twangster

@KJ1231 is on Radiance this week (just got off today). Their live blog is here: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/6616-radiance-sailing-62218-alaska-southbound/&page=1 Maybe they can give some fresh insight. It looks like they had a 6:15pm MTD reservation.

Late July.

Cruise Summary and Random Thoughts Alaska is an amazing cruise destination that is very different compared to a Caribbean cruise. Coastal Alaska along the Southeast region is a collection of small towns that have no roads between them. That makes cruising an ideal way to explore them. I heard the Captain make the comment that every week it's different, something changes. I've been to Juneau and Skagway yet the inlets to get there appeared completely different to me, like I had never seen them before. I'm sure someone on the cruise this week or next will see something different as well. Whales, bears, moose, eagles and seals all move around constantly. The time of day and angle of the sun or glacier differences make each trip unique. Last year I chose a Southbound itinerary so i could see Hubbard Glacier. While that glacier may be bigger, you can only take so many pictures of a glacier. The proximity of Endicott Arm and the contrast of the ship juxtaposed against the cliff walls really stood out for me on this cruise. It was an incredible experience just standing there with the towering cliff walls and waterfalls rising hundreds of feet above me. To be honest my previous research led me to think that a one-way North/South Alaska cruise was the "right way" to do Alaska while Seattle round-trip cruises were some kind of a lesser experience. Having completed this cruise I now know that is not the case. Different ports are involved and each has a reason to be considered. I carefully looked at the times of arrival and departure at each port when considering this cruise. Who ever secured these ports times for Explorer did a great job. Watching Solstice arrive into Victoria at 5pm when we had already been there for 8 hours illustrates this point. We got to see the beautiful Butchart Gardens, walk around town, have a beer and lunch, walk through a city park and then walk along shore to get back to the ship. What kind of experience will they have with just 4 hours in the evening to explore such a beautiful city? Seattle hotels are expensive. However staying downtown within walking distance to so many sights was great. I had heard the Space Needle was kind of cheesy but with the new glass walls it was pretty cool. Chihuly Glass and Gardens was amazing. I haven't had the drink package for a number of cruises now. I was glad I got it the package on this cruise. Given the social aspect of the group cruise it was nice being able to have another with friends without having that little machine in your brain trying to keep a running total. The long port times played into that because we often would do a morning excursion, come back to the ship and have a beer or two then go off again for a few hours in the afternoon. While the rental ice skates left a lot to be desired it was cool to be able to skate around the little rink. It's amazing what the cast of the ice skating shows are able to accomplish on such a small sheet of ice. Another rumor I've heard is that Alaskan cruises are a geriatric crowd. That certainly wasn't the case on either of my Alaska cruises. Balcony cabins - I have no regrets choosing an interior cabin. The savings basically paid for our excursions and the drink package for both of us plus the hotel and transfer costs. Sure if you have lots of money a balcony is better. Since that doesn't apply to me I was happy with my choice this year. Having done a suite with a balcony last year I have direct knowledge of both and when I book my next Alaskan cruise it will most likely be in an interior. I heard people foreshadow terrible doom trying to fight for a view of the glacier. I knew that wasn't going to be the case and neither last year or this year was that the case. My pictures speak for themselves. Cabin proximity to get outside is important so choose any cabin location carefully. My virtual balcony was a bit of a let down. It was broken a lot of the time however I now know they use Red Hat Linux having watched it reboot itself every 8-10 minutes. More often than not it was just the virtual hand rail displayed on a black background. Maintenance requests took a while and if they got it working it only lasted a few hours. Leveraging the concierge in the Concierge Lounge seemed to help that effort a bit. When it worked it was great. On Anthem I didn't have these problems so maybe it's an Explorer thing and it's running an older gen 1 platform. Voom - I knew it was going to be bad and my expectations were met. They really shouldn't market Surf and Stream for Alaska cruises. They would be better to just offer Surf. I managed to keep this blog updated so it wasn't the end of the world. I'm finishing the blog on home internet and I'm amazed how fast it's going! Overall it was a fantastic cruise experience and when combined with the social aspects of the group cruise that made it even better. I can definitely see myself doing another Alaska cruise. It was nice trying different excursions this year. The train in Skagway was pretty great last year but having a different experience this year was equally great. When is the next one? ?

