Cruise Day 6 - Valdez

Check out this view from our balcony when we returned from our excursion. 

After breakfast we headed to our excursion which required a tender ride into Valdez.  Unfortunately, a fog bank rolled in as we boarded the tender which stopped us from departing, so we sat there for about 30 minutes before the fog lifted and we got clearance to proceed to town. Once there we got on our bus (which had a super good bus driver!) and headed out. He took us to the former location of the town and explained how it was wiped out in the 1964 earthquake and was rebuilt in its current location.

Here are two pictures showing the scenery in the Valdez area.

Please remember that you can click on any picture to see a larger version.

We then headed to a salmon hatchery where they remove the eggs from salmon, then raise the salmon fry in pens before releasing them.   
The scenery from there was beautiful as you can see in these pictures.   I love seeing our ship across the bay in front of those mountains!

Our next stop was Worthington Glacier where our driver positioned us to get this great photo before taking us to the recreation site to get a closer look at it.   It is very impressive to see, especially when you compare it to the photo on the right which was taken  from the recreation site. 

We took many, many more pictures like these two, of waterfall, mountains, and glaciers, but I guess enough is enough!

We have a sea day tomorrow as we head to Hubbard Glacier on Monday, having reached the midpoint of our cruise.   Seattle seems to be so very long ago!

Cruise Day 5 - At Sea

Today turned out to be rather relaxing day.  Last night the captain said how we would be having very strong winds once we exited the Cook Inlet and we could expect some rough seas and listing (tilting) of the ship.  So Mary and I put on our wrist bands and went to sleep. We even got up early so we could shower and be ready before encountering any rough seas. But as of this morning, we only had a few moments of rough seas and by early afternoon things were much smoother. 

This morning we went to "Ask the Captain" which was quite interesting.  He did a very good job of giving his background and then answering questions from the audience.

After that event we attended a port talk on Valdez and Juneau.  Since we have excursions at both ports, I only took a few notes about gift shops. 

With the Alaska cruise season winding down, the ship had a 50% off sale on apparel. I got a great deal on this very warm pull over. 

There was a golf putting competition in the afternoon. I won the first 2 matches, but then lost to the eventual winner.

Later we watched the Detroit Tigers game featuring pitcher Tarik Skubal's return to Comerica Park since being traded to the Dodgers. It was a close game, but another loss. 

After dinner we again listened to the violin-piano duet play some modern pop songs.  That's 3 nights in a row for hearing their performance. 

Tonight's 45 minute production show was a 60's revival.  Nonstop music that brought back fond memories.  We both recognized all the tunes, everything from Twist and Shout to  Bridge Over Troubled Waters and so many more. 

It was a refreshing and wonderful show. 

On to Valdez tomorrow and into the mountains!

Cruise Day 4 - Anchorage

 

Today proved to have a bit more excitement than was planned. But it started with beautiful sunrise.

We enjoyed sailing up the Cook Inlet with very smooth waters. We passed the downtown while the sun was still low so the lighting was not great.  But this enabled me to get a rare picture of Anchorage from the water!  Only HAL visits this port, about once a month. Due to the high tides in the Cook Inlet, the ships have to carefully time their passage.

Mary and I took an early shuttle into town and enjoyed walking around and shopping.  Due to the low tide, we had to be back on board by 1:00 pm or would not be able to  return until after 3:00 pm.  So we planned our visit carefully.  I enjoyed a reindeer sausage for lunch, and then we took a shuttle back to the ship and arrived by 12:30.  

Speaking of the tides, the captain reported that we experienced a massive 31' tide today! When we left in the morning from Deck 3, we walked down a ramp to a platform 6' off the ground, then another ramp to the ground as shown on the left picture. 

At the lowest point, the gangway had to be pulled back from the ship for nearly 2 hours, and the gangway ended up being even with the deck 4 lifeboats as you can see in the right hand picture. 

After they opened the gangway at 3:20,  the gangway was laying flat into deck 2.  As you can tell, I loved watching all this take place.  They had to close and move the gangway several times as the ship moved up and down relative to the fixed dock.

We ate in the buffet once again tonight, then enjoyed the violin and piano duet, playing songs from a modern Norwegian composer. 

So that's our rather exciting day in Anchorage.  We have a sea day tomorrow as we head to Valdez.

Cruise Day 4 - Kodiak

 We had a peaceful morning as we were not scheduled to arrive in Kodiak until 11:00 am.  After breakfast I checked out the party bridge game and found a threesome waiting on a fourth.  We played until 11:30 then broke for lunch and other activities. Mary and I had burgers on the Lido deck, which always brings up pleasant memories of her father.

Next up was tendering.  We fully expected most people to be off the ship after 2-3 hours so we planned to get our tender tickets at 1pm.  This was based on our experience with tendering on Princess where by that time they typically announce there is no need for tender tickets, just go to the gangway.  Well, when we got  to the place to pickup our tender tickets, we were very surprised to see the area filled with people waiting to tender!  It took another 45 minutes for our group to be called.  We finally got to Kodiak after 2pm, only to have to wait to get off the tender while returning passengers went down the gangway.  Maybe HAL needed more tenders or something since it took 4 1/2 hours to tender 1900 people to the city.  That's a rate of only 3 tenders per hour. 

We also tender at Valdez where we have a morning excursion so our group will get priority. Good thing!  

There was not a lot to see in Kodiak.  We walking around and found the Kodiak Marketplace, a small  indoor shopping center with many stores where Mary enjoyed some shopping time and seeing all the different merchandise.  On our walk, we also saw this pretty Russian Orthodox church that was juts begging to have it's picture taken. 

