twangster

A glacier is a moving field of snowpack or ice that is being pulled down a valley by gravity. As the field of snow pack or ice progresses down the valley it faces turns and curves. A right hand turn will see the flow field compress on the right and expand on the left. A left turn will cause the opposite effect. This plays out in slow motion over many years and it leads to parts of a glacier being full of hidden cracks, crevices and caves. Some areas of a glacier are not suitable to walk on as you could break through the surface and end up in a crevice or cave hundreds of feet deep. The shape of the valley and how twisty it is causes the different surfaces we see. In some cases the path downhill forks and then rejoins later down stream. The flow grinding against the sides of the valley causes debris to break off creating the moraine or "dirt streaks". When the moraine is centered with clean sides you know that is a sign that two flows joined and became a larger flow somewhere "upstream". They estimate for Hubbard Glacier it takes 400 years for the journey of the field to flow from the source until it reaches the sea. Typically many glaciers share the same source, each valley is a path downhill where gravity does the work creating what we see as a glacier. Each year more snow falls adding to the snow field where it all starts. The Juneau Icefield feeds all five of the glaciers I flew over on this excursion plus many more glaciers in the area.

I think we will see some regional differences between implementations for items such as testing. Privacy laws may come to into play to differing degrees i.e. HIPAA in the USA. The Abbott 5 minute test involved a digital pass app. The benefit to this is that Abbott is the organization that has to comply with HIPAA as they store your information in their infrastructure, not the baseball park, movie theater, hotel resort or cruise line that will ask to see your pass. If companies like a hotel resort or cruise line is acquiring and implementing the test they may be subject to HIPAA and that is no small undertaking. Will airlines, hotel resorts, baseball parks or cruise lines partner with a 3rd party to be present at their facility so they are on site to perform a test upon customer arrival? That doesn't sound cheap. Will your health care provider pay for it? Probably not (in the USA) - many providers don't cover elective procedures and only only cover items that they consider essential. Going to a baseball game and requiring a test is not essential. What will Abbott charge these companies so they can read your digital pass? A pre-flight test for domestic flying works because it's domestic. International flights are a different matter. So many details to work out. What works in Europe may not work in the USA, Canada or Australia. A ship visiting different countries may face a challenge getting all the countries to accept the same solution. The EU may have a great advantage in this respect so cruising there may be easier to get going. These are good problems to face as it means we are progressing. It will be very interesting to see how this works out.

Carnival enforced arrival times, or at least did several years ago when I last sailed them. They needed to enforce times to help justify the sale of the "Faster To The Fun" pass program. Looking back they basically created chaos in boarding then sold FTTF as a means to bypass the chaos they created. Pretty effective as well - FTTF was always in demand but capacity controlled so people would search day after day hoping to buy it so that things like check in time could be ignored. It was one of big differences I noted when I switched to Royal. Bigger ships, more people, no chaos. While Royal hasn't needed to enforce check in time up to this point, it's not going to be earth shaking now if they do. Other lines have done it for a while.

Time to head home... Pretty amazing.

I'm reminded of a cream pie of sorts, oy maybe I'm just hungry. Just hundreds of feet tall.

Did I mention I love Alaska?

Did I mention the views?

Today we'll see five glaciers near Juneau. Flying over the glaciers you get a completely different perspective...

Here we go... Looking back down Gastineau channel towards Juneau. You see such a different perspective from the air.

Since we are nearby let's pop into Juneau. The Alaskan Inside Passage is used to reach ports of call such as Juneau which turns out to be the Capital of Alaska and a staple of many Alaska cruise itineraries. A quintessential element of Alaska is the float plane and while visiting Juneau it's hard not to see some. These work horses have been a big part of making Alaska what it is today. So it seems fitting to do the short walk over to the Seaplane base and go for a ride.

There's nothing like waking to a beautiful brand new day. When that occurs in the Alaskan Inside Passage it's so much better. ProTip - Don't sleep in while in Alaska even if you are not a morning person. It can be pretty spectacular. How about a quick time lapse?

Book early, book often. Over the years I have enjoyed a few price drops but my general observation is one of prices increasing as time moves forward toward the cruise date. The number of available cruises that can be booked has been fixed for sometime now since the bulk of 2022 hasn't been released. More people are booking what is available to book. There is pent up demand and even new to cruise are starting look and book as everyone is tired of being stuck at or near home. Supply and demand principles so prices typically aren't expected to be going lower. I did enjoy a lower price for adding a guest to a Star Class booking in 2022. I had been quoted one price but when I pulled the trigger the actual cost was very low, some $1,200 less for that guest.

Alaska is pretty cheap right now. Your FCC will go further than it ever has up there.

A lot has changed since the days when they faced a question about sailing at reduced capacity during an investor call. Keep in the mind the response was an answer to a question on the spot, it wasn't an announcement that this was an intention developed as a formal policy derived after days of effort by a working group. It was a response to a question that took seconds to think up on the spot that many have since extrapolated a lot from. That was months ago when there was some hope that cruising would have resumed by now. Fast forward to today and if asked the same question there may be a different answer. With 5 minute testing and a vaccine on the verge of becoming real the requirements to operate at reduced capacity have changed. This is an example of many things the Healthy Sail Panel will evaluate. I think it unwise to speculate about capacity reductions or any approach to a resumption of cruising until the Healthy Sail Panel finishes their work. We'll know when they know. Right now Royal doesn't know and I doubt they are using unknowns to adjust cabin pricing. There have always been a lot of revenue management algorithms in use that are probably being driven wonky with pandemic induced booking trends that the algorithms were never intended to deal with.

My agent has made a number of changes for me recently, some easy, some complex. This past weekend at least one change required she call Royal. Within an hour of telling her what I wanted to do I received an email from Royal. It was one of those automated emails when you purchase or cancel something in the cruise planner. This was expected since I was moving that cruise to a different ship and sail date. I had booked excursions with OBC so I didn't bother to cancel them myself since there was no credit card involved. This served to tell me how long it took for her to reach Royal and get my cruise changed. A few minutes later I checked "My Cruises" and my new cruise was there with the right cabin number. I changed three cruises this weekend and all were done within hours. One of my changes involved a NextCruise booking that had Next OBC. That OBC was lost in the migration to my new ship. I emailed her and within minutes she had the NextCruise OBC restored (another phone call to Royal). I'm not sure why your travel agent is having a hard time reaching Royal. My agent is able to work with them very effectively right now.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/06/24/expect-royal-caribbean-cruise-prices-go-soon

Cold layup de-certifies a ship. To re-enter service a ship must be recertified by the various maritime organizations that are involved. During these times that will take months as those organizations are not operating on a normal basis.

I think the app is in limbo since there are no cruise directors loading content.

All good things must come to and end including a day at Hubbard Glacier. I could spend several pages on Hubbard Glacier but this is just a sampler to illustrate why I love cruising in Alaska so much. I really miss Alaska, fingers crossed hoping for a quick return. Doh! In my haste to jump over to Radiance I left my SeaPass card on Ovation. I need to jump back over now since it was free on short range. Please enjoy this relaxing aft view Hubbard sail away as I make my way back to Ovation.

Sharing is caring and her comes Radiance. Time for another ship to have a spin at Hubbard Glacier so let's jump over to Radiance for some close ups

In Alaska at a glacier? Might as well go for a ride on a FlowRider. Wake views

We got lucky with the weather, it's turned into a great day.

We are fortunate as Quantum class doesn't get to Hubbard often. Even Zan Ma and Li Bao's were excited fro their first visit to an Alaskan Glacier.

As we approach the crowds thicken and the weather starts to improve. Time to hop into NorthStar.