Mary Lis Travel Blog

[This is a sample blog post for a trip we took on the Queen Mary II in December 2008.  The rest of the blog for this trip is collected in a Kindle ebook called Travel With Us on the Queen Mary II.  See our Travel With Us page for more information.]

Our dear, dear friend Marla, who has been reading along with our blog (thus demonstrating her discerning taste and overall intelligence), mentioned in an email today that “you guys seem like you’re going to be glad when the cruise is done.” Which was basically true when I got up this morning; the fun but ultimately unsatisfying tour in St Lucia, followed by the unsatisfying outing to the beach in St Kitts, had left me feeling sort of demoralized and just wanting the cruise to be over. This morning, as we got ready for our snorkeling excursion (one of the ship’s offerings), I didn’t even really feel like going – just wanted to get it over with so I could pack up my snorkel gear.

But then we ended up having a seriously excellent tour, which completely restored my equilibrium and enjoyment of the cruise. I was sad to rinse out my snorkel gear for the last time, and, while I look forward to going home, I don’t have that same white-knuckle-through-the-last-two-days feeling I had before. Funny how that works.

Our tour was called “Sea Turtle Snorkel” – they loaded us up on a catamaran and took us out to a place called Turtle Bay. We were on the morning excursion, which left at 8:30am. As we came off the ship it started raining, and then it started pouring. By the time they walked us over to the catamaran, it had mostly stopped, though the sky didn’t really look like it was done. However, there were 41 people on the tour, and they all squished themselves under the covered part of the catamaran, and we decided that we couldn’t bear to squish in with them and would risk the rain – we went and sat by ourselves in the uncovered forward part of the boat (one other intrepid couple sat on the other side). About halfway to our snorkel location it poured rain again, but it was a warm rain, and felt kind of good pelting on my legs (my head and upper body were covered by a hat and towel – Lis’ too). It was actually a pretty fun ride, and nice to have the whole forward area of the boat to ourselves. Just as we were pulling up to the snorkel location, the sun came out for good, and we had a lovely sunny morning for our snorkel. The water was nice and warm, too.

At Turtle Bay they gave us a lecture on safety, etc, and stressed that we needed to be respectful of the turtles. The guide said that about every 10 to 15 minutes the turtles need to come up for air, and that when they do we need to be completely still so as not to spook them – they feel most vulnerable when they come up for air, he said.

Lis and I were among the first in the water because we were willing to jump off the side, rather than wait for the ladder at the front. Because of this, we were able to spend about 10, 15 minutes viewing turtles in peace. Then, just as a turtle we were watching started to come up for air, a huge mass of people came surging in to watch, swimming around to get in position and definitely not following the “dead man’s float” instructions. We were bummed about this, but both decided we’d rather miss the turtles than deal with the tour participants en masse. We swam off in a different direction, and at first didn’t see anything, but then found a little reef with lots and lots of fish, many of them quite colorful – plus the ubiquitous school of sergeant majors swimming right along with you (I LOVE the sergeant majors). We were able to enjoy the reef pretty much by ourselves for another 15 minutes, and then it was discovered by the crowd. But, we established a pattern that worked (for the most part) for the rest of our snorkel time – when the crowd was looking at turtles, we’d snorkel the reef, and when the crowd was snorkeling the reef, we’d look at the turtles.

The only really frustrating part was that there was always somebody breaking the “respect the turtles” rule. This one time, Lis and I and one other guy were floating above a turtle, watching him feed on turtle grass and waiting to watch him surface. The guide had said that if you are really still, sometimes they swim right up to you as they surface. The turtle started to come up, and headed straight for the guy, who had waited with his camera in position and was now perfectly still and about to have the turtle swim within two feet of him. And just then this asshole guy came swimming in and actually started chasing the turtle, trying to touch it. The turtle swam off and the guys on the boat screamed at Asshole Guy to stop touching the turtles, and I had to turn away, I was hating Asshole Guy so much. But imagine how Well Behaved Guy must have felt, being so close to such a great shot. I hope he got at least one good photo before Asshole Guy barged in. Note from Lis: Asshole Guy, who had a big hairy belly, seemed to be following Mary and me around. We’d swim away from the crowd as fast as we could and be somewhere enjoying fish, and then suddenly instead of looking at fish, I’d be looking at this big hairy belly through my mask… oh I hated him.

