For my readers that don’t know me personally, I love a bargain. 85% of my clothes come from thrift stores.  The rest are gifts, from Kohls, Ross, or home sewn. I was one of the best dressed folks on board! Not that we were a scruffy band, but people dressed for comfort. Think ‘vacation’ with many different nationalities on board. Different cultures create a fashion melting pot. There were indeed a few ritzy diamond-crusted ladies showing their wrinkled, over tanned bosoms on formal night. But there were more sweatshirts and jeans (or polyester pants) than anything. Fashion just didn’t seem significant. People were comfortable, (and mostly bundled to the eyes in the chilly wind.)

   I’ve raved about the food, but it’s such an intrinsic part of the experience, it’s hard to drop the subject. (Not as hard to drop as the extra pounds, but still hard). Even the buffets had many attentive waiters. In the afternoons they would set up specialty buffets. One day it was sushi,  and another day it was exotic desserts. If you sat at a table anywhere on deck, a waiter would offer you something to drink. Delicious lemonade and hot chocolate are hard to resist when your thirsty or chilled.

They had different nationality themes at different meals. And I’m not just talking of Italian and French, there was fare from the Orient, and the near east. I  tasted foods and preparations that I had never heard of before and the only thing I tried that I didn’t like was an octopus salad. Too chewy, too fishy.
I had worried about the awkwardness of dining while seated with strangers. Once when we went to the more formal dining room, we were indeed seated with strangers at our table. It wasn’t uncomfortable, really, but when we made an advance reservation, we got a private table by a window, as requested.  We were passing through the College Fjords during that meal and it’s hard to describe the sensory overload of filet mignon in the mouth, a glassy sea with snow topped mountains outside the window, live music in the atrium, and the faintest sense of motion through the water.

   The ship is like a floating resort. There is a 9 hole putting green, shuffle board, 5 pools, a theater with a big variety of presentations and shows, an outdoor movie screen mounted over the biggest outdoor pool. There were ping pong tables, deck mounted viewers, and a wrap around deck for joggers and walkers.  Just two and a half times around was a mile. You have to run around a football field four times to go a mile!

One fun aspect of the experience was that there was a naturalist on board. She broadcast over the P.A. system on certain decks and on the in-room TVs when we were travelling through wildlife-rich areas.  She’d ride up on the 15th deck and spot whales and sea lions and otters and other stuff and tell us where it was in relation to the ship. Early one chilly morning, we were in an area where there were lots of humpback whales, and she said that they were breaching on the port side of the ship. We overlooked the starboard side, so I pulled on a turtleneck, over shirt, sweatshirt, jacket and knit cap and went over to have a look. Since the Promenade deck is closest to the water and runs all the way around, I chose it. I did get to see the whales, but I also got to see the uniformed sailors swabbing the deck. What’s an ocean voyage without sailors swabbing the deck? Neither of them had eye patches, hooks or peg legs. They must have been new to the sea.
    There were only a very few events that were not worth the trouble on board.  The magician/comedian was not especially entertaining, but the comedian Gary Larsen, (not the one that draws the Far Side) was hilarious. Tricia and I also went to a program titled “Never have another bad hair day” and it turned out to be mostly geared to selling their products.  They did undertake to tell us what our face shape was, but everyone in the room seemed to have square or rectangular, and it just wasn’t that helpful. One of the presenters had her hair pulled back in a nondescript bun and the other admitted that all of her hair was false.  So I suppose the answer to my bad hair days is “wear a wig!”.  We didn’t stay for the personal consultations, and that might have been a little more useful. None of the movies shown on board appealed to us, but then again, movie watching in general seemed like a waste of time. We can do that anywhere.

