Alaska May 2006

The Regal Princess is in the foreground, anchored in the Ketchikan harbor. Another cruise ship, the Carnival Spirit, is docked; between them are a float plane and one of our ship’s tenders. You can see five red life boats on the side of the ship; where there’s space for two more, that’s where the tenders are parked. The picture was taken from a float plane, on our way to a Dungeness crab fest.

The Regal Princess is a mid-sized cruise ship holding about 1600 passengers and 700 crew. It was built in 1991 in Italy and was refurbished in 2005. The decks are numbered like VHF TV channels: 2 through 12 and 14. Our cabin was a mini-suite on deck 11. Deck 12 has two pools and umpteen deck chairs, with the buffet aft and the bridge forward. Deck 14 has “The Dome” forward, a jogging track in the middle, and some activity rooms behind the smokestack. The Dome has chairs around the windows, a bar and lounge, the casino, and the card room.

There are three banks of stairs and elevators, with three elevators each. There are no public escalators, although Mischel took a cooking class with a quick kitchen tour and found that the main kitchen is on the deck below the dining room, and the waiters use escalators.

May 22: Casino in The Dome

May 16, Regal Princess: The Galleria

There’s a shopping/lounge area on decks 6, 7 & 8 called the Galleria. Note the guitar player on deck 6. The main dining room is aft on deck 7 and the showroom is forward on decks 7 and 8.

Some things are low-tech, like the mechanical room keys:

Room key: deck 11, cabin 164

Each person got an ID card, used to buy drinks and souvenirs on the ship, and to get off and back on the ship. It had a bar code, but no photo or magnetic stripe.

How do you get gas? They bring the gas station to you:

May 24, Victoria: Fuel barge

How do you repair an anchor? First, you lower it onto a barge:

May 26, San Francisco: Anchor repair

The guys in the white hard hats show the scale.

A van collected us and took us to Pier 35 in San Francisco. We went through security on Pier 35. It’s similar to airport security; that’s where they collect the baggage.

May 16: Edna at security

The baggage isn’t delivered to the cabins for a few hours, so there’s nothing to do but explore the ship, and EAT. The buffet’s open, of course.

May 16: Ray & Shirley on deck

We met the other people in our little group outside the buffet, then ran into Faye and Bob on deck, and invited them to our cabin.

May 16: Mischel, Bob & Faye in our cabin

Our “mini-suite” was a little longer and wider than the usual cabin, and quite comfortable.

May 16: Sailboarder & kiteboarder

There were a bunch of sailboarders near the Marina, and a bunch of guys being towed by kites between there and the bridge. It’s a sport new to me that I found (via Google) is called “kiteboarding”.

The kites are steerable. Some of those guys could get 20 or 30 feet off the water, and of course come crashing down.

See also the bridge picture on the previous page.

May 16: Bob & Mischel on our cabin balcony

May 16: Under the Golden Gate Bridge

We lost sight of land before dark.

The days at sea Faye taught a bridge lesson in the morning and ran a game in the afternoon. For this, she and Bob got an inside stateroom. We went to all of these but one. Surprisingly, these sessions weren’t well attended- there were only ever 3 to 6 people besides us. Sometimes Bob would play just to make two full tables.

May 17: Dennis & Roz in our cabin

May 17: Shirley & Ray in our cabin

This day was one of the two formal dinners.

May 17: Mischel & new bling

Mischel celebrated seven years of non-smoking and showed off her new bling, a custom gold and 12-diamond slide.

Starting a 1 o’clock and going clockwise, the diamonds are: four from her friend Liz, six from my mother, and two from her mother.

May 17: Dennis & Roz at dinner

After dinner, in the show room, there was an introductory speech by the entertainment director, followed by a short song-and-dance program. See the picture above.

Earlier:

May 17: At sea, AM

Later:

May 17: At sea, PM

A foggy vacation day: bridge, trivia, dance lessons (Dennis & Roz), casino, food, etc.

Still, somehow, I never found time to read a book or work a crossword puzzle.

May 18: At sea, view from our cabin

Or even watch TV. They had a satellite feed, or something, and a channel for the bridge camera:

May 18: At sea, view from the bridge

May 18: Trivia: Mischel, Edna, Ruth, S&R

May 18: Dinner: Ray & Ruth

May 18: Dinner: Mischel & the pasta guy

I think his title should be “The garlic guy”.

