The Southeast Alaska pilot approachng the ship
We were drinking coffee in the buffet, enjoying the scenery, when I heard the couple behind us saying something about reading on Cruise Critic that this week’s cruise on the Majestic Princess seemed to be going well. When I turned around to see who was talking, I noticed it was the same couple we’ve been running into since the shuttle waiting area at the airport on Saturday. She looked vaguely familiar, but, until I turned around to face her, I hadn’t realized that I definitely had met her before this cruise. I asked if they were going on the Majestic Princess on Sunday. They are. Then it hit me…she is Eileen Weiner, the most traveled most traveled guest on Princess Cruises (nearly 2800 days!!). People magazine even did an article about her travels and how she had met her husband Carl on board a cruise a few years so. We had cruised with her once, a long time ago. She said she and Carl had booked the Majestic Princess cruise a few months ago, but added this Nieuw Amsterdam cruise on Wednesday also, deciding to get out of the heat of Florida. What a small world.
We chatted for awhile (and commiserated about the sale of the perfect Pacific Princess, which was all of our favorite ship) and then G and I went to breakfast in the dining room when it opened at 7:30am. Today I chose the southwestern scramble made without cheese and it was my favorite breakfast food so far. Our morning was going to be a relaxing one; we didn’t arrive in Juneau until 1pm.
This breakfast was a winner
G went to the veterans and first responders get together at 9:30am and came back from that…pretty emotional. Apparently, someone who was on the USS Midway when Saigon fell was talking about the humanitarian crisis that resulted…well, it was some pretty moving stuff. I’m glad Holland America provides a forum for people to talk and hear about these memories. Some might say they don’t belong on a cruise but I disagree. No one bas to be there, and these people deserve to be heard. Of course, there were some funny stories too, to lighten the mood.
The scenery was continuing to close in around us, and G and I decided to walk on the Promenade Deck to combine exercise and sightseeing (we easily could have skipped the former, because of how we spent our afternoon). We fully expected to get a cell phone signal at some point, but even when we were docking in Juneau, we weren’t getting one. Ruh roh. The dining room opened at 11:30am today, serving the port day menu of just fish and chips or chicken Caesar salad, and we were sitting there while the guy at a table near us was uploading videos via cellular. He works for ATT and filled us in: our T-Mobile, which has provided us service all over the world, wasn’t going to do squat for us in Alaska. ATT has a monopoly there. I don’t like the sound of that. This means no blog posts will be published unless we get WiFi somewhere in port or until we get back to Seattle. Sorry sbout that. I will continue to write and will upload when I can. It’s going to be a nightmare to keep these photosi and menus straight until I do.
Standard Dining room lunch menu on a port day
The Nieuw Amsterdam was cleared in Juneau just before 1pm, and we dressed for the day (it was fairly overcast until about 5pm, and chilly but not too) and bought Blue Bus shuttle tickets to go to Mendenhall Glacier and back. I think they used to cost $15 round trip; they’re $45 now ($40 if you have a National Park pass). Pricey, but still the cheapest way to get to the Glacier. The buses run every 30 minutes until the last bus leaves Mendenhall at 6pm. We were at the glacier by 2pm, and first did the short (1/4 mile) Steep Creek Trail looking for bears and salmon. We found the salmon, but no bears. Although it is salmon running season, the bears feed mostly in the morning and late afternoon.
We walked up to the Visitor Center then, which we remembered had some good displays and a video, and talked with a ranger about hikes in the area. We had done the Nugget Falls trail when we were here in 2012, and she suggested the Trail of Time and the East Glacier Loop Trail, just under 4.5 miles of hiking. We knew we had time (the last bus was at 6pm, the ship didn’t leave until 10pm tonight) but couldn’t dawdle, so we spent no time exploring the Visitors Center (we had covered it well on our previous visit) and headed out.
Mendenhall Glacier get smaller every time we see it.
Nootka lupines everywhere
Nugget Falls
Steep Creek waterfall
These leaves were about two feet wide.
In my happy place
Salmon are bright red. Who knew?
The East Glacier Loop Trail had some serious climbs and more serious downhills, and although we saw lots of salmon and waterfalls, we didn’t see a bear. We arrived back at the Bear Stop waiting area and hopped (flopped, really) on the 5:30pm Blue Bus. Before we even left the parking lot, our driver said she could see park rangers holding people back on the sidewalk nearby, which meant there was a bear sighting. Well, G and I were out of the bus in a flash.
Finally! We saw a mama and her two cubs, then decided to re-hike the Steep Creek Trail because we’d heard there was another mama and her cubs there. Sure enough, we saw them too. I actually heard one of the cubs before I saw it…stuck high in a tree, he saw his mom starting to walk away and was calling her. Don’t leave me!!
It doesn’t get any better than this
Mom! Wait for me!
We finally caught the 6pm bus, completely wiped out. The driver Vince was great, and gave us a wonderful narration on the 30 minute ride back to the ship. Once again we heard how grateful the tourism sector in Juneau is that ships are sailing again. He said they get a rebate on their electric bill every month from the money that is made when the ships plug into shoreside power. He also told us that Juneau, which we knew is locked in by by mountains and can only be reached by boat or plane, and not by road, has two high schools. All high school sports require flights to get to their games and meets, and the school district pays to fly the athletes and chaperone parents to events and foots their hotel bills. Interesting!
It was all we could do to get to the buffet for a small dinner (I had baked salmon and a non-tomato based cioppino) before crashing -hard- in our cabin. G is used to that kind of activity but I was toast. The only thing that saved me is that we were hiking at low altitude. There are several entertainment options tonight, but we won’t get to any of them. The Nieuw Amsterdam will be in Glacier Bay National Park tomorrow and the first ranger talk is at 7:30am.
I’d forgotten that cruising can be such hard work.
Oh, but I can’t forget to mention that, while we were off the ship today, the crew that deal directly with guests changed out their blue Holland America cloth masks for N95s and KN95s. Now, that’s a good thing but I’m not sure what prompted that change today. We continue to stay masked on the ship and in port and, in fact, only removed our masks today when we were hiking alone. Frankly, I’m glad we’re on these cruises now. This winter is looking increasingly questionable.
Go away COVID!!
Day 3 When and Where
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