Land Ho!

Day 3 – Cruising the Tracy Arm

Dave says I need to mention that he wants to remember to bring real Kleenex on our next cruise for cleaning his glasses. Apparently HAL facial tissues are kind of scratchy.

I started the day catching up on some blogging since I woke up early because of the time change. This morning was stretch and abs with Steve, who was a little more creative than Angie. We ate breakfast with a nice group of folks. Everybody but Dave ordered eggs, though, so the food was very slow in coming. We had a busy day planned so I’d told Steve that I needed to get started with boot camp right at 10, but he got involved in something else. So we rescheduled it for tomorrow. This actually worked out ok because (1) I am extremely sore as it is and (2) that way I was not rushing trying to get to the Mariner lunch. I realize that I’ve now done two meals in one paragraph, but that’s pretty much what the first part of the day was like.

The Mariner lunch was very enjoyable, but what was interesting is that on our way there we passed by the 4 star mariner reception. 4 star mariners have some enormous number of cruises under their belts, and on the Hawaii cruse there were so many of them they had to hold the reception in the queen’s lounge. There were only 4 or 5 people at this reception, which may be another confirming point – folks who know cruising don’t go to Alaska on this ship.

After the mariner lunch, or more technically brunch, it was pretty much immediately time to head right over to the culinary arts center for our hands-on cooking demo, followed by eating the food we prepared. Yes, eating again. There were twelve people in the class, and we broke into groups of 3 people each. I was on the butternut squash and leek soup team, Dave was on the salmon cakes team, and there was also a berry cobbler team and a glazed salmon team. As happened last time, the most interesting thing about the class is the amazing variation in cooking skills. Also as usual Dave ended up doing most of the cooking on his team, since it’s difficult for him to stand back and watch people make a complete mess of things.  What’s also interesting is how little teaching the chefs do – we keep thinking they will do more teaching about how to chop and things, but they don’t. Turns out we may enjoy the straight cooking demos more than the hands on ones. We finished up by eating (or in our case, tasting) the food we’d prepared. It was pretty variable.

Afterwards we headed back to our cabin to bundle up for cruising the Tracy Arm. This is a trip into a long inlet with lots of neat glacial features. We were excited because they were going to make the rope deck accessible to passengers – it is the furthest forward point on the ship. Unfortunately it was also very crowded, so we headed up to 9-forward, the open deck in front of the gym. It was not crowded. But then we realized we have this awesome verandah with comfy chairs (and easy bathroom access) right outside our room, so we ended up sitting there. It’s very scenic and impressive, although I did have to take a nap for part of it. Some of the scenic features are the many waterfalls pouring down the steep slopes from the snowfields, the volcanic features shaped by the glaciers, the nearness of the land, and the icebergs in the water. We tried not to take a picture of each iceberg, since we have several hundred of them from our last Alaska cruise.

Around 4 we could see a big glacier in the distance, so we went out to 9 forward and then down to the rope deck. As we were walking out to the rope deck there were people streaming off of it. Apparently the captain and the pilot had decided that there was too much ice in the water to proceed, and we were turning back. It was disappointing. But it did give us a chance to go back to the cabin and get another nap in.

Once we’d woken up, we weren’t quite sure what to do with ourselves. Most of the usual activities had been cancelled due to the scenic cruising, which was already over. We sat and chatted in the room for a while, then decided we’d like to make reservations at the Pinnacle Grill, the ships’ high end restaurant. We’d enjoyed it very much with the boys on the Mexico cruise, and somewhat less on the Hawai’i cruise. They didn’t have the times we wanted, which actually surprised me – I didn’t think the families and large groups that make up the majority of the passengers would Pinnacle. But there was room in the Cannaletto, the Italian specialty restaurant that takes up a corner of the Lido restaurant. We’d never been there before, and figured it wouldn’t be any worse than sitting in uncomfortable silence at table 21. So we went ahead and made a reservation.

There used to be a group called the Adagio Strings, but now they’re just called Adagio. We thought it might be fun to go to the explorer bar to check them out, and it was. It’s a piano and violin, and while it’s not my favorite kind of music (especially the violin), it was good to do something different and also very enjoyable. Then it was time to go get changed for the Canalleto. A note here about that – in general the dress on the ship is Very Casual, and most nights the dress code is what they call “smart casual” – no shorts or jeans, no tank tops. I like to dress up though, so I got dressed up and we went off to dinner, which was just delightful. The food is pretty standard Italian, but the wait staff and host seem to just be having a good time up there. One of the waiters has clearly been working on his Italian accent and loved to say “mozzzzarrrrrrela”. Also it came with fresh cotton candy for dessert, and what could be better than that? A highlight of the meal for me was the mashed potatoes with a little balsamic vinegar drizzled on them. I never would have thought to do that, and it was good.

After dinner we checked out Nathan Temby in the piano bar for Billy Joel/Elton John night. There weren’t any seats when we got there so we ended up leaning against the wall just to the side of the piano, which was great because we could watch his hands. I love that. Also we knew all the songs, including the “burning out his fuse up there alone” line from Elton’s Rocket Man, so we had a great time singing along. Then off to the show, which was Barnaby, a comedian and juggler and singer. He’s no Joel Mason, but it was a very good show. Then back to Lynn and the HALcats for a little dancing and more singing along, and finally a walk around the ship in deep twilight – at 11:30 at night. The ship spent the night anchored about 8 miles from Juneau, which was kind of weird, but I guess they need to not cause a cruise ship jam.

Tonight’s towel animal: Butterfly. Or Spider.