Friday, September 29, 2017- Victoria, BC

Friday, September 29, 2017- Victoria, BC

We awoke to find land out our starboard side balcony.  We had entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca and were heading past Neah Bay.  The water was calm but the Olympic Mountains were obscured by low clouds.  It looked like we had brought our Alaska weather back to Washington with us.  

We had a hard time dragging ourselves out of bed since we stayed up past 2am watching "Into the Woods" in the Atrium.  Franklin called on the room phone and said that he was actually sitting on the floor watching the same movie.  Janet and I had breakfast in the buffet since we didn't get up until after 9am, when the Summer Palace dining room closed for breakfast service. They had eggs Benedict at the buffet, and you could pour all the Hollandaise sauce on that you wanted.  After breakfast, we returned to our stateroom to watch the ship make its way down the Strait of Juan de Fuca past Sekiu, and Port Angeles.  We saw the MV Coho making its way from Victoria into Port Angeles as it crossed our bow.  We approached Ogden Point and the cruise ship terminal for Victoria at noon.  

Janet and Ben had lunch at O'Sheehan's and had the Reuben sandwich and Pub Hotdog, which is garnished with crisp, smokey bacon and sauerkraut.  Just as we were finishing lunch, the ship was tying up at the cruise ship dock when the sun started to break through the clouds. We went out on the promenade deck and were nearly blinded by the sun.  Passengers all up and down the deck were marveling at our first sighting of the sun in over 5 days.  

We were told to meet in the Stardust theater at 1:15pm for our excursion.  It turns out that they have everyone sit in the theatre until buses for excursions are cued up on the dock.  Then they call out your excursion number and you are then free to leave the theater and disembark on deck 4.  Our tour was the third to be called.  

There were several buses headed to do the Craigdarroch Castle and Victoria Highlights tour.  We sat on the first bus.  Once it loaded up, the driver offered the reserved for handicap front seats to anyone who wanted them since there were no handicapped passengers, so Janet and Ben got to move up and sit right behind the driver with a panoramic view through the windshield.  The driver was entertaining and easy to understand.  

As we drove through some of the expensive waterfront neighborhoods, he was explaining that the real estate in Victoria is the second most expensive real estate in all of Canada- second only to Vancouver.  Some of the top floor condos were several millions of dollars, and the "average" 2000sq ft house in Victoria city limits was over $500K.  Of course, that's in Canadian dollars, but that's still expensive.  He had bought a home, but sold it a year later after the value had gone up 100K and now he lives in a buddy's yard in an RV, rent free.  

The driving tour was actually quite nice.  We have visited Victoria many times over the years, but he took us through parts of the city we had never seen before.  He did point out the narrowest commercial alleyway in all of Canada in China town- just 3' wide.  He said a Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn movie motorcycle chase scene had been filmed in that alley.  He also mentioned that Professor Xavier's school for gifted mutants (X-men Movies) is located right in Victoria.  

Craigdarroch Castle was built in 1890 by coal baron Robert Dunsmuir.  He had come to Canada as a penniless immigrant working in mines.  He eventually struck out on his own and discovered the richest seam of coal on Vancouver Island and became an industrial giant, owning mines, railroads and ships.  He built the mansion on top of the hill to show off his wealth.  It was originally built on 28 acres.  However, he died before the mansion was completed, so he never really got to live in his dream home.  His widow lived there until she died.  Their 5 daughters had no interest in keeping the property because it was so expensive to maintain, and the widow never really liked living there because it was too ostentatious, so it was sold to a real estate developer who subdivided the 28 acres and raffled the mansion as a bonus to whomever was lucky enough to be drawn from the people who bought the subdivided properties.  

Tragically, the man who won the raffle (lucky ticket #13) was in business with someone who ended up dying in the sinking of the Titanic, and he ended up bankrupt.  The castle went into bank foreclosure, and began it's life as a variety of municipal and government functions, including a military hospital, Victoria College, offices of the Victoria School Board, and Victoria Conservatory of Music, before it was eventually bought by the Craigdarroch Castle Historical Museum Society in the 1980's.  

