Gilligan's Extra

Day 7 extra – A 3 hour tour. And the weather was even a little rough.

A fun thing about going to the bridge is that they seem to deliberately leave one of the doors to an officer’s cabin open so you can look in. They are big and very nice. The bridge itself in some ways gets less and less interesting as things get more and more automated – fewer buttons and switches and dials, more keyboards and screens. One thing that stood out to me  is that they still plot the course on paper, by hand – even though all the computers have backup systems (and some of those systems have backup systems), this one piece of information is available even if everything electronic goes down. Another thing I liked was that the ship still has a steering wheel, but it is tiny – like some little sports car. Also we found out that the ship’s call sign is PBKH, which explains why all the tenders have those letters stenciled on them. The bridge tour was given by the 3^rd officer, Liam, who looked about 15 years old.

Next stop, backstage. Two of the singers sat in the women’s dressing room with us and talked about putting on the big productions. Two things I learned: the productions are very expensive to develop and stage (with costumes by Bob Mackie), so each one run for 3-4 years, and may run on more than one ship. So if you cruise often, and especially if you do it on the same ship, you will see the same shows. Also, we already knew the singer/dancer contracts are for 8 months, but what I didn’t know is that when they are looking for replacements they aren’t just looking for talent, they’re also looking for a particular size and shape of person, to limit alterations. What a bummer if you were just what they were looking for, only too short? Mark, the singer who gave this part of the tour, had the unnerving intensity that you sometimes see in professional actors, but his female counterpart was unusually quiet.

Once we’d finished with the bridge and backstage, we headed down to the bowels of the ship (deck C) to see the less glamorous parts of the ship. Our next stop was the laundry, where hundreds of sheets and towels and pillowcases were going through the giant washers, dryers, and irons. Highlights from the laundry, aside from the sheer volume, were that the linens for the pinnacle grill are laundered separately with banana oil to make them feel softer and smoother. And the demonstration of the the pants steamer. You attach the waistband to a stretcher which opens them out, and put the bottom cuffs into clamps. They you push a button, the pants are drawn tight and whoosh, filled with steam, then hot air. It’s quite fun to watch. I especially liked the parallel between the action of the pants steamer and the cruise on the pants – they started out hanging loosely, but as time went on got fuller and tighter.

After the laundry we stopped at the tailor shop, where 3 guys make all the uniforms for all crew members.  3-4 uniforms per crew member. When you realize that they’ll sometimes get 60-80 new crew at a time, it’s a mind boggling task. They even make the beanies that the bellboys wear. It kind of changed how we looked at the clothes the crew was wearing when we got back out on the ship. Oh, and they also do the monogramming on the HAL bathrobes if you order one on the ship, so now we’ve seen where that happened to Dave’s. Also in this section of the tour we went through the crew dining area and the petty officer dining area, but I don’t remember exactly when. Officers and staff eat in the Lido.

Next stop, possibly the best on the tour: garbage room. Industrial sized disposer (with a vacuum so powerful we thought the crew members operating it might be sucked in). Glass shredders. Compactor. Here’s what we learned that was interesting – HAL doesn’t dump anything overboard – garbage is containerized on the ship. But they also have contracts at different ports to get rid of different garbage, and apparently Victoria is a big garbage offloading port. If you think about it, the ship has limited storage space, so baggage is held for loading & unloading where the garbage is also held (safely containerized) for unloading. So if we don’t stop at Victoria and get rid of the garbage, where will the baggage go? Norman, the health and safety and something else officer who gave us the tour (he was Scottish and one of the best guides) was a little preoccupied with moving things around.

Onward through the storage areas, including the place where huge replacement parts for the azipods are kept (the azipods are the giant propellers in the back that can swivel 360 degrees and actually pull, rather than push, the ship through the water) to the food area, the largest section of the tour. Here we were picked up by the assistant culinary manager, Jurgen.  First stop with Jurgen was the bakery, where they had fresh cookies for us and were making rolls with one of the roll shaker machines that they have at grand central bakery.

