20260913 Sunday, September 13, 2026; Juneau, Alaska
The Juneau Trading Co. gift shop loomed right outside our stateroom window when we pulled the drapes aside. The Island Princess is docked at the Franklin Pier, which is about a mile from downtown Juneau’s core. The Royal Caribbean Ovation of the Seas, with 4,900 passengers, is tied up at the prime spot at the head of the docks.
In the past, we have wandered through Juneau’s downtown, visited the Mendenhall Glacier, and taken a seaplane flight over the glacier fields, so today’s visit will be mostly laid back.
We had a leisurely sit-down breakfast followed by a short walk along the waterfront from the Franklin Pier to the Mt. Roberts Tram station. There are a few shops and restaurants in the area, including an Alaska Brewing pub and gift shop. Beer can only be sold in licensed liquor stores in Alaska, so the only way to purchase some Spruce Tip IPA is to go to a liquor store or the tap room, which is a free 10-minute shuttle from the Depot, but only runs once an hour. We then returned to the ship for the morning trivia.
The majority of passengers on this cruise are first-time cruise ship travelers, so there were hardly any passengers around for trivia. Bob and Neal were the only other ones in the Explorer’s lounge playing. There was one other couple seated at the very back who were watching but not participating, so this morning’s session was a battle between the Elites. Fortunately, we managed to win with 12/20. It was a challenging trivia with questions like what medium is artist Robert Cappa famous for, and who won Eurovision 2025 and the Premier League in 2025. The host, Ananda, is from Rio de Janeiro.
Following Trivia, we headed off the ship and walked into town. Ben wanted to walk some trails in the area and found a Gold Flume trail, which runs along the Mt. Juneau hillside overlooking the city. We did have to walk uphill all the way to the back of the city to the trailhead, gaining about 330’ of elevation, but the Gold Flume trail, which was a boardwalk erected atop a flume diverting water from Gold Creek to western Juneau, was pretty much all level.
Then it was downhill all the way back to the ship. We stopped at the local IGA grocery and Ace Hardware. Janet wanted to pick up some Alaska Frontier Blueberry Cream soda for a souvenir, and Ben was just curious to check out what fishing lures they had.
We got back to the ship and had pizza on the pool deck and a soak in the hot tub, which we had all to ourselves.
The all-aboard was 3 p.m. There was quite a crowd for the 4 p.m. trivia in the Wheelhouse lounge. The winners were Bob and Neal in a 2-way tie with a tiebreaker of how many episodes of Friends aired. The answer was 236. We were off by 2 points on that one.
We were able to get in for an early dinner by lining up at 4:30 p.m. with the dining room opening at 4:45 p.m. for anytime dining without reservations. We both ordered oxtail soup, which in the past was prepared with wagon wheel pasta and was very memorable. But this time, it was served with a huge puff pastry cap. The broth was very clear, savory, and tasty with shreds of oxtail meat and diced vegetables. It was served piping hot and it started the meal off well. The mains included spicy teriyaki coho salmon on garlic fried rice and sea bream on creamy polenta. Both were quite good.
The waiters did bring out a birthday treat for Janet and sang her happy birthday. The treat was a fancy double chocolate mousse on a thin chocolate sponge base decorated with sheets of more chocolate. We had ordered orange sorbet for dessert, which complemented the rich chocolate.
Between dinner and the Captain’s Circle Party at 6:45 p.m., Ben hung out on the promenade deck where the sunlight and weather were still good for wildlife spotting in the narrow channels being navigated as we left Juneau. This was rewarded with spotting a pod of humpback whales. There were 3 whales, but they were probably a half mile from the ship. Ben did manage to get a picture of one breeching out of the water.
At the Captain’s Circle Party tonight, we learned that out of 2,200 passengers on board, over 1,100 were first-time Princess passengers. There were a few hundred gold, ruby, and platinum passengers in each category, and 150 elites.
The most three-most traveled were actually introduced as 2 couples and a single traveler. The couples each had over 500 days, while the most traveled was Bob from Las Vegas with over 1,300 days. We had met him at trivia earlier. We have over 300 days, so it will be some time before we have to worry about getting up in front of the crowd.
Since we didn’t opt for the Princess Plus or Premier packages, we did not have a drink package on this journey, so it was nice to be able to get free cocktails at this event. Janet got two Moscow Mules, intending to have a spare to drink at the theater later, while Ben just had a single martini.
After the Captain’s Circle Party, we Zoomed with Ciara and Tom, who filled us in on the wedding of a nephew that we missed out on because of our commitments at the Brooks Lodge.
The ship’s Wi-Fi was able to keep up with the Zoom call fine. Janet had also received a phone call from our eldest son, John, while we were in town looking for the IGA grocery store. She fortunately had adequate cellular signal to be able to take the call.
In the evening, we realized we were missing one of our trivia clipboards. We searched all over the stateroom but could not find it, so we concluded we must have left it in the dining room since we had gone straight from the afternoon trivia to line up at the dining room. We will have to check with the lost and found and dining room staff tomorrow to try to retrieve it.
The Zoom call wrapped up too late to see the Showtime in Princess Theater, which was a second show by Terron Brooks, so we relaxed in the room and watched a movie on Michael Jackson’s life.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.