We had a bit of a bumpy night and a slightly moving ship. What “slightly” was depended on the view of the guests as some spoke of a heavy storm and some dismissed it as an occasional “bump”. I have been assigned a cabin above the Azipods this time and the only thing I had to do was to move the coat hangers in the closet as they rattled on occasion. That is not a regular ships noise and thus it will wake me up. We did have quite a bit of wind during the night with gusts to over 60 knots but as we were heading into the first arrival of the storm, the storm had not been able to generate very high waves and thus the ship did not provide the roller coaster ride, something some guests had been afraid of. Continue reading
Category: Destinations (page 4 of 6)
The weather turned out to be as forecast although it took the wind a few hours this morning to get in synch with the predicted wind in the weather forecast. But by 10 am. it managed to do so and from then on all was well in the world. As a Japanese friend of my once said, things have to be organized and lined up nicely; otherwise you get confusion. Maybe that is why I have been going through life confused most of the time as the weather is seldom well organized and as a sailor you live very close to the weather. Continue reading
It is a tight schedule to make if you want to get to Portland from Halifax at a decent time and we could not be docked earlier than 11.00 hrs. and we just made it; with only minutes to spare. A late morning arrival is nice as it gives everybody the chance to see the ship sailing in; and sailing into Portland is nice. People go to the Canadian Maritimes for the Fall foliage but you can also take a sightseeing trip around Portland Harbor as the woods around the natural inlet were a riot of color. Arriving later has a negative side as well, as we were coming from Canada and thus everybody had to go through CPB immigration inspection. How fast that goes depends on how many officers there are available for the clearance and secondly if the CBP Supervisor allows those who have seen the CBP to go directly ashore, while the rest is still being cleared. That can vary from port to port and in some places the CBP only clears the ship once everybody has been seen. Today there were sufficient Officers available and the guests who had been seen were allowed off. Kudos to the CBP. They did the job they had to do, but they worked with the ship to give all a guests a good first impression of Portland. The sunshine did the rest. Continue reading
We had a miserable and overcast day today and most guests, who were not on tour, did not venture any further than the cruise terminal where they could pick up a few local souvenirs or listen to fiddle concerts. What was special was that I have never seen it so busy in Sydney, in all the years that I have been coming here with the ships. And that goes back to the early 1990’s we had a few visits here with the old ss Rotterdam. Today we had four cruise ships in. The Zuiderdam alongside, the Norwegian Dawn (who had followed us from Charlottetown) at the nearest anchorage, then the Riviera at the middle anchorage and far, far way a Silversea. The last one did not tender into the cruise terminal area but to a small local pier and had a shuttle service from there. The poor people of the Riviera (Oceana Cruises) had a long tender ride in the cold and the miserable rain. Although Oceana is supposed to be a notch better than Holland America (rated close to Seabourn) you had better sail with us, as at least we dock. Seniority rights do make a difference sometimes. Continue reading
A good day today, at least for what could have been. The skies remained overcast with a gentle breeze from the SE and that caused rain clouds drifting over but it also meant no “clouds” at seawater level so the bridge had a good view at all times and the Captain could stay in bed during the night. There was a low swell running from the South West but it was less than a meter and that is not enough to rock the boat. And even that low running swell disappeared in the course of the day, leaving us with an oily looking sea without any wind. A Vista Class ships needs about 10 feet of swell & waves to get going so 3 feet is nothing. All the guests would have liked sunshine but that comes with the inherent fog and then it is hard to sleep in the balcony cabins as the horn will be blowing every 2 minutes to warn the world that we are there. So give me overcast skies here at any time, better for a good night’s rest and although the guests might like sunshine, I do not think they are on an Alaska cruise to go sun bathing……………… Continue reading
Today we are in Juneau and the shopkeepers must be very happy and also the shore excursions people as it is a full house in the port. We have in port the Royal Princess (3600 guests), Azamara Quest (686 guests), Crystal Symphony (848 guests), Star Princess (3100 guests), Westerdam (approx. 2100). So based on lower bed capacity we are already talking over 10000 guests. I put approx. 2100 for the Westerdam as normally the number is lower but it being high season we have a lot of families on board and then the bunk beds fill up. This also means approx.4000 crew in the port and if 50% would make it ashore then it is even busier. Most crew are going to the supermarkets and Costco in the valley for which a whole myriad of shuttle buses are in existence. It is known that Costco stocks up on gadgets when the tourist seasons starts as they know that this is of great interest to the crew. They cannot take TV’s home but small electronics they can. And a lot of crew have extended families with lots of nephews and nieces and they all want a present when the sailor comes home. I once saw a Filipino bar tender going home with 41 fluffy toys in a box. He told me that his wife had sent him a list of so many in pink, so many in green and so many in blue and preferably Pokémon characters. He was quite happy as he gotten them for a very good deal in Chinatown Vancouver. But for the older ones, electronic gadgets are needed and that is all out there. Continue reading
Juneau is the capital of Alaska and is so because of historic reasons as the city of Anchorage is much bigger and it could be expected that that was the capital. Every so often there are voices heard that call for making Anchorage the capital but thus far all change has been resisted.