Next, off to the food storage areas, where we came to understand why the tour is at the end of the trip – there wouldn’t have been anywhere for us to stand. Here we learned so many interesting things it’s almost too much to write about. Let’s start with when they get food. Apparently frozen food and staples are picked up every 2 weeks, even on the one week cruises. Fruits, vegetables, and dairy (including eggs) come in weekly. This stop in Seattle was a big shopping week – the full 2 weeks of staples plus the weekly allowance. Combine that with having to offload all of the garbage from the same holes in the ship where the food would be coming in, and Jurgen was also somewhat preoccupied. Another thing you wouldn’t think of is that the beef comes in frozen and uncut. It’s thawed in a giant refrigerator, and takes about 3 days to thaw. So you can imagine that they have to be very systematic about remembering to get it out in time to have it ready to cut and cook – a problem we sometimes have at home, only they can’t just order pizza.

We stopped in the alcohol cooler, where all the beer and wine and spirits live. They gave us each a glass of champagne and here we learned more about demographics. We’d learned at the meat freezers that the average age of cruisers changes based on the length of the cruise – the 7 day cruises skew much younger. From a meat perspective, that means more beef, less chicken and fish. In the alcohol cooler we found that it means more beer. Also we learned that you can call ship services and have them stock your favorite local brew – this made Dave pay attention. Then it was on to the nearly empty dairy locker, with one lone wheel of Gouda sitting on a shelf and just a few of the 23,000 dozen eggs that they’d use in a week. Jurgen said that sometimes at Christmas they would decorate that particular freezer so they could have a cold place to celebrate.

Now we’d been where the raw materials were stored, so it was up the garbage elevator to the food prep areas, which we’d seen already on the standard kitchen tour. Jurgen pointed out the soup kettles (at home you’d use them for hot tubs, he said). The sheer size and amount of work is amazing. For example, for dinner there’s one kitchen for the open seating for about 600-800 people, which is mostly like a regular restaurant except the menu changes every night. Then there’s another kitchen for the two fixed seatings, in which 400 people per seating need to be fed more or less simultaneously. The Lido, Pinnacle, and Cannaletto restaurants have their own kitchens. All the food is prepared as ‘a la minute’ as possible, with line cooks doing the final cooking. Each entrée is prepared at its own station, and the waiters have to stop at each station and pick up however many they need. It’s controlled chaos. Maenwhile the executive chef is sitting in his office watching all of it through multiple remote-control cameras that let him zoom in even on a particular plate to make sure the “product” is all up to standard. One thing we have been frustrated with on this trip is that (with the exception of the fish), the meats (including shellfish) have generally been overcooked; we wonder if this has to do with the kitchen crew all being new, and if the open seating dining would be better since it’s not quite as mass-prepared? (Dave points out that breakfast and lunch in the main dining room are also open seating and the cooking wasn’t any better, so maybe not.

Also in this area on the wall they have the plating charts, which come from headquarters and have all the menus with pictures of how everything is supposed to look, which is how I found out that night’s dinner included my beloved espresso-date pudding for dessert. Yay! We finished our walk through the kitchen and came out in the dining room. This is one of these “well, duh” moments where you realize that of course the kitchen comes out in the dining room, but you’re completely disoriented anyway.

