Day 7, Glacier Bay National Park:
This is one of the highlighted days of the Alaskan cruise where we’d visit several of the major glaciers in this national park by sea. We were up early in hopes of sitting warmly and listening to the park ranger within the Exploration Cafe on the 9th deck while watching through the panoramic window but though we arrived at 6:30am, the place was packed to the gills. Annoyingly, I sat at the remaining seat at the back of the room where a guy bragged he’d been there since 6 defending four seats which he let no one sit upon… how nice for those folk who slept in or went for a leisurely breakfast… rude! By 7am when we finally left, they were still empty while many new faces wandered in hopes of grabbing a spot.
We braved the not too chilling winds just back of the bow of deck 5, a restricted area opened for the occasion. We’d fortunately visited here before on the Zuiderdam, a smaller sister ship, where you actually stood lower, within the actual apex of its bow.
We eventually moved to our cabin verandah where we had shelter from the wind and chatted to the Ottawa women in the next cabin who we’d befriended, taking turns pointing out seals and otters, one actually floating with its pup belly up, nearby. (Darn, we left deck 5 too soon to get our traditional mug of pea soup which I had intention of not missing this time!) We could still hear the ranger’s spiel as he announced that one inlet was closed at this time to protect the newly born seals who had to float on a piece of ice for a month until their body fat developed to keep them warmer. I’d heard whale sighting here had been plentiful this season but alas for the second visit there, neither time had we witnessed any. At least last time, we did witness some major calving of the ice.
There was a running joke that day that everything seemed to be happening on the “right side” of the ship as the ranger would announce a grizzly on the right and a black bear, of course, on the right, as we sat staring portside. Though it was cloudy within the park, we had some beautiful skies and landscape to end the day.
That evening, we had some good laughs at the MainStage with comedian Azeem whose routine centred around heckling passengers who arrived late for the show. I think we did a little duty free shopping onboard, too, and picked up two flavoured 40 ouncers of vodka to gift for $40 total, which without price comparing on land, sounded pretty amazing to this Ontarian with government controlled prices. Not being in the market for perfumes or jewelry to compare but on quick glance, we didn’t see any other items to tempt.
My videos seem a little to large to attach.
This is one of the highlighted days of the Alaskan cruise where we’d visit several of the major glaciers in this national park by sea. We were up early in hopes of sitting warmly and listening to the park ranger within the Exploration Cafe on the 9th deck while watching through the panoramic window but though we arrived at 6:30am, the place was packed to the gills. Annoyingly, I sat at the remaining seat at the back of the room where a guy bragged he’d been there since 6 defending four seats which he let no one sit upon… how nice for those folk who slept in or went for a leisurely breakfast… rude! By 7am when we finally left, they were still empty while many new faces wandered in hopes of grabbing a spot.
We braved the not too chilling winds just back of the bow of deck 5, a restricted area opened for the occasion. We’d fortunately visited here before on the Zuiderdam, a smaller sister ship, where you actually stood lower, within the actual apex of its bow.
We eventually moved to our cabin verandah where we had shelter from the wind and chatted to the Ottawa women in the next cabin who we’d befriended, taking turns pointing out seals and otters, one actually floating with its pup belly up, nearby. (Darn, we left deck 5 too soon to get our traditional mug of pea soup which I had intention of not missing this time!) We could still hear the ranger’s spiel as he announced that one inlet was closed at this time to protect the newly born seals who had to float on a piece of ice for a month until their body fat developed to keep them warmer. I’d heard whale sighting here had been plentiful this season but alas for the second visit there, neither time had we witnessed any. At least last time, we did witness some major calving of the ice.
There was a running joke that day that everything seemed to be happening on the “right side” of the ship as the ranger would announce a grizzly on the right and a black bear, of course, on the right, as we sat staring portside. Though it was cloudy within the park, we had some beautiful skies and landscape to end the day.
That evening, we had some good laughs at the MainStage with comedian Azeem whose routine centred around heckling passengers who arrived late for the show. I think we did a little duty free shopping onboard, too, and picked up two flavoured 40 ouncers of vodka to gift for $40 total, which without price comparing on land, sounded pretty amazing to this Ontarian with government controlled prices. Not being in the market for perfumes or jewelry to compare but on quick glance, we didn’t see any other items to tempt.
My videos seem a little to large to attach.
