Wednesday, September 27, 2017- Juneau, Alaska

Wednesday, September 27, 2017- Juneau, Alaska

We awoke to find the ship already tied up to the dock in Juneau.  The ship is tied up directly across from a parking garage that features a large life size mural of passengers on an ocean going vessel from the 1800's all looking back directly at us.  Our cabin balcony was facing the dock, so it was like all those people were looking into our balcony.  

We met Franklin and Betty in the Summer Palace dining room for breakfast, which was sparsely seated.  We sat down after 8:30am, so we were probably at the tail end of the breakfast serving period.  The service was much quicker, and our waiters were very attentive- a contrast to our first breakfast in the Summer Palace.  The breakfast foods are the same as in the buffet, but they are served with nicer presentation, and you are much less likely to take way more food than you can eat when a chef plates it for you.  Our waiter actually left me with a small thermal carafe of coffee, so I could drink as much as I pleased without bothering him for any refills.  

After breakfast, grabbed our rain gear and headed down the gangway into the rain and into Juneau.  The cruise ship dock in Juneau is right downtown, with all excursions situated within a short walking distance.  We didn't see any seaplanes at the seaplane base, but there was a very low cloud ceiling, so all flight operations may have been cancelled.  There is a tram that carries passengers from the waterfront to the top of Mt. Roberts, which disappeared into the clouds.  There was probably close to zero visibility up there.  It was moderately windy and the rain was on and off.  Janet and Ben walked through the lobby of the Alaska Federal Credit Union, which has a very nice collection of Tlingit wood carvings on display for free.  We also walked through several galleries filled with Native American arts.  Janet's sister Terri would have been beside herself trying to figure out which wall carving or bent-wood cedar box to buy.  There were museums for the City of Juneau and the State of Alaska that we walked by, but passed on paying admission to see things that you can buy in the galleries.  We did walk around the Governor's residence, but they didn't seem to offer tours.  You can just walk right up to the door, where a small sign just says "Governor's Private Residence".  We didn't ring the doorbell and run off, but don't think we weren't tempted.  

Franklin and Betty had concentrated their efforts on the jewelry stores around the waterfront that offered freebies like a gold bracelet and free charms.  Much of the rest of Juneau lay up moderately steep hills, so they chose to stay on the flats where Betty's scooter could navigate without too much trouble.

It was steady rain now, so we made our way back onto the ship by 12:30pm.  Franklin and Betty had just been seated in the Summer Palace, so we joined them for lunch.  Janet tried a shrimp burger, which was a strange invention in which a bunch of intact shrimp were formed into a patty, and then made into a burger.  It wasn't terrible, but the texture and taste didn't really come off as what you'd expect in a burger.  They did have popcorn shrimp appetizers that were quite good. Janet wished she could just get a large basket of the popcorn shrimp for an entree. 

Ben and Franklin had fried chicken with curly fries, which were pretty good.  We also had what they called Atlantic Chowder, which was a pretty tasty seafood chowder, ostensibly built around Atlantic salmon.  

Betty had ordered a shrimp penne pasta dish, but it turned out to be way too spicy hot for her.  She has had a real hard time struggling with the symptoms of her Parkinsonism and side effects associated with her treatments.  There's a knife edge balance between being too stiff to move, and getting involuntary facial grimacing and twitching. You can tell she is really putting up a good fight to maintain her independence, but it is painful to see how hard it is for her to even do a simple thing like take a sip of water or tea.  Getting a spoonful of food to her mouth requires tremendous determination, effort and strategy, but she manages to pull it off.  She shows a great deal of inner strength and determination that probably speaks to how she managed to raise all 7 of us.   She managed to eat a half cup of the chowder but didn't fare so well with the pasta. Fortunately, they did offer a flan for dessert, which Betty was able to demolish. 

After lunch, we toured Betty and Franklin's handicap accessible stateroom, which has a special accessible bathroom.  We were astounded by how much larger the room and bathroom were than our balcony stateroom.  There was plenty of room for Betty to drive her scooter around and the bathroom was just like what you'd find in a modern day hospital patient room, with a no-threshold entry, sit down shower and room to get a scooter or wheel chair next to the toilet.  No banging your head on the wall in front of the toilet in that room.  It was a very comfortable and functional room for someone with special mobility needs, and it was nice to see what a good job Norwegian did in designing a handful of cabins on the ship with such accommodations.  

Everyone had an afternoon nap, although Franklin did manage to take a trip into a hot tub for a nice soak despite the misty rain and 50 degree weather. 