Last stop was back to the piano bar, where we got Holland America bags filled with goodies – our group picture with the Captain, a signed menu, one of the HAL cookbooks and a set of HAL shot glasses (about which my first thought was oh, crap, our suitcases were already almost at 50 lbs – where are we going to put those?). They also had drinks and appetizers for us (not in the bags), and soon we were joined by James Deering, the hotel manager, who knew absolutely everything and was happy to talk about it. James had just returned to the Oosterdam after a stint with Princess cruise lines (also owned by Carnival, but he had to actually resign from his job before he could talk to the other cruise line – they discourage inter-line transfers). He told us about everything from having to remove passengers from the ship for stealing or fighting or throwing furniture overboard, to how to choose the best cabins (not near the bow thrusters, or over or under where the music is, or near the cleaning supply closet, or…) to the difference in demographics between the shorter and longer cruises, and how there’s even a difference between Alaska cruises that leave from Seattle vs Vancouver (Vancouver has a higher percentage of international passengers). We learned about the training facilities in Indonesia and the Phillipines – the one in Indonesia, he said, is “a building on the outside and a ship on the inside” – basically it has replicas of everything on the ship, since the crew has to hit the ground running. No time to learn to make towel animals or clean a cabin once you’re on board. The Filipinos are primarily in the dining room and bars, so their training facility is smaller and more specialized. He also told us that many of the cruises are sold as charters, including the nude charter, which is an interesting idea given how cold they keep the ship. James was very forthcoming and engaging (Edith and Stacy Ann had been delighted to have him back on board, since he throws very good crew parties) and we would have asked him questions all day, but his cell phone rang again and he excused himself, saying that it was the captain and he had to go deal with something.

And that was the end of the 3 hour tour. It exceeded both of our expectations by quite a bit – we learned so much and felt like we’d gotten to talk to all sorts of people and had a better idea of how the ship worked. Plus we got to walk around in all sorts of back passages that passengers don’t usually get to see, and also we had been fed – always a concern on the ship, since you get used to eating every 30 minutes. The only place we didn’t get to go that I’d like to have gone was the engine room, but since you have to go down a ladder to get there they don’t let people do it. If you’re ever on a HAL or Princess ship, I would definitely recommend this tour.

Big Finish

Day 7 – Heading to Victoria

Dancing until 11 and then up for stretch class made for a short night last night with the time change. But once again I woke up before my alarm, got dressed and headed out. Since I woke up a little early I took the laptop up to the crows’ nest to get caught up. The wind had died down somewhat – it was down to 45 knots or so – but they still had the netting on the pool and the outside doors closed. There were 5 of us for stretch & abs, but Steve was about 10 minutes late.  After class I came back to the cabin where Dave had just woken up. He wasn’t in the mood for breakfast so I went by myself and shared a table with a couple from Pendleton and single lady from Oxnard. I had the yogurt parfait and waffles, which was very enjoyable.

Back to the cabin for some relaxing, and off to boot camp. Neil didn’t show up, so it was just Angie and me. It was fortunate that it was Angie, because she doesn’t push as hard as Steve and I didn’t have a lot left. She was asking me how many kids we had and how old, and made me very happy by saying that I must have been very young when I had them and acting surprised when I told her my age. Then she asked if the man I was with on the cruise was their father, and was stunned when I told her how long we’ve been together. It was kind of sad. While I was at boot camp Dave went to the debarkation talk, where they pretty much told the same jokes as they always do and said the same things they always do. We had a little while before lunch, so we took our customer satisfaction surveys and sat in the ocean bar to fill them out.

We wanted to get to the ice carving demo at 1, so we decided to get a table just for the two of us at lunch. Sometimes when you share a table you end up with people who eat multiple appetizers or entrees (not that there’s anything wrong with that) which can slow you down. It was kind of fun being just the two of us.  But after we’d finished lunch they made a couple of announcements – first, that the heavy seas had slowed us down so much that we wouldn’t get to Victoria in time to have the shore excursions there, and second, that it was too rough for ice carving.  So that was a little disappointing, but it would be bad to have a block of ice fall on a crew member. An interesting thing about Victoria is that the ship still has to stop there and send a tender ashore to clear customs, to comply with the Jones Act. The Jones Act is also why we had to stop in Mexico on the way back from Hawaii.

