September 24th – Fresh off the boat

We landed in Seattle early in the morning and people started getting off the boat. Trish and I took our time getting up and showered before getting some breakfast. We went to the buffet and tried to find some food to eat from whatever stations were left open. Once we were done we headed down to the room, grabbed out back packs and headed off the ship.

At least that’s what we thought we were going to do. There was a gigantic lineup to get off the ship. The lineup of all lineups… This thing went from the exit ramp on the 4^th deck, about 200 meters along the outside deck, through the doors on to the inside of the ship, passed the picture place, the casino, and finally in the main hall. All told this line had to be at least 500 meters long. Crazy I say, completely nuts!

We’re not stupid, so we didn’t line up. Instead we found some comfy seats and chilled while people were in line. About an hour later there was a call on the PA system telling people to get off the boat. So we walked off the boat with the few other stragglers left. No lineup for us… suckers.

We get off the boat and find our luggage in the luggage bay. There was tons of people everywhere so I decide to put the wine glasses in our bags. Well, after some great effort and reorganizing of bags I fit one box of glasses in. I was going to start finding a spot for the second box when someone came by to kick us out. They’re telling us that the people for the next cruise are coming to drop their luggage off. So I start closing up the bags and someone else comes to tell us the same story. In the span of 5 minutes a total of four people told us the same story. Give it a rest already, I’m going as fast as I can.

In an attempt to get us out faster, one of the guys got us a cart to put our luggage on and then pushed it out of the terminal for us. We were headed from pier 66 to pier 69, so the bell hop guy decided to help us. He walked with us over to the next pier and wheeled our bags all the way into the Victoria clipper terminal. We checked our bags in and tipped our bell hop. The clipper even had a spot where we could leave carry-on bags for a buck a piece.

We had some free time so we visited the Smith Tower. Trish found a Groupon for a cheap visit of the tower, it was pretty cool but nothing super spectacular. We found a good place for lunch and roamed around some before heading back to the ferry to head to Victoria.

Trying to organize the lineup for the clipper was a little odd. They had a number system and people were confused. The workers explained the system very poorly, but eventually people formed a line and we were moving on the boat. This one lady had an excited pug dog that was wandering around until she told him to sit. Apparently he didn’t want to sit so she repeated “Sit!” and then when he didn’t comply a second time she added “Hey! This is not optional!” and the dog sat. Lady, instead of teaching your dog to sit at the command of “Hey! This is not optional!” maybe you should try training him to obey the plain old “sit” command.

The clipper ride was uneventful and we checked in at the Fairmont Empress on our arrival in Victoria. We headed over to the Old Spaghetti Factory for supper. I wonder why there aren’t any spaghetti factories in the US… it seems like a popular chain in Canada. Trish and I had a very wavy supper… it felt like we were still on the boat though we were fairly certain that the restaurant was not swaying. After a good meal we hit the sack… finally a comfy bed.

Thursday, September 23rd – The final night

Well, the 23^rd wasn’t the most exciting day. We were to spend most of the day on the water and land in Victoria at night. What a scam, the cruise says that it goes to Victoria, but really it only stops from 7pm-11pm. Scam. This was the last night on the ship though, so there was bound to be some fun stuff, right?

Well, there was food everywhere, kinda like they were trying to get rid of all the leftover food they had. This couldn’t really be the case because they were just gonna load up another bunch of tourists for the next cruise anyways. So those people could eat the food we didn’t.

Apparently someone on the ship wanted to celebrate October fest because we found a food station that didn’t normally exist. It was outside on the pool deck, there was a bunch of workers freezing their asses off trying to serve people some food. There was sausage and sauerkraut but the best part was the pig. They had what Filipinos call lechon. It’s basically suckling pig roasted to have crispy skin. So tasty… they even had the heads on display to demonstrate that is was authentic lechon or something.

We hung around the boat and did mostly nothing until supper time. This was the last supper seeing as this was going to be the last night on the boat. On top of that, dinner was early because the boat was going to be in Victoria for the evening. So our normal seats at 8:30 were moved up to 7:30. We considered going to the 5pm seating, but we were too lazy. When we got to the dining room the place was empty. I was half expecting to see tumbleweed roll on by. It was kind of a bonus for us because that meant that the wait staff could spend more time with us, making our dining experience a little faster than normal. We took some pictures of the staff and said our goodbyes. Even with the additional hoopla of pictures and giving the crew an extra little tip we still made it out in less than 90 minutes.

We got to our room and as usual the room staff had done the turn down service. What wasn’t normal was that our stuff was out of the fridge… Why would they take our stuff out of the fridge? So I figure I’ll just put it back in the fridge… what kind of jerk takes my stuff out of my fridge? Right. The kind of jerk that also locks the fridge. What about the paperwork that was also in the fridge cabinet you ask? Well you probably don’t ask cus you probably didn’t know that I had paperwork in the fridge cabinet… in fact you might not have known that our fridge was in a cabinet at all. In any case, the result was that they took the paperwork and unceremoniously dumped it on top of a night table. Screw the room staff, no additional tip for them. If I can’t keep my cake in the fridge, they don’t get money!

We took the time to pack and leave our luggage in the hallway as instructed and then we left for Victoria. Rainy, drizzly, dark, damp, dreary Victoria. We spent our time location Shoppers Drug Mart and getting stuff for Trish’s long lost friend Cecilia. I don’t recall if I mentioned her before, but seeing as I’ve forgotten, I’m betting you guys don’t remember her either. She’s Trish’s friend from school in London (Ontario for you Americans), and we bumped into her at the spa place on the boat. Anyways, she wanted us to spend her money on Shoppers stuff, so we did. It turned out that our adventure in Victoria ran short, because of the indecisiveness and difficult to find items. Whatever we were coming right back to Victoria after we got off the boat tomorrow anyways.

We get back to the boat and head to our room. As we were getting ready to sleep, there’s a knock on the door. Trish had gotten some fancy wine glasses and they were to be delivered to our room. We had completely forgotten about them when we packed, mostly because we didn’t have them yet. So now we’re left with two somewhat big boxes of wine glasses and nowhere to put them. The sommelier chick that served us all week at the restaurant was the one to bring us the glasses and after some debating Trish asked her for a bag. She did finally find us a bag our only other option would have been to ship them home for $30. Awesome, sommelier chick saved us $30… woot.