Somehow, we had to anchor, even though we arrived earlier than the Ryndam. In other ports, we docked. It avoids the lines waiting for space on a tender.

May 19: Two other cruise ships, docked

The other cruise ships are the Carnival Spirit and a Holland America ship. Later, another Holland America ship docked between them.

May 19: Lumberjills

They have a lumberjack show near the dock. These girls helped with shore excursions for Princess but were in training to be lumberjills; they did extreme sports in college. They live somewhere in the lower 48, and work in Ketchikan during the tourist season.

May 19: John, in Alaska

Actually, I had been to Alaska before, a business trip to Fairbanks 20 years ago.

May 19: Cruise ships and float planes

Our shore excursion was to take a float plane across the island to a fishing resort for a crab feast.

May 19: Mischel, on board a float plane

May 19: View left from the float plane

The plane was a De Havilland Beaver, a 6-passenger prop plane with floats. The Juneau plane was a De Havilland Otter, a larger and quieter 9-passenger turboprop with floats. Including the pilot, the Beaver front-to-back seating was 2-3-2, so someone didn’t get a window, while the Otter was 2-2-2-2-2, with an aisle. Both took off and landed smoothly.

May 19: View forward from the float plane

May 19: Mountain lake

May 19: Mountains

The lodge isn’t that remote: they have a road, telephone and broadband internet.

The crab was excellent, and you can order from their website: http://www.catchcrabs.com/

May 19: Inlets

May 19: Mischel at our float plane

May 19: The George Inlet Lodge, at low tide

That ramp is level at high tide.

May 19: The crab feast

King crab comes from up around the Arctic; the local crab is Dungeness, actually our preference.

May 19: Old rope on the dock

Our group came in two planes, which left soon. When it was time to go, one of the two was busy or broken or something, so one plane made two round trips. Where the flight going was high, slow and scenic and took 20 or 30 minutes, the flight returning was low, fast and direct, and took 8 or 10 minutes.

May 19: Returning, Westerdam leaving

May 19: The Holland America Westerdam

May 19: Leaving Ketchikan (1)

May 19: Leaving Ketchikan (2)

May 19: Discussing our adventures

May 19: Mischel, Shirley and Dennis

May 19: Ruth

May 19: Leaving Ketchikan (3)

May 19: Leaving Ketchikan (4)

May 20: Arriving Juneau, about 8 am

Juneau is the state capitol, with about 12,000 people. We had all day in Juneau and took two shore excursions. The first was a hike on Perseverance Trail before taking the tram up Roberts Mountain. The trail around the top of Roberts Mountain was still snowed-in, so Perseverance Trail was a substitute.

Going to the hike, we passed a Russian Orthodox church:

May 20: Russian Orthodox church

The hike took about an hour, going through rain forest to a lookout point.

May 20: Perseverance Trail

May 20: Roberts Mountain tram

Up on Roberts Mountain, besides the expected restaurant and gift shop, there was a raptor center, for care of injured birds.

May 20: Raptor Center, Mischel on right

May 20: Raptor Center, captive bald eagle

Our second shore excursion was a float plane ride over the glaciers around Juneau.

May 20: Float plane, Mischel on right

We took a float plane out of Juneau, to see the Juneau Ice Sheet, or whatever, part of which is the Mendenhall Glacier.

May 20: Over Juneau

May 20: Mischel over Juneau

Glaciers don't photograph worth a damn. They look like snow-covered meadows, with rocks sticking out, unless you know the scale.

May 20: Glacier (1)

May 20: Glacier (2)

May 20: Glacier (3)

May 20: Glacier (4)

Mischel was taking pictures out the left side when she saw something strange:

May 20: Aliens?

Then I saw something similar on the right.

It appears to be a dog sled base, with larger tents for the people and smaller tents for the dogs. I guess dog sled teams run in tracks, like cross country skiers. There appears to be a team leaving camp in the lower left:

May 20: Dog sled base

There’s a dog sled shore excursion… they must get there by helicopter.

May 20: Glacier lake

May 20: Over Mendenhall Glacier

We returned over Mendenhall Glacier. We could later have seen it from the ground, but had a drink in the famous Red Dog Saloon instead.

It was my birthday, so we broke out the big bottle of wine for dinner, and I opened the cards and gifts when Faye and Bob joined us for dessert.

We (Shirley & Ray and us) rented a car in Skagway and drove to Whitehorse for lunch.