At 1:30 it was time for the best shore excursion ever, and we didn’t even have to leave this ship! On some of our early cruises we were able to sign up for the bridge tour, where they’d take 30 or so folks up to the bridge and point at all the screens and controls. So in 2009 when we went to Mexico we went to the front desk to sign up for the bridge tour, only to be told that they didn’t do it anymore. On the Hawaii cruise we tried again, and this time they said that they didn’t do it anymore but they now had a full-ship tour that you could pay for that lasted about 3 hours. The price seemed kind of steep and what would you look at for 3 hours anyway, so we didn’t do it. But this trip we’d decided to consider it a shore excursion, so we took 2 of the 12 available spots. At 1:30 we met up in the piano lounge with Sheri, the ship’s marketing manager, and headed up to the bridge. I have made the tour into its own blog entry because it’s very long and detailed.

Once we were back from the tour it was already time to head to the Queen’s lounge for the NeptuneCats. Each cruise you need to find your favorite entertainers, and these were our favorites for sure on this cruise. They played until 5:30, at which point I had an appointment with Steve for my free body composition analysis and sales pitch, and Dave went to walk around the ship. Steve was late as usual, but eventually came by and attached me to the little machine that tells you your hydration level (fine), your base metabolic rate (what’s that? Mine’s a little low) and your fat and lean body mass. Then he drew little circles and x’s and diagrams on a piece of paper all the while talking very fast about lymph nodes and fat cells and your liver and alkalinity, and then he took one magic number and multiplied it by another magic number to tell me how much weight I would lose if I would buy the 3 month supply of super-algae detoxification pills for $308. Since my magic number was just under 4 pounds, it seemed a little steep, so we just looked at each other and said how much we’d enjoyed working out together, and I left the gym without any algae.

Dave got back to the cabin about the same time I did, and we decided that rather than go to the crows’ nest for one last time with Matt (who was very good, but with whom we had not bonded) we’d do our packing. Which we did, carefully filling the big suitcase with the bulky lightweight items to avoid an overweight fee. The packing went quickly and was surprisingly relaxed, partly because we’re getting better at low-stress packing and partly because the room was so big that there was room to lay everything out, and also room for us to get past each other without having to squeeze to one side. It will be hard to go back to the smaller room with only one sink and one shower.

We finished packing just in time to catch a little more music in the ocean bar, then off to dinner. It was only Earl and Olympia at dinner, and she apologized for being crabby the first night. Dinner was really good – delicious lamb chops for me, a double order of chile rellonos for Dave, and a double order of dessert for me. We also drank the second bottle of wine we’d brought, and it was very good. But we’ve decided we probably won’t bring wine again – while our wine from home was better than all but their wildly expensive wines, we think it’s more fun to try new things.

After dinner we went back to the ocean bar and danced a little (we even were the only couple out on the floor during one of the slow dances – how brave we’re getting!), but it was clearing up outside and Dave really, really wanted to go for a walk. I really, really wanted to keep dancing, so we split up. Just at that moment the older lady who’d been my willing “let’s get up and dance” partner last night showed up, so she and I went out on the floor and got the two girls who also love to dance out on the floor, and then a group of Australian women showed up, and the party really got started. More and more people came out on the floor and we danced for about an hour straight. Dave showed up near the end and was there for the 3 encores – as one of the people there pointed out, the band was in a corner, and if we didn’t let them out they couldn’t leave. The last one was Mustang Sally with everybody singing and dancing like crazy, and the band taking turns doing solos, and everybody pretty much giving it everything they had – it was the best. As we were leaving cruise director John wanted to know where we’d all been for the whole cruise, but it just all came together for a really magical end to the evening.

After that we walked around the ship for a while, looking at the stars and cooling off, and then it was bedtime. We were in the first group for disembarkation, so it would be an early breakfast in the Lido (best place for eggs benedict, anyway) and then off for a long wait at the airport. We’re sad that the cruise is over, but it’s not as hard as leaving the Hawaii cruise was.

Tonight’s towel animal: hanging monkey. One of our favorites. Well done, Joe and Olih!

