Off the ship at Vancouver

We disembarked from the Norwegian Sun this morning.  All went pretty much as expected except for the rental car pickup.  The line was very long and it took nearly two hours to get our car. But in the end it all worked out and we headed north to the Sea and Sky highway.  We went part way up the coast toward Whistler, stopping for lunch in Horseshoe Bay at a Yelp-recommended fish and chips restaurant (which did live up to the recommendation). The drive was very pretty as to can see in this picture.

We then headed for our motel for the night.  Lots of traffic in Vancouver so the drive was not easy.  The motel was not quite as nice as we expected and their internet was very spotty at first.  I brought this to their attention and they did fix it which was a big help.

This evening we took a drive south to the village of Tsawwassen to get a view of Mt Rainier from Canada. The mountain is about 175 miles away so it was pretty amazing to get this view.  Not much else to do around Vancouver tonight so we're going to take it easy and head for Seattle tomorrow morning. 

Alaska John Denver Music Cruise Day 7

After our extended sing-along last night (and the time change), we slept in and woke to beautiful sunshine out our balcony door!  What a beautiful sight after not seeing the sun for nearly a week.  Activities for the day were a 3:00 concert, packing (Uuugh!), and a group dinner this evening in one of the main dining rooms.

 We really enjoyed today's concert - it went for a full 1 1/2 hours. Chris and the Currys played a lot of JD favorites and the crowd sang along with them.  They had a new intro to Eagles and Horses and merged the traditional piano introduction with the flute intro that the Currys use.  Chris told a couple of neat stories about touring with John. All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon. 

After the concert we enjoyed watching the beautiful Canadian scenery pass by as we sailed the Inland Passage.  We were close to wooded islands like these all afternoon, seeing the Canadian Rockies in the distance. 

This evening we had a group dinner for all 50 of us in the main dining room. It was fun but also bittersweet to share our memories of the week.   

Tomorrow we are doing some sightseeing around Vancouver, and staying overnight.  Heading to Seattle on Tuesday. 

Alaska John Denver Music Cruise Day 6

We did not arrive in Ketchikan until 1 pm so it was a quiet and relaxing morning. (Posted Sunday morning for Saturday)

It's hard to believe the cruise ends the day after tomorrow.  In keeping with their "freestyle" motto, NCL disembarkation is also free-style.  Rather than giving the staff all your post-cruise plans so they can assign color tags for disembarkation groups, each cabin needs to go to the Atrium today and pick a color group for your disembarkation time, first come, first served!  With limited availability, if the tags for the time you want are gone,  you have to pick another.  I got there early and got our desired time.

We decided to have lunch in the dining room rather than using the buffet.  We arrived there at the same time as Jim and Anne Curry, who invited us to join them.  Enjoyable to have a down-to-earth meal-time conversation with musicians we'd only known from their concerts. 

We headed out to town for some shopping and to see if there were any salmon running in Cripple Creek.  The shopping was more successful than the salmon watching!  In a favorite jewelry store to buy a gift for a friend, the salesman "kindly" showed us a new item unique to their store... after some negotiations, Mary now has a new piece to add to her collection!   

Tonight was a party and sing along for our JD group.  It started at 9:00 pm and was scheduled for 1 1/2 hours. Well, at midnight Mary and I finally called it a night, especially since the time change on the ship meant we lost an hour of sleep.  It was a great time, singing lots of favorites and other tunes. We were surprised when Chris Nole, a pianist, picked up a guitar and played along!  All in all, a good time was had by all.  Being so late I deferred doing this blog post to the next morning. 

Today is a sea day and our last full day on the ship.  It seems like ages ago when we were in Denali and Seward!  

Alaska John Denver Music Cruise Day 5

We had a very early excursion today (had to be ready for pickup by 7:20!) to catch the ferry to Haines so we could do a 1 1/2 hour float through the Chilkat Engle Preserve.  The float trip went very well with beautiful scenery, and we saw well over a dozen eagles. None were quite a close as when we did this excursion 3 years ago. While we saw many eagles it was hard to get good, clear pictures with the raft turning and moving, so only one eagle picture to post.

Having visited Skagway many times, after returning from Haines, we headed back to the ship to relax for a bit before the ship sails at 5:00 pm.  Dinner tonight is at one of the specialty restaurants, La Cucina.  We enjoyed our meal there Wednesday and look forward to more Italian food.