But, even though the other people, as usual, were difficult at times, it was a really great snorkel, and we got to stay there for about 1 ½ hours, which we’ve discovered is about how much we want at a time – 1 ½ to 2 hours. On the catamaran trip back, they drove fairly slowly and served rum punch (Painkillers) and chips and salsa, and played “party music.” Usually we don’t like these “booze and cruise” type deals, but it was actually very fun – we stayed at the front, so the people were behind us, so we didn’t have to really see anybody – it just sounded festive. Plus the sun was out, and the Painkillers were good – all was right with the world on the way back. It was really one of the most pleasant 45 minute boat rides I’ve ever done (I will say here that I think I’ve seen enough old men in Speedos to last a lifetime, though). Note from Lis: The Painkillers were really good and I hated everyone much less after 1.5 Painkillers, and also really enjoyed the music on the ride back to the port. With my very low tolerance for alcohol, I was also quite tipsy, and I stumbled back to the ship and then fell asleep on the bed until Mary said we must go to lunch.

Back on the ship we had lunch, and then had our tie-breaker darts game in the pub (Lis won), and then went back out to the cruise terminal to check in with our housesitter and make arrangements for our kitties in case the entire city of Portland continues to be snowed in on Thursday and Friday. (With T-Mobile, the calls in St. Thomas were free as long as we were off the ship). While we were on the phone we noticed some kind of lizard sunning itself on the rocks of the harborside, and then another, and then another, so we walked over to see – there were about 7-10 lizards (iguanas, maybe?) on the rocks. Then someone from a local shop brought out lettuce for them, and they ate it, and a bunch of us took their pictures – it was really fun.

Back on the ship, Lis stayed in the room and read, and I went up on deck to watch our final sail away – it was a beautiful afternoon, and I got some nice pictures of the harbor. Then on to our formal night dinner, which was good but not great. After a great initial job, they’ve been struggling with Lis’ diet over the last couple days, mostly just taking things away, so her meals have been getting more and more basic – plus we’re usually bored with cruise food by the end of a cruise anyway. After dinner we had an invitation to a cocktail party where the booze was free, so we put in an appearance, got some champagne, and then went to the ballroom to watch the ballroom dancers – mostly gentlemen hosts and their partners from among the passengers. This is always a somewhat dangerous activity, as the gentlemen hosts will sometimes see two “single” ladies and come over and ask us to dance. At one point this particularly smarmy looking gentlemen (not sure if he was an official gentleman host or not) got up and started toward our side of the ballroom with this weird on-the-make expression, and Lis’ eyes widened and she said “I’m scared – let’s get out of here” – but we were not his target. Still, the damage was done – I couldn’t get her to stay in the ballroom any longer. We headed back to the room and went to bed.

[This is the introductory blog post for a trip we took on the Queen Mary II in December 2008.  The rest of the blog for this trip is collected in a Kindle ebook called Travel With Us on the Queen Mary II.  See our Travel With Us page for more information.]

What a great week – on Tuesday Obama wins the election, and on Wednesday we “win” a free cruise to the Caribbean on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2!! Needless to say, we had a bit of trouble focusing for the rest of the week – Mary had to obsessively read all the election post-mortem, and Lis had to obsessively plan airfare and shore excursions.

So, how did this come about? Some time ago, Lis took Cunard’s Commodore Training Course, which included a free Graduation Cruise for her and a companion upon completion of the program. But, whenever graduation cruises were offered, they were always 1) in about 2-3 weeks and 2) snapped up before we could decide whether to do it.

On Wednesday, however, what with all the Post-Election excitement (and the after-effects of the Election Night champagne), our normal check-and-double-check-before-making-a-decision instincts were blunted. Lis got an email about some Graduation cruises and called out “Do you want to go to the Caribbean on the Queen Mary on December 9?” Mary responded, “Sure,” Lis called Cunard, and it was done.

Afterward, our instincts kicked in and we thought maybe we shouldn’t have done it – Lis was actually saying “maybe we should cancel” when her dad happened to call. She told him about it, and her reservations. He said, “OK, let me get this straight. It’s 10 nights, you only have to pay for airfare, all the food is free, and you’re thinking of not doing it?” Well, when you put it that way…

So, we’re very excited, pouring over travel books and Cruise Critic posts, trying to determine what we’re going to do in each port. Later we’ll post our itinerary and ideas for excursions.

5-26-08

Not on the ship yet, but we’ve made it to Vancouver. We got up bright and early today, and were packed and ready for the cab in plenty of time (the cats recognized the suitcases and were sulking, though our Sweet Orange Boy did come and curl up on Lis’ chest while we sat waiting for the cab). The cab took us to Portland’s Union Station, where we were to catch the Amtrak Cascade to Seattle, and then change to a motor coach for the remainder of the journey to Vancouver. Union Station is a lovely little station – it dates to around 1910 or so, and has been preserved in pretty much its original form. I loved starting my journey there.