Since then, it has been undergoing painstaking restoration efforts to try to relive its glory days at the turn of the century.  Most of the rooms open to the public are furnished with beautiful and interesting objects from the era, with many objects having been hunted down from the auctions that took place when the family gave up the home after the widow had died. There is beautiful oak paneling throughout the house.  Despite all the lumber industry in BC, all the oak paneling arrived in 5 railroad cars from Chicago.  The building itself is built with sandstone from one of Dunsmuir's own quarries.  The building, unlike most of its era, has never burned down.  Robert Dunsmuir's sons had built mansions nearby, but they burned down over time.  Only one was rebuilt several times because it happened to end up being used as the Government House building.  

As far as mansions go, Craigdarroch is plenty ostentatious and would have been a very comfortable home, but not as nice as Pittock Mansion in Portland, OR, and certainly nothing to compare with the Hearst Castle in California.  However, the mansions we toured in Norway were absolutely stark and primitive by comparison.  Those Scandinavians could never be mistaken for a soft and pampered people.

We completed our guided tour by driving into downtown, dropping people off in front of the Empress Hotel that wanted to walk around downtown.  The wind had picked up to a 40mph gale, and since we have walked around downtown Victoria plenty of times in the past, we opted to stay on the bus, which saved us the 30 minute walk back to the Ogden Point cruise ship docks.  

We met Franklin and Betty for Dinner.  They had taken a shuttle, which Betty could just drive her scooter up onto.  This had dropped them off downtown, where they spent nearly 3 hours exploring the Royal Provincial Museum, getting their money's worth out of the cost of admission.  

Dinner featured Cajun BBQ, herb chicken and whitefish.  We ended up being seated in a corner of the dining room opposite from our usual corner, away from Alvin and Mohammad.  The service was terrible throughout the meal, leaving us wishing we had specifically requested to be seated in Alvin and Mohammad's station.  We'll know better next time.

There was no 7:30 show.  At 9:30, they had a Norwegian Pearl crew talent show, which showcased the talents of staff in the housekeeping, kitchen, and other ships' departments, other than the entertainment staff.  It was a bit like the Karaoke with the bad singers weeded out and some Filipinos dancing thrown in.  The weirdest talent was a male singer who belted out Whitney Houston with a great falsetto voice, but he dressed straight.  It seemed like he really needed to be in drag to pull that off.  By far, the funniest was the closing act by the cruise director staff.  They came on stage carrying metal water pitchers dressed in togas.  The music was a tract by Enya and the stage was shrouded in stage fog.  They walked on stage in a stately manner, like they were going to recite "Ode on a Grecian Urn".  But then, they all took a deep drink of water from their pitchers, and they began to spout water on each other like human Grecian statues.  They assumed several poses including one where one person sprayed out a stream kneeling behind one of the other men so it looked like the man in front was urinating all over the stage.  When they finished that pose, the Washy-washy girl ran out on the stage with her squirt bottle so the guy in front could washy washy before assuming his next pose. It was hilarious and a fun way to close the show.  

Janet and Ben wandered down to the Bliss lounge to see what the participation cards were good for.  Each activity was worth between 3 and 5 punches on an activity card.  40 points would get you a T-shirt, 30 points a Norwegian water bottle, 20 points playing cards, 25 points a Norwegian pen, 15 points a Norwegian Frisbee, and 5 points a luggage handle or can cooler.  We then stopped by Franklin and Betty's room to say goodbye since we may not end up seeing them on disembarkation.  

Ben managed to try a vodka martini-shaken, not stirred, and found it to his liking. The savory flavor of the olives provides a nice contrast to the super sweet drinks that Janet has tended to like. 

Sad as it may be, we emptied our 3 drawers and shelves back into our suitcases to prepare for disembarkation tomorrow.  The ship cast off just before midnight.  Our bus driver from the tour earlier today said that for a cruise ship like ours, the port charges about $30K to dock.  So they cast off before midnight to avoid having to pay another $30K to stay overnight.  When we awaken tomorrow morning, we should be tied up at Seattle's Pier 66.