We got together in the Summer Palace for an early dinner at 5pm so that we could see the 7:30 show.  We were seated in the same corner with Alvin and Mohammad, who have provided excellent and consistently courteous service, accommodating Betty's special requirements.  They offered escargot on the appetizer menu tonight, but instead of serving them on a dimpled tray where each escargot is in its own bath of garlic butter, these were served swimming in a sweet wine reduction mushroom gravy poured over a fluff pastry biscuit.  The gravy was too sweet to my taste, and you had to do a little hunting to separate the escargot from the mushrooms.  Betty seemed to relish each of the escargot, although it was difficult to get them past her dentures and down the hatch.  There was a beef barley soup that was mediocre consisting of a clear beef consumme that had hard bits of vegetables and barley in the bottom of the bowl.  The entrees included roasted leg of lamb, flounder, teriyaki beef and chicken Parmesan.  The lamb came out with the same sweet wine reduction that the escargot were swimming in, so that was a bit of a disappointment, but it did come with some really good potatoes au gratin.  For desserts, Ben and Franklin both opted for an English Cherry trifle, which came out in tall cocktail glasses with the red cherry, strawberry and jello on the bottom topped with lady fingers and heavy cream on top.  They looked interesting, but did require some effort to make all the layers work.  Janet and Betty opted for the more conventional coconut soufflé, which came out very hot with a separate ladle of sauce for the top.

We had no trouble finishing dinner, then getting cleaned up in our rooms and meeting up again in the Stardust Theatre for the 7:30 show, featuring "Angels", the French acrobat couple who had been introduced during the first night's show.  We were surprised that the theatre wasn't very full.  The way the Stardust Theatre is arranged, there are no outside aisles along the wall, so people tend to sit closer to the center of the theater, leaving the side wings largely empty. However, that means that any late arrivals have to climb over all the people seated hear the aisle to get to the remaining empty seats, which is annoying.  The drink of the day was something called the Bahama Mama, which Janet took quite a liking to because it was very sweet.  

"Angels" did put on a good show with whimsical choreography and music reminiscent of the Circ Du Soleil shows.  The French couple (Jeremie and Eleanor) trained in a Kiev circus school. There were lots of slow motion lifts and poses by the pair, while the woman did a dream sequence in a suspended ring to open the show while her partner lay in a bed the whole time.  They did do some nice areal silk dancing together.  The male looked like a young and not-so-beat up Daniel Craig while the female was pretty and athletic in appearance.  They did a very professional show with very simple stage effects.  Strength, flexibility, grace, and beauty - totally awesome, oui.

Our next stop was the Spinnaker Lounge for a 1969 tribute show.  This was put on by the Norwegian Pearl production singers and dancers.  They were backed by a live band, and for variety, they threw in some TV commercials on a screen including an Alka-Seltzer commercial featuring the claymation "Speedy", and one for Green Giant Vegetables.  Janet discovered a new drink that she saw someone order called a mudslide.  This drink is made with rum, Kahula, coconut liquor and chocolate syrup, and it tastes just like a milk shake.  Needless to say, she discovered a new favorite cocktail.  It was like having another dessert.  

After the 1969 tribute show, another band came on in the lounge with two vocalists, brass (trombone, trumpet), sax, drums and keyboard to do live Motown hits.  They invited people to use the dance floor, but we didn't see anyone out there dancing.  

After we finished up our mudslides, we retired to our stateroom for a quick break, before heading back to the Spinnaker lounge for "The Liar's Club" gameshow.  4 ship's celebrities included the piano bar singer,Jim, K-von (the comic), George (singer from the second night's show), and Gio, the cruise director.  For the game, they present an obscure word, and then each celebrity tries to convince the audience they know the meaning of the word, and then the audience votes on which they think is the real meaning.  The words ended up being "Bumfiddler" (to desecrate a legal document with scribbles), "Tittup" (the rhythmic bouncing of a horse's gait), "Fulfahrt" (to proceed full speed ahead with abandon), "Pakapoo" (aboriginal lottery or raffle), and "Trion" (the fig leaves worn by Adam and Eve).  Of course, most of the made up definitions skewed to the crude lowest common denominators of the colloquial sounds within the words, but often, you can guess the correct meanings because they seem to have no dirty meaning or are just not very funny.  We had seen the "Tittup" and "Fulfahrt" words in prior Liar's club games on our Princess cruises, so we knew those answers right off the bat.  But there were no prizes, other than the knowledge that you might have guessed the right answers.  Again, no high stakes scoring on Norwegian. 

By that time, it was 11:30pm.  Franklin was busy with his Karaoke friends, having quite the night.  Janet was played out, but Ben made a midnight O'Sheehan's run for another mudslide with some chicken wings and cheese cake.  They were showing the movie "Man of Steel" on the screen in the crystal attrium.  

The ship had set a course to the west of the Queen Charlotte Islands again, so we were back in the open Pacific.  The ship was back to rocking, perhaps a bit heavier than on the second day of the cruise.  Time to go to bed.