Not that I know of but I never asked anyone either.

The dreaded day has arrived. Self assist time was stated to be 6:30am to 7:15am. We had mostly packed the night before. I hear Matt and Matt, Cookingyo and Earl closed both the R Bar and the Casino Bar but I wouldn't know anything about that. I set my alarm for 6am and we were on our way down at 6:45am. It was easy to get an elevator that wasn't packed and we immediately were directed outside on deck 4. Disembarking has already started and we had a short queue to be scanned off the ship. Customs was a breeze. One officer was looking at passports opened to the photo page as we walked past him, moving all the time. That's it? Yes! Super easy. I quickly looked in the Lyft app and saw the airport ride would be $41. The cab area was close to where we left the terminal and seeing my phone open they offered a $40 rate to SeaTac airport. The ride share area is a bit of a walk from the terminal so taking a cab was a lot easier as they are right there. Minimal traffic before rush hour at 7am and we were at the airport by 7:45am. The meter read $48 so the driver over-rode it and entered a flat rate $40 on the credit card terminal in the cab. Overall a very easy disembarkation and transfer to the airport.

Fresh off dinner it was time for the RoyalCaribbeanBlog.com podcast recording. Fittingly it was held in the chapel. The faithful all gathered to hear Matt's sermon.

Back on board we made our way to deck 12 to exercise the drink package and take in the last sights of Victoria. I spotted a Celebrity. It's the Soltice who we started this cruise experience with. Well past our departure we had some pier runners. Okay, maybe they were more pier sauntering. With Seattle so close the Captain was able to wait for everyone. After this off to our last dinner in the MTD dining room.

The ride back down to Victoria was another 45 minutes and the driver gave us the option of being dropped off in town or taking us back to the port. We chose to get off in town. Victoria itself is quite beautiful. It's also the provincial capital. The harbor is home to one of the busiest seaplane bases in the world (according to our bus driver). After walking around a little we found a pub. This is Garrison's Pub. Fish and chips were in order. The chips are beer battered and very good. Finally I saw a bear. From the look on his face he was quite surprised by the unnexpected Twangster sighting. Here are some floral Orcas. This is a public school but it has an eight year wait list. People are known to pick a name of a future child, submit it and hope for the best once they eventually actually have a child. (according to our bus driver when we drove past earlier). From here we walked over to the park I mentioned earlier, Beacon Hill Park. This is a free city park open to the public. What caught our eye when the bus drove through here in the morning were the wild Peacocks that roam freely. Above us we could hear dozens of birds nesting in the trees. Turns out they were Great Blue Herons. Standing on white washed pavement it dawned on us we were in the landing zone so we quickly moved on. While not as over-the-top as Butchart Gardens, the grounds of the park are very nice and well kept. Within the park is a children's petting zoo. The suggested donation is $4 per adult. The peacocks are free to roam in or out of the petting zoo but the theory is they know they are safe so they tend to hang out here. They were on top of the buildings, on fences and walking around on the ground. Our bus driver claimed this was the 2nd largest watering can in North America. Victoria marks the start of the TransCanada highway. At 7,821 kilometers or 4,860 miles it crosses Canada and goes from coast to coast. Here there is also a statute in memory of Terry Fox. I remember Terry from my youth growing up. He lost a leg to cancer and sought to run the entire length of the trans Canada highway. Our bus driver explained earlier there are still charity events in his name around the world and at over one billion dollars raised since it is the single largest fund raising charity ever. At this point we were right on the water so we chose to follow it back to the ship. There was a path and stairs leading somewhere so we thought it might be a photo opportunity. You can't quite see them on this day but on the horizon are the Olympic mountains of Washington state. Walking towards the ship the pier is just around the corner. It was a very easy and pleasant walk along the shore on a paved trail. Every so often there was an opportunity to make it down to the shore. In this photo you can see some people hanging out on their balcony in the upper left most aft balcony cabin by the left flag pole. It's the @cookingyos (fellow Royal Caribbean Blog Group Cruisers). cookingyo.com - It's a real website.