As we were roaming the halls that night, trying to figure out the bag situation we did bump into Cecilia’s fiancé. He works in the finance department on the boat and this was one of his busy nights. We chatted a bit and he made working on a boat sound pretty good. Maybe that’s what I’ll do next. Trish and I could find jobs on a cruise ship and travel the world in a giant boat… why not?

September 22nd – Chilling on Chilly Waters

We got up late again, and got dressed for brunch. They had a special brunch on the boat today and the dress code was smart casual and above. When we got to the restaurant it was a zoo. People everywhere. We got seated at a random table with another couple and we headed off to the special buffet brunch. The food here was way better than the regular buffet, but the people were acting like idiots. Since they were circular tables with food on them, it was very hard to form lines to get at the food. So people just bumped into each other trying to get at the utensils to serve themselves. I looked like they thought that it was the end of the world and there would never be more food after this.

When we got back to our table a third couple had been seated with us and there was a redneck in jeans and a t-shirt. Last I checked their dress code for smart casual specifically stated no jeans and no t-shirts. I don’t know why they bother telling us what the dress code is because they never enforce it. Trish and I packed a whole pile of extra clothes so that we could follow the dress code for the meals but apparently we were pretty much the only ones who did. Well maybe not the only ones because at the table next to us a lady was bitching about the exact same thing. What’s even funnier is that she was complaining to another well-dressed couple about people wearing hoodies and ignoring the dress code while one of the people sitting at her table was wearing a hoodie! I’m sure that hoodie wearing girl must have felt awesome.

Anyways, back to our redneck at the table. The only thing out of his mouth was football. His wife and the other couple tried to change the subject a multitude of times but he would just interrupt any other conversation to talk about either football or halibut. Apparently they were told there would be halibut at the buffet. As he chomped down on snow crab legs and shrimp the stupid redneck complained that there was no halibut. Get a life dude. Maybe if you followed the dress code they would have gotten you some halibut. After he shoved a couple of plates of food down his throat they left, so we had a conversation with the other couple.

The only thing that bugged me about the brunch apart from the stupid redneck was the waiter. Miraslov the waiter from some eastern European country was not a very good waiter. In fact, he truly sucked ass. We had come to expect good service on the boat as our waiters for supper were pretty good but this guy’s name should be Miraslob. We would go back to the buffet, grab a new plate of food and expect that our plate would be cleared by the time we got back. Not so, the plates were still there, and there was so much stuff on the table that there was nowhere else to put plates. So we just stacked our new plate of food on top of our dirty plate. That meant that crab shells and other assorted junk fell on the table and whatnot. Even after the redneck and his wife left Miraslob didn’t pick up their dishes. Oh and don’t get me started on trying to get our water glasses refilled or getting more hot water for tea. He was never around, in fact it was easier to flag down some other waiter from some other section to get them to help us.

We did get our fill of delicious food though, the menu at the brunch was pretty impressive. Omelets, pasta and stir fry made to order, a wide selection of meat and fish, both hot and cold dishes. The only thing that wasn’t very good was the sushi, the rice was just no good, the rolls sucked, but if you just ate the fish off the rest it was ok.

After food we got changed and headed off to the gym, we worked out and then hit the Persian gardens. We relaxed in the steam room and on the heated benches, then we headed to the hot tub. I don’t know who designed this hot tub but they were a little strange. To make the bubbles in the hot tub in addition to the water jets this tub had air bubbles. The bubbles started both at the feet and on the edge of the benches. The problem was the air was cold, so basically you had cold air blowing on your feet and more prominently your crotch. Why would you put air jets on the seats? Anyways, I’ve seen better hot tubs.

After the hot tub we entered the pool. Now this was a cool experience. At the time we were at sea and the waters were a little rough so the ship was swaying. Seeing as the pool is 10 stories up on the ship, it swayed quite a bit up there. So basically the pool was like a wave pool. It was pretty much a tiny version of whatever ocean we were sailing over. Sometimes the waves would be side to side, sometimes back to front, and most of the time just plain diagonal. Hard to swim in but cool to just stand around and experience. On the sides of the pool they had some weird metal bars that were shaped like lounge chairs so you could hang out in those while still in the water. They also had a bit of bubble action, combined with the waves in the pool it was pretty interesting.

Later in the evening we went to see the show “Around the world”. There’s a song and dance troupe of performers on the ship, but most of the shows were at inconvenient times or just not interesting. This one sounded better. So we went to watch it, and most of it was playing on stereotypes rather than really explaining anything about the world. It seemed about as likely to insult or entertain guests. They had all sorts of song and dance going on but there was one red head that kinda stuck out. She stuck out not because she was good but because she was stuck in ballerina mode. So every dance she did looked more like ballet than whatever dance she was supposed to be doing. This was especially noticeable when she was trying to perform a highland dance. Anyways, we had to get ready for supper and the show wasn’t that great, so we took off.

Supper was good and I was told that they would sing happy birthday for me because I was absent yesterday. After we were done our meals they had a big show to thank all the waiters, kitchen staff and organizers. Then at the end of the show the waiters came down with the night’s desert, the baked Alaska. Basically Neapolitan ice cream covered in meringue and torched. After that was served, they came around with a cake for me. Richard, Lawrence and Vladimir sang a chorus of “Happy Birpday” heh, flips have a funny accent… After they were done singing Richard announced that I couldn’t eat the cake because it was full of dairy and then he took it away! Scam! But he came back with a crème brule that was made with soy milk… not bad. It tasted like vanilla jell-o pudding. Nothing like a crème brule should taste but it was way better than sorbet or fruit.

Since this was the last night at sea, there was a party in the Constellation bar. It was the 20^th anniversary party for Celebrity cruises. We headed up to check out the party and the free champagne. The party was boring, but we sat around and made fun of people. Some many people looked ridiculous that it was easy to make fun of them. One lady had a hairdo right our of the 50’s or something… it was huge hair big poufy and combed back. Some people were wearing corny looking clothes but the big winner of the night sat right next to us. She must have been in her 60’s and she was wearing a long sleeved mini-dress with cut out shoulders along with some knee high boots. Pretty much what you’d expect a high-class hooker to wear. I’m sorry lady, but you should probably cover up a bit more.