The train ride between Portland and Seattle is very pretty. From Portland to Olympia there aren’t that many sweeping views, but you’re surrounded by lush green foliage and pastoral scenes. Then, somewhere past Olympia, the view opens up on Puget Sound, and you travel along on the edge of the Sound all the way to Tacoma – very beautiful. From Tacoma to Seattle it was inland, and there were a few bleak, broken down urban scenes as we got closer to Seattle, but I was listening to Gillian Welch through this part, so it worked pretty well.

Seattle’s King Street Station looks like it was once also a lovely station, but it suffered some “urban renewal” in the 60’s, and is much the worse for it – drab dropped ceiling obscuring a beautifully worked ceiling, dull walling obscuring marble walls, etc. It’s hard to believe that anyone could have thought that was a good idea. They’re trying to restore it, but it’s slow going – it doesn’t look any different than it did when we were there a year or two ago.

Once we transferred from the train to the motor coach, things deteriorated rapidly. There was a very loud woman on the bus, who first had a serious of loud cell phone conversations, and then a loud, sustained conversation with her seat mates. And in addition to volume, she had few boundaries. Here’s what we know about her:

• Her father has a restraining order against him (“don’t contact her – you need to keep yourself safe”)
• She recently ended a nine year relationship (“I raised his children”)
• She’s returning from a trip that included a business conference and a 3-day wedding (“I met the most amazing people at the wedding”)
• She’s traveling to Greece soon
• She’s a psychologist

At a certain point, I just put on my headphones and kept them there until the bus stopped. (On a side note, who inflicts a 3-day wedding on friends and loved ones…?)

We decided, since we’re just going to be in town overnight, and we’d be arriving around 6pm, we didn’t want to spend much on a room, and booked a room at the Holiday Inn Express on East Hastings. We had stayed here once before, and found it an adequate place to stay for one-night-before-a-cruise purposes. Its biggest draw is that it’s got a free shuttle that was going to pick us up at the train station today, and take us to the cruiseport tomorrow. However, when we arrived, we found that the shuttle is out of action. The hotel itself is much louder than we remembered. We’ll definitely stay somewhere else next time.

So it’s getting close to bedtime. Tomorrow we board the ship – can’t wait!!

Lis adds: Thank goodness I have earplugs. Also Mary neglected to mention the practically inedible meal we had across the street from the hotel at the “Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese” restaurant. I should have followed my rule to never eat in a restaurant that claims to provide food from three different countries, but I was hungry and hopeful. I will say that the Jr. Whopper I bought across the street at Burger King after dinner felt positively gourmet in comparison. I’m REALLY looking forward to the Mariner.

Links to Vancouver photos and videos from the cruise

5-27-08

We got to the cruise port a little before noon, and were among the first in line to board the ship. As always, the embarkation process was quick and painless, and within no time I was in possession of my Bon Voyage glass of champagne. Lis had accidentally left some of our hotel documentation with the singer who checked us in (more on this in a minute), so she went back out to get it (she didn’t have champagne yet) and I sat and waited at a table just inside the gangway, sipping champagne and people watching, which was quite pleasant. I was right across from the coffee bar (it’s got some official name, but I forget) – a very handsome room. The whole ship is really pretty and very spruced up. When we were on the Navigator in 05, she was very pretty but worn in places – not the Mariner. I’m always surprised by how much prettier ships are in person than the pictures you see on line.

All of the people doing the check in where singers or dancers from the Production Staff, with two or three people from a different dept (guest services?) moving from person to person answering questions and helping with the computer. Our singer, Alicia (an alto, I read later), said that this was their first time doing the check in. I asked if this was a one time thing, or if they were going to be doing this from now on. She said “We’re probably going to being it from now on” and while she was perfectly appropriate and non-whiney, I got the distinct impression that this was a new and not-appreciated development. I longed to ask her more questions about it, but didn’t want to put her on the spot. I wonder if they’re squeezing more work out of the staff to try to make up for rising fuel costs or something…

Anyway, lunch was great, and then we went up to the Observation Lounge (forward on Deck 12) to pass the time until we could get in to our room. We watched seagulls and ships in Burrard Inlet and practiced our Spanish (which we are attempting to learn in preparation for a trip to Mexico that we hope to take soon).