Our excursion today is The Butchart Gardens. The tour is marked as 3 1/2 hours but the gardens are 45 minutes from the port so we would only have ~2 hours in the gardens. Our bus driver took us through a public city park on the way out of town. Here we saw many wild Peacocks walking around. More on this park later. The bus ride is about 45 minutes to The Butchart Gardens. Our driver provided some history and facts about the area and Butchart Gardens. The original owners purchased the land for a limestone quarry as part of the family business to make portland cement. While traveling in Europe an eagle broke into a bird enclosure and killed all the song birds. Word made it to the Butcharts while in England so they diverted and went to Germany to acquire some unique small birds only available in Germany. Arriving back into England a day late from this diversion they missed their ship back to America. They would have to take the next ship a week later. The ship they missed was the Titanic. There are seven gardens within the overall facility. This is called the sunken gardens and it was the old Limestone quarry from the business. The Ross fountains were added later by a grandson who assumed the gardens as the Butcharts grew older. There is a merry go round for the kiddies. This Sequoia seedling was planted in 1934. The rose garden has a seemingly endless variation of roses. This brings us back to the start with the same picture but with a spin. With that our time was up and we headed back out to the bus parking lot.

Day 7 - Victoria, British Columbia, Canada With an 9:30am expected clearance and a 5:30 all on board time we had a good amount of time in Victoria. Many Seattle based cruises have limited time in port, arriving in Victoria around dinner time and leaving around 10pm. The stop here is a 'technical' stop, required by a law that at a high level makes it necessary to have at least one foreign country on the itinerary. Since Alaska is part of the US, stopping in Canada satisfies the foreign port requirement. I'd highly recommend every one pay attention when booking an Alaskan cruise to the arrival and departure time in Victoria. So many bad reviews of this port are centered around a late arrival (right at dinner time) when local stores are closing and it's getting darker. Like it's Victoria's fault people didn't read what they booked and then complain when the cruise lines do exactly what they said they would do. Not so on this itinerary which is one reason I booked it.

Where was i? Oh yeah... Day 6 Afternoon. Group Cruise trivia in the Star Lounge I missed the start of the event because I was off doing something and forgot. I did get to hear the answers though. Followed by a give away. After this we did a small cabin crawl. That panoramic ocean view cabin was still looking pretty suite. Annette's aft balcony was too. Funny how the travel agent gets the bast cabin... After this was dinner followed by some walking around the ship taking random photos. Nice sunset tonight, just had to wait for it to pop through the break in the clouds. Later I found the piano player in the Schooner Bar. Then to the pub... Dining Room picture With the light fading after 10pm I headed aft for just one more photo.

No worries, we're just enjoying a beer at a pub in Victoria while you non-cruise types are chatting.

It never hurts to consider other options. My only NCL experience is so long ago it's not relevant any longer. When I've looked at NCL in the past, before becoming Loyal2Royal, my research led me to a couple of conclusions. By and large the experience is more similar than not. The devil is in the details. Free at sea isn't really free, it's bundled into the cost. Any time I narrowed it down to a specific ship and sailing then compared costs the age old proven rule came to light - nothing in life is free. That's for me and my purchasing habits. I'm sure for some people the bundles work out for them. Once in a while you can find a deal that is an outlier. It seems people point to these like they are rule but any time I priced out an exact sail date it was never one of those outliers. Mini-suites in my research led me to conclude it's just a slightly bigger balcony cabin. Not really a suite and shouldn't be compared to a JS on Royal. When looking at NCL there are great variations from ship to ship. You really need to focus on one ship and reviews for that ship. While Royal's fleet has evolved and you can clearly see that evolution from class to class, NCL ships are more random. In some cases they acquired a ship when another company went broke mid-construction so they started with someone else's design and adapted it to NCL on the fly. They've also experimented more in design so it isn't an evolution so much as "... and now for something completely different" . There is nothing wrong with that, but those experiments haven't always worked out so well. Turns out there is a reason no other cruise line tried some of them. NCL internet packages don't work for me. There are many people who love to completely disconnect when cruising. For those people the internet plans on any line are irrelevant. I could never work from an NCL ship like I can on Royal. Like the ship design, internet across the NCL fleet is wildly different from one ship to the next. The newer ships have decent internet but the older ships have really bad internet. 250 free minutes of really bad internet is just really bad. They've simply made no attempt to modernize internet across the fleet like Royal did in 2013. As far as loyalty programs, for my needs Royal is still tops but that is what I look for in a loyalty program. I've sailed five lines. I suppose had I never tried any other line I'd be further ahead compared to where I am now but I am where I am. In the end it hasn't stunted my advancement in C&A that much. Competition is a good thing. It keep Royal in check. Please sail other lines. Every time someone doesn't book Royal it lowers demand and causes Royal to lower prices (or keep them from increasing). That's a good thing and I thank you for taking one for the team. A cruise is what you make it. If someone gave me a free cruise on NCL's worst ship I'd still have a great time and not because it was free, rather because I don't do bad cruises.