The head chef’s cooking show and kitchen tour was fun and entertaining. But the head chef burned his fingers during the show and that was a bummer. I hope it didn’t cost the assistant in charge of turning off the burners his job.  The kitchen was not currently in use, and I wanted to see the chefs at work. I can’t imagine how they could take that huge kitchen out of commission long enough for the tour, when the food is produced round the clock.
There’s a ‘gift shop’, a jewelry store, a perfume store, an arcade, and a casino on the ship, none of which particularly interested us. I did see my first “northern lights” topaz and wonder that everyone everywhere doesn’t wear it. It’s absolutely lovely. I’ll buy more next time!
The next morning, we made port in Skagway. That rollicking cauldron of sin is now a collection of gift shops and jewelry stores. We hiked out to the point where there was some fun rock hopping and then dragged our men-folk through a dozen or so shops.  There were coupons in the on board booklet for  a free sterling silver necklace (no purchase necessary) in a jewelry shop there. They cheerfully gave us the item, (and I did succumb to some well-priced topaz.) But another shop with a similar ad was selling overpriced jewelry and said we had to listen to a pitch. After 15 minutes of pitching bright yellow diamonds priced like good quality, she said, “what do expect for a price like that?” Well… I didn’t answer her, but she wouldn’t give me the freebie since I didn’t like her wares and didn’t buy anything. That was the only shop among the dozens along the cruise stops that didn’t cheerfully deliver as advertised.

We rode the train 30 miles up the mountain along the trail that prospectors took to get to Dawson City and the gold fields. To call the trail, still visible from the train that was  built while the gold rush was on, hazardous, is like calling the Arctic chilly.

 Once they got to the end of the trail 90 miles inland, they had to build a boat and float the lakes and rivers another 500 miles to the gold fields!  The Canadian government required each party to have provisions for a minimum of a year before leaving Skagway. That’s equal to a ton of supplies. It weren’t no backpacking trip, no sir! Only a very few struck it rich, of course. The horrible irony is that a few years later, they discovered that easily accessible Juneau, right on the passage, had loads of gold. Parts of the Mt. Roberts mine are set to reopen soon.

Why don’t people sled on glaciers? (Glacier Bay, AK)

The College Fjords are spectacular.  They are named ‘College Fjords because those who have seen them are forced to contemplate their past, present and future in light of the grand scheme of things. They inevitably consider things like “I wonder which college is best. Where should I have gone? or if they’re younger, “Where would the Creator of all this beauty and grandeur want me to attend school to start me on the best path? Or probably most common, “Where should I teach my children they should prepare to attend college? Where will they be safe, but get a first rate education? They muse on these things as they float along, looking at the glaciers that flow to the fjords. And then they get their answer in clear handwriting!

I took these between 11:00 and ll:30 p.m.

As with all lavish pleasures, our appetites were eventually sated and we were ready to be done. It happened to coincide with the last day of our cruise. Not that we hadn’t gotten any exercise, we had. If on board we walked laps on the Promenade deck and on land we hiked up steep mountains through lush forests to our hearts’ content. But it felt good, somehow, to revert to Subway sandwiches (our usual vacation fare) and crumbled oreos from a grocery bag. We spent the following week in the Alaskan interior and OH! the sites (sights?) we saw.

Tricia waits in the rain outside the car rental office that doubled as a bait/convenience store.

One more memorable incident happened after we disembarked with our luggage at Whittier AK. There is only one car rental place in the tiny burg, and a long line formed quickly.  It was drizzling rain, and most of the other customers had lots of luggage with them, too.We stood on the rickety porch while Jeff waited in a very slow line.  There were two employees there. I imagine that they have no business at all, except when the ships come in. I think that’s only Princess, so one day a week.
After we were stretching our backs and becoming genuinely weary after an hour or more of standing in the rain, (the porch was too flimsy to shelter many of us) an Arab or Indian fellow strode up with his sari-draped wife. (Saris seem rather out of place in Alaska, but that’s just my opinion.) He pushed through those of us waiting on the outside, into the rental shop. There were about 8 patient people ahead of him in line. Ignoring the quay, he placed his hands on the counter and demanded, “How do I get next?”
The proprietor responded mildly. “Only if you want to arm wrestle these other customers for their place in line.”
“Who is the owner of this business?” he cried.
The man who had answered him said he was.
“This is not good! Very bad! How do you be in business with no service? I should not have come here!”
The owner watched him mildly. If he wanted to rent a car, there was no where else in town.
 The Crown Prince from the Island of Rude stormed out of the rental office onto the porch shouting. “I should not have come here! The man who has business does not know how to speak!” He stormed off into the rain, dragging his wife and child behind him.
We watched his vanishing back with gratitude for the diversion. It’s a small world, after all.