We left the party planning to take a stroll outside but it was raining, so we decided to go to the pool deck since one of the pools is outside. The ship was swaying so much that the pools were spilling all over the deck. They were all closed too. So much for strolling around there. Ah well, we headed back to our room and retired for the night.

September 21st - The best day of the year

You may wonder why September 21^st is the best day of the year, but it’s not a very big secret. A while back, on September 21^st, a woman named Claire had a baby. And that baby was awesome. So because of this awesome baby, September 21^st is officially the best day of the year. Look it up… really… On a completely unrelated topic, my mom’s name is Claire.

We had a late start this morning, we were expecting to leave the ship around noon to go rent a car. Trish had booked a car with a company in Skagway. The plan for the day was a leisure drive up to Carcross in the Yukon. Carcross is a really popular place and people reference it all the time. You see, Carcross is “the middle of nowhere”. When you reference “the middle of nowhere” you’re actually talking about Carcross. It’s halfway between Fraser and Whitehorse. Thus, the middle of nowhere.

Trish had invited another couple along. She had met Amanda at the sauna a couple of days ago. So we waited for her at the prearranged meeting time and when she didn’t show up we took off. No point in wasting all our time waiting. Turned out they wasted their money on some stupid shore excursion. Of we go to Skagway, The start of the Yukon gold trail was here, since the boats couldn’t get any closer to the Yukon. Apparently the prospectors would land here and have to carry one year’s worth of supplies to the Canadian border before Canada would let them in. Even with the year’s supply, most of them died. Canada is just a rough place to live.

So we wander over to “Sourdough Rentals” to get our car. There are only two rental places in Skagway, Sourdough and Avis. Avis, being the more popular rental place had run out of cars a few weeks back when Trish had called to make a reservation. Sourdough on the other hand has a ridiculous name, thus less people rent from them. So Trish was able to make arrangements for a car.

When we got to the rental place it inspired nothing but confidence. I mean, wouldn’t you always rent your car from a place that doubles for one of those places that takes period pictures? We walked in to the rental place and there was a camera set up and costumes everywhere. If you wanted your picture taken to look like you were part of the gold rush, you were at the right spot. If you wanted a car though, the only indication that they rented cars was the sign outside.

Trish spotted the employee moving a car outside, pulling it up by the curb. She got his attention and he came in to rent us the car. When we told him that we had a reservation he told us that was good because he’d had to turn 20 people away already today cus he didn’t have any cars. Really guy? 20 people walked in to your picture shop to rent a car? We had a reservation with him and we weren’t sure we were at the right spot. Ok whatever, he can keep his story. Where’s my car? Lucky for us he hadn’t rented our car, but he mentioned that the front tire was a little wonky, but no worries it straightened out at 20 mph. He’d even give us $20 off cus the tire was wonky.

When renting a car if you had the option of A) Regular car for $80 or B) Car with wonky tire for $60, which would you choose if you were driving windy mountain roads? I’d pick A too… But this guy didn’t give us an A option, instead he gave us a C) don’t rent a car and stay stuck in Skagway. So we chose option B), wonky tire it is.

Even with the wonky tire, the road from Skagway to Carcross is awesome. The sights are amazing. There’s a spot along the way where glacier water meets regular water. There was a thin sand bank separating the two. It was really cool to see the difference in colour of the two sitting there side by side. Driving is definitely the way to go too, we saw a train stop at Fraser (the Canadian border crossing) and the passengers got off, the train workers swiveled the seats around and then everyone got back on. Apparently that was a $120 ride, each. So it would have cost us $240 to take a ride to Fraser, stop there for 15 minutes and then ride back to Skagway. Instead we spent $60 on the wonky wheel car and I bet we saw more interesting stuff on the way cus we got to stop all over the place. The only cool thing about the train really was the train itself. It had three engines for fourteen passenger cars, that’s gotta be some crazy slopes uphill.

After Fraser we made our way to the suspended bridge. Normally suspended bridges are in places where people want to cross, but not this one… why would anyone want to cross a ravine in the mountains in the middle of nowhere? Nope, this bridge was built purely for tourists. It was very clear that it was only for tourists when we had the audacity of actually stopping there. Here, our first stop in Canada apart from the border, we met the first rude person of the day. Thanks rude suspended bridge lady, with your effort everyone visiting through there will think all Canadians are jerks.

So we stop at the suspended bridge and Trish has her big camera out. Everything is hidden from view by big wooden fences though, so no pictures to take yet. I go up to the lady who’s just milling about. “Hi” I say. “Hi, it’s 11.50 to cross the bridge” she says as she hands me a little pamphlet. I kinda shrug it off, there’s a food shop and a gift shop about 10 meters passed her. So I kinda walk around her slowly just strolling, and she takes a few steps to block my path. So I’m confused cus there’s still about 5 meters before the little booth to pay, and it looks like a clear path to the shops. So I look at her, she’s clearly expecting me to pay her. “Can we just look around?” I ask pointing at the gift shop. “No, you can not” she spits out apparently offended. Ok, crazy lady, I didn’t really want to see a suspended bridge in the middle of nowhere with no real use. And I’m clearly not going to spend $23 to walk in and have the opportunity to spend more money at your freaken gift shop. Nope, crazy bridge lady, you can shove it. So we walked back to the car and drove off, unfortunately there was no exit at the other end of the parking lot, so we spun around and drove back. The crazy bridge lady so desperately wanted to prevent us from taking pictures that she had walked out from her little tourist ambush location to make sure that we didn’t stop at the far end of the parking lot to take pictures. Crazy.

Carcross, short for Caribou Crossing a.k.a. the middle of nowhere. We made it, and we turn on to the dirt road that leads into town. Well, I presume that it was only a dirt road because they were fixing it. There was a somewhat paved road in town along with the tourist information place. One of the questions I asked to the tourist information lady was “So, what is there to do in town?” Apparently nothing… nope, apart from the self guided walking tour of nowhere Yukon, there’s nothing to do. The gift shop was closed, and that was the only other tourist attraction in town. She did send us to see the world’s smallest desert though.