Fresh Ketch

Day 6 – Ketchikan

So far I have set my alarm every night to wake me up for stretch class, and today it almost went off. As usual I got up and did stretch and abs (with Angie, so not as much fun as it could have been), then had some breakfast in the Lido. I should have skipped it, because our shore excursion started at 9, and it was all about food. We met on the pier and walk a block or so to the Fish House restaurant, where they put us in the back dining room and stuffed us with tasty fresh seafood. My favorites were the crab and the halibut Olympia, and of course the blueberry-rhubarb bread pudding was a treat. The chef was a young guy named Brandon who reminded us of someone we’ve seen on Chopped at one time or another.

After the meal, we wandered around Ketchikan for a while. It has gotten way more touristy since we were last here, but it’s almost all the same stuff. We went into the Tanzanite International store, and once again Dave didn’t buy me any tanzanite. Also we want to know what tanzanite has to do with Alaska.

We got back to the ship around lunchtime, but neither of us wanted any lunch. We went back to the cabin until it was time to cast off, then we went up on deck to watch. For the first time this cruise there were passengers who didn’t get back in time, and the last two were really running as they got on. Once they were off the gangplank the forklift took it away and we were off.

The Captain’s daily meteorological and navigational briefing indicated some rough weather ahead, which made us very happy. It had been warmish and not raining in Ketchikan, but as we were pulling out it started to sprinkle, and the winds and seas steadily increased. Right after departure we hung out in the crows’ nest where Matt was playing, and you could see it start to rain harder and harder. Then it was workout time – me off to boot camp and Dave onto the treadmill. It was very exciting because there was actually another person doing boot camp with me – Neil, an African American dressed in purple shorts and t-shirt. He went well with my purple nails, and it was nice to have someone to roll my eyes at.

After exercise we once again made use of the two showers, then went and checked out the tanzanite in the gift shop and over to the Ocean Bar to listen to the Neptune Cats. Like everyone else on the ship they’ve not been on the ship or together very long, but they are really good. Also they have 3 giant thick fake books that they’re constantly picking up and dropping and looking through.  We hung out there for their whole set and enjoyed a free appetizer. They finished with “Sweet Caroline”, which seems to be required by each musical act once per set. We like singing the whoa-whoa-whoas, but don’t they know the Red Sox are at the bottom of the standings?

During the dead time of no music we went back to the cabin for some blogging and reading and sleeping, but I woke up after not very long because the ship was hitting whales – that’s what Chris the guitarist from last cruse called it when the ship would hit a big wave and shudder. I put on my evening clothes and headed up to the crows’ nest (they were just finishing up team trivia) where you could see that we were really in some weather. We were plowing straight into fantastic waves (hard to tell, maybe 20 feet tall?)(no, we found out later, only about 4-5 meters), the rain was coming in sheets, and when Dave came up he said the apparent headwind was 96 knots. If it’s not going to be warm and sunny, this is what we like. They put up closed signs on all the outside doors and netted the pools – no sloshing this time, although they don’t seem any rougher than when I was in them on the way back from Hawaii.

We stayed in the crows’ nest watching the waves until it was almost dinnertime, then checked out the Neptune Cats for a couple of songs. At dinner it was just John and Dave for a while, then Olympia and Earl came. It was baked Alaska parade night, which was fun. After dinner we went back to the Neptune Cats and danced our feet off. There was a big crowd and everybody was having a blast. They even did two encores (or anchors, as the lead guitarist called them), which is simply not done, but nobody wanted to stop. We finished up the night in the queen’s lounge where they were having something like karaoke – people were getting up and singing with the HALcats backing them, but there were no words on a screen and Lynn was there to help out. It was the usual mixed bag, but the highlight was two very nerdy guys getting up to sing the B-52s Love Shack. They may have been off key, but then again that’s how the song was written. They were awesome, and we decided that would end our evening.

The clocks get turned back tonight, and tomorrow is our last day. It’s been a good cruise, once we started trying new things. As Dave says, you can’t do the same cruise twice.

Today’s towel animal: cow, or dog. We’ve had it before on other cruises and weren’t sure then either.

