Day 23: Home

After our planned 7-night cruise stretched to 22 nights long, it was finally time to go home. We were out of our cabin this morning by 7:30am and went to the World Fresh Marketplace for an extended breakfast.  I was still full from the MTG luncheon yesterday, but knew my next meal was hours- possibly as long as 24 hours- away, and ate anyway. Our scheduled departure was at 9:05am, but by 9am they were calling all groups to depart, as all the luggage was in the terminal. We claimed our two suitcases, and walked out of the terminal, intending to head down to the Uber/Lyft lot to schedule a pickup, but were stopped immediately by a driver looking for two more passengers to join the four he already had in his van. At $50, the price seemed right, and we climbed in. 

Our flight from Seattle didn’t depart for a few hours, so we sat outside security after checking our suitcases, and G finished a couple of sodas from our minibar. Going through security was a nightmare, even with our TSA pre-check. Rudest TSA agents ever, and passengers were responding in kind. Ugh. This was exactly what I had been fearing. When we finally arrived at our gate, a single Southwest agent had to take all the wheelchair passengers down to the aircraft and then come back to get us on board, and we were nearly an hour late taking off. Still, the real surprise was when we went to claim luggage at our home airport, and saw a line of people stretching clear around the main terminal. It was the backup for TSA security check. Yikes. Is everyone traveling right now? 

Uber and Lyft, which we can usually get for around $50 to our home, was pricing at more than twice that. It was beginning to feel like Christmas week travel.  I started rolling my suitcase toward the transit center, and we ended up taking mass transit most of the way, then supplemented with Lyft to the house for $30 total. We arrived home quite a bit later than we had anticipated (and too late for G to mow the front lawn as he’d wanted to do), but we were home. Somehow, despite the fact that we had felt stuck here for 18 months straight, it feels great. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our three cruises to Alaska. In fact, G remarked on the way home that he had forgotten how much he likes the Majestic Princess. We are both surprised and happy that the Hollywood Conservatory was not turned into an extra charge Sanctuary. It’s a great place for so many activities on the ship (including the night club, which we never made it to but could occasionally hear in our cabin). I remain overwhelmed by the World Fresh Marketplace…and it wasn’t even fully open due to the lower passenger load. They need a map on the Medallion App for the buffet menu and food location.

The best part of the Majestic Princess (and the Nieuw Amsterdam too, for that matter) experience was the crew, collectively the best, most friendly crew we’ve encountered since the Pacific Princess. We felt they were truly as happy as we were to be back, and it made the atmosphere on the ship very special. 

From a COVID perspective, we felt increasingly comfortable on the ships, more so each week as additional precautions were put into place. At first it was admittedly a little scary- I’m a person who stayed home for a year- but eventually I even got used to the Majestic Princess elevators and Princess Theater, the most tightly packed places we were in. And it felt wonderful to not have to discuss the politics of vaccinations and masks; everyone on board either felt the same or decided they could live with the health and safety requirements as they escalated.

The cruises, despite the masks, despite the extra cleaning and the elimination of some features and benefits, felt very normal.  I think both Holland America and Princess did a great job retaining the essence of what makes their product special. It felt truly wonderful to feel so happy again, and it was obvious that many people felt the same way. The biggest adjustment on the Majestic Princess was that darn Medallion App. It has been tremendously oversold, and is incapable right now of delivering what’s been promised. Hopefully, that will improve, and quickly, in the future. As it is right now, it’s leaving both technically- and non-technically minded passengers frustrated and unsatisfied. 

For me at least, three weeks was just the right length. There wasn’t enough variety in the entertainment (in fact, there was none) to stay on longer than that. The internet on the Majestic Princess is still not up to the speed and reliability we enjoyed on the Ruby Princess. Whether that might change as the ship sails further south, I’m not sure, and I’d want to get some confirmation from guests on those cruises before I paid for WiFi. The Premium Beverage Package was fantastic- for about four days.  Any longer than that is wasted on me. I’m a water and decaf coffee drinker at home, and while it’s fun to venture out, I feel best sticking to that regimen. 