Around 2:30 we were able to go to our room – it’s very lovely, as usual, and the weather had cleared by then to a gorgeous afternoon, so after putting our clothes away we were able to sit on our balcony and read all our cruise documentation (Passages, room service menu, etc) until dinner. At one point I looked up and there was a seal just hanging in the water, watching the tug boats and barges service the ship. I called Lis (she was still putting her stuff away) and we watched him for a bit until he dove down out of sight. We forgot to bring binocs (unforgivable on an Alaska cruise – I blame hormones), so we’re hoping maybe we can pick some up soon.

We dined in the main dining room, and dinner was very good. I loved our waiter so much that I’m going to try to be seated at his table for the rest of the cruise anytime we eat in Compass Rose. Prior to dinner, we talked to the Maitre’d about Lis’ diet – she’s lactose intolerant and hypoglycemic, so can’t have dairy or sugar. He spent all sorts of time with us, getting everything squared away. Regent handles Lis’ diet better than any other line we’ve been on. Every other line tells her what she can’t have, but Regent gives her menus the night before and says “Circle what you want and we’ll make it for you.” Very nice.

After dinner Lis went to the room and got ready for bed (we are 9-o’clock-bedtime girls in general), and I went up on deck to take some pictures of the harbor in twilight. And now it’s time to get ready for bed and read all about VictoriaJ

Links to Victoria photos and videos from the cruise

5-28-08

When we first read the itinerary of this cruise, I was a little disappointed that we were leaving Vancouver so late (around midnight) and arriving in Victoria so early (around 6-7am), because one of my favorite parts of any cruise is sailing into/out of port. As it turned out, though, that by the time we ate dinner and read Passages and perused the next day’s menus and read and settled down, it was after 11:30 pm, and at that point I thought “What the hell” and bundled up and went out on the balcony to watch us leave Vancouver. I had to sit out for about half an hour before we set sail, but it was really cool to watch Stanley Park obscure the lights of Vancouver, and then to sail under a very lit up Lion’s Gate Bridge.

And then this morning, because I had trouble sleeping (I often have trouble sleeping on a cruise – I just get so excited to be at sea), I was up at 6:00 and able to go up on deck and watch the ship come in to Victoria.

We ate breakfast in the Compass Rose, and Lis ordered a couple hard boiled eggs, which arrived soft boiled. We showed the waiters, and they were very apologetic and took the eggs away and said they’d tell the cook they needed to be hard boiled. A few minutes later they brought 2 new eggs, which appeared to be hard boiled, until Lis broke in to the yoke, and found that they were actually kind-of-hard-boiled-but-not-really. The waiters, who were gathered around watching, looked crestfallen, but seemed to recognize that it was time to punt – they put up no resistance when Lis said “How about just a couple scrambled eggs.” As we were leaving, one of them said “I have come up with a solution. I will put the eggs on to boil now, so they will be ready for you tomorrow. ” And when we ran across the same waiter as we were leaving the restaurant at dinner, he said “I’ve got the eggs boiling for you for tomorrow.” He was really very cute. Our sommelier also remembered that Lis did not have any wine with dinner last night, and said “Are you ready for some wine tonight?” I do love RegentJ

Today we took the free shuttle from the ship to the Inner Harbour, then walked into Beacon Hill Park and up to the Children’s Farm, which is one of our favorite places in Victoria. There are peacocks and alpacas and bird houses, and the best-ever petting zoo in the land – tons of goats, mamas and babies, that come nuzzle you and lean against you and chew gently on your shoelaces and purse straps. The goats are very well taken care of, and are feed on a regular schedule, with no feeding allowed by guests – the result being that they are calm and lovable, not demanding and head-butting, like at most petting zoos. (We are connoisseurs of petting zoos – if there’s a petting zoo anywhere near, we’ll be there, jockeying with the kids for position). Last time we were at the Children’s Farm, a baby named Jay curled up in my lap and went to sleep. This time, a baby named Larry spent a good deal of time hanging out with us, and a baby named Carly stood inches from my face and gazed deeply into my eyes while I petted her. (Note from Lis: All the goats have their names on their collars and are also for sale. I had a little fantasy of picking out a baby goat and sneaking her on to the ship for the rest of the cruise.)

