With one more day in Seattle before setting sail for Alaska, we rode the Monorail to the Seattle Centre, a park built for the 1962 World's Fair and home to the famous Space Needle, one of Seattle's most recognizable landmarks. Having already seen the view of the city from the Columbia Tower which simply could not be beat we decided to skip this, instead paying a visit to the nearby EMP Museum with it's eclectic mix of music, Sci Fi and pop culture. The surrounding gardens of the park are great too, with a huge selection of eateries in the old armoury building, and the spectacular International Fountain with its crazy spouts of water, made all the more surreal by many people clad in headgear for Turban Day which was one of many events on that day. On the way back to our hotel that evening we met a Brit from Wolverhampton and ended up have a great chat over a beer or two.
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| International Fountain with the Space Needle in the background |
The shuttle bus came to pick us up at 11 am the following morning and delivered us safely to the dock at Pier 66. Even though there were over three thousand people boarding, check in and loading were very efficient and we were on board and having lunch by just after midday.
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| Party time on the sun deck |
In the hot sunshine of Seattle it was very much a party atmosphere on the sun decks, a steel band playing tunes whilst people swam in the pool or soaked in the hot tub, and several huge charcoal barbeques serving an array of food. Being first time cruisers we spent the rest of the day exploring the ship before having a great dinner, followed by the first of many shows in the theatre.
Day two was a full day at sea, and we were overwhelmed with the things to do on board. In between talks about Glaciers and in-port shopping at Juneau, we booked our shore excursions for the week and started to develop Buffetopbia - the fear of not being able to fit into one's trousers at the end of the week - finally finishing off the evening with "Oh what a night", a tribute show to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
The following morning, as we sailed up the Fjords of the inside passage whilst enjoying breakfast on the rear sun deck, a gray whale breached and slapped its fins very close to our ship, along with many others showing their presence with tell-tale water spouts from their blow hole. If that wasn't spectacular enough, we also saw Sun Fish and on arrival in Juneau at 2pm were greeted by several bald eagles flying around too. After 48 hours at sea it seemed like the entire ship was disembarking so rather than queuing for the coaches we walked the one mile to the town centre of Juneau, the capital of Alaska. The population of 900 swell during summer to around 1800, pretty impressive for a town only accessible by ferry or plane as there are no roads to the outside world. Despite being briefed on board we were taken aback by the number of jewelry stores, most of which follow the cruise ships up from the Caribbean when it gets too hot there in summertime.
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| Boarding the Floatplane |
Without doubt the highlight of the day was a float plane trip on a 1950's De Haviland Otter to view some of the many glaciers in this region from the air, which gave us great glimpse of the vast wilderness of this state that Russia sold to the USA in 1867 for a mere 7.2 million US Dollars. In today's money thats about 121 million dollars, and very much a bargain for what they got. Back on board we had dinner followed by a great show with comedian Bud Anderson.
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| On the White Pass and Yukon Railroad |
The ship docked in Skagway the following morning at 7 am, and after breakfast and disembarkation we booked in for a walking tour with the National Parks Service to learn more about this historic town. Founded at the start of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1878 with just a few tents, only one year later it was a booming town built by serving the needs of Stampeders trying to reach the interior of Canada. The treacherous mountain pass crossing to the goldfields spurned the building of the White Pass and Yukon Railway, now restored and serving the many cruise tourists who visit this remote town. We rode the train up the mountain, briefly crossed into Canada near the 2865 foot summit. Back on the dock we saw seals and sea otters, before dining at one of the ten restaurants on board ship, and then taking in another comedy show by an act called Second City.
Day 5 found us cruising up to Glacier Bay, where at over 1 mile wide and 350 feet high the spectacular Margerie Glacier dominates. Moving up to 7 feet per day, the face regularly cracks and creates a sound know as white thunder - literally a thunder crack like that when lightning strikes, followed by a deep low rumble like ongoing thunder as huge pieces of ice fall up to 300 feet into the sea below.
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| Marjorie Glacier in Glacier Bay |
In contrast, the nearby John Hopkins Glacier is one of only a few in the world that is advancing, thanks to the huge annual snowfall over the steep slopes on which this glacier has formed. After a great and informative talk by one of the park rangers who came aboard by pilot boat that morning, we spotted more whales in the fjord, before another great dinner followed by a show by El Gaucho.
Our time in port at Ketchikan on Day 6 was the shortest, arriving at 6 am and all aboard by 1 pm, so with bleary eyes and by choice without breakfast we stepped ashore at the Salmon Capital of the world, also the second wettest place in the USA, though fortunately dry for us that day. Wandering round historic Creek Street was interesting - famed for the salmon that we saw swimming in the creek, it was also a historic red light area and had a reputation for being the place where both men and salmon came upstream to spawn. We only sampled the wild Alaskan salmon though, followed by a slightly cheesy Lumberjack show, then back on board for 29 hours at sea.
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| Creek Street in Ketchikan, AK. |
For the last full day on board we did our final excursion - a behind the scenes tour of the ship. The main galley area is just huge, with its own bakery, fish,meat and poultry prep rooms, and ship stores. Equally impressive was laundry, with enormous washing machines that take 125 kg loads, rotary ironing machines that iron bed-sheets whole in seconds, and automatic folding machines. Recycling is important too, everything from cardboard, paper and cans to broken plates, food waste and scrap metal, everything is sorted and washed, all the used glass bottles crushed to save space. Backstage in the theatre we saw the workings of the production team, followed by a visit to the bridge to meet our Captain and see the ships controls. This tour may not be everyone's idea of fun but we were fascinated to have the opportunity to see how what most guests never do and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
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| Selfie on the bridge of the NCL Pearl. |
A requirement for internationally registered cruise ships is that they must stop at least once in an international port during every cruise, so the final port of call was Victoria in Canada. Docking at 6pm we only had a few hours there but walked to the Downtown district of this lovely city, and had a reminder of home with the Jersey flag on a plaque commemorating the 1994 Commonwealth Games. We also met two huge and friendly Black Russian Terriers, a dog breed that we had not seen or heard of before.
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| Panorama of Downtown Victoria at sunset |
We thoroughly enjoyed our glimpse of Alaska, as well as our first time cruising, and know that we chose well with Norwegian Cruise Lines. Docking in Seattle today (Sunday 17th August) we are back on dry land and looking forward to another few days in this lovely city whilst the sun shines. Having written about what we've seen and done this last week but not too much about the ship, food, entertainment etc we may well write another post soon about those experiences, its all been very positive.
Meanwhile we also enjoyed a tiny taste of Canada and are now looking forward to going back there later next week to meet up with a friend from Jersey and her husband in Vancouver. Its only for a few days then we'll be heading of towards Yellowstone National Park.
Update: -
click this link to see more of our photos from Alaska