I’m not sure there will be a Season 11 of extended cruising, but feel confident our cruising days are not altogether over.  We have final payments for fall and winter cruises starting in just over a week, and we had hoped that cruising on the Majestic Princess would help us make up our minds about taking them. Unfortunately, it really hasn’t, but not because of the cruise experience we believe we’d enjoy. It’s more the uncertainty of what is happening in the state of Florida specifically, but everywhere with the Delta variant that is prompting us to take a more serious look at things over the next several days. 

Somehow, being away from home for just three weeks has made me happy to be back. And that’s a very good thing. 

Source: Etsy art

Day 22: At Sea

This post will be very short tonight, since all we did today was pack, go to the Most Traveled Guests luncheon in the Harmony Restaurant, relax by the Lido Pool (yes, it was that nice again today) and eat dinner. I honestly think I won’t need to eat again until sometime mid-next week…but, of course, I’ll want breakfast before we disembark the ship tomorrow. 

The scallop and caviar starter


G’s surf and turf

Another amazing dessert this cruise, a mocha mousse served in a molded chocolate coffee cup. 

The pastry chef is a star. 

Day 21: Ketchikan

Captain Tony said last night that our views would start early today, so I was up shortly after 5am. He was right, and, even better, it looked like we were going to have one of those ‘best day of the summer’ days in Ketchikan today. 

Pre-sunrise sailing to Ketchikan 

Look at the islands we cruised by overnight. 

I would love to do that during the day. 

It was going to be a perfect day in Ketchikan. 

Not surprisingly, Mom is back in lock down and my trip to see her next week has to be canceled. I spent a few minutes early this morning canceling flights, hotel and rental car…for the fifth time. ☹️

No trip to see Mom next week 😟

but thankfully she is safe and healthy. 

I accompanied G to the World Fresh Marketplace while he ate breakfast, then sent him on his way once the Majestic Princess was at its berth and cleared in Ketchikan. Once again, he was going salmon fishing; he enjoyed it that much last week. I think I can officially join the ranks of fishing widows around the world. I took a few minutes to have a more civilized breakfast in the Concerto Dining Room and then walked off the ship prepared to do some solo sightseeing…even before I had written the blog post from Glacier Bay National Park. It was a beautiful morning, but in Ketchikan, one can never be certain how long it will last. 

The Majestic Princess was docked at the same berth we had been at on the Nieuw Amsterdam, a little bit further from the main intersection in Ketchikan, but right by the office for Southeast Aviation. That prompted me to check for any news related to the float plane crash just two weeks ago. The bodies and wreckage have been recovered, and Southeast Aviation had ceased operations. Interestingly, I found a news article about another crash they had in late July in which only the pilot had been onboard, and he had survived. Maybe closed down is the safest thing for everyone right now. It’s all so tragic. If we had just had this beautiful weather two weeks ago, six people might still be alive. 

I walked along the waterfront to Grant Street, and then climbed up to Bowden…and it was a bit of a climb. Anything not on the waterfront in Ketchikan is up a hill.  From Bowden I backtracked a little to go to the fish ladder on Ketchikan Creek.  This was far more fun than I had imagined it would be.  I stood for at least 20 minutes cheering…for salmon. Yes, G was, at that moment, catching them and I was encouraging them to keep heading upstream to spawn. Even with this ladder, it was hard work, and most of them ended up getting shot back down to the bottom, or at least to the turn at the halfway point. Still, we’ve seen several videos while we’ve been in Alaska of salmon jumping up waterfalls, right into the mouths of bears. At least this wasn’t that bad. 

Lots of directional signage 

The salmon that made it taking a rest. 

Ketchikan Creek

The fish ladder

I stood with others for at least twenty minutes cheering for the salmon

while G was 15 miles away catching them. 

Even the tour buses stop to look

Married Man’s Trail was once just a muddy path along Ketchikan Creek that men would use to discreetly visit the bawdy houses along Creek Street.  However, it left them with telltale mud on their boots that would get them in trouble with their wives and girlfriends. Now the trail is mostly boardwalk, as many of the sidewalks in Ketchikan are. The ground is too rocky to excavate, and walkways, building and entire streets are simply built up over the rock and water. 