I have both the book and card. I've used the card to drive across the US-Canada border many times. The card can be used for land or sea. Anything involving international air travel requires a book. It's a rather odd rule since either way they swipe it to bring you up electronically in the system but I suppose the book does have pages where other countries could stamp things that US customs can review upon your return. Ultimately Royal has to let you on the ship in Seward so I'd contact them and make sure they are okay with you boarding the ship with a card. Driving from British Columbia into Washington state with a card won't be a problem.

A bots job is never done.

I've been hanging out in the Viking Crown Lounge on this whale watching excursion. I just saw this awesome Orca to starboard. It was swimming just under the surface yet I could see it's whole body. Just Wow. The pool deck is operating in normal mode, pools open (and heated), bars open, joggers jogging, hot tubs being enjoyed. I'm sitting right above the outdoor TV screen so I've got the eyes of many on deck 11 staring straight at me. Very flat seas today, it hardly feels like we are moving. I could take this same picture on a sea day for any Caribbean cruise and it would be mostly the same - minus the whales. An amazing sea day plus I'm all caught up on this blog. Phew. Time for a Kraken and something. (ok, maybe another one...)

Day 6 - Sea Day As we make our way down to Victoria we enjoy a typical sea day. Studio B has been reserved for the Royal Caribbean Blog group cruise at 10am for an hour. Matt was a trooper, out there for the bulk of it. I ventured out after scoping and taking some pictures. They didn't have my skate size so I ended in a skate just a tad bit small. It worked but my shins were killing me.

Back in Stephen's Passage it was time for the Royal Caribbean Blog Group Cruise Photo! Of course it was... raining. Fortunately it didn't last long and we were able to get some of the group who ventured out for the photo. For some reason Matt asked me to take the photo. This is the point we drop off our pilot, at the same place we picked him up a few days ago. Still no chair hogs. Here is our route so far: I'm writing this from the Viking Crown Lounge on day 6 but I've been distracted. There have been dozens of whales passing on both sides. An Orca just did a big jump right beside the ship creating a massive splash when it landed. Just Wow.

For me helipad access is high on the list. I suspect Ovation will do just fine. Imagine North Star in Endicott Arm. I wonder if they will sell tickets for that experience.

Here are some more photos as we made our way down Endicott Arm.

Here is the special drink display they had set up at the Sky Bar. Baileys and Hot Chocolate was pretty darn good.

Photo intensive post coming up. As much as I try by dumping picture after picture into this blog there are no words or mere photos that can adequately capture the beauty and how you feel when experiencing Alaska live. This will serve as my feeble attempt because it was a pretty incredible morning. Just understand these photos don't do it justice. I had a prime spot at the very front of the bow as we approached Dawes glacier. I hardly noticed the rain. But it was time to let someone else have a turn. Sharing is caring. I made my way through the crowd and grabbed a shot of the glacier including my new best friends. I went back under the cover of deck 4 to get out of the rain so I could change to a different lens. There were more 'growlers' as the senior officer on the helipad called them when the chucks of ice (glacier) are a certain size. The blue color comes from hundreds of feet of ice compressing and squeezing the oxygen out of the ice. With the sun now coming and going it dramatically changed the colors of the glacier, growlers and cliff walls of Endicott Arm. Here two different arms of this glacier meet. Where the glacier has been rubbing down the wall of the rock face it grinds off pieces of rock that form the dark strips that can be seen on top of the glacier. Everywhere I turned there was something that caught my eye. We had reached our closest approach to the glacier at approximately 1 mile. From here the Captain began to slowly turn the ship in a clockwise circle. There isn't a bad spot to be, except maybe in the casino, the pub or a restroom. From here I ventured up to deck 12. A polar bear had emerged on the ship roaming around with the ship photographers. With the first 90° of a turn complete the ship was sideways across Endicott Arm and the views in direction we had come from was pretty impressive. As impressive as the glacier may be, I was equally impressed with the cliff faces of the rock walls of Endicott Arm surrounding the ship. It was truly awe inspiring. The deck 12 sun deck above the Sky Bar was a popular spot for a quick selfie. With that it was time to leave. We began our departure back down into Endicott Arm.