Alaska cruising the early days. Follow the Totem pole route.
Because of having the State legislative buildings and operations there, the town was never reliant on the Tourist Industry as such. It had the politicians, it had a gold mine and there were the canneries for the salmon fishing. That does not mean there were no tourists coming here and also that there were no cruise ship passengers. From as long as there have been steamships involved in regular ferry service to the various ports of Alaska, they brought with them passengers who were on sightseeing adventures, then called excursions. The name cruise came only later. Operators such as the Alaska Steamship company or the Canadian Pacific Railroad brought early travelers to Alaska and even provided “cruise excursions” by sailing to Glacier Bay. Continue reading
Haines is always an early morning arrival as the first tour, with the tour boat, from Haines leaves at 06.00 hrs. That is a very beautiful scenic cruise up the Lynn Canal to Skagway and by that time it is full day light so nobody has to miss anything from the scenery. Today it was day light with a golden glow. It was wind still all day and thus the smoke/soot of the forest fires hung still between the mountains on either side of the fjord. Beautiful to see but it should not be there of course. The people inland are praying for rain so the fires will be extinguished and then we will only have the golden glow again, at the time it supposed to be here, during the Indian summer in autumn. But it made for wonderful views today. Continue reading
And thus I arrived on my next ship the ms Westerdam. After a quick visit to Seattle Office, where I got equipped with a new cell phone (I am now entering the “Apple” phase of my life), a new laptop and a new ID card. As it was right around the 4th. of July, it also gave me the chance to see the Seattle Fireworks around Lake Union. Very nice; but I always have a challenge to bring up much enthusiasm for fireworks as I have seen them in Sydney Australia, and what else can you then ask for. Still Seattle is famous for its local craft beer so I had nothing to complain about. The only way to reach a ship in Seward is to fly to Anchorage and from there take a 2 hr. shuttle/taxi drive to the port. There is also a small plane service but you never know if it can fly or not so the agents bundle arriving people in taxis. I was quite happy with that, as I got worried about the plane option as there are forest fires raging at the moment and most of the time. And indeed most of the time we drove through mountains ridges enveloped in a brown haze. Where there was no haze, the scenery was impressive as usual. Once approaching Seward port it was dense fog (less than 1000 feet visibility) and again I severely doubted if the local plane option would have been feasible. Continue reading
Yesterday we sailed from Geiranger around 16.00 hrs. and made a 360o swing stop at the Seven Sisters waterfall on the way out. As part of the goodbye celebrations for the ship, the company had arranged for a deck party with complimentary drinks. So the deck area around the Lido Pool was packed with guests enjoying snacks such as Dutch Bitterballen and Indonesian Sate and free drinks.
Party on deck with all the flags out, drinks, bitterballen and above it all the Seven Sisters Waterfall
With the ships officers and (guest) entertainers circulating among the guests a good time was had by all while watching the impressive scenery. It was a bit strange for me as I was always on the bridge when we were here but now being a guest entertainer for this cruise, my place was in the bar. I did not need much time to adapt myself fully to the new circumstances…………………. Continue reading
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