After the Children’s Farm, we took a Harbour Taxi to Spinnaker’s Brew Pub (another of our favorite Victoria places) for lunch, and then went to Green Cuisine restaurant (yet another favorite place) for dessert. Then back to the ship, where we tried to make it to the 4:30 trivia, but were late. Then to the Muster Drill (we didn’t have it yesterday because people were boarding so late, because of the late departure), and then to dinner. Lis had a most fabulous steak, and I had the almond crusted halibut, which was also divine. Then back to our room, and sunset on the balcony. A very excellent day. Note from Lis: the sunset from the balcony was AMAZING! I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sun set at sea before. It really looked like there was a big old fire pit in the middle of the ocean. I doubt our photos will do it justice. We were a little bit disappointed that we couldn’t get a room on the starboard side of the ship for when we’re sailing past glaciers, but boy that sunset was incredible and we wouldn’t have been able to see it from our balcony if we’d been on the starboard side.

On a technical note, the internet has been somewhat unreliable thus far, and I am apparently not allowed to upload pictures (I tried to include a couple in the post re: Vancouver) – so no photos yet. But we are snapping away, so once we get home, I’ll upload them somewhere (Flickr or PhotoBucket or something) and maybe retroactively add a few pics to these posts (Sadly, no photos of goats – I was too completely involved in the experience to remember to take any pics. But I’ve got some good peacock and baby duckling photos).

Links to Inside Passage photos and videos from the cruise 

5-29-08

This morning we ordered room service, and Lis gamely repeated her hard boiled egg order. We had theorized that for a room service order, where the chef wasn’t worried about the passenger sitting and waiting for their food, they would be able to give the egg the full ten minutes – and we were right; Lis said the eggs were perfect. I had scrambled eggs and bacon, and my breakfast was also very good.

At 9 am we reported to the Constellation Theater to go through US Customs. The customs agent was sitting at a table in front of the stage, illuminated by a single bright spotlight, with the spangled stage curtain sparkling behind him – it was quite impressive. I told him he should have someone take his picture for his desk, and he laughed. It’s funny how much friendlier the US Customs people are as compared to the Canadian Customs folks. I didn’t expect it, based on both the things I’ve read about the experiences that non-US citizens have had at our borders since 9/11, and my own experience of the friendliness of Canadians in general. And maybe this is not a general experience, but the times I’ve gone to Canada, the Canadian customs people are invariably unsmiling and even surly, and the US folks are friendly and affable. Go figure.

At 9:30 we had a seminar to attend, which made us a bit sad, as we love lying about on sea days. It lasted until noon, and was your basic seminar – tolerable at first, and then tedious, and then mind-numbing. But then over.

The schedule said that there was a Friends of Dorothy meeting in the Horizon Lounge at 12:05 pm, which is where we went next (for the uninitiated, Friends of Dorothy is a get together of gay and lesbian passengers – not to be confused with Friends of Bill W, which is an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Though, as one of people we met pointed out, there is probably some overlap…). There were about 16-18 people, including 2 other lesbian couples. Three of the guys are in a Master’s Suite, and they invited us to a cocktail party in their suite on June 2 – we are very excited; we’ve always wanted to see the Master’s Suite in person, plus no one has ever invited us to a cocktail party in their suite on a cruise ship.

Then we were off to lunch, this time in the La Veranda buffet on Deck 11. Because it’s a sea day, there was a fish barbecue on the pool deck, and Lis went and got us some salmon, grouper, mahi mahi and swordfish. The salmon didn’t seem cooked enough, but the rest of the fish was divine. Let me point out here that I am not much of a seafood girl, but I’ve had halibut, smoked salmon and caviar, in addition to the above, so far in this cruise, and I’ve enjoyed everything but the caviar. At lunch a lovely gentleman from Tennessee struck up a conversation with us – we enjoyed him very much, especially his Pat Summit stories. We’ve met some very nice people so far, and have surprised ourselves with our sociability – we can be a bit hermit-ish.

We spent the bulk of the afternoon in our cabin, sitting on the balcony reading or lying in bed practicing our Spanish. While we were lazing away like this, the phone rang, and Lis said “Damn – the bridge tour!” – we had forgotten that we’d signed up. We threw on our appropriate-for-outside-the-cabin clothes (we’d been in sweats) and ran down to the reception area (literally). Then we were taken to the bridge, where a very cute, very funny and well spoken young deck cadet named Larissa showed us around. She was very knowledgeable and very talkative, answered all our questions and told us funny stories – we were there for over an hour and had a great time.

We ate dinner in La Veranda tonight. We enjoyed it, but they seemed to have a harder time handling Lis’ diet, and the steak I ordered wasn’t as good as the one Lis had had last night in Compass Rose. Still, it was very lovely, and Lis said her salmon was very good. Then back to the cabin for the sunset. Everything we’d read said that you should get a starboard cabin for a northbound Alaska cruise, because you see more of the fjords – so we tried, and were disappointed to find ourselves in a port cabin. But I think I might like it better, because we’ve had two glorious sunsets in a row. Plus we sat in the sun this afternoon, which may not be what you want in August but was really nice in May. Lis: sitting in the sun on the balcony this afternoon was my transcendent moment of the day.

