20' from our ship to pick up the fish tossed out by the crew. Once I can find a suitable internet connection I hope to upload some to google videos. It's a bit too expensive to use the ship's internet for that.
Our 3 1/2 hour excursion flew by. After we docked, we had 2 hours to collect free-bees and do some shopping. Mary got a nice topaz ring today and I got two polo shirts (among other things). But we accomplished what we needed and made it back to the ship by 1:00, well before the 1:30 "all aboard" time. We relaxed this afternoon, had a great surf 'n turn dinner and are planning our day in Juneau tomorrow.

A Quiet Day at Sea

No pictures for today since it was spent cruising at sea. We did not do much - took in some shopping and port lectures and read books. I did play duplicate bridge this afternoon which was nice since I rarely get to play bridge in person.
This was the first of 3 Formal Nights, but we skipped the formal dinner in the dining room since the menu did not look all that intriguing. Upon arriving that the buffet, we found that they turn that into a version of "anytime dining" where we ordered from a menu. They had some nice selections so it worked out pretty good.
Tonght's show was a song and dance presentation based on the songs from the 20's and 30's. Cole Porter, et al. Definitely appealing to the average age of the cruisers. Before the show that band played "Moon River" and other vintage songs. Several couples came out on the dance floor while Mary and I stayed glued to our seats. 8-)
Tomorrow we have a half day in Ketchican. I'm looking forward to our excursion to visit the Alleutian Ballard which had been featured in earlier seasons of The Deadliest Catch. After that we'll have a couple of hours of shopping, then back to the ship by 1:30.

Boarding the Ship

Yesterday, Monday, we said good-bye to Seattle and boarded our ship, The Royal Princess. After being on several of Princess' larger ships, this smaller ship has a much different feel to it. If you use the "wrong" elevator bank, it's only a short distance to your cabin as opposed to walking a proverbial "country mile" on the larger Emerald class ships. We got to the ship early - before noon - and our bus group from The Westin was among the first on board. We made our way to our cabin which is right next to the aft elevator bank and only one deck below the Horizon Buffet.

After lunch in the buffet, we toured the ship. Very elegant and beautifully appointed. The Library (pictured) has a vaulted ceiling and a fireplace. The Atrium (also pictured) is scaled down from the larger ships, but still very elegant.
Our luggage arrived early by 1:30. Our cabin has about half the closet space compared to the larger ships, but quite a few built in drawers. With a little creativity we had everything unpacked well before the 3:00 emergency drill.
Dinner was very good. We have a table for two and the menu featured Pina Colada soup (YUM!), Hawaiian Luau Pork, with Floating Islands (Mary's all time favorite) for dessert. There's no Anytime Dining on this small ship so we'll have the same table and wait staff every evening; that will be quite a change for us.

In the evening we watching The Proposal, read books, had a snack and relaxed. The ship passed out of Puget Sound into open water overnight as we head to Ketchican tomorrow. The weather is cool, expected to warm into the 70's in the afternoon. So far very smooth sailing, with our anti-seasickness bracelets in place.

Seattle Locks Cruise

Sunday afternoon we took the Seattle Locks Cruise from Lake Union through the Lake Washington Ship Canal into Puget Sound, docking at Seattle Pier 56. Along the way we saw the houseboat made famous by the movie Sleepless in Seattle, pictured here.

We also saw two fishing boats from The Deadliest Catch: The Early Dawn and The Wizard. Very cool since I follow that show.

Overall a very relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon as we prepare for our cruise.

Pike's Market

We explored Pike's Market today. Very intriguing place, with lots and lots of shops. Plenty of restaurants, and many,many other kinds of shops, from fresh fruit stands to flower markets, to a wide variety of jewelry, bookstores, and gift shops. We got LOTS of exercise walking up and down and all around this very large market.
Pike's Fish Market is famous for tossing fish around. A high quality image titled "Catching a Fish" is available in Picassa. The guy on the right with the white paper is about to catch a thrown fish. The fish is actually airborne just under the neon red sign. If you expand this picture you may be able to see a blur.

Here's a picture of the famous Gum Wall at Pike's Place. No we did not add any gum to the wall.
After we rest up we are heading out for our Locks Cruise followed by a birthday supper at Ivar's Acres of Clams on the waterfront.

In Seattle

Not much to write about yesterday - a travel day. We didn't fly out until mid afternoon, arriving in Seattle at 5:40 local time. It was neat having a "Princess Cruises" guy there waiting for us at baggage claim; this is the first time we've arranged Princess airport pickup for a cruise.
Once we got to the hotel we walked around looking for a restaurant. Found a nice Italian one a few blocks way and had a very enjoyable meal - at 10:30 Detroit time. Today is sightseeing - Pike's Market and a boat ride through the locks into Lake Washington where we will see the famous "Sleepless in Seattle" houseboat community among other things.

Annapolis, Maryland

Mary and I took a quick trip to Annapolis last week to hear Mary's favorite (living) singer, Mack Bailey, provide the music for a 2 hour cruise on Chesapeake Bay on a 75' schooner. It's neat to be able to do things like this when you can pick up some great travel bargains.
Here are pictures of our day in Annapolis and evening cruise. A storm had rolled through just before our cruise so we had clean air, nice winds, and very enjoyable temperatures after sweltering in 100 degree heart that afternoon.