It was easy once we got the rental car. The directions failed us, so we walked around town until we found a parking lot with similar new cars, and a small Avis sign. Then we scoured the area for the rental office, which turned out to be the rental office in a nearby motel, with an Avis sign that couldn’t have been more than 4 by 12 inches.

It’s about 110 miles to Whitehorse, on a good 2-lane road, mostly 60 MPH.

May 21: Suspension bridge, with bus

For no apparent reason, they built this unusual one-tower suspension bridge.

May 21: “US Canadian Border” sign

The sign (on the right) is on a road marker pole, not a light stanchion. These poles went for miles, to mark the road for the snow plows.

The border must run along the mountain ridge; the checkpoints are several miles away, I guess for better weather and a shorter commute.

May 21: Tour busses & photo op

If you want a better camera angle, just stand in the middle of the road… no problem, mostly just us and a couple tour busses.

May 21: Same spot, different view

May 21: White Pass railroad

The railroad runs to Whitehorse, but the bus and rail tours from Skagway only go half way.

May 21: Shirley taking…

Found Emerald Lake. Not difficult, really, being next to the road, just not well marked.

May 21: Emerald Lake

The lake was mostly frozen over, a late spring someone said, but it was the green characteristic of melted glacial ice.

Whitehorse is a big town, 20,000 or so people, with traffic lights, parking meters, and all. Ray had been there before, 40 years ago, driving his Ford Fairlane (Galaxy?) 500 convertible.

We happened to find the Klondike Rib & Salmon Barbecue in Whitehorse’s oldest building:

May 21: Lunch in Whitehorse; Mischel

We had excellent halibut soup and sandwiches, among other things, but skipped the caribou.

May 21: Heading back to Skagway

May 21: Skagway; Edna & Ray

May 21: Leaving Skagway

May 22: Tracy Arm

There was a bald eagle on one of the ice floes, waiting for lunch to swim by:

May 22: Tracy Arm ice floe

We both lost the blackjack tournament in the qualifying round (Mischel twice).

May 22: Blackjack tournament; Mischel

May 22: Tracy Arm ice floe (detail)

May 22: Dinner: Ruth

In Victoria, we took a combined Butchart Gardens and wine/chocolate tasting shore excursion.

May 24: The Butchart rose

The flowers were spectacular, except that the roses were out of season.

May 24: Butchart buds and flowers

May 24: Butchart tulips

One could easily spend a day there, what with the restaurant, gift shop, and the gardens.

May 24: Butchart Japanese garden

May 24: Butchart gardens

May 24: Butchart Japanese rock garden

May 24: Butchart garden waterfall

After Butchart Gardens, we did the wine/chocolate tasting. The wine was pretty

good, for Canada, and we bought some chocolates. The tour ended with a quick tour of downtown Victoria, with a stop at the Empress Hotel (picture of big old building omitted).

We left Victoria at about 2 pm, heading for San Francisco.

May 24: At sea: Olympic Peninsula

Standing: Shirley, John, Mischel, Roz, Dennis. Seated: Ray, Edna, Ruth.

The day was trivia, bridge, casino, food, etc.

I believe we saw part of the northern California coast, and some people claimed whale sightings, but there are no good pictures to show.

May 25: Dinner: Baked Alaska parade

Dinner was very good, ending with the traditional Baked Alaska parade of waiters.

After dinner was the talent show.

May 25: Talent show: Dennis and the MC

Dennis accompanied himself on the keyboard, with backup from the band’s drummer and bass. Then Edna and Shirley sang (separately), accompanied by Dennis and the boys. There were other singing, comic, etc. acts too.

The other show pictures just didn’t come out.

Afternoon & evening: all the luggage gets packed and put outside the cabin by 11 pm.

The picture shows Treasure Island, with Yerba Buena Island and the Bay Bridge on the right, and the Oakland hills in the background.

May 26, San Francisco: Coit Tower

This picture is the last one taken from our cabin. The Transamerica pyramid is on the left, Coit Tower on the right, and the side of the ship on the very right.

We did the on-board immigration procedure, then had breakfast.

They off-load people in sections, to keep the baggage problem manageable, but it still seemed like a zoo. It took us 20 or 30 minutes to find our bags, some of which had been claimed by some tour group director.

Then, out on the street to wait over an hour for the rest of our group. When we were all assembled, the van arrived promptly, and we got home by noon, tired but happy.