Juneau, AK

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I had a bad night but never noticed the Captain’s promised hour of rough seas. I woke to the fog horn constantly blaring, drowning in yellow snot and with a fever.

Not a great day. We had such an excellent trip to SE Alaska with Alaskan Dream Cruise that any mainstream line would fare poorly in comparison. But, Oceania seems like they are trying to do poorly or else they care about something else like profit over customer satisfaction.

Our day was to begin here at 11am today. That was true well before final payment. It was sold and scheduled as a docked port from day one to the day we arrived onboard. If you looked at the destinations brochure or your tour tickets that day, you learned then that we are tendering in Juneau. There were 2 ships here when we arrived and a 3^rd was docked before we left. That left plenty of dock space for us as the smallest ship, but presumably it was cheaper to tender. Then there is O’s Regatta Lounge wait for a tender ticket policy. It took us about an hour to get ashore this morning. Which gave us plenty of time to meet our 12:55pm tour but little else. On the way back we arrived to a tender just casting off and were asked to step aside and leave a path as the next arriving tender had a medical emergency on it to be removed to an ambulance. That tender went back without any passengers on it. We waited longer for the original tender to tie up and prepare for us. We waited almost an hour from the moment we walked up to under way. If there was an emergency, then why didn’t Regatta drop a dedicated tender to handle it instead of letting 100 people stand in the cold for an hour? The tendering when there was dock space was slap in the face enough, but then in an emergency to not think first of the passengers. Unbelievable.

We got off to a bad start when we left to room at 7am to find breakfast didn’t begin until 7:30am. Then our cabin didn’t get serviced even though we stayed out until 9am. I wanted to watch Kong:Skull Island on TV since we had missed it. So we changed the service sign and stayed in until 10:45am when tendering was announced thereby missing the end of the movie anyway. We had set and watched the fog shifting from Horizons Lounge for over an hour after breakfast.

It was cold all day today. It was supposed to reach 60F but the sun never burned through. We had another O included tour here. It was Flavors of Juneau. We went to Mendenhall Glacier for an hour. Since we had gone to the waterfall last trip we walked up to the Visitor’s center and watched the 18-minute film. We had about 10 minutes left over to walk to the bear viewing area where we had seen a couple of red salmon last time as well as a baby porcupine. Nothing today. We did see several bald eagles today though. Next we had an hour long cooking demo of salmon and blueberries served with local Chardonnay. Finally, 20 minutes to visit Alaskan Brewing for 3 tastings. Clay had all of both of ours and liked all but the Smoked Porter.

Back aboard now and Clay is ready for dinner. I need to save this and get changed. I will post now and assume I find nothing else to complain about the rest of the evening.

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Ketchikan

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When I woke up and looked out a little after 6am, the skies were clear with a rosy glow and I could see a long way. By the time we got to breakfast and nearing Ketchikan we were inside a cloud with almost zero visibility. Originally rain was forecast but the newest predictions this morning were for no rain. I didn't believe and wore raingear thus guaranteeing a bright sunny day. It was one of the warmest days all summer per locals and a rare rainfree day. They said they'd had 45 inches of rain this summer. They said the salmon spawn started about a week and a half ago. We saw thousands!

We walked a self-guided tour that I had printed from online, but we picked up a better copy at the Visitor's Info center.There were 3 ships in town today. We were the last to arrive and the last to leave. It was divided into 2 walks. We first did the one in the old town since it was closest to our dock. It was also the more interesting and scenic and accurate one. We stopped for a break at New York Cafe where we had a chicken kabob lunch with salad, pita and hummus for $15 that we shared. It was delicious. Clay had a 4 beer flight for $8 and he hated all of them. We walked until it was time for our Duck Tour at 1:55pm. Ketchikan is the 4th largest city in Alaska!

We have a 6:30pm dinner reservation tonight at Polo. I will post this now as I am hopeful that dinner will not be comment worthy.

We had a mandatory disembarkation form due back by noon tomorrow for San Francisco! I don't understand short cruises! This was after embarkation day, sea day 1 and first port stop and they want you to get ready to get off.

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Sea Day 1

Alaska Inside Passage, North bound. It was a nice morning when I opened the curtains. We were very close to land and you could see an active current in the narrow channel. It was cool and clear. I spotted a small whale breathing several times near shore and then a whale tail. I saw one seal or sea lion pop up and look around. By the time we got to breakfast it had clouded in and was raining. We went up front to Horizons to get my cruise needlepoint kit at 9:30am and it was pouring. We didn’t see any other sealife just lots of floating logs.