Mack Bailey Cruise

as well as our visit to the Naval Academy the next morning.

Naval Academy

We had a great time, even if it was a short trip.

Back Home from Florida

We had a very nice extended weekend in Orlando, even if it was unseasonably hot and humid here. We roasted Sunday at Epcot, moving in and out of the air conditioned areas. We did just about everything we wanted, saving the movies at Canada and France for Tuesday night.
My conference was very informative and the move to the Dolphin on Tuesday went well although I must admit driving around Disneyworld can be very confusing. It was nice to be able to take a short boat ride to Epcot Tuesday evening. We saw the Canada movie - featuring Martin Short - then decided to see the France movie after we ate dinner. Dinner at the Italy pavilion was superb! And just as we left the restaurant, the fireworks show started; great "Disney": timing for them to wait for us. After the show we found the show at France was closed, but that's how it goes. We caught a boat back to our hotel and called it a night.
Today the conference wrapped up, we said "good bye" to the Dolphin, had a now-traditional Waffle House lunch and headed for the airport. So now we are waiting for our flight back home where a few hectic days await us.
But we have great anniversary memories to fall back on...

Off to Orlando

Last Monday I was approved for a 3 day Gartner conference in Orlando so this week has been a flurry of travel arrangements. Fortunately I was able to still get a great airfare so Mary can come along. The conference hotel could only book us Saturday - Monday so on Tuesday we move over to the Dolphin hotel just outside of Disneyworld! That works out great - we get to stay there for our anniversary and plan to eat at the Italian pavilion that evening. Works out great!
So we're sitting at DTW now, having volunteered to be bumped to a 3:30 flight. Since there's a pretty good chance we'll be traveling on Delta in the next year, the vouchers will certainly come in handy.
We plan to spend Sunday at Epcot and I'll be busy with my conference 8am - 5 pm Monday and Tuesday, then until noon on Wednesday. We return Wednesday evening.
And we have a few more trips in the works for this summer so stay tuned.

A St Petersberg Day

Today we spent relaxing and seeing some sights around town.

After a relaxing morning, we headed to Indian Springs where we visited a local bird sanctuary, which cares for injured birds. Many of them were fairly friendly and not afraid of people.

After that we took a walk through a mangrove "swamp". Here you can see two birds in and among the mangrove trees.

We talked about heading to Tarpon Springs to see sponge farming, but decided that would take too long so we visited The Pier in downtown St Petersberg before heading back to our motel. Once back, we enjoyed the sunny afternoon by having lunch on our porch, followed by more beach walking (which we will miss greatly after today), a Waffle House supper, and more Olympics tonight.
Tomorrow we have a leisurely morning before heading to the airport for a mid-afternoon flight back to Detroit. It's been a nice break, but time to head back.
In other travel news we did change our summer plans to take an Alaska cruise instead of the planned British Isles cruise. This cruise visits many ports we had not seen in 2005 and we are both looking forward to it very much!

Sunny Day at the Beach

We've had some good beach time today, driving down to Pass-a-Grille point where the first picture was taken, then at Fort DeSoto Park where we got some sun and saw the Skyway Bridge. Temperatures we near 60 so it was very comfortable with the low winds.

A nice relaxing Valentine's day today with an excellent lunch at a local favorite called The Frog Place. Mary and I had eaten at the location in Redington Beach, but now they have a location in St Pete Beach which is much more convenient. We still need to pick a place for this evening, but I'm guessing most restaurants will be very busy so we'll see where we end up. Would be nice to find a good seafood place, tho.

Enjoying the Sun

It may not be "warm", but it is sunny! We took a chilly and windy stroll on the beach already. Since it was low tide a lot of people were shelling - picking up shells. We found 9 matching shells Mary can give to her students when we get back so that takes care of that gift.

There were also a lot of very large, whole clam shells on the beach as you can see in this picture.

This next picture shows a lot of shells scattered on the beach The large black spots are the large shells.

As long as you are in the sun but out of the wind it's very pleasant. But get in the shade wand wind, and B-r-r-r-r!

Next up is shopping for groceries and seeing the area.

Time to get warm!

We are doing a quick jaunt to what should be a sunny and warm Gulf Coast beach in Florida. But this year "global cooling" is showing its muscle and then temperatures won't be anything close to the low 70's they traditionally are in mid February. But it will still be sunny, a lot warmer there than here, and it will be a nice break from the snow. Walking the beach will still be nice, hearing the waves, and feeling the sand on our feet. Ahhh....

While we are registered for a July British Isles cruise, we are seriously considering a switch to a very appealing Alaska cruise. I'm sure we'll be talking about that and may be making the switch next week once we get back.

Gotta keep those vacation plans coming!

Ah, to be Retired....

I this "last minute deal" email today from Princess. No way we can do it, but if we could, what a deal! Balcony cabin to tour the entire Pacific ocean for under $3,000/person!

WORLD CRUISE SEGMENT - Los Angeles to Sydney
27 DAYS from Los Angeles to Sydney
Itinerary: Los Angeles, Honolulu, Fiji (Suva), Vanuatu (Vila), Noumea, Bay of Islands, Auckland, Picton (for Marlborough Sounds), Sydney

In a few years we'll be able to take advantage of these last minute deals...