Walking in Sitka

Day 5 – Sitka

Sitka is not very big, and there weren’t any shore excursions we wanted to do, so we had a free day about town. I did stretch class with Steve, took a break while he did abs class, then came back for a special bonus day of boot camp that he made up just for me. It was hard while I was doing it, but I was startled to discover when I sat down at breakfast just how shaky my muscles were.  We had an enjoyable table at breakfast, and I guess the waiter must have overheard Marc Antony warning others at the table not to get eggs because they take forever. This time, though, the eggs came quickly but the oatmeal that Howard and I ordered took forever.

After lunch we headed to the tenders and off to Sitka. Dave had done some research and our destination was the raptor rehabilitation center. He’d also printed out a city map, so we walked through the city and ended up taking the main road out of town – very noisy and not very scenic. It was raining lightly, but we’re from Oregon and had appropriate clothing, so it wasn’t a problem. We got to the raptor center and paid our entry fee and had a great time. They have about 30 bald eagles in various stages of rehabilitation, as well as owls and falcons. Alaskan bald eagles are bigger than ours in Oregon, and a real highlight of the visit was when one of the handlers brought in a female to show us. They are big birds, but when you see them in an enclosure you don’t really realize how big they are. When you see one basically sitting in someone’s lap, their sheer size is really brought home. I’d recommend this place as a stop any time you’re in Sitka.

We stopped at the post office to mail a post card, and the stamp I bought was an Aloha stamp, which I found amusing. We’d also looked at the map and discovered we’d really taken the long way to the center. There was a much more direct route through a national park, so we went back that way. It was way more scenic and pleasant, but also could have been on the Oregon coast. So we didn’t do much exploring. We walked back into town and stopped for lunch at a nice pub overlooking the harbor. I had a rockfish sandwich that was really yummy, some of the freshest fish I’ve ever had.

We thought about walking around town some, but it was raining a little harder, we were tired, and there wasn’t much more town to walk around. So we headed back to the ship for some blogging and relaxing. Dave went up to the gym to work out, and I was waiting until it was time to get the color changed on my nails and wondering how I’d make it up the stairs to the spa. Suddenly I remembered one of the perks of the verandah suite – whirlpool tub! It’s not as good as a massage by Marc, but a good soak in the hot water did wonders. Then I went to have Stacy Ann change me from red to purple, and had fun chatting with her and with Edith. I took my purple nails down to the cabin and checked to see how they would do in a nap. They did very well – Dave, my nails and I all slept happily for an hour, then got dressed up and headed out to get our pictures taken. We’re pros at this now and the photographer was so pleased when Dave’s cuffs didn’t have to be fished out of his suit sleeves.

Dave went back to the cabin to pick up the ’05 Bergstrom Cumberland Vineyard Pinot Noir (it was formal night, and that is its formal name), and we sat and listened briefly to the Neptune cats. Then we headed back to table 21 to see how it would go. It went much better. We got there first and took the good seats by the window. Then Linley showed up, she’s a young 20-something who is cruising with her dad (who was sleeping). Dave and John came next, and finally Earl and Olympia, who were much more pleasant this time. So dinner was good.

After dinner we hung out at the piano bar, but it was full of loud people who liked to sing about getting drunk. So not our scene. We got out of dinner late, too. So after about half an hour we left the piano and went to the Neptune-cats in time for their last song. The ship was pretty much closing down at that point, so we put on warm jackets and spent some time walking around in the deep twilight (again, about 11:30 at night). The problem with the late seating is that you just don’t have time to get much music in. When we signed up for it we figured we’d just do our music before dinner, but it turns out there really isn’t music before dinner – most of the musicians take a break between 5:30 and 7, which is when early seating is. It is good to know.

Tonight’s towel animal: Shrimp? Clawless lobster?

Juneau where we are?