I set my alarm for 6am so I could grab a bite before our arrival at the glacier. I found the ship deep within Endicott Arm slowly making our way towards the glacier. It was raining and cold but despite the weather it was breathtaking. Large chucks of ice floating past confirmed we were on the right path. I tried the Peak-a-boo bridge area first but didn't like having the structure of the ship in my shots so I relocated to the helipad. Here I got the first hints at the Dawes glacier. It was raining a good bit and my routine included wiping my lens dry, pointing the camera down to keep the rain off the lens before lifting it quickly to take some photos before repeating the cycle. I had several layers on with my rain coat over them and gloves on. With all that it was quite pleasant. Waterfalls frequently appeared on both sides of the ship. We inched closer crawling slowly up Endicott Arm. The sun was trying to break through. It was just 7:45am so the sun hadn't been able to get very high in the sky or burn off any of the low ceiling hanging above us. From my spot on the bow I could see many small pieces of ice floating all around us. Small is a relative word, they were still pretty big, more than you could stuff into a beer cooler. A senior officer joined us on the helipad and they began setting up a tent with hot chocolate and other drinks for purchase (Bloody Mary's, Mulled wine, etc). I think that is the Staff Captain who began singing 'Auld Lang Syne'. Just kidding, no singing, only an informative talk about the glacier. Where we were at 6am this morning is where the glacier was 100 years ago. Small trees are just beginning to grown in this section. As the glacier retreats eventually moss and other early vegetation begins to grow. After several life cycles of that a soil begins to form which is enough to support bigger vegetation which eventually leads to full sized trees decades after the glacier has receded. Having had that pointed out as we moved closer to the glacier you could see the difference in the vegetation. Contrast this to the first picture in this post where you can see medium sized trees. Finally we were close enough to the glacier where the rain wasn't spoiling the photos as much and you could clearly see the face of the glacier which is several hundred feet high. Most of that is underwater and there is plenty of water below the ship so no worries about hitting anything, it's literally several hundred feet deep.

Once we left the Northern part of the inlet where it is more narrow the winds settled down and with sunset approaching there was some magnificent scenery unfolding. As we sailed South I saw many glaciers in the distance including this hanging glacier as I sat in the Schooner Bar having a drink. 9:37pm With that spotted it was time to head up, grab my good camera and venture outside on deck 12. 11pm The sun had set officially around 10pm but it hung around just over the horizon for a while creating a dramatic sky. 11:01pm As we continued the angle of the sun caused it to fill this gap between peaks with orange light that made it look like lava filling the valley between mountains. 11:07pm The "lava flow" effect was getting bigger, or maybe the Kraken lava flows were catching up to me. 11:10pm The effect lasted a few more minutes before disappearing illustrating how sometimes you just need to be lucky and in the right place at the right time. Despite being well past 'sunset' there was still a lot of light in the sky. 11:22pm 11:24pm 11:30pm 11:41pm 12:11am With that it was time for bed. The glacier arrival was scheduled for 7am so I needed to get to bed.

Day 4 - Skagway Departure All aboard at 8 pm which makes for 12 1/2 hours in port. Not bad. On board the usual activities like rock climbing, mini golf, ping pong and even flowriding was taking place. We pulled out first leaving Radiance to follow us down the inlet towards our respective next ports of call. It was very windy with the narrow inlet acting like a wind tunnel but that didn't stop several of us from enjoying the breath taking scenery. It doesn't look like much in these pictures bit with the scenery slowly moving past and ever changing it's quite an experience you have to experience to understand. From the aft where it was much less windy.