Walking on Married Man’s Trail to the bawdy houses no longer leaves telltale muddy shoes. 

Lots of hills and stairs in Ketchikan

Married Man’s Trail

The Tongass Historical Museum

Married Man’s Trail led to the brothels on Creek Street

Creek Street

Entrance to Creek Street

(I went in the back way, choosing to do the climbing part first)

I used our national parks pass for free admission to the Southeast Alaska Discovery Museum

We had visited the Southeast Alaska Discovery Museum when we were here in 2012, and I remember we were pretty impressed with it. Today I toured the exhibits and then watched three short videos in the theater, one after another. The first was on the Tlingit, Haida and Tshimsian tribes indigenous to the area, and the steps being taken to preserve their language and culture. They are so close to losing their native language that they are going into senior care facilities to record the last surviving native speakers. The next movie was on the Tongass National Forest, and the third was about Alaskan bush pilots.

By this time it was nearly 1pm, and I wasn’t sure what time G would be returning, so I walked back to the ship. All morning long, my Apple Watch was jingling, and I assumed it was because I was getting quite a workout with all the climbing up steep streets I was doing. When I finally sat down to watch the movies, I saw that G had been sending me texts, too, showing me how his morning was going. And it was going very well. 

Carved eagle statue near Ketchikan tunnel

Guess what G did again this week?

I am officially a fishing widow. 

Our dinner fish

But I’m convinced it’s really more about this. 

Cleaning G’s salmon

The boat’s total catch with 6 passengers on board, and almost this much was released 

because it was either the wrong kind of salmon or not large enough. 

A few guests took their catch back to the Majestic Princess for dinner, and what was left

was cut up into one pound pieces, frozen and sent to their homes. 

The best day of the year in Ketchikan 

Sure enough, G returned to the ship about the same time I did.  He got cleaned up and we went to Alfredos for a very late lunch of antipasto and pizza, but we split one serving because we knew that dinner would once again be a feast. It sure was.  The entire area around us in the Concerto Dining Room got excited when the fish was brought out on a large tray, and carved up by dining room supervisor Jorge. Once again, we shared salmon all around. It was, within a doubt, the best salmon I’ve ever had. 

This photo makes me laugh. Samsuri (on the left) and Jorge look like surgeons with their

white jackets and masks. 

We ended the evening just as we had hoped to end several evenings this cruise:  using the Hollywood Pool and hot tub on Deck 17. It had been one of the best days of our three weeks in Alaska. 

Day 20: Glacier Bay National Park

I was up before 6am today. I think the muffled sound of the ship’s fog horn had finally broken into my sleep, though when I dressed and headed across the open Lido Deck to get coffee in the World Fresh Marketplace, it was hard to believe that it was as quiet as it was in our cabin. 

Armed with coffee and soy milk, I returned to the cabin to see G’s room service order had been successfully delivered. Score! There may still be occasional start up issues on the ship, but the crew is very intent on correcting them.  Flush with food and coffee then, we settled in for most of the morning, to listen to the Glacier Bay National Park ranger commentary on our cabin TV and to watch the unbelievable scenery right from our balcony. Though the day had started so foggy (leaving me to wonder if we’d see anything today), it soon cleared and was even a little sunny at times. It was not quite as pretty a day as when we were on the Nieuw Amsterdam, but it was very close. 

Ranger Megan handled the commentary from the bridge today. Each of the rangers we’ve enjoyed listening to for the past three Glacier Bay National Park visits had a slightly different style, and I seem to learn something new every time I listen to the commentary. Still, I think Ranger Matt from our first visit this year remains my favorite…and we were quite happy that he was on board today, walking around the open decks and answering questions. 