By lunch time we were in open water and big swells. It stopped raining by afternoon but it was a rough ride. While we were at lunch they had distributed barf bags throughout the ship. I opted for a nap and slept hours. When I got up to dress for the Captain’s reception I spotted a small porpoise jumping in and out of the waves and swells by our starboard side.

We went to the Grand Dining Room tonight since we were already dressed and on deck 5. It was a familiar menu from earlier this year on Sirena around Australia.

We had a good day. Tomorrow is a new port for us, Ketchikan.  We have been without Internet all day. We’ll see how long this lasts. I will post when I can.

Boarding Regatta, Leaving Vancouver

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We were up early this morning worrying about Mom & Matt facing Hurricane Irma in FL. It turned out OK as the predicted storm surge did not happen. The storm was a direct hit on Bonita Springs, but it weakened quickly and did not produce the predicted flooding. It is still a mess but it could have been so much worse.

We got our first really nice weather today. It was about 70F and partly cloudy. Visibility was much improved as well today and we could see clearly across the harbor most of the day.

We called for service and got our 2 checked bags removed to be taken to Regatta before breakfast. They were waiting outside our 7051 cabin when we arrived after 1:30pm. That couldn't have been more convenient. Not so for the rest of the experience. We had decided to board after 12 noon as our documents instructed. Thinking we'd go back out between 3 and 6pm to get Clay's happy hour at Chewie's Oyster Bar if it did not conflict with the life boat drill. So after breakfast, we set off through Gastown to Chinatown to tour the Chinese Garden. I am not too sure about it. I didn't love it and found the guided tour more tedious than informative. I think I'd have been as happy just visiting the public park half with the house tour. Oh well. We got back to the Pan Pacific about 12:15pm and by 12:30pm we were checked out. At 8am this morning, there was a line of O passengers through the lobby entered a ballroom that was designated for checking in O passengers between 8am and noon. I can't imagine why anyone would want to check in that early. Our Concierge cabin was not promised to be ready before 1:30pm and normal cabins not until 3pm. They had shut down the lobby operation after noon. We were sent downstairs and to the far side and back of the building. Finally we found Regatta's check in room. Once quickly through that process we were sent into a giant room with zigzaging roped off paths with thousands of people. They mixed all 3 boarding cruise ships through one security clearance area followed by the same process through US Customs and Border Control. We thought it looked like in transit passengers were only by passing the line at security as we got tracked to their screening line, then they queued with all the rest for US Customs and Border Control. I asked the BP guy who was directing people there if we left the ship after boarding if we had to go through all this again to get back aboard and he said yes, that we'd be crazy to go back out and his advice was to stay on the ship. So, today there was no adventage to being on a ship with 600 or so passengers if there are another 5000 or so in line with you! We'd have boarded much later and made better use of our last day in Vancouver if we'd known. So, it was about quarter of 2pm by the time we got onboard and we had to insist we go directly to our cabin instead of being directed to the lunch buffet. Our room was ready and our luggage was outside the door so that was the upside of the hour plus it took us to get aboard. We did go to the lunch buffet. We drank our welcome champagne on the balcony as we waited for the 5:15pm life boat drill. All aboard was 7:30pm. Sailaway was scheduled for 8pm but we were away about 7:40pm. By 8pm we had sailed under the bridge to leave the harbor of Vancouver.

So far we are dismayed by the little differences between the Sirena and the Regatta. We had expected them to be more alike than different. We really still like Marina best of the Oceania fleet we've tried so far. Tomorrow is a sea day.

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Vancouver Day 2

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We both slept soundly again last night. Today there are 3 cruise ships around us. We have a big Princess ship out our side. HAL's Nieuw Amsterdam is on the other side and from across False Creek we saw a 3rd smaller ship, maybe a Seabourn. Tomorrow when we board O's Regatta there will be 3 new ships here besides Regatta will be Celebrity Infinity and HAL's Noordam. It is a bustling place.

It poured rain today all morning and a cold front came through overnight so it was markedly cooler today. It is still low visibility from wildfire smoke and today you could smell it. We have surely not seen Vancouver at its best. We had a much calmer morning today at the breakfast buffet. We chose to ride the Vancouver Trolley today instead of the Westcoast Sightseeing. We regret our decision. The trolley people had less capacity as well they were not running in the advertised 20 minute cycle. We waited while 4 Westcoast big buses came by the Granville Island stop and it took over 45 minutes for a trolley to come. They only had 6 available seats while there was a line of more than a dozen people waiting. They had hard wooden bench seats as well that were uncomfortable. I leaned toward the trolley because they included a free False Creek Ferry ticket which we did use to get to Granville Market. Still Westcoast was probably a better choice and that would be our recommendation.