Š

Links to Ketchikan photos and videos from cruise 

5-30-08

When we were researching the various ports of call, trying to determine what we would do in each, we found a cool website (that now is less cool, as it seems to charge a fee) listing how many ships were going to be in each port. We saw that we were going to be in Ketchikan along with the Diamond Princess, HAL Westerdam, and NCL Pearl, all giant ships. As we weren’t going to do any sort of excursion that would get us away from the madding crowds, we decided that we would stay on the ship in Ketchikan and pretend it was a sea day. But then, we needed some binoculars, and on embarkation had received a coupon book, and this coupon book said we could get binoculars at the Tongass Traders for 8 bucks – so off we went. It was busy along the waterfront, with all these ships in port, but not terrible. And we loved Tongass Traders. We went upstairs to the sporting goods section for the binoculars, which wasn’t too crowded, and a lovely man named Mike showed us all the binocular choices, and gave us a little tutorial on how to focus and use then. He spent loads of time with us and was very sweet.

I had left my knit cap in the room, and it was a little nippy and my ears were cold (but dry and mostly sunny – we’ve had spectacular weather so far); but, not to worry – there was a coupon for a knit cap with an Alaska logo on it for only 2 bucks. So we made our way to the Alaska souvenir section for the hat. As soon as we entered the souvenir area, we found ourselves crammed cheek by jowl with all the other cruise passengers, and it was a challenge to find the hats, and then another challenge to get close enough to them to grab one. But we managed, and then fled to the hardware section, where it immediately quieted down. There was a huge line at the check out in souvenirs, but no line in hardware, so that’s where we paid for our stuff.

While we were checking out, the lady asked us where we were from. We said Portland, Oregon. She said “You’re kidding! I’m from Portland! Southeast 52^nd!” We said “We live on Southeast 45^th, near Woodstock.” She said “You’re kidding! I lived near Woodstock!” We found that we live about 8 blocks from where she was from. At this point she started ringing things up wrong and getting all flustered, and kept saying “I’m sorry about that, I’m just so excited!” She was very cute, and we decided that we enjoyed our shore excursion to Tongass Traders as much as we would have enjoyed one to anywhere else.

We went back to the ship and had lunch, then went back to the room and spent our lazy sea day on the balcony. Again, we were in the sun, which was divine (I even got a bit of color in my face), plus the port side of the ship was facing away from town and looking out over the Tongass Narrows, so we got to watch cruise ships and fishing boats come and go (while we were there, the Pearl, Westerdam and Diamond sailed away, and the HAL Volendam arrived), float planes take off and land, plus the occasional bird fly by, including a couple bald eagles.

At around 2pm I went to the gym to ride the exercise bike, and Lis did yoga on the balcony. Then Lis went and got a massage, and I took a shower in the ladies locker room of the spa (across from the gym) and then went up on deck and sat in the Jacuzzi and took in the scenery. It was very lovely. Then back to the room, where we read until dinner. Another little note about exercise: since our cabin is located about halfway between the public rooms on decks 5, 6, 7 and decks 11 and 12, we decided that we would try to always take the stairs. And we’ve been pretty good about this so far and have only been in the elevators 1 or 2 times. This morning, we had to do something on 5 before going to breakfast on 11, and we were very stalwart and took the stairs. We thought that it would be getting easier by now, but our legs are sore and we continue to huff and puff and droop some on climbs of more than 3 floors. We figure that we’ll finally get used to it when it’s time to leave the ship.

We ate in Latitudes tonight, the Indochine fusion specialty restaurant. We had talked with the Maitre’d this morning about the menu (that was our errand on deck 5 before breakfast), and she had made arrangements with the chef and Lis was able to eat almost everything they offered. Not that there’s a lot of dairy in Asian cuisine anyway, but still, they were very solicitous. The food was really, really excellent, though the format is such that they basically bring you a bit of everything on the menu, so for the first time this cruise I ate to the point of discomfort, as I believe Lis did, too. We had just been congratulating ourselves on avoiding eating until stuffed – I guess we spoke too soon. The other interesting thing about the restaurant was that the staff were all female – the Maitre’d, the sommaliers, the servers, everybody. About halfway through there was a young man filling waters, but otherwise it was a female space, which we thought was fun.