G and Ranger Matt

With no rain today, we never needed the roof over our deck today, and those lucky people with the large balconies over the bridge had cameras on tripods and recorded the entire glacier experience. I had to laugh; several people on other balconies called to them to ask how to get to where they were, thinking it was public space. Those balconies are that large. We could have booked cabin E218 this cruise, with a huge, though uncovered balcony, but figured it was easier to move our things if we stayed on the same deck (it was). 

Marjerie glacier 

Still, it was chilly today, and we appreciated being able to step back into our cabin to warm up occasionally. When Chopsticks Noodle Bar opened at 11am, G grabbed half a serving and we split that, just to warm up. 

Our room with a view

The Grand Pacific glacier looks like a gravel pile,

unless you’re high enough to see the river of ice behind it. 

This glacier formed Glacier Bay National Park.

Lamplugh glacier

We are in cabin L110, which is a balcony cabin with an obstruction…

but only if you look forward over the bridge. 

By 12:15pm we had just crossed out of Johns Hopkins Inlet after viewing Topeka, Lamplugh and Reid glaciers, and it was perfect timing to go to lunch in the Concerto Dining Room. Baja fish tacos…one of my favorites. I ate quickly and went to the Princess Theater for a final discussion by one of the National Park rangers on the life cycle of salmon. It helps that I love salmon so much, because you really see, eat and learn a lot about it on these cruises. 

Baja fish taco 

I had just a little downtime then, and returned to the Princess Theater for Naturalist Mike’s talk about glaciers and polar bears. G and I had this timed; he was showered for formal night when I returned to the cabin, and then it was my turn. We attended the 5pm Captains Circle party and were honored to be this cruise’s second most traveled passengers. I will G will try to get the details on days and MTG cutoff and I’ll add it here later if that happens. (Added later:  it didn’t.)

We ate dinner at a leisurely pace, not intending to see production show Encore tonight, but when we were finished and walking by the Princess Theater only 7 minutes into the performance and found aisle seats (not together), we stayed for the rest of the show. I love that show, but G, who had skipped it last cruise, is not a fan. Too much opera for his taste. 

Tonight’s Chocolate Journeys pistachio dome

Encore!

And that was our evening. G has another fun day planned tomorrow in Ketchikan, and Captain Tony had told us that the views would start well before 6an tomorrow. The alarm is set for 5am. Isn’t cruising relaxing?

Day 19: Skagway

When we added this cruise just last week, I first looked at the weather forecast for this area and it looked fairly abysmal early in the week, with some improvement as the week went on. Well, yesterday in Juneau was certainly pretty bleak, but Skagway today was better. In fact, we had a better day than we’d had last week. Grey, of course, with low hanging clouds, but at least it wasn’t raining and windy. It was time to do some exploring. 

Still, we knew we had plenty of time in port today, so we didn’t bound off the ship and soon as she was at her berth, but enjoyed a leisurely, late breakfast on board. When we saw that the White Pass and Yukon Railroad train had arrived, pulled up right next to the ship, we disembarked. We had really enjoyed our excursion on the train last week, but it was raining nearly the entire time, particularly when we returned to Skagway, and so we never got the photos of the engine that we wanted. With today’s dry weather, we remedied that. 

G is really into trains, not in a “turn the basement into a train room“ sense, but he does enjoy the history and mechanical aspects of railroads. He also has the ability to be able to talk to a wall (I’ve seen him sit in a hot tub with someone who doesn’t speak English and end up knowing where he’s from, what he does for a living and if he’s enjoying his cruise). So when he started chatting with a WP&YR worker…well, I found a seat and settled in for awhile. He found out that the railroad has six engines, most or all have come from Australia, where narrow gauge trains are the norm. 

This is going to take awhile…

We walked into town and stopped at the Klondike National Historic Park Visitors Center to see what was happening there this year, in view of COVID, and we found two very friendly park rangers willing to tell us all about the history of the area. However, the video which is shown there, and the ranger-guided walking tours that are usually available are not being conducted this year. However, they had plenty of pamphlets to enable visitors to do self-guided walking tours, and the ranger station at the Moore Homestead is also open. This covers an area about 3x7 blocks in size, and is easily accomplished in a couple of hours. 