It turns out that the worlds smallest desert is not a desert at all. It’s an old lake bed. The glaciers used to hang out in the area and they melted, just like they do now. The melt waters made a lake who’s bottom filled up with glacial silt. When the glaciers receded after the ice age, nothing was left to feed the lake, so it dried up. The silt is pretty much ultra fine sand. So there you have it a giant sandy area. So they called it a desert, even if it rains all the time. These people should probably look up the definition of desert… or maybe I need to look it up. Either way, someone is wrong cus I wouldn’t call that a desert at all.

On the way back to Skagway we stop by the American border crossing. The guy asks us if we bought anything, “antlers, fins, wings” and he named a few other strange things. I answer “Nope, all the gift shops were closed” to which he replies “Yep, it’s that time of the year.” Buddy, why the hell do you ask me if I bought souvenirs if you knew that all the souvenir shops were closed? Stop bugging me with your stupid questions and let me cross the freaken border.

Well, we get back to town and I drop Trish off at the boat with all our gear. I then proceed to drop the car back off with it’s wonky tire at the rental place. Nobody’s there obviously because the guy had told us that he would close up shop right after we left. So I toss the keys in the slot and make my way back to the boat. Apparently 15 minutes after Trish ad gotten on the boat they had called her and asked where I was. They scan the cards of people as they get on and off the boat so they always know where you are. Apparently they assumed that Trish had murdered me and dumped me in a ditch in Skagway. Clearly there was no other reason why she would get on the ship without me. They bought her story that I was dropping off the car, but I didn’t believe her… huh? Right, now that you’re sufficiently confused, let’s move on with the story.

Speaking of confused after I got back we heard a lady in the hall. Maybe she was off her meds, or took the wrong meds, or maybe she was just high but I quote: “Houston we have a problem” was the first thing she said. Followed by “Run mom run” and then a few beeps like a truck backing up. Yep, clearly a nut job.

After laughing at the crazy lady in the hall, we got dressed and headed out to the SS United States. The fancy restaurant on the ship. You pay $35 extra per person and you get a fancy supper. That’s right you crazy Americans, not a dinner but a supper. We had told them earlier that it was my birthday and that I was allergic to dairy so they took good care of me. My appetizer had a couple of triangles of philo dough as a decoration and the waiter came rushing back with a pair of forks and a plate to remove the dough while apologizing profusely. Now that’s service. I had some foie gras, some sweetbreads and surf and turf. Everything was really good, but Trish got the most awesome dish. She ordered lobster bisque… yeah, it’s soup, what’s so awesome about that? Well, let me tell you.

The soup came in pieces. First she got a bowl with a little green mound in the middle and lobster chunks strewn about. The mound consisted of leek, pureed and placed dead center of a pretty big bowl. Next there was a side dish for additional topping and a little bowl of cognac cream. Then the waiter poured the soup out of a big teapot, he made big circles around the mound of leek and the soup filled the bowl until only the top of the mound stuck out of the soup. Awesome presentation and apparently it tasted good too.

Trish ate other stuff too… Lobster thermidor, and some appetizer, but whatever the cool part of her meal was the soup. After our food came the cheese cart. Lots of great cheeses, Trish had brought some lactose pills, so she went ahead and enjoyed even more dairy. I wish those lactose pills worked for me. Oh well, all the cheeses looked awesome.

Then we got some dessert, woot. They came out with a cake for me, and the one guy sang “Happy birthday Newton” That’s also what was written on the cake. Maybe they thought that Newton was my first name… I mean, who the hell would have their first name be Jonathan, that’s way too hard to pronounce. Anyways, they assured me that the cake was dairy free, and consisted of strawberries and chocolate and they’ll have it delivered to my state room. Awesome, I’m ready to dig in. Wait… delivered to my state room? I was confused just long enough for the guy to take my cake away. Gah! So he came back with Trish’s dessert and a weird concoction for me. He described Trish’s dessert, she had the Quattro apples, so apples four ways. After his long description of Trish’s desert, telling her what each kind of apple dessert was, he turns to me and says “And for you sir, uh” and then he stares at the dessert in his hand before coming up with “A special dessert!” as a description. It was wafers and dark chocolate stacked together with a little drizzle of caramel. It was pretty awesome. But apparently it doesn’t have a name.

After a delicious meal Trish and I took a stroll and finally returned to our state room. It was pretty late, but some dude showed up with my cake. We had to cut it up to make it fit in the tiny bar fridge though. Quite a shame to cut up such a nice cake but we just weren’t hungry. Tomorrow is another day, and this time the regular restaurant promised me a special dessert too… Maybe my luck on dessert was changing. No more sorbet for me!

Monday Sept 20th - Fjords of Alaska

We woke up this morning crazy early and headed up to the top floor. The ship was sailing into the Tracy Arm Fjord… Great plan I tell you, I’m sure nothing ever repeats the whole Titanic thing, but it seems kind of stupid. Here you have a giant ship and you take it a couple hours inland to end up at a dead end facing a Glacier. Now once you see the pictures you’ll notice that the water has tons of stuff floating in it. We even got a picture of an iceberg with a seal on it. If the seal is 5 feet long, then the iceberg has to be 50 long… I also caught a series of about 70 photos of an iceberg breaking up, rolling over, breaking up some more and rolling back with fountains of water erupting all over. Yep, just drive your boat right by these, it’s as safe as can be… really. I have to admit that the glacier was awesome, and it was a really cool thing to see one from the water, but someday one of these ships is gonna hit something and then it’ll be a headline. “Cruise ship sink in Alaskan fjord. 300 people stuck on iceberg!” And they’ll only be stuck on the iceberg until that sucker breaks to pieces explosively with lots of churning and rolling.

On a lighter note, I doubt many people on this boat have actually seen winter. We were up on deck and sure it was windy, but it wasn’t cold, maybe 10 degrees Celsius. The wind made it a little colder, but these people looked like they were about to die of the cold. People were wearing all sorts of stuff on the deck. If you were to decide what kind of weather to expect based on what people were wearing your expectations would range from blizzard to heavy rain to a windy summer day. But then if you looked at the people wearing the stuff, those wearing gear meant for a windy summer day ranged from freezing their asses off to freezing even more of their asses off. Even the people dressed for a blizzard seemed to be cold out there, grabbing some extra blankets to cover themselves. I don’t think there are many Canadians on the boat. I saw very few people who looked comfortable in the cold. And many people gave me a funny look as I walked by wearing shorts and a windbreaker. The only thing I was missing was a hair elastic, the wind was whipping my hair in my face. I would have probably been better off wearing pants but the cruise has been too warm so far, a some cool air was a welcome change.

