Day 18 - Sat - 10/03/26 - Final Day at Sea to Vancouver

On our last day at sea it's was pretty relaxed as many of the program items were repeats from prior cruises.  After breakfast we viewed the towel animals, and we did enjoy Vic's (asst. cruise director) interview of Theresa, our current cruise director.  Today is her last day of her current contract.  Following this she led the canned program of City at Sea.  Hyperion Knight then led a fun music trivia game on the World Stage.

After lunch in the Lido, we enjoyed watching a large pod of orcas frolic on the starboard side of the ship.  Jeff Burghart presented a 3pm matinee comedy show that was pretty funny.  We then walked the outside deck 3 to get our daily steps in and enjoy the perfectly flat water as we passed Bella Coola.  

Our last dinner was nice and my main dishes once again fish & chips.  A couple from the east coast joined us for some pleasant conversation.  The evening entertainment was a cast performance of Curtain Up featuring song from Broadway and West End theater productions.  It was really good.

And then came the dreaded moment all cruisers don't like: packing for disembarkation.  We travel pretty light so it was just one small suit case and a backpack for each of us.  We'll do self assist to get off the ship tomorrow morning, catch the Skytrain to the airport, and then retrieve our car for the 2.5 hour drive home.  It's been a great Alaska itinerary visiting small ports and we recommend both the itinerary and the ship. And we find Holland America crew to be the friendliest on the high seas.








 Cake day


Orcas blowing

16 knot wake


Yoga, a favorite server from several other cruises

Cast of Curtain Up


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 03 - 09/18/26 - Scenic Cruising - Day 2

Image
 What a contrast this second day of cruising has been. While we set our alarms for 715. I was awake at 6 AM and Angela had turned on the stateroom television to the bow channel and the light from that kept me awake. So I rolled out of bed roughly at 7:45 or so and prepared for my day we ate our customary breakfast in the Lido. Just north of Ketchikan we spotted the southbound Nieuw Amsterdam headed for there and I photographed it. Last year we were on that ship doing that same route southbound to Vancouver. We then attended Theresa's coffee chat with the executive chef. He's from India and is a vegetarian. Following this, we watched his cooking demonstration of preparing salmon meatballs in the Wajang theater. Again it was very interesting and we enjoy watching these cooking demonstrations. Unfortunately, there's no sampling of the food that's prepared there. For us, there was a gap in the programming so we went up to the Crows Nest and watched the scenery go by. It is ...
Read more

Day 01 - 09/16/26 - Embarkation Day

Image
 The embarkation for this cruise was one of the most different that we have ever done. We woke up at 5 AM in Burien at our home and prepared for our journey north. We left the house around 6 AM headed for Surrey, British Columbia where we are leaving our car with cruise friends. The drive up was pleasant and not many holdups. There were a couple sections which had pretty intense fog, but we made it through those safely. The border crossing into Canada on the truck route was uneventful and very smooth. There was one car ahead of us and they cleared just as we reached the stop sign. The Canadian border guard was efficient and asked the typical questions and we were soon through the border. We drove about 20 minutes further north and found our friends townhouse. The total trip was about 2 1/2 hours. We had not seen them in about 3 years since we sailed with them on the grand South America cruise. We've certainly kept up via Facebook. We had a chance to briefly chat and enjoy some tea ...
Read more

Day 02 - 09/17/26 - Scenic Cruising - Day 1

Image
  Little did we know that today was going to be a whale of a day. We woke up via an alarm at 7:15 AM as the first event was to start at 9 AM. We enjoyed our first breakfast in the Lido and I especially appreciated the fresh cooked eggs and the accompanying sausage and bacon and salmon. We then hustled down to the World Stage where Theresa our cruise Director did a brief interview of three of her staff, Holly (Travel Guide), Jaclyn (Wildlife expert), and Ben (Shore Excursions Manager).  Then at 9:15 Jacqueline gave a talk on when and where is my wildlife that was pretty interesting. She was followed by Ben who gave a first presentation on shore excursions.   I then led a Cruise Critic meet and greet in the Wang Theatre. There were about 50 people in attendance. I was a little apprehensive about the venue because the seating is fixed theater style and not in tables, but it really worked out to be very profitable to have the people seated that way, I gave a short introductio...
Read more