The St. Roch is here in Vancouver at the Maritime Museum. We'd have gone if we hadn't spent nearly an hour in a parking lot under a bridge waiting for a trolley. Oh well, we caught a glimpse of it through the windows. It was first ship circumnavigate North America in 1950. It was also one of the ships to make the North West Passage and did it twice, once in each direction. St. Roch is my hero ship and I'm sorry to have missed it. It is unclear if I'll every get all the pieces covered to circumnavigate North America. I still have hopes of an opportunity to do a North America circumnavigation in one go if some cruise line offers it.

We had lunch today at the Granville Island Public Market. It was huge. Bigger than we expected. We ate lunch there. We shared a bratwurst sandwich, a steaming bowl of cheddar & potato mini-pierogies and a maple crepe. It was all good. We also shared some beautiful artisinal chocolates.

Clay has chosen Mahoney & Sons for dinner. I'll finish this post after dinner and get it published. Mahoney's was close by on the waterfront and excellent. We were there before 6pm and it was busy but not too noisy and we were seated right away. I had bangers & mash and got 3 big sausages. It was way too much! Clay ate a lot of sausage with his more modest serving of salmon. The food was delicious. Clay had also planned to have a beer flight and he did to the envy of everyone in the room, who must have missed it on the menu. I had my first glass of wine this trip. They had a good selection of British Columbia wines and I had a smalll (6 oz.) Riesling. It was very good. I hope the box of NZ Riesling I bought to drink for the next month is close to that good. We'll see.

Our thoughts have been and continue to be with my family as Hurricane Irma continues to make a course directly to their homes in SW Florida. Fingers crossed that they get through with as minimal damage and inconvenience as possible.

We have plans for tomorrow taking advantage of our Pan Pacific cruise package to transfer our luggage and check out late. Given O's past record of boarding delays we aren't in any hurry to be there for our noon embarkation and if it's 2pm or after that would probably be better. So after breakfast, we'll surrender the checked bags then go over to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden for the 10:30am guided tour and finally to Chewie's Steam & Oyster Bar since Clay realized he had forgotten to have oysters. Hopefully we can fit that all in before checkout deadline of 2pm. Should be able to and hoping for a rain free day but we'll see. We heard the garden is better in the rain with some kind of singing water drainage system that you miss if you're there on a clear day. Either way.

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Day 1 Vancouver

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We slept like logs on the 12th floor of the Pan Pacific. We had booked an Alaska Cruise Package for 3 nights which cost $1308CAD. It includes breakfast each morning, luggage transfer to the cruise ship and 2pm checkout. Mostly it is convenient if a bit pricey. The room is comfortable and a nice size. Down side is the keyed minibar. Coolest feature is what Clay described as a "dual-purpose bathroom door." It closes the bathroom off from the entry hall swung one way and it is hinged to close off the toilet room in the bathroom when swung the other way. I am not sure I appreciate the functionality but I do appreciate the design and engineering and thought behind it. Celebrity Millenium was docked on our side of the hotel this morning and a Royal Caribbean ship on the other side of the hotel. The Cruise Terminal is in the basement of this building under the convention center. It is a convenient and bustling location. The buffet was good and extensive but we wouldn't have paid the $37CAD they were charging. The coffee was surprising bad and capuccino was an extra charge I suppose you could argue we have but I don't know what the room went for without it. It is convenient anyway and we skipped lunch after the huge breakfasts we ate.

We were planning to take self-guided walking tours today since the chances of rain are higher on Saturday than today, Friday. It poured rain as we ate breakfast and watched people leave their cruises. It was still raining lightly off and on all morning as we made a half-assed walking tour attempt. When we hatched this plan, Clay told me he had downloaded an app to his phone that had 2 offline GPS only self-guided walking tours nearby Pan Pacific to Gastown and Chinatown. I never saw them, I still haven't. Before breakfast, he asked me if I had printed anything out about the walking tours. No because there was nothing to print out... He didn't have an app. He couldn't find an app. He vaguely remembered saying he'd taken care of it. It was business as usual. Our plan for the day is we have no plan now. We asked at the concierge desk and got a map and Clay found some online maps with descriptions of highlights between those and the maps and signs on the streets and buildings we saw most of Gastown and some of Chinatown. Neither were very photogenic today. It is overcast with low visibility due to smoke from wildfires. It was only supposed to be a high of 71F today but it was really muggy and felt a lot hotter. We both were dressed to warmly today given the humidity or else it got a lot warmer than predicted with no sun all day. The coolest thing we saw was the steamclock which had cool works moving balls around inside a glass case and a calliope-sounding steam whistle out the top every 15 minutes. Worth the walk.