Anyways, enough about the weather. We’ve got a bazillion pictures from this place, so you guys will have a chance to see this stuff too. Heh, again with the MS Word, apparently bazillion is a real word… It can’t spell flavour correctly but it’ll let you put in bazillion. Microsoft needs to fix up its English. Well, next stop Juneau, we should be there in a couple hours.

Random thought before I leave… Do ships like this produce “road kill”? The answer is yes! And apparently, if you hit a whale you get fined something like $275K!!!! With a quarter million dollar fine, how do you enforce it? The honor system is right out, nobody is going to go out of their way to declare they it a whale if they then have to pay you a huge chunk of cash. Do they have specially trained coast guards? “Hey there captain, looks like you go whale blubber all up in your grill, we’re gonna have to fine you…” Do they have some sort of test to see what kind of whale guts are stuck to your boat? What if the whale was already dead? Do they have to catch you in the act? So there you have it folks, there’s a fine if you hit a whale, but there’s no way to enforce it… so really it’s just there to scare people into behaving. Isn’t the government so smart?

Now that I’m back from Juneau, time to continue the story… We went to the buffet for lunch and I asked the pizza guy to make me a cheeseless pizza. You’ve probably all seen me eat the stuff, it’s pretty good, the only problem is keeping the toppings on. Anyways, the guy making the pizza was clearly Indian or something, and I really doubt that pizza was a mainstay where he’s from. In any case, you’d think that he would at least learn the names of the part of the pizza. Because apparently a pizza with no cheese is “just the base, sauce and toppings?” Base, dough, what’s the difference. In his defense though, he made me a seafood pizza that was really good, thin crust, lots of toppings. But the way he gave it to me was hilarious. He clearly wasn’t gonna try to serve this cheeseless pizza to anyone else, so when it was cooked, he looked around for a plate it would fit in, and when he finally gave up he tossed it onto one of the cloth covered trays. They’re like McDonalds trays, but instead of the paper liner, these guys use cloth. So pizza on tray, done. I split the pizza with trish since it was a 12 or 14 inch pizza, but with the super thin crust and no cheese it wasn’t very filling. We ate our pizza with salad and off we went…

We got to the disembarkation place and there was a huge lineup, so we decided to go somewhere else instead of spend our time waiting in yet another line. As we were walking to our room we were talking and I said “We can just find something to do for 30 minutes” and some old guy in the hallway said “I wonder what that could be?” heh, dirty old man.

We were roaming around Juneau trying to figure out what to do. Trish had read that there was a bus that went to the glacier in Juneau. So I headed towards one of the tour booths at random, they pretty much all advertised the same stuff. Honestly, why would anyone have 12 different booths all set up by different people but all selling the same shit. That doesn’t make sense. If the ads they had one the front of their booths were different in content that might mean something, but the ads were only different in look. Some were blue, some were green, some said “$7 bus tour” others said “Glacier Bus $7”, but really it all added up to the same thing. Lame. Anyways, I picked one at random and started talking to the guy. Trish spotted some smoked salmon on the guy’s counter, and asked if it was his snack. He said yes, and offered her the salmon. Trish ate it all without even sharing… Then she said she was thirsty so Mike (the booth guy) gave her his bottle of water. In the mean time he had talked me into taking a more expensive guided tour of Juneau. So I guess everyone was happy… Mike had his sale, Trish had her snack and I… well, I wasn’t super happy because I spent about $40 more than I was expecting to spend.

We had a bit of time to kill before our tour so we checked out the smoked salmon shop. I don’t know if they plate their smoked salmon with gold or if they encrust them with diamonds, but $50 a pound for smoked salmon is a bit much. We did find some weird birch syrup. So maybe that will be tasty, we got a tiny bottle for $9, it’s a rip off but I’ve never seen the stuff before. And it was way cheaper than the gold plated salmon.

We got in the van with Jerry the tour guide. He was a nice fellow who told us all sorts of stories about Alaska and Juneau. He droves us to a few places including the glacier and a small chapel. We saw some bald eagles, and some far away whales. One of the ladies on the tour with us was from Missouri and she hadn’t bothered to bring her jacket with her. Her amazing logic was that it had been warm in Ketchikan, so clearly, the following day in a town a few hundred miles north of Ketchikan, it should be just as warm. Best logic ever if you ask me. So the stupid lady was freezing her ass off at the glacier and then she retreated to the van, but she was still shaking from the cold. So when we got to the little chapel place, I felt sorry for her so I offered her my jacket. It was 15 Celsius out, and if you’re from Missouri, that might be crazy cold, but where I’m from that’s a warm spring day. So I was fine with just a T-shirt on. Anyways, she appreciated the jacket and returned it when we got in the van. She should have kept it until the end of the tour because she was still freezing in the van. Whatever, next time she goes to Alaska, she’ll probably have a bit more sense.

Word of advice, if you really hate line ups, don’t go on a cruise. When we got back from the tour, we had to line up to board the ship. This kinda sucked because the line was so long it was going from the docks to the shops. The shops of course were closing because Jerry the tour guide had told us that once the cruise ships left, so did the shops. And this was the last cruise day of the season. Strange, we go from town to town to see the same shops in each town, and the shops are only there for the cruise ships. This seems like an elaborate plan to steal people’s money…

Back on board we went to supper. Richard and Lawrence, our waiters, are normally very attentive but tonight something must have been on their minds. Maybe I blended in with the background, or I wasn’t as interesting as Trish or perhaps someone had slipped ruffies in their drinks. The end result was that they kept forgetting about me. After our appetizers they served Trish her salad and left me with my dirty appetizer plate. Trish was halfway done her salad and I still had nothing so she stopped eating to wait for me to get my salad. Instead they tried to clear her salad from her. The second time someone tried to take her salad away she mentioned that to Lawrence that I never got my salad. So he went to check and finally came back with a salad for me. Then they’d refill Trish’s water glass and leave mine almost empty… it was really really weird. But hey, you can’t win em all, so whatever. The food was good. My dairy free desert today was some fruit and some dark chocolate along with the sorbet… Not very great, but he promised me the chef was looking into it. Meh, that’s life, but this time Vladimir the maitre d’ came by to let me know that the chef was trying to figure something out for me. I guess people who are lactose intolerant just suck it up for desert? It seems to me like dairy free food should be available when you’re on a boat with over a thousand people on it.

