Wow. We had the BEST day! Really! The weather was not great (but could have been worse), our planned excursion didn’t happen exactly as we thought it would, Skagway is a bit of a ghost town this year due to the late start up of even limited cruising, but it didn’t matter. We still had a wonderful day (alcohol and the Crown Grill dinner helped!).
We were awake about 7am and decided to go to breakfast in the Concerto Dining Room. It’s not that we were unhappy with breakfast in the World Fresh Marketplace yesterday- at least G wasn’t- but, for some reason, the buffet on the Royal Class ships absolutely overwhelms me. I supposed if I ate normal breakfast food, I’d be fine, because there certainly is a lot of it. And yesterday I discovered a green juice that had cucumber and celery and apple and tasted a little too delicious to be totally healthy but I still drank two small glasses of it. But I like to eat smoked salmon and fruit for breakfast while cruising, and the smoked salmon comes doled out in tiny little portions, and I feel greedy asking for four plates of it, and the fruit is spread hither and yon. No, I’m much safer having breakfast in the dining room, where two servings of smoked salmon are combined on to one plate, and a selection of fruit is served, and I don’t have to wait 45 minutes for a decaf cappuccino.
The daily specials from the dining room breakfast menu
Eating breakfast must have exhausted us, because we returned to our cabin, ostensibly to watch for the arrival of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad train right off our balcony but also to charge our iPhones, which had somehow resisted charging overnight (we think a loose outlet is the culprit). We’ve had quite the electrical maelstrom taking place in our cabin. Our safe has ceased working, luckily when it was open and not when it was locked, and we have to be in the cabin when it is fixed which we really haven’t been or haven’t wanted the interruption. And now the outlet has failed. I used to get frustrated when we’d board a ship for four or five months, and it seemed like there was laundry list of small items to be repaired in the cabin. I would wonder why the previous passengers hadn’t reported them. Now I get it. If you’re only in a cabin for a week, you don’t sweat the small stuff.
At 11am, I went to Chopsticks Noodle Bar for a wonton noodle bowl. Oh, I have dreamed of those since we were on the Majestic Princess in New Zealand. They are so yummy on a cold day. And today certainly qualified. In fact, it was cold and raining fairly steadily when I went out on the open deck to get it. That was all I wanted to eat, as we had big dinner plans and I wanted to be hungry by this evening. I picked up some fries from the grill for G on my way back to the cabin, and he seemed to enjoy them. By the time he was finished eating, we needed to be leaving the room. Our excursion tickets said to meet at 12:40pm.
Wonton noodle bowl from the Chopstick Noodle Bar.
Extra cilantro, please!
For the first time in five visits to Skagway, we rode the White Pass and Yukon Railroad today. We were told that 75% of cruise ship passengers take this excursion, but we always felt we were too young to do it and instead did things like rent scooters and ride them past the Canadian border, or leave our laundry at a local laundromat and borrow the owner’s car to ride even further. Then there was hiking the Lower Dewey Lake trail. Well, guess what? We are now officially old enough to take the railroad. G is an avid fan of tall buildings (see Asia trip blog for proof) and historic railroads (New Zealand blog posts), so this was especially appealing to him. A bridge repair limited the trip to just 14 miles each way, but, as G said, that was enough bouncing for him. Fortunately the rain had stopped right after (but not before) we boarded the train, and though the skies were grey and the clouds hung low, the views were still quite good. But, oh it was cold! 53 degrees when it is very windy and wet, cut right through to the bone. I kept reminding myself that we were setting record highs at home right now, not to mention the poor air quality from wildfire smoke, and that warmed me right up.
I have a lot of photos to load, but they will have to wait until perhaps tomorrow. WiFi is sooo slow right now, and they are all on my iPhone. I’m not able to sync to iCloud like I would if both devices were always on WiFi.
The Skagway River
There was a toilet onboard.
It was pretty basic, but any port in a storm…
Bridal Veil Falls (above and below)
The engine coming around to pull us back into Skagway at the turnaround point
The bridges are the best parts!
We returned to the ship with just enough time to clean up a bit and go to the musher’s talk in the Vista-less Lounge. Except it was SRO by the time we got there, there was no puppy to love on due to COVID, and we had reservations at 5pm in the Crown Grill next door. We grabbed a pre-dinner drink (an elderflower Paloma for me, and it is a new favorite) and were seated next to a window, such as it is on this class of ship. At least we could see the water. We were so ready for this dinner, and started with the Alaskan specialities on the menu (oysters on the half shell and clams casino). I hadn’t had oysters like that since I was on a corporate expense account, and, though they were smalll they were definitely tasty. I had the lobster and G the filet, and there were at least three glasses of wine each and an after dinner drink and cappuccino and we were finished for the evening. Waiter Misha was a treat and made it all so much fun.
Special Alaskan menu items in the Crown Grill
These were the dining room menus for tonight, though we weren’t there.
There was an illusionist in the Princess Theater tonight, and that is not exactly our cup of tea, though others said he was great. Instead we returned to our cabin and are watching the views of the close in hillsides from our balcony, bundled up with coats and blankets and warmed by yet another adult beverage.
And, finally, I sent laundry in for the first time tonight. I wasn’t even going to bother with it, but some of our clothes are getting quite wet in the ports. And since I had seen, in the Medallion app, a request for laundry pick up, I ordered that, thinking our steward Nilo would see it and get the laundry tonight when he provided turn down service. You know, like it’s always been. But just a few minutes later, two gentlemen in white uniforms with red on their epaulets knocked on the door. They had come to collect my laundry. Now, this confused me no small amount. But I handed it over with the admonition to not look at my underwear, which they found harious (not sure I appreciated their laughter on that count). Then later tonight, we saw steward Nilo and I mentioned it to him. He was confused, too, but identified the uniforms the laundry takers were wearing as being accommodations supervisors. Well, that’s better than security, which I initially thought they were. Now Nilo just needs to track down the laundry slip and get the pink copy. And, hopefully, I’ll see the undies again someday.
And, finally, I sent laundry in for the first time tonight. I wasn’t even going to bother with it, but some of our clothes are getting quite wet in the ports. And since I had seen, in the Medallion app, a request for laundry pick up, I ordered that, thinking our steward Nilo would see it and get the laundry tonight when he provided turn down service. You know, like it’s always been. But just a few minutes later, two gentlemen in white uniforms with red on their epaulets knocked on the door. They had come to collect my laundry. Now, this confused me no small amount. But I handed it over with the admonition to not look at my underwear, which they found harious (not sure I appreciated their laughter on that count). Then later tonight, we saw steward Nilo and I mentioned it to him. He was confused, too, but identified the uniforms the laundry takers were wearing as being accommodations supervisors. Well, that’s better than security, which I initially thought they were. Now Nilo just needs to track down the laundry slip and get the pink copy. And, hopefully, I’ll see the undies again someday.
The moral of the story is: don’t use the app to have your laundry picked up. Don’t use it to order a specialty coffee in the morning in the buffet. Don’t use it to get an extra blanket for your cabin (two kinds of pillows, yes, but a blanket is not an option). Don’t use your medallion when you order drinks, just give your cabin number. After a lot of Princess cruises, I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about how things work. But apparently there’s a new learning curve, and it’s a steep one.
Princess Patter, Day 4