I found out later that we almost left 5 passengers in Juneau yesterday.  They arrived 30 minutes after the scheduled boarding time and the crew had already pulled up the gangplank. The crew did extend it back out for them and they hurried aboard. Close call! 

Alaska John Denver Music Cruise Day 4

Today we visited Juneau and went to the Mendenhall Glacier.  It was pretty, but not quite as nice as being up close to the others we've seen earlier.  Next to the glacier was Hidden Falls.  In the early 1950's, the glacier extended beyond Hidden Falls. Signs in the Visitor Center said this glacier has been in retreat for about 200 years. 

 As we headed toward the Visitor Center, we walked along a creek that had salmon running.  Mary snapped this picture of two of them preparing a nest for their eggs  We saw many more as we walked on.  

After doing some shopping in town, we headed back to the ship for lunch since our boarding time was 12:45, very early by most port standards.  But that is because we were heading out to cruise Tracy Arm Fjord this afternoon before heading north to Skagway. 

But before visiting Tracy Arm, we had a Chris Nole concert!  Chris is one of my favorite musicians and he did a super job of playing his music, some of John Denver's, and a number with Jim Curry. we completely enjoyed hearing his playing.  After the concert, Chris invited me to meet him and some of his wife's family, who are also doing the cruise, at one of the ship's bars.  We had a great conversation.

Later, Mary and I enjoyed cruising Tracy Arm Fjord with its high cliffs and amazing waterfalls.  A camera does not come close to capturing the beauty the eye sees when  viewing this marvelous scenery.

One last event for this evening is a sing along with the Currys.  It was a lot of fun as we enjoyed singing lots of favorites. 

Alaska John Denver Music Cruise Day 3

Today we visited Icy Strait Point, one of the more infrequent cruise ports.  We did visit here once before in 2010. The port is much improved from that visit as they have now built a cruise ship dock so tendering is not needed. That had to cost a lot of $$$, and hopefully works out well for the local tribe to attract more cruise ships. 

I think we have the breakfast thing figured out.  Today we found a small, uncrowded brunch area where they had fruit, eggs, and omelets, and that worked out very well. Also, navigating around the ship is getting easier. 

 Once docked, we took a walk on the nature trail though the very beautiful forest, led by Anne Curry, one of the musicians.  The size of some of the plants was amazing; we saw HUGE leaves on many plants as we walked the well groomed trail.  

After lunch there was a JD singalong with the Curry's, which was well attended. We sang John Denver songs to our hearts' content! 

Tonight we had dinner in the Italian themed specialty restaurant, La Cucina. Our cruise package included three speciality dining meals so we scheduled two in this restaurant and one in Cagney's their steakhouse.  After that, we heard a string trio playing Vivaldi and Bach, a relaxing end to the day.

Alaska John Denver Music Cruise Day 2

We slept in this morning then headed up to breakfast.  We are still trying to figure out the buffet situation on this ship. There is one main buffet and we've found two continental buffets behind it.  If you go to the main buffet, by the time you get past all the stations and then self-service your beverage, your food from early stations is getting cold.  Today we heard from a friend about yet another buffet one deck higher that is less crowded. Maybe tomorrow we will try it. 

This afternoon was our first concert.  Jim and Anne Curry moved it up 1/2 hour so it would be over before we arrived at Hubbard Glacier, but part way through the set, the cruise director came on the speaker and said we were nearly there.  So the band skipped a few songs and wrapped up a little early so we could all get out and see the glacier. 

Hubbard Glacier was impressive.  As the boat was headed toward the glacier we discovered that there are no clear viewing areas looking forward!  The captain did turn the ship sideways once there, for good viewing, and we were able to view it from our balcony for part of the time  You can check out a selfie I posted of us on Facebook.  The glacier was fairly active while we watched, with a couple of fairly large calvings and several smaller ones.

We are having dinner tonight was with two fellow Curry-cruisers, one of which, Julie, we know from Aspen in October.

Alaska John Denver Music Cruise Day 1

We walked around town a bit this morning, before catching the hotel shuttle to the cruise ship .  Boarding was very fast since there were no lines when we arrived at 12:15. We ran into the couple we had met on the Anchorage to Denali train, and exchanged stories about our recent adventures.