There was another beautiful sunset tonight, but due to the position of the ship as it navigates the channel, the starboard folks got to enjoy it this time. I suppose it was their turn…

Mary’s been doing all the writing because I decided I wanted to only drink in the cruise and not have the responsibility of documenting it. But I must post about how DIVINE yoga on the balcony is. On both this cruise and our Crystal Cruise in December 06, I borrowed a yoga mat from the health club and then did yoga on the balcony accompanied by my MP3 player. At times yesterday the roar of the float planes totally drowned out the yoga instructor in my headphones but otherwise it was quiet and beautiful and really a transcendent experience that I highly recommend.

My whole body was aching yesterday – partially my injured shoulder, partially my legs screaming from all the stair walking, partially trying to adjust to the bed, but I decided I need a massage. They offered me a special of 50 minutes of Swedish massage for $99, but she said some other massage would be better for aches, and she dropped the price from $150 to $130 if I did it while we were still in port. I was impressed with what the massage therapist accomplished in 50 minutes and I DO feel better today. Afterwards I took a steam bath and then a shower and then a sauna. Often this is all I do – I am a big fan of the “poor woman’s spa experience” in which one partakes of all the amenities of the locker room but does not purchase any actual spa services. I will say that if that’s what you’re after, Crystal has a much better “poor woman’s spa” than Regent. The Regent locker room was small and the steam room was tiny and the lockers were sort of beat up and the keys didn’t work well. But I’m evaluating, not complaining. The steam room was nice and hot, and it all made for a lovely afternoon.

Next post, back to Mary. I find myself kind of boring. But we both would like to offer this correction to her previous post. It was the weather in Ketchikan that was dry and mostly sunny, not her ears. Well, her ears probably were too, but she was referring to the weather.

Links to Tracy Arm/Juneau photos and videos from the cruise

5-31-08

When we got our Daily Passages last night, the schedule for today said “Whale Spotting” from 5am to 7am, followed by “Scenic Cruising of Tracy Arm” from 7am to 10am. So we dragged ourselves out of bed at 5am and then dragged ourselves up 4 flights of stairs to the Observation deck (Lis actually climbed 4 flights twice because she forgot to bring her coat the first time – how studly is she!?!). There was a pretty good smattering of people for that hour, and we started seeing whales right away. We didn’t see a ton, and we didn’t see them up close, but about every 15-20 minutes or so one would appear. Sometimes we only saw blow spouts and bits of their dorsal fins, but a few times as they did the deeper dives to the bottom to feed we saw their flukes. Lis had the good fortune to have her binoculars trained on one as it did this, so she got to see it up close. I was only ever able to see it with my naked eye. Lis: I’m sad to report that if I did see one up close, I don’t remember, but I’m very tired now.

As the morning progressed, the room filled up (though was never crowded) and the mood became more convivial (there wasn’t really a mood at first because we were all still asleep). Anytime a whale was spotted, someone would point it out and then we’d all surge to that side, trying to see or get a camera shot. It’s fun to watch a room full of middle-aged to elderly people run around excited as children.

After a while (at about the time that the schedule said), we stopped seeing whales and started seeing icebergs, some white and some blue. At this point the ship’s destination specialist got on the PA system (only heard in the public spaces) and started telling us about the icebergs and the Tracy Arm Glacier from which they came, and the geology of the canyon we were in, and how glaciers form the landscape. His delivery was sort of monotone, and at first he didn’t really do much for me. But then it became apparent that he was just as excited as the rest of us, but trying to behave like a grown up about it, and I fell in love with him a little bit.

There was a good bit of ice, so we weren’t able to get very far in to Tracy Arm and therefore never saw the actual glacier. We saw lots of fantastic ice sculpture, though (including one that looked like a chicken), and several bald eagles perched on the ice, plus a couple seals and some porpoise, and the weather was gorgeous, so I felt satisfied.

After a wonderfully hearty breakfast on the aft deck of La Veranda, we went back to the room and found that it wasn’t made up – the room steward hadn’t been around when we left at 5, and so must have assumed that we weren’t up yet. So we decided to go drop off our menus with the maitre’d and then go back up to the observation lounge. Once we dropped off the menus, the full implication of our plan hit us – we were on deck 5, and the observation lounge was on deck 12. Ever stalwart, we hiked up, and it wasn’t even as bad as we expected – maybe our legs are finally adjusting.

