20240912 Thursday, September 12, 2024 Scenic Cruising Seymour Narrows and Pine Island

20240912 Thursday, September 12, 2024 Scenic Cruising Seymour Narrows and Pine Island

We were awakened by the blast of a fog horn at 7am.  Being on the top deck has a bit of a disadvantage when the ship is sailing through dense fog.  The ship has been charting a course along the mainland coast rather than going around the outside of Queen Charolette Island, which is now called Haida Gwaii, like all the bigger cruise ships.  The Grand Princess which left the same time as us was north of Haida Gwaii while we were cruising through the Laredo Channel between Aristazabal Island and Princess Royal Island at dinner time.

The Celebrity Summit is taking the usual off shore route while we take a scenic inside exploring route

We had breakfast in the World Cafe buffet at the rear of the ship.  They have a complete assortment of cold and hot breakfast items to put even the best land based hotels to shame.  There is also a tiny spot at the very rear of the buffet that specializes in Asian items which included congee and shu mai.  

There was a naturalist who gave a lecture in the Explorer’s lounge at 7:30am. The idea was for him to comment on wildlife sightings as we made our way through these near shore channels between islands, and although it would have seemed an ideal place to spot grey whales, orcas, seals and sea lions, the ship was enshrouded in fog so there was little that could be seen.  We didn’t attend, but Ben spoke with a couple who said it was pretty rough and the naturalist had a hard time even standing up in front of the Explorer’s lounge without nearly falling over, and he seemed to ramble incoherently for some time before an assistant helped focus his thoughts. 

The ship did wind through some very scenic areas with coastal temperate rain forests coming right down to rocky shores on either side of the ship.  Undoubtedly, there probably were sea lions and otters about, but the only thing Ben saw for sure was some salmon jumping near shore, probably being chased by something underneath.  We did have some sun breaks between patches of fog.  We walked around the promenade deck which is 1/4 mile in length.  There are signs advising jogging and walking traffic to be limited to certain hours and only in a clockwise direction.  The pathway traverses the bow through a tunnel, and behind the dining room at the rear of the ship.  It was actually quite pleasant outside when we were walking.  The ship has been moving at slower speeds through these inner islands, averaging more like 16mph.  

We met up with some of our fellow Rocky Mountaineer travelers for the first trivia of this trip.  The cruise director’s staff leading trivia quizzes, Arianna, is one of the female singer/dancers on the entertainment staff and she is from Virginia.  We managed to win that first trivia, but it is not a progressive trivia.  Arianna did promise that there will be a progressive trivia starting soon enough. The prize for trivia is a round of mimosas.

After lunch, we attended a lecture on Russia’s expansion across Asia  to the west after achieving independence from the Mongols in the 1500’s, and their eventual colonization of Alaska.  They apparently feared the ferocious coastal indigenous tribes who fought back, unlike the arctic tribes who quickly fell prey to the Siberian tactic of kidnapping their women and children and ransoming them back to the men for furs.  But with the men unable to hunt and fish for sustenance, the tribal populations were decimated by starvation and disease.  When the fur supply dried up, the Russians didn’t think it was worth it to fight the coastal indigenous tribes, so they sold Alaska to the US.  That was just 30 years before Gold was discovered in the Klondike, and long before oil and gas had any economic value.  

Viking has an afternoon tea served in the Wintergarden, which is an enclosed atrium like space adjacent to the pool area. It is an elegant setting, but acoustically, it is very loud, so it was very difficult to carry on conversations with people even directly across a small table.  The tea was fancy in that they had an extensive menu of teas to choose from, and they brought out tea cakes and sandwiches out on multi-level servers. They later brought around scones with tiny ramekins with a dab of jam and butter.  Although the setting had the potential to be nice, we find the afternoon Tea service on Princess ships to be more relaxing, and pleasant.  Also, Princess does a better job on the scones and are much more generous with the jam and creme.  We sat across from an interesting couple who have been traveling together since they each lost their spouses.  One was from Georgia, a PhD in advanced education, and the other a retired Air Force officer from Alabama.  Remarkably, it turned out that neither was a fan of Donald Trump, despite them both coming from the deepest reddest south.  

Next, we attended a port lecture on Ketchikan and went to Passengers services to get signed up for the included excursions for Dutch Harbor, but still couldn’t sign up for Valdez.  The passenger services representative said we would just go ashore with the shore excursion staff and they would manually ticket us for the included tour in Valdez.  There may not be all that much to see or do at either Valdez or Dutch Harbor because neither of these cities is used to having cruise ships call on them and there probably aren’t enough buses in either city to accommodate all the passengers even on ship our size.  

Since we were not hungry after Tea, we did visit the fitness center for the first time of this cruise and got in some exercise.  Then we had dinner in the Buffet.  Tonight was “American Cuisine” night.  Surprisingly, there were no burgers or fries.  Instead, they had BBQ beef brisket, shrimp and grits, king crab legs, chicken fried steak and gravy and fried chicken wings.  

There was a Captain’s reception with free champagne in the theatre where the ship’s officers were brought up onto the stage to introduce themselves.  We also got to hear the Torshavn singer and band doing covers from the 80’s, and the production show team of two female and two male singer/dancers doing a number or two, singing close harmony like the Manhattan Transfer.  There was also a number featuring video of Sissel, a famous Norwegian soprano, doing a shameless plug for Viking Cruises.  She is the godmother of the Viking Jupiter.  Her video was backed by the production singers/dancers in a live/video fusion number.  They then closed with a couple more songs by the production team.  

Our clocks go back an hour tonight as we go from Pacific time to Alaska time, so we potentially get an extra hour of sleep.  We are scheduled to arrive in Ketchikan at 10am and have our included tour excursion at noon.  The ship will leave at 5pm.  There are lots of optional extra cost excursions including things like a crab feed, ATV tours, and even a hovercraft ride, but we will probably just walk around the town since we’ve been to Ketchikan several times before on prior cruises and on our own.