Day 4 – Juneau

The thing is, unless you’re willing to pay the crazy prices to use the ship’s internet & cell service, you leave your phone in airplane mode. That means that it doesn’t get its clock set correctly when we change time zones, which is why I was at the gym at 6 this morning. I ended up hanging out in the crows’ nest doing the Sudoku until it was time for stretch and abs classes. This morning was Angie again, and she really is just going through the motions. It turns out one of the guys in the stretch class is in the cabin next door to ours, and in between classes he muttered “She has all the charisma of a sack of potatoes,” which is true, but her classes are actually pretty good in terms of the stretch/workout you get.

We did breakfast in the Lido because we weren’t up for a long wait, and then we went back to the cabin to prepare for our first shore excursion of the trip – a helicopter ride to the Mendenhall glacier, including 2 hours trekking around on it. We were nervous because last time we tried to take a helicopter to the Mendenhall glacier we got all the way to the part where they take off, and they shut down the helicopter because the weather was too bad. Today’s weather was not looking too good either. So we put on lots of layers (Dave got it right; I had on 2 turtlenecks, a fleece vest, and a fleece sweatshirt, in addition to double long underwear and wool pants on the bottom half – too many clothes!) and headed out to the dock. There were 4 full sized cruise ships in port and more souvenirs than you can possibly imagine, and I know you can imagine a lot.

From the dock we got in the van, which took us to the Juneau international airport and the headquarters of Northwest Trekking. There we got glacier boots (kind of like ski boots), safety harnesses, waterproof jackets and pants and gaiters. Then they gave us several safety lectures and loaded us onto the helicopters. Dave and I got to sit in front, me next to the pilot and him on my other side. It was very good. We put on our headsets and they spun up the rotors, just like last time, but this time we actually took off! I love flying in helicopters, I don’t know why. Small planes make me really nervous, but helicopters don’t bother me at all, even when they bounce around.

We flew around getting some scenic views of the Mendenhall glacier and a few others and the surrounding area, and then we landed. We landed on the Mendenhall glacier! They put crampons on our boots and gave us ice axes and we spend the next 2 hours or so climbing around on the glacier, up and down and through the little streams of water being totally blown away by the blueness and the grandeur and the sheer astonishing reality of walking around on a river of ice.  It was better than we thought it could be, and we thought it could be spectacular. They’d given us bottled water, and at one point they had us open the bottles, dump out the water, and fill it with glacier water. Glacier water is the best water I’ve ever had, even better than Forest Grove water. You might be thinking it was also a nature experience, but there were pretty much helicopters taking off and landing continuously. It’s a big glacier though, so we never actually ran in to any other groups.

All too soon it was time to head back. We got back in the helicopter, which moves like a Segway in the air, flew back to the airport, divested ourselves of all the gear, and took the van back to the ship. It was a very good day. But it wasn’t over yet. Dave walked around the dock taking some photos, and I thought I published some blogs and got ready for boot camp with Steve, which was a very very good workout, especially the part at the end where I just lay on the mat and he stretched everything out for me. Which was good, because I’m not sure I could have stretched it out myself. Dave came and started his workout while we were finishing up, and while he was doing his workout I swam around in the Seaview pool (the aft pool on the Lido deck) in the rain. Since we were still docked it wasn’t as much fun as sloshing in the main pool during moderate seas, but it was still fun.

We got back to the cabin at about the same time and were able to shower in our separate showers. Tonight we had reservations at the Pinnacle, so we got dressed up and hung out with the Neptune-HalCats until they took a break, and then with Matt in the crows’ nest for undocking There were 5 or 6 bald eagles circling the ship while we undocked, which was very cool. Then it was time for dinner at the Pinnacle. We split a ribeye and had a very good time, but we both ate way too much.

After dinner we went back to the piano bar and got seats right at the piano, and had a really fun time singing along and trading wisecracks with Nathan until the show got out and the drunk people showed up.  We’ll hang out there again, but leave earlier next time. Then it was already 11:30 and time for bed. It was a very good day.

Tonight’s towel animal: Peacock