We had a peaceful sail in to Juneau, then lunch in the Compass Rose (fish and chips – very yummy), then off to the Mendenhall Glacier. We took a local shuttle that ran every half hour. The driver tried to tell us interesting stories about Juneau on the way but only every third word or so was actually intelligible, so it was a bit of a trial. (Lis: On the drive back, when the driver was continuing to tell unintelligible stories AND the majority of the bus was speaking loudly in a foreign language in an attempt to be heard over the driver, Mary leaned over to me and said, “This must be what hell is like.”) The glacier was spectacular and the weather continued gorgeous. There are a bunch of trails around the glacier (and the lake into which it empties), including one that takes you right next to a giant roaring waterfall and within 500 feet of the glacier face. We took this one, which was pretty easy except that right before you got to the waterfall you had to scramble over this huge expanse of boulders and rocks – we weren’t expecting this, but it was great fun. I think I’m probably going to be pretty sore tomorrow, though.

Once there, we snapped lots of pics of the glacier, the icebergs, and the waterfall, and didn’t realize until we got back to the ship that our (somewhat elderly) camera had started to fail and that on some of the photos the lens shutter had only opened a fraction. The saddest thing is that this really cool shot of the waterfall in the foreground and the glacier in the background was one of the victims. Sadder still, enough of the shot was visible through the partially open shutter to indicate that the shot would have been really good:-(

We had decided yesterday that, what with getting up so early and all, it would be better to do room service than try to go to the dining room, where we would probably fall asleep between courses. Turned out to be a very excellent idea – we were very pooped by dinnertime, and were glad to retire for the evening. We had our room service dinner on the balcony, looking out over the sea – the temperature was perfect and the water was still, reflecting the snow-capped hill across the way – very beautiful. Dinner itself was good, but a bit unwieldy, as they brought us all the courses at once. We had read somewhere, long ago, that if you have room service dinner on Regent they will serve it to you in courses, but this has never been our experience. We have figured that: (a) it just isn’t true; (b) it was once true but is no longer; (c) you have to ask; or (d) you need to be in a room with a butler. Nevertheless, it was a lovely experience.

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I’m writing my own post because Mary believes in shorter blog posts so I’m not allowed to add on to hers.

Room service dinner: I was glad they brought all the food at once. We’ve been getting up so early, I really wanted to go to bed early and that is hard if you have dinner in the dining room – that is a long, drawn-out affair. I was done with dinner in 30 minutes and we were in bed reading by 8:30. I fell in love with Juneau through our window. As Mary said, the water was calm and it was really, really quiet. From the bed, I could see the aforementioned snow-capped hill and some little houses across the way. I kept saying I felt like I was in the Swiss Alps – it was so picturesque and peaceful. I would have been happy if the whole cruise we were docked in Juneau with that view outside our window. Again, though we wished for the starboard side prior to the cruise, I am SO glad we ended up on the port side, primarily because that means that when we are in port, our view is generally of the water side rather than the town side. Since we spend so much time in the room and out on the balcony, even while we’re in port, that matters a lot to us.

Mary also didn’t write about Patsy Ann. There is a statue of Patsy Ann that greets passengers disembarking cruise ships in Juneau. We were fortunate to be docked right in front of wonderful Patsy Ann. Patsy Ann was an English Bulldog who used to come down to the docks and greet the steamships in the 1930s. She had an uncanny ability to know not only when a ship was coming in but which dock it was going to. There are two signs next to her statue that tell her whole story beautifully and Mary took photos of both, so maybe eventually we will post them. At any rate, we both fell in love with Patsy Ann, and Mary, perhaps because she was so tired, started crying when she read the signs.

While we were looking at Patsy Ann, two of the women we had met at the Friends of Dorothy party came up and asked where we had been because they hadn’t seen us on the ship. I said, “We’ve been around, but we spend a lot of time in our room and out on the balcony.” (In fact, yesterday I was thinking it would be fun to bring a sleeping bag and SLEEP on the balcony.) One of them said, “Do you not live together or are you apart much of the time?” Mary said, “No, in fact we just don’t seem to get bored with each other.” Really I think the proper question would have been, “Do you not have a stateroom at home or a balcony?” It’s true we are together a lot but we also just love our room and our balcony and we are admittedly less social than many people. These women said they had been out on their balcony maybe 5 minutes this cruise, which is about 1/1000^th of the time we’ve been out on our balcony. But that’s what’s so great about cruising – like some stupid ad copy says, “You can do as much or as little as you want” and I maintain there is nothing more divine than hanging out on your balcony when everyone else is off in port or at a show or gambling or whatever. We have our own quiet little world – a BEAUTIFUL quiet little world – and I think there is nothing like it.

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