Brochures available in the Klondike Historic Park Visitors Center for walking tours 

We stopped into the Mascot Bar, an historic bar staffed with mannequins and props to look like it would have about 120 years ago, and that’s something that can always be counted on in Skagway, but it was heartbreaking to see the number of closed businesses and For Sale signs on building. Unlike Juneau (government and fishing) and Ketchikan (fishing) Skagway functions primarily as a tourist town and has been hard hit by COVID. 

Before we walked back to the ship, we stopped at a market in town and bought the ibuprofen I needed for the rest of our trip. Between what I got from the medical center and a few that I picked up in the shop on board, I haven’t suffered too badly at all. But it’s nice to know I have plenty now. 

We re-boarded the ship about 2:30pm, and went directly to Alfredos pizzeria on Deck 6. We hadn’t eaten there yet, and there was no line at that time, so we took advantage of it. I had a half veggie pizza, G had the other half, a pasta dish and tiramisu (I guess he was hungry!) and we enjoyed watching the hive of activity from the security checkpoint right there on Deck 6. We’ve seen this both weeks we’ve been on, so I’ll mention it here:  when disembarking in Skagway, the Deck 6 gangway (ramped) backs up clear around the Piazza, but Deck 7 (steps) has no line at all. If you can, use Deck 7. 

I don’t think I’ve told you yet that headwaiter Gabriel from the Golden Princess in Australia (2017) is the manager of Alfredos on the Majestic Princess, and headwaiter Dorde from the Emerald Princess (year unknown, because there were so many) is in the Concerto Dining Room for lunch this cruise. I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see all these people who have contributed so much to our past cruise experiences. Gabriel has stopped by our table at dinner nearly every night wanting to know when we would be dining at Alfredos; however, he was on break when we were there today. Tonight he informed us we needed to come again, which means we’re going to have to fit an extra meal into one of our remaining days on board. 

We went to hear musher Pete speak at 4:30pm in the Vista-less Lounge, and to see his dog Shadow. Guess which one stole the show?  Shadow is an older female husky who once led the winning team in the Iditarod. Pete talked about the history of mushing (and mentioned, as we’d heard on the Nieuw Amsterdam, about how the Iditarod really started rushing diphtheria supplies to Nome). He said the reason for no Puppies in the Piazza this year is because the puppies come from Anchorage, over 800 miles away by car, and the road passes through Canada, which had been closed off due to COVID. Musher Pete and Shadow did an outstanding job filling in. 

Loving on mush dog Shadow

Once again, we missed Steve Hites’ Alaskan folklore and music show because of our dinner conflict, but we’ve seen him before and highly recommend him. 

Dinner with the dynamic duo of Lance and Raffy is the highlight of every single day. Lance reminds me so much of our waiters on Celebrity 20 years ago. He makes recommendations, asks about all of our dining experiences on board,  and reminds us of time changes and schedules for days like tomorrow (what time we’d be reaching the glaciers, when the rangers will be narrating). This is really service on a different level. When we mentioned that G’s room service breakfast request on Juneau day was never picked up (he had taped it to our cabin door), we had Dining Room supervisor Jorge there in a heartbeat promising us it would be there tomorrow. 

The show last night was the comedian/magician, but we returned to the cabin right after dinner, and I’m so glad we did. Naturalist Mike was narrating from the bridge (shown on TV) as we passed through the fiord on which Skagway sits, pointing out waterfalls and geological features. He spoke for an hour or so, and we watched from our balcony as he did. We missed this entirely last cruise (I keep telling you we’re slow learners). One thing Naturalist Mike said really resonated with me: most of our cruising this week is in the Tongass National Forest, which is the second largest rainforest in the world. The Amazon rainforest is the largest. The two takeaways from this. First, this is rainy territory, and the norm is days like we’ve had recently, not the sunny days shown in the brochures. And, two, once is not enough to cruise to Alaska. There is so much to see, even if just from a balcony on board. 

I predict we won’t wait nine years to return to this beautiful state (and, no, we’re not staying on for next cruise). 

Waterfall leaving Skagway