8/17/22 Board the Ship

We got to breakfast and the line for the bus assignments a few minutes before 7am when the restaurant was due to open. Apparently there were a bunch of people who understood the plan better than we did, because by the time we got to the head of the line, the first 2 busses were already full. That taught us to arrive at least 15 minutes before requested which served us well and allowed us to get on our bus second to select seat near the front.

The bus driver was also sort of a tour guide and tried to help us find wild life and understand the surroundings as we went. He claimed there was a bald eagle on a rock in the bay along the road, but it just looked like a tall rock. Later as we got on the ship, we saw an eagle flying low along the length of the ship. He also told us to look for beluga whales in the bay and apparently there were several. What we saw were several random white caps which apparently was the belugas quickly surfacing and diving. What we did see for sure was several red salmon in a small river on their way to spawn. He said that you don’t want to try to catch one then, that they stop eating on their way to the spawning ground and basically use up their bodies on the way to their destination.

We boarded our ship around 1pm with a minimum of hassles. Cabins were due to be ready no later than 2:30, so we had a buffet lunch with champagne included. Since we had reservations at a steak specialty restaurant at 7 to celebrate Jim’s birthday, we wanted to eat relatively light.

Cabins were ready early so we went to ours and discovered birthday decorations and a bottle of champagne for Jim. We unpacked what we had and set out to explore. The Seven Seas Mariner carries around 700 passengers, making it the biggest ship I have been on. We found the theater, several restaurants, a casino, shops, a running track, putting green, and pool (with temperatures in the low 60s, we skipped bringing swimsuits) and the spa, where I got a massage reservation for the next day. Our luggage did arrive before dinner which allowed us to make a couple changes to the plan for the evening, but it only came about an hour or less before dinner, so I was VERY glad we were ready for the worst.

Easy to tell what day it is....

Above: The view from our cabin when we arrived.
Below: the view when the sun appeared.

 

We set sail around 5pm and the seas were pretty rough for a while. Thankfully, they calmed down during dinner. We ate at a shared table since I hadn’t been able to get a table for two and met Lynn (the husband) and Gale (whose middle name was Lynne) from Maryland and Kimberly from Washington D.C. At the end, Jim got a special dessert (big enough to share around the table) and the wait staff all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ (which I have always been asked NOT to instigate).

8/16/22 North to Alaska

We actually got started on this trip on 8/15 when we got a required PCR test after the tour we led in Chinatown and then went to visit Erika and Jesse and help with the boys until after dinner when we checked into an airport hotel and got a room with a view of San Francisco Bay.

We got up at 3am to catch our 6:30am flight to Anchorage, Alaska by way of Seattle. We were originally unhappy about having a nearly 3.5 hour layover in Seattle. However, our plane had technical problems and we were DE-boarded after about an hour and several people were moved to other flights due to tighter connections. We were told as long as we departed by 10sm, we would make our connection and we actually ended up with about an hour in Seattle, enough to grab a hot sandwich for lunch.

The arrival to Anchorage was uneventful (this is good) and on time. Our room at the Anchorage Hilton even has a view of the inlet to the Gulf of Alaska. 

The view from our room

Dinner on the ship requires ‘Country Club’ or ‘Elegant’ Casual which means no polo shirts, tees, jeans, or hiking clothing and there was no guarantee on when precisely our luggage would arrive in our room, so we totally rearranged using a collapsible bag we brought along to move one night’s dinner clothing to this bag so we could carry it on the bus tomorrow to get to Seward where the ship is.

We were greeted by a group that checked all of our required documentation (vaccine card, passport, negative PCR test, and Canadian arrival documentation – this one needed work and the staff there quickly resolved our questions) and got a ticket which allowed us to get a bus assignment the next day. Seward is 140 miles south of Anchorage and the bus takes almost 3 hours. A later bus means more time to explore Anchorage and less time to settle into the ship and explore it, so we planned to get to breakfast when it started to get an early ticket.

For dinner, we selected a nearby Thai restaurant vs the many seafood options, since we anticipate a wealth of seafood on the trip. It was not busy and we were a bit concerned, but the issue was that it was only 5:45pm AND Monday. The food was quite tasty.