Voyage to Alaska – The Blog

Let me start with a little preface on this one… Trish has convinced me to write a blog about our Alaska trip because of a few reasons. First, we have a lot of time on our hands. Second, we have a computer handy. Third, she assures me that you guys like reading my blogs, and if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming that she’s right. Lastly, we have a lot of time on our hands… really. I’d also like to note that this blog will probably be posted in a huge chunk, because, well, we’re in Alaska, and the internet sucks here.

This is Sunday, 19 September, 2010. Our adventure started 3 days ago, on the 16^th. We woke up at the unimaginable hour of 4am, or something like that, and we headed off to the airport. Our flight was pretty good, and it didn’t take us long to get to Seattle. Once in Seattle we met up with Jerry, the guy who works for the limo service we booked. Now before you go off on a rant wondering how I could afford a limo to take me from the airport to my hotel, no, I did not win the lottery. Trish bought a Groupon, making the limo company the same price as a cab. Unfortunately for us, the limo service also uses SUVs… wtf? I would expect it from “Discount Dale’s Limos etc.” but the limo service we booked had a legit sounding name… and last I checked, SUVs are not luxury cars. Anyways, the day as just beginning so we checked in and roamed Seattle by foot. Nothing super exciting to report there. Seattle is still a city, it’s still got pike market and it’s still got rain.

17^th 11am Game time. We grabbed a cab and headed to the dock. Looking out the window we spotted the ship at the end of one of the side streets, looked like a pretty big ship. But then it dawned on me… we still had to go down the hill to the docks… and the ship was just about our height. When we got to the docks, the ship dwarfed everything around it. Crazy big thing.

We were herded like cattle (or sheep, your pick) on our way into the terminal. First line up for baggage drop, then line up for security (kinda like at the airport). Then line up for room keys. More lineups on the gangplank. Line up for some mimosas and champagne. Line up for hand sanitizer??? Ok enough lineups we’re on the ship already! Oh wait, it’s lunchtime and everyone wants to eat lunch! Lineup at the buffet… wait for a table to free itself up… so many people on this thing. Though I’d like to point out that the buffet dining room is on the 10^th floor of this crazy big ass ship and is the size of hmm… probably a football field. Possibly with bleachers. The food was pretty good though, I don’t recall what I ate, but it was good because I don’t remember it being horrible.

Finally our room was ready so we headed down to set up our luggage. If you’re reading this far, you’ve probably read my China blog. And if you remember from that blog I was complaining about how small my room was, because it was pretty ridiculously tiny. Well folks we have a new record!!!! This room is even smaller, no windows either cus we took the el cheapo inside room. The whole back wall is a mirror though, because it makes it look bigger I guess. The bathroom in this thing is also tiny, barely enough room for one person in there. And if you open the bathroom door while someone is using the closet, bad things happen.

Once we’re all unpacked we get visited by Palton, our room guy… He’s got some sort of title that makes him sound cool, but I can’t really recall it right now. He’s like our personal housekeeping contact. Anyways, Palton lets us know that our supper is at the sit down restaurant called Trellis at 8:30. When we booked we had the choice between 6 or 8:30, do we picked the late one. We had some time to kill before supper so we roamed the ship. There’s a casino, an indoor pool, an outdoor pool, 8 hot tubs, a running track, a shopping mall, a movie theater, a real theater, a fancy restaurant that costs extra, some meeting rooms, a gym and a spa. Trish and I grabbed a couple’s pass to the spa for the week because it seemed like a good way to spend time. We then promptly used our couple’s pass and spent an hour at the spa.

They’ve got an herbal steam room, which is really hot and steamy but it doesn’t smell much like herbs… I guess they gotta cheap out somewhere. They’ve got a dry sauna, which isn’t very dry. The benches are stone everywhere and they provide hoses to wash the stone down. Sadly the benches make puddles, and the water doesn’t evaporate very fast. There’s a Turkish bath, which is pretty much a steam sauna with some sink in the middle to splash cold water on your face. And finally there’s some heated benches, which are pretty relaxing.

After the spa we headed down for supper, where we found yet another line up!!! Woot! We love lining up all over the place. It’s our favourite sport! Please note that MS Word has underlined favourite as being misspelled because I added the U in there and word is too stupid to know the proper spelling of the word. Anyways, we lined up only to get turned back once we got to the head of the line! Why you ask? Because we were on the 5^th floor and our table was on the 4^th floor… Right, ok, the restaurant is so ridiculously huge that it has two floors. So we make our way down a floor to be greeted yet again by another line. Great. We’re slowly making our way to the front when two old people who look completely lost just wander up to the front, pretty much pushing through people. Once they get to the front the guy gets seated… WTF?!?! I guess it pays to be rude around here.

Food… If you’re familiar with my blog, I spend a lot of time talking about ridiculous things and food. Mostly food though, because there’s not that many ridiculous things that happen every day, yet you typically get three meals a day. So more food than ridiculous things, unless you’re in a strange situation where everything is ridiculous. Then again, we’re on a ridiculously huge ship filled with ridiculous people, so things are looking up. Back to the food for now. Our waiters are Filipino as is our bar waiter style dude and the wine girl. I guess that wasn’t exactly food, but the next sentence will be. I ate a lamb shank, and Trish had salmon. Before we ate those we also got appetizers and soup. The soup was really salty… as was Trish’s salmon… I guess a version of “Young Richard Newton” works in the kitchen here. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of salt, but my dad really likes salt. He’s been good lately though, cutting down on the salt. But really this story isn’t at all related to my dad, I just thought I’d mention that when I had my soup it reminded me of the soups my dad used to make a long long time ago, in this galaxy. Anyways, all in all, the food was good. Pretty fancy for an all you can eat style of a place.

Saturday the 18^th – at sea. If you ever wondered what it would be like being stuck in a huge hotel with a tiny hotel room, look no further! Take a cruise. You get the added bonus of swaying. The ship doesn’t sway much because it dwarfs even the waves, but you can feel it. We woke up kinda early because breakfast stops at 9ish. There’s food available at almost all hours of the day, but what food is available varies. If you want waffles, that closes at 9. So we got up early, and ate some waffles. Yum. Trish didn’t like the seat we chose and the swaying of the ship was getting to her. So after breakfast she grabbed a Gravol style pill. We hit the gym to try and burn off some of the calories we ate. After cardio we started lifting some weights, but our workout was cut short.

