Day 12: Skagway

Every so often I need an Opposite Day.  Looking back at the years when we cruised for months at a time, I’m frankly surprised that we didn’t take more Opposite Days than we did.  But we were much younger then. 😉  After 11 days, I needed a day off. .. or, at least, a partial day off. 

I woke up this morning still tired, not one bit hungry and knowing I had some family things to take care of. And so I spent all day on the ship, much of it in our cabin where What’s App calling worked perfectly.  Every so often I wandered onto the copious back decks just feet from our cabin door to take in the view.  It was another glorious weather day. What did we do to deserve this?

G brought me a juice and a decaf cappuccino before he went to breakfast in Sabatini’s, so I was set for food for several hours. He got off the ship (it’s one of the tenets of his religion) just to get some exercise. The Sapphure was berthed at the “bad” Main Street dock today in Skagway, and that increases the walking time to go anywhere by nearly 10 minutes each way. 

Of course, Princess in Skagway offers two special events:  entertainer Steve Hites story telling about the history of Alaska in music, and Puppies in the Piazza, but we have been to both before (and enjoyed them too). So today really was a day without commitments, and I relished the thought of it. 

I ordered Room Service via the OceanNow feature of the app this afternoon, tortilla chips and chili, and was surprised to see the price of pizza has gone up…a lot. It was $3! But I really thought it would be free under the new system. I guess not. I really can’t keep up with all the changes. 

G wanted go to dinner in the Pacific Moon Dining Room, just to demonstrate how much we appreciate our table by the window. It was Italian night and penne arrabbiatta was prepared in the dining room again. But even the allure of lots of garlic couldn’t get me to dress up to join G. He ate lightly and quickly and then joined me on the Terrace Deck as the Sapphire Princess sailed away from Skagway. 

It was Italian night in the Horizon Court Buffet too. It was also my very first time even walking through the buffet on these two cruises. I filled a bowl with Parmesan shards and grapes, and got a glass of merlot from the Outriggers Bar (open until 10:30pm tonight) and we joined the “back of the ship” people who eschew Princess Theater Shows and International Cafe treats and puppies in the Piazza for a warm, beautiful sail away on the open decks. 

Dinner with a view.

Life is good. :)

We talked Michigan Football with some Ohio State fans and heard about their experience in the land portion of their cruise tours. We’ve had fantastic weather but even as far north as Denali, the views are reported to have been clear and endless. 

Sail away from Skagway about 9:30pm

The Sapphire Princess webcam at 10pm

We missed this tonight. It looked like fun,

but sail away on the Terrace Deck won out. 

Source:  Princess Cruises

Source:  Princess Cruises

 

Source:  Princess Cruises

Source:  Princess Cruises

Day 11: Glacier Bay National Park

When was the first time we did something for the first time?  Today, when we used the pools and hot tubs while Sapphire Princess cruised Glacier Bay. In fact, I even got sunburned! In Glacier Bay! Wild times.  It was really very warm today, and no one needed the layers they’d packed to be able to spend the day on the open decks. Shorts and tanks were all that were required today. 

The Sapphire Princess didn’t get to the northern park areas and the Grand Pacific and the Margerie Glaciers until 1pm, so we started the day in a leisurely fashion, first having breakfast in Sabatini’s and then attending a lecture by one of the National Park Services rangers who had come on board at the park’s entrance about 9am. 

We decided to squeeze in a quick lunch in the International Dining Room at noon, enjoying the views out the windows as we approached Tarr Inlet.  

Our view at lunch

Gazpacho

Stuffed bell pepper, one of my favorites

Following lunch, we changed into swimsuits and spent time in the hot tubs and pools on the back of the ship. Check out those blue skies!!

Grand Pacific Glacier

Margerie Glacier

We spent most of the afternoon on the back decks (we truly love them on this ship), and then got cleaned up for the evening before making our way to the Pacific Moon Dining Room, where our views continued over dinner. We were chatting with our next table mates who were also on last cruise and are very well cruised. None of us can remember ever having two weeks of great weather in Alaska on B2B cruises. 

This weather!!