The one thing that Kodiak has is boats! On the left is the small boat marina while the larger fishing boats have their own marina on the appropriately named Near Island.  

Tendering back to the ship went OK.  I was able to get some pictures of the Noordam from the tender, but the lighting was not good, with the sun behind the ship.  

After dinner in the buffet, we went to hear a violinist play some classical music by Vivaldi and Bach.  She had a nice, humorous style of interacting with the guests that made the concert quite interesting.  HAL does a great job of having music like this on their ships. 

On to Anchorage tomorrow!

Cruise Day 3

 We had a quiet and, thankfully, a very smooth day.  Very little ship movement which is very good. 

This morning I attended  "Coffee With Clare" where the cruise director interviews various officers.  Today was the First Officer in the Engineering department.   He spoke about the various challenges of keeping a cruise ship running.   His best line was that once they've processed the waste water it is clean enough to drink --- but then added "we don't recycle"!  That got him some appreciative applause.

Our ship had an Alaska Brunch from 9:30 - 12:30 today which we attended and enjoyed very much.  Mary had Blueberry pancakes while I had Bananas Foster pancakes. Our waiter was kind enough to bring me a whole pot of coffee! 

In the afternoon I tried to attend a Corn hole event.  It was on the top deck and with the ship doing 22 mph into a wind, if I threw the bags has hard as I could, they would barely reach the other board!  No crew member showed up to run it so I left after a few attempts.  I did finally land one on the board but it took 12 tosses.. Oh well...

Dinner tonight was very tasty.   Mary had a favorite, parmesan crusted chicken, while I had short rib stroganoff.   

Dessert was blueberry cheesecake and nutella cream pie. Service was pleasantly quick as we were in and out in 1 hour.  

We both agree the food on ths cruise is  excellent.

Tonight's production show was "Curtain Up", a look across Broadway shows from the 1920's to 1970's.  Everything from Singing in the Rain to  Mary Poppins to Wicked to Jersey Boys to Saturday Night Fever. 
It was very energetic and entertaining. 

Later we watched a hilarious movie called "Swimming With Men".  If you need a good laugh some time, give it a try!

On to Kodiak tomorrow!

Cruise Day 2

Today was a typically quiet day at sea.  We enjoyed made to order omelets for breakfast, I played bridge from 10am until 11:30, then after lunch we attended a port talk about Kodiak and Anchorage . We found out we do have to tender into Kodiak as well as Valdez, later in the cruise. 

We've been discussing our room size and layout, looking ahead to our Nieuw Amsterdam cruise next February.  The room on the Nieuw Amsterdam looks to be about the same as this one which is also nearly the same as we experienced last year on the Westerdam where we had no major complaints.  But this criuse, we find it a bit crowded, storage lacks convenient shelves, and desk offers much less storage space than we would like.  In the end we attributed it to downsizing from a Princess mini-suite ,and are sticking with the planned February cruise.  Holland, unlike Princess,  has only one basic size for their verandah (balcony) cabins. 

The seas were a bit rough this morning, but are very calm as of this evening.  Mary even took off her anti-nausea bracelets!

Our Have-It-All package included two premium dinners and the first one was tonight in the Pinnacle Grill,  We had an excellent meal with an appetizer, main course of filet mignon with mashed potatoes, and dessert.  Check out my Clothesline Candied Bacon appetizer!  YUM! 

Mary had a special Alaska dessert - Strawberries Romanoff. One thing HAL does very well is customize their menus for the region you are sailing in.  So on this cruise we have lots of special Alaska menu items.

Later this evening when we got back to our room, this little fella was waiting for us!  Very cute!

After dinner we went to the Captain's Welcome where he introduced himself and his senior officers. All of the senior officers are very experienced, having 20 -30 years experience with HAL. So we are in good hands. 

Another sea day tomorrow since we are scheduled to arrive in Kodiak at 11:00 am Wednesday.

Headed to the ship

We found a nice breakfast place while walking back yesterday, The Crumpet Shop.  It's only 1/2 block away from our hotel and has hot egg, cheese and ham crumpets. What's a crumpet?  It's the size of an english muffin only with a smoother surface.  Very tasty!  If we come back, we plan to visit them again. 

Next up is packing and getting ready to head to the ship. We have not unpacked very much, but you still need to get it all back in the suitcase.  Lyft does not pickup at this hotel anymore, but the front desk says that Uber does so we'll be using them to head to the ship around 11am.  We have a target boarding time of 11:30 so that should work out just fine.  Princess and Holland-America share the same dock as you can see from their picture on the right that I took yesterday.  We'll have the Star Princess next to us today.   We sail  way at 3pm.   More to come once we are on board!

No issues getting to the ship.  Uber pickup was smooth, but, having been spoiled by priority boarding on Princess, today we had to get a boarding group card and wait about 1/2 hour before going on board.  But the good news was that by the time we were called, all cabins were ready. We dropped off our carry-ons and headed to lunch in the buffet.  

After lunch, we did the mandatory muster drill tasks, then said good bye to Seattle.  Not many ship pictures today, just the Lido deck pool.  

I spent much of the afternoon spending on board credit $$ on two additional shore excursions, getting our online access setup and other cruise day1 tasks.

The picture on the left is one that Mary took this afternoon of the sailboat we rode yesterday.  

Dinner went well, if a bit slow. Mary had a salmon linguini and I had pork medallions, all very good.   

There was a Welcome Show in the evening to introduce the entertainers.  The band played a nice medley of hits  followed by the singers and dancers performing several numbers.  They were quite good and it sounds like we'll have production shows every second or third evening.

So we are on the ship and have two sea days before we reach Kodiak on Wednesday.