I understand that people don’t want to shower before they go to the gym because they’re gonna shower after they go to the gym, but deodorant exists for a reason! There was a guy using the workout machines who reeked of BO… and I do mean reeked. If he just walked by his stench lingered in the air for a few minutes. But he would use a machine and not wipe it down so the machine stank after he was done with it. And the stink never really left. So we did.

We used the spa again and then had some lunch at the buffet. Nothing special. We headed to an art auction after lunch, the idea was to get some free champagne, since booze on the ship isn’t really free. The auction was somewhat entertaining, they would tell us about a painting, then tell us how much the “land” price was. But wait… out here on the water you can save so much money, and since this is the last Alaskan cruise, we’ll give you an even better price and we’ll throw in the frame too! So I’m expecting really cheap paintings. The first painting goes on the block for $2000! What a savings! Wow this is dirt cheap, I need three of these! Ok so I’m probably not their target audience cus the guy in front of me raises his little bidding number thing. So I’m expecting the auctioneer to go on a rant and ask for higher bids but instead he smacks his mallet and “Sold!”… That wasn’t very exciting. A bunch of paintings never sold, and nobody tried to outbid anyone else. How was that an auction? That was just some guy taking his sweet ass time selling a pile of paintings to people who would have bought them anyways. Lame. And the champagne didn’t taste any good either… Though I don’t really like champagne.

Supper came around and it was formal night. So we got dressed up all fancy. I wore a tie. So, tying a tie is pretty simple in theory. I’m good with knots, and understand the knot that makes a tie work. But theory and practice aren’t always the same. After a few bad attempts on my part and a couple failed attempts on Trish’s part, the phone rang. It was Palton (remember the room guy?) he was asking me if we were going to supper. Of course we were, I just needed to tie this tie. So Trish gave it one more shot and I ended up with a slightly crooked tie that was better than all our previous attempts. Once we got to the dining room, everyone was seated already cus we were a little late. But hey, no line up! Now we know the secret. Anyways, I went on a little rant when I talked about yesterday’s supper so I missed some key points. Number one, we were seated at a table by ourselves. Other couples shared tables here and there, but we got our own table. Two, our table was meant for 6 people, and they sat us across the way from each other. Three, the room was loud so we couldn’t hear each other. Four, we convinced Richard our head waiter to let us move our chairs to sit next to each other. Five, Richard decided that he would surprise us with chair placement every night since our table was so big, but he would always seat us next to each other. Six, Trish bought a bottle of wine because the Sommelier girl said she would keep it on ice for Trish even if she didn’t finish it that night. Ok recap over!

So we got to the table and Richard had indeed seated us pointing in a different direction but next to each other. The wine lady came almost immediately to pour Trish a glass of the wine she didn’t finish the previous night. And on the menu was even more lamb! As for the tie, apparently I didn’t need to go through all the trouble. Some guy across the way was wearing a plaid flannel shirt. That’s totally formal… I guess they don’t really enforce the dress code, it’s too bad though, it would have been nice had everyone been dressed fancy.

The food was delicious, Lawrence our sous-waiter stopped by and chatted with us. Apparently both our waiters and the wine lady find us amusing because out of all the people there they seem to spend way more time chatting at our table. I had the rack of lamb and Trish had the Chilean sea bass. Again, not things you’d expect from an included menu. Desert was an ordeal. Everything on the menu had dairy apart from the apple pie. The pie isn’t very interesting because it’s available every night. There’s a nightly menu and an “always available” menu. I didn’t want to have to resort to the always available menu so fast. I ended up with some apple pie and coconut sorbet after much discussion with Richard our waiter. He seemed to think that desert will always be an adventure for me, but he seemed kinda happy… which is odd.

The 19^th – Rachel’s Birthday (our old neighbour from Alta Glen). Rachel is not on the cruise, but it’s still her birthday. Ketchikan, Alaska. We arrived at 7am, or so the captain would have us believe. We were asleep, but we definitely got there before 8:30am, a time when reasonable people get up. A quick breakfast later we’re heading off the ship. This place looks like a tourist trap merged with a tiny mountain town with a side of fishery. The only thing completely new to me was the airport. I can hear you thinking “Airport? What does he mean? That’s not new…” or something along those lines. Admit it, you were thinking it. Now the reason this airport is new and cool is that it’s on the water. No, not like Japan where they build a land airport on the water. This is a water airport. I’ve seen hydroplanes before, but not this many of them and never this many flying, landing and taking off in such a short time frame. You see, Ketchikan apparently doesn’t have much in the way of roads out, so most of the stuff comes from boats or planes.

Apparently there’s something to do with jewels in the area, cus every second store was a jewelry shop. And everyone had coupons for free gifts just for walking in the store. I’ve never gotten so much free junk for so little effort before. We also bumped into someone who plainly assumed that everyone walking outside was from the cruise ship. She stops a couple walking outside with their two kids and asks them what’s down the road. The man starts to answer and she spouts out “Oh! You’ve been down there? Is there anything interesting?” to which the man answers “I live down there.” Hahahaha, you should have seen the look on her face before she started apologizing and making excuses. We found some cool stuff, and interesting locals. I think some of the “locals” are actually just people who go there to work during tourist season. Looks like the main industries in Ketchikan are fishing and tourist. I’m not sure what brings in the most cash.

We hopped back on the boat for lunch, spa and snack… There really isn’t tons to do on the ship. Sure they have tons of activities, but they seem kinda geared towards retired folk and the elderly. I honestly don’t really want to go to the casino or play bingo, nor do I want to learn how to mix cocktail drinks. And all the cool things to do on the ship cost extra (not that gambling is free, but you kinda expect to spend money when you gamble). One thing that sounded interesting was learning about diamonds, so I went to that, but it turned out to be “here’s how to find a good deal on diamonds”. And not really explaining much about how things really work.