Day 10: At Sea and Hubbard Glacier

We enjoyed another amazing day on the Sapphire Princess, the kind where we stay put and the scenery comes to us. And what incredibly beautiful scenery it was. The weather gods have definitely been smiling on us on this vacation. 

We started in our usual manner, with breakfast in Sabatini’s (fruit plate, smoked salmon and happy juice aka a mimosa). We were cruising the Gulf of Alaska en route to Yakutat Bay, so, until late afternoon, it wasn’t a particularly scenic day. However, it was a very smooth day. In past trips we’ve had a bumpy ride across the Gulf of Alaska, but not so this time. 

After breakfast, the fact that I had bugged out early last night and hadn't finished my blog post from yesterday was weighing heavily on me, so I went right next door into the Internet Cafe and got to work. In case you were wondering (though I’m guessing you aren’t), I am preparing all the blog entries for this trip on my iPhone. Taking the photos, uploading the photos and typing the narrative, and it all fits in the palm of my hand. Slide to type is my best friend…until it isn’t. I try to catch the many typos before I hit Publish. 

While I was blogging, I decided to try to get a cappuccino delivered to me in the Internet Cafe. I’ve had no luck with OceanNow deliveries in Skywalkers or on any of the exterior aft decks, but the Internet Cafe did appear as a delivery option. Because of the pricing changes going into effect on this cruise, things looked a little different today. 

It clearly knows I can order the cappuccino without a charge with Princess Plus, so I assumed the $14.99 doesn’t show up here for the same reason. 
And it was delivered to me hot in about 10 minutes. Success!

But a $14.99 charge immediately appeared on my account.

Guest Services says it will be reversed tonight, but it really ought not show up at all. 

ETA:  It was removed from my account overnight. 

Blog post published, it was time to go to lunch in the International Dining Room…because it was Chicken korma day again!  I know not to order anything else but the korma. It is amply filling by itself. I paired it with Pinot Grigio, and enjoyed every bite. 

♥️

Tonight was formal night, and that meant a full clean up before dinner, so I treated myself to some Terrace Pool time. The water in the pools has been consistently comfortably warm, a real plus. 

Excursion boat picking up 130 guests in Yakutat Bay by Hubbard Glacier for a couple hour tour.

I missed this entirely in the shorex listing. 

I really need to look more closely at that!

G went to the Grapevine wine tasting and the military get together, so once I was dressed for the evening, I sat in Crooners enjoying a glass of wine. Every so often I’d pop out on the Promenade Deck to take some pics. The Sapphire Princess moved right up to the ice field from Hubbard Glacier and stayed there for about two hours until the excursion boat brought the guests back. Even better, our table at dinner had a full on view on the glacier during our entire meal. 

The Sapphire Princess went as close as it could today. 

You can clearly see the ice field that prevented us from getting any closer. . 

What a perfect day here!

We had visited Hubbard Glacier on an NCL cruise in 2000 and the day was so dreary we saw nothing 

Pre dinner wine with a view from Crooners

Simply amazing

Dinner with a view.

Life is good. 😊

Crab cake

Halibut

We celebrated our 40th anniversary tonight. Waiter Chandra sang “I can’t help falling in love with you” accompanied by his guitar. 

Honestly, even G was visibly moved. 

Tonight was the Captain‘s champagne waterfall. 

We ended the evening with production show Bravo in the Princess Theater and listening to party band Gravity (they are so good) in the Piazza. Tomorrow:  Glacier Bay National Park…but we won’t reach the glaciers until around noon. How very accommodating.

Day 9: Whittier, Alaska

This was the best day!  Exhausting, but really wonderful. We went full out today but hit a wall about 9pm. After watching the Sapphire Princess sail away from the aft decks, we never made it further than our cabin just feet away. 

Luckily, I’d been uploading pics to this post all day, so I have just the writing part left. But if this post seems heavy on pics and light on words…well, it WAS an incredibly scenic day. But I am also worn out tonight. 

I was awakened about midnight last night, no doubt from a change in the sound of the ship’s engines as it prepared to dock in Whittier. It’s amazing how I don’t really notice the ship’s sounds until they change. 

We started our day with breakfast in Sabatini’s, which was especially nice. We’ve been on other ships where breakfast was not available in Sabatini’s on turnaround day, so this was an unexpected surprise. 

