I’m not sure it ever got truly dark last night. We have our cabin TV set to the Bridgecam channel, and everytime I took a peek at it during the night, it was twilight-y. It’s pretty cool.
With big plans today, I was up early and in Botticelli when it opened for breakfast at 7am. We planned to do some hiking, and I wasn’t sure if our schedule would include lunch. One and a half bowls of oatmeal, oranges and smoked salmon later, I was set.
We were already docked in Seward (our last virgin port) and I stepped out on the Promenade Deck to check the weather. Whoa! Cloudy, bitterly cold with strong wind from the north (I heard 30 mph gusts). This didn’t bode well for our day. I returned to the cabin to make sure G was up and await a call from Janna.
We planned to meet up and share a taxi to Exit Glacier to do some light hiking. We walked off the ship together about 8:30am and immediately ran into trouble. There were only four taxis listed on the directory in the terminal and, with a Viking ship doing a turnaround in port today, those were booked doing transfers to/from Anchorage.
We took on a lot of provisions today. In fact, we were late leaving tonight because they were still loading pallets. I particularly noticed a lot of fresh produce being loaded.
With our taxi options exhausted, we took the free shuttle to the Harbor stop and followed the driver’s directions to find a company offering shuttles rides to the glacier for $20 round trip. However, these could also be booked online ahead of time, and we couldn’t get seats until the 1:30pm shuttle, returning on the 4:30pm shuttle. It had already started to rain, and a four hour wait didn’t sound too appealing. Jana and her husband Alex decided to wait, but we moved on.
Actually, we rode the shuttle around town to see what there was to see (not a lot). The most surprising thing to us was the Seward Military Lodge. We didn’t know there was military lodging in Alaska separate from Elmendorf AFB.
Eventually our shuttle picked up Janna and Alex too. They had a change of plans based on the weather and were returning to the ship also.
It was well and truly miserable out when we were dropped back by the ship and only my rain jacket (Outdoor Research Goretex from REI and I’ve seen two others with them on the ship too) saved me from being wet and frozen. We made it as far as the International Cafe and got some lunch, our first IC visit this cruise.
I think we had no sooner stepped back on the ship when the rain stopped, the wind died down, the sun came out and it warmed up. It became a beautiful day…only those of us who had been off the ship at 8:30am knew what it had been like earlier.
We spent most of the afternoon on the Terrace Deck, enjoying the 360° views surrounding the ship. It turned out to be a spectacular day.
I’ve been skipping the PES Lounge lately but G stops by to say hi to friends.
Green goddess salad with tofu. Yummy!
Cioppino is always great
The temp, the sun, the sunset.
Wow!
It was another rose night.
It was another rose night.
#spoiledbutlovingit
We recognized Princess Theater entertainer Rechelle Sears. She has an amazing voice and an interesting life story too. We followed her show with a walk across the Promenade Deck followed by some time on the Terrace Deck. This is the Alaska experience we could only hope that we’d get.
More pics will be uploaded when we get cell service.