Now we’re getting ready to go eat supper, it’s 8:20, so I’ve still got a few minutes. Trish is still complaining about the ship swaying, I don’t really feel it anymore. Though when we first got off the ship, I felt a little odd because the ground wasn’t swaying. Trish wants me to help tidy up our tiny ass room because while we’re gone to supper the maids are gonna come in and do a turn down service. I guess they have nothing better to do…

Supper was good, steak for me and seafood gumbo for Trish. We get a 4 course meal every night, so much food, too much food really. We’re here to have a good time and since they have good food, might as well enjoy. This meal, like the others before it came with desert, and like every night, it had dairy in it. After 3 nights of watching me eat sorbet and ask about dairy free desert only to be told that everything has copious amounts of dairy in it, Richard decided to try and get me something good. So he asked the floor manager to see if they could find me a dairy free desert for tomorrow. We’ll see how that turns out. Anyways, time for sleep.

Cancun Underwater - Fishy Paradise

I woke up yesterday morning and packed up the things I was bringing on the boat. Trish got herself ready for a day at the spa and we were out the door. I got on the bus and got off once again at the wrong stop. I had to walk 10 minutes to get to the dive shop. You think I would have learned from the day before, but no... not that smart.

I got to the dive shop and a few people were there already, getting their gear together. The lady asks me to fill out some forms, so I do and I hand them back. She looks at them and says "Oh, you can't go diving today." WTF?!?! She explains that because I haven't been diving in 10 years and I don't have my certification number and I don't have my log book that there's no way she can let me dive.

Great, now what am I gonna do, Trish is at the spa, so I have a day to kill. And I can't go diving, awesome... just great. So as I stand there with a dazed look on my face thinking this through, and she looks at me again. "You could do the recertification today and then dive tomorrow?" Nope, I leave tomorrow. "Well.... maybe I could talk to the dive master and he could test you in the pool. It would cost extra though. ok?" So... apparently with enough money everyone will bend the rules around here. Ok I say, how much? $10 US. That's cool with me. She also tells me that I'll have to fill out a new form saying that I dove last year. Apparently you have to recert if you haven't gone diving in the past year.

I go to the gear rental place, get geared up, and the dive master takes me to a tiny pool. I get in, he gets me to clear my mask. Then he gets me to take my mask off and put it back on, then clear it. Then he makes me take my regulator and throw it away, then find it and start breathing again. It's not super hard to find your regulator underwater, but it is a little tricky seeing as it's attached to your back. So I do all his tests and he's really happy and tells me I can go diving today, no problems. WOOT!

So I get my stuff together and hop on the boat. The photographer chick presents herself to me and tells me that she's going to be taking video of us today. Her name was Aline, which is mexican-ish, but her english was pretty much perfect. Turns out she spent 8 years in california, pretty cool. So she asks me if I would be interested in the video and I tell her yes. She tells me she'll pay special attention and try to get me in the video a lot.

We got set up while the boat was heading to the reef, the dive master went over the rules. Basically stay together and the few symbols that will keep us alive. It's not like you can explain much underwater, all you have is hand gestures. Since we don't all know sign language, there's just a few signs you need to know. OK, not good, my ears, my regulator, my stomach, look here, low air, go up, go down, and how to tell how much air is in your tank. Then he told us all sorts of symbols for fish. I only remember baracuda, because it's the hand gesture you would make if you pretend your hand is a monster trying to eat something... that's baracuda for you.

So we dive in and sink 50 feet to the bottom. This is my first time diving in really clear water, and really warm water. The lady at the dive shop asked me if I wanted a wet suit. The water is really cold she said, I recommend a wetsuit. I asked how cold. 24 degrees... celcius. I just told her "I'm Canadian". That seemed to settle it, she stopped trying to rent me a wetsuit.

So at first the water was piss warm, but 20 feet down there's a cold undercurrent. Cold in this world is 24 degrees celcius. I found it refreshing, cus honestly diving in bath tub water was making me a little claustrophobic. I dunno, water to me should always be cold. So yeah, never once did I think "Oh this is chilly" at best I was dreading the top 20 cus the water was too warm. When I first got to the bottom I had a little bout of vertigo. The weeds were all rocking back and forth with the current, but the rocks were standing still. The weeds covered so much more area than the rocks that it made it look like the rocks were moving back and forth. My brain did not like that, the ground is not supposed to rock back and forth.

In any case, the vertigo didn't last and everything was cool after that. It was pretty awesome down there, not as many fish as I would have hoped, I saw a few grunts, the stuff we fished up the other day. These grunts were yellow instead of white. Same family, different fish. The coolest part about the first dive was that he took us through a cave in the coral. It was just a tunnel, but it was really cool.

The next dive was way better, we got to the bottom and there was fish everywhere. They weren't really scared of us either. There was cow fish, that look cool and have a triangle shaped body instead of flat. Lots of grunts again, and mixed in I saw some big blue ones that people couldn't name. There was some four eyed angel fish or something like that. Then we saw a manta ray. It was buried in the sand and Francisco, the dive master, started playing with one of it's wings. The ray obviously did not like that so it took off. It's really cool looking.

We saw a couple more rays during the dive, and then Aline pointed out a big fish to me. Turns out it was a puffer fish. The thing was huge, as long as my arm, I wonder how big it gets if it puffs up... ouch. Then we saw a barracuda, it swam into a cave. Francisco made the pacman chomp chomp sign and then put his hand up kinda saying stop. He followed into the cave after the barracuda, I went up and over. On the other side of the cave we saw a crab in an alcove. That was pretty much it down there. We came back up and hopped on the boat.

I was taking my gear off and Francisco came up to me and pulled a big rock out of my suit saying "souvenir" before tossing it back in the water. I had seen him pick up that rock but I had no clue why. I never even noticed when he put it in my buoyancy vest. Turns out he decided I was floating up too much so he put a rock in my pocket.

Anyways, I had a really good time. Trish had a great time at the spa too. We've been basically chilling since then. Our legs are still dead from that Ek-Balam trip. So hurty. They should put an escalator or something on those pyramids.

Now we're chilling by the pool, they kicked us out of the room. And we're spending the day here cus our bus to the airport doesn't leave for another four hours.

Tonight we hang out in mexico city and fly home tomorrow morning. Since you're reading this I'm going to assume you weren't here. This assumption is pretty safe because I'll only be wrong in one case, Trish. So with my assumption that you weren't here I just have to say "Sucks to be you." I hope you had a great week at work... I know I had a great time in Mexico.