I spent some time this afternoon walking around the ship, learning the layout.  It's smaller than most Princess ships, holding about 1950 passengers, where most Princess ships are in the 2800 - 3200 passenger range.  After being so used to Princess' standard layout, this one is markedly different. For example, on Princess the Promenade deck, the main "highway" where you can go from end to end, is always deck 7; on this ship it's deck 6. One nice feature is you can walk around the entire ship on the Promenade deck here, and it is very wide.  We suspect there were no chairs on the deck because NCL holds it's lifeboat drills there, so they need room for people to stand. The main atrium is quite small and there is a notable lack of shops on board.  It does have plenty of elevators which go all the way to the top deck. 

While we were watching for others in our music group to arrive, we were fascinated by 3 eagles who were flying around the dock area!  They were very chatty, screeching repeatedly while standing on the dock railing. So cool!

This evening we enjoyed dinner with the "train couple" before attending a group orientation session by the musicians who will be doing the concerts.  Each registered couple was surprised with a memory book listing all the cruise ports and the lyrics of John Denver's Alaska songs, along with beautiful photography and bios of the performers.  And we learned about where events will be held this week along with other pertinent information.   First concert is tomorrow afternoon!  

Kenai Fjords Tour

WOW, what a day; almost too much sightseeing to list!  If you ever plan to go to Seward, be sure to plan an extra day for this 9-hour tour, it is well worth it.

Our day started quite overcast, with the tops of the mountains that we saw yesterday, hidden behind the very low cloud ceiling.  Still we enjoyed the boat ride and the scenery as we headed down Resurrection Bay toward the Gulf of Alaska. At one point we pulled into a small cove and got close to several harbor seals sunning on rocks.  Later on Mary got of photo of this eagle on top of a tree.

At our next stop we saw two kinds of puffins.   Puffins are small diving birds with a very distinct flying style.  We saw some on rocks, but most were floating around like this one.

Next we spotted some humpback whales feeding.  At first we followed one for a while, then as we moved on, we came across several whales feeding.  It was amazing to  keep seeing whale "blows" and dives, one after the other.  I also captured a few short videos, one of which I hope to post here.

Next, as we turned into our destination,  Northwest Fjord, we saw sunshine, and it stayed with us for our entire visit to the fjord.  The glaciers were beautiful.  A few of the dozens of pictures we snapped are below.

Eventually we reached our goal: Northwest Glacier. As you can see, this glacier has two main parts, and both were rather active today.  I was amazed at feeling the cold chill coming off the glacier even though it was a few hundred yards away.  Shortly after we arrived, the left side had a major calving, captured in the three pictures below.  Note the large wave in the third picture.  As this wave reached our ship it turned into a series of 8' swells so we bounced around quite a bit!

Later on, the right side of the glacier had some movement near the top.  This turned into an "ice waterfall" that lasted nearly two minutes! I captured a video of it, but that is a 4.5 MB video and is too large to upload.

Eventually we had to leave and head back to Seward.  As we left the fjord, the cloud cover returned. The tour always stops at a small cove with many waterfalls. They pull up VERY close to one and take your picture in front of it!

We had more wildlife sightings on our return trip.  In addition to watching a couple more whales, we saw this bird nesting cliff.  The boat got close enough to see that two nests  had hatchlings!  We also saw this brood of sea lions with several large males and quite a few pups.

We arrived back in Seward on schedule, tired but thrilled at what we had experienced.  

On to Seward

Today we had a relaxing morning before walking around Anchorage for a while.  We headed to my favorite local restaurant, Humpy's, for an excellent salmon burger birthday lunch, then walked around town doing some souvenir shopping (well, one of us did some shopping!) After that we claimed our luggage at the hotel and headed for our bus.

The ride to Seward was spectacular!  A bright sunny day made for excellent pictures.  We even saw the bore tide as we passed along Turnagain arm of the Cook Inlet.  A bore tide happens when the tide comes in with such force that it creates a wave! This one was not nearly as dramatic as the link shows, but looked to be close to 1 ft high.

Mary took these great pictures of the mountains as our bus headed toward Seward.  Once we left the bay and headed inland, we started seeing some great mountain views out the driver's side of the bus but it was hard to get pictures so we just enjoyed the view.

Once we got to our hotel we stepped out on our balcony and enjoyed this wonderful view of Ressurection Bay! I tried to take one large panorama picture, but still having trouble with that, so enjoy these three.
On to the all-day boat trip tomorrow!