We returned to our cabin to find this letter about the pricing changes effective today on the Sapphire Princess. Simply put, we will be unaffected since our cruise officially started on July 26. 

Just yesterday we booked the Philips 26 Glacier boat tour from a pier just next to where the Sapphire Princess was berthed in Whittier. G had encouraged me to book this before we left home, but I resisted, wanting to see what the weather was going to be before we committed over $400 for the two of us. When it became obvious that our weather in Whittier would be quite good, I checked into booking the trip online on the Philips website and also through Princess. Our 10% Elite discount on shore excursions saved us a little, so we went down to the Shorex Desk yesterday afternoon and made the purchase and got our tickets. We were to meet at the Phillips office on the pier right behind the Sapohire around 11:30am. Since we were already in the US, we had no in transit immigration requirements to complete. So easy!!

There were a few low clouds as we walked off the Sapphire but we were hopeful that they

would clear as the day went on (they did). 

We were assigned a seat and table on our tour boat (but were free to move around anywhere on the boat and its outside decks).  Once seated on board, a map of our route was on each table.  We immediately noticed some differences from when we did this same tour in August 2012 (see blog for those pics). The boat no longer goes into Harriman Fjord but goes to Blackstone Bay instead. Since this was new territory for us, we were quite pleased. 

Later in our tour, we asked the Park Service Ranger on board, Marty, about the change. Apparently a rock slide is threatening in Harriman Fjord and tour boats are no longer allowed in there. In order to stay true to their traditional name, Philips 26 Glacier Tour added the new territory. As it turned out, it was a lucky change.. 

Spotting the train arriving as we left on our tour. 

The clouds around Whittier cleared pretty quickly…

… but hung around a little longer as we headed northeast into College Fjord.

Check out the waterfalls!

Lunch was served, a good thing for us cruise ship passengers conditioned to eat every 3 hours. 

Looking into Harriman Fjord as we cruised past.

We passed several “rafts” of sea otters. 

They keep the windows on their boats pretty clean! This pic was taken through the glass. 

Harbor seals sunning themselves

Above and below:  some of the women’s college-named glaciers on the west side of College Fjord.

 

At Harvard Glacier (which we had just seen last night but it looks very different from just above the water on a smaller boat), the captain circled the boat for quite awhile.  The crew retrieved glacial ice for margaritas. 

Harvard Glacier

Just as we left Harvard Glacier, a calving of ice almost as high as this wall occurred. The sound was massive. The ranger estimated it was 450 feet tall as the front face of the ice here is 500 feet high. 

Egg Rocks sea lion rookery

En route to Blackstone Bay

Blackstone Bay was (we thought) even more picturesque than College Fjord. 

Jet skis in Blackstone Bay.  Yikes!

They pay $360pp for this trip. 

No thanks. I prefer Bora Bora for jet skiing.

Blackstone Glacier (the waterfall was a beautiful feature)

Beloit Glacier

Kittiwake Rookery

As we docked again in Whittier.

Another great weather day. 

The captain of our tour boat held us all back for several minutes after we docked. There was a black bear next to the boat (which was also right behind the Sapphire) and he waited until the bear was a safe distance away. While we were waiting to disembark, a bald eagle was fishing in the waters right next to our boat. 

By the time we reboarded the Sapphire at 7pm, we had had a fun but long day. We went directly to the Pacific Moon dining room where we were seated in Chandra’s section (we had told them the night before that we wouldn’t be at “our” table at 5pm). As soon as we ordered our meal, G sherpa-ed our backpack and coats back to our cabin. We were running on empty, and though we wanted to get to several activities this evening, it was looking questionable that we would. 

Asparagus risotto was amazing. 

Bering seafood stew

We skipped dessert and instead went up to the Terrace Deck to watch as the Sapphire Princess sailed from Whittier about 9pm. Thankfully, we didn’t have far to go to get to our cabin where we fell into bed…after we moved all the embarkation day papers and letters and champagne and chocolate covered strawberries that had been delivered in our absence.  Judging from our gifts, we must be most traveled guests again this cruise.  Yay!  More Snobatini’s breakfasts in our future!!

Sail away from Whittier