Tomorrow we plan to take one of the HOHOs in town. There are 2 here and both are about the same. We can't pick a clear winner. Tomorrow will tell probably by the first bus to appear in front of us with seats.

We ate a red bean bun and a Portuguese egg custard tart from a Chinatown market for a midday snack. Clay had a gelato for Bella Gelaterio nearby. It is supposed to be the best gelato in North America. I didn't have any and I think he wouldn't go that far though he said it was good and creamy.

We did our beer and wine shopping for our 28-day cruise today complicated by the fact that Canada has strict alcohol sales laws. But we went to the state run BC Liquor Store across from the Water Front Station nearby for a 3-L box of Riesling-Gerwurztraminer wine for us. Clay got 4 beers at the Steamworks Brewery across the street. If we like them, they will be excellent values for us versus Oceania drink prices. Clay paid $10.59CAD for his beers and $36.99 for the wine.

Clay had 3 places picked for our dinner. I picked up a brochure with menu for one, De Dutch. It closes at 4pm, so that leaves 2 places. Lucky as we have 2 dinners to eat here. One is Mahoney and Sons, a pub, and the other is Hapa Izakaya, a Japanese place. Both are nearby. When we walked out of the Pan Pacific to watch the Celebrity Millenium sail away and then to dinner, Clay announced he'd left his phone in the room. Since we didn't know the address of Mahoney but we'd walked by Hapa and gone in to see the menu earlier that is where we knew where to go and went. We got there during happy hour as Clay had planned but apparently it wasn't clear what that actually meant or else he misunderstood. They had 1 draft beer at $2 off and 1 white and 1 red wine at a couple dollars off. Neither of us would drink anything on special. Clay bought his choice of $6 regular price beers and I had a glass of ice water. The dinner menu was not available until after happy hour was over after 5:30pm. There was a limited Japanese tapas menu available until then. We ordered and ate cold Edamame beans, hot cream cheese spring rolls, 2 chicken tacos and 1 fish taco. The tortillas of all tacos were burned. It was not a satisfying meal. The restaurant was extremely noisy. Neither of us would ever recommend Hapa Izakaya or return there. It's been done. We walked down to Tim Horton's after for something to treat ourselves. We waited in a long line. We walked to a convenience store to get Clay a Coke Zero after. I thought the coffe and tea making supplies in the room were complimentary and had said I would have coffee in the room after this morning's nasty buffet coffee, but as Clay and I reread the card by the ice bucket and kettle we failed to find any language indicating that it was included or complimentary but in fact discussed the minibar at the same time implying it was for sale but the supplies were not listed on the minibar price list. In the absence of a firm statement that coffee/tea was complimentary, I will just have to do with the nasty buffet coffee in the morning. 'Til then.

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To Vancouver, BC, Canada

We booked our flights on Air Canada back in May. It was one-way given the cruise to Miami. We paid $614.14USD for economy class for the 2 of us. The economy class seats weren't bad. We were in 2 seat side rows on each leg and the planes were partly to mostly empty. The bad news was the delays. The first flight was delayed enough that Clay was concerned about the connection in Toronto. But, here's the thing. The boarding pass we got printed at RDU when we checked our bags through to Vancouver showed a 4 hour long delay in leaving Toronto but the ticket agent did not mention it and neither of us noticed it until we were in Toronto! I don't know what proper protocol should have been but we were never notified by phone, text, email or in person about the 4 hour delay. The flight should have taken off at 6pm and it took off about 10:30pm. It was after midnight when we arrived in Vancouver or about 3 am Toronto/RDU time. It made for a long day. Air Canada said the flight was one of many delayed due to equipment repositioning due to rescue flights in the path of Hurricane Irma. I don't fault them for that but for not notifying us. We could probably have made an earlier Vancouver flight out of Toronto if we'd known and been given the option. Anyway. We're here and tired and our luggage arrived so all good.

I know Clay took some photos and I don't know when or if he'll post and link them here. Stay tuned.