...Oh, That Toothless Grin!

Day 5

I headed up to the gym first thing after I dragged my butt outta bed and arrived up there only to find one other person working out and about 40 others milling about gawking out the windows. How annoying. You see, we had begun our scenic cruising in Glacier Bay and somehow they couldn’t find any other space on the 62,000 tonne boat, so they decided to impede on me and my sweat. The scenery was rather lovely and glacier-ific.









About two hours into cruising, we reached the end of the road. Blocked off by a massive glacier approximately 15 miles long and a mile and half wide, it was certainly a sight to uphold.








This picture was taken when the boat was still approximately five miles away.










Family Christmas Card 2007

After chilling outside reading and wandering about the ship, we decided to head to the Master Chef’s dinner in the Rotterdam dining room that night. As the afternoon wore on and the boat headed out into the ocean, the waves got…crazier. The Master Chef’s dinner was an extravaganza of singing and dancing by the entire serving and cooking staff.











When booking the cruise, I had mentioned we were celebrating our anniversary…well, that translated over to the ships dining room staff and thus they presented us with a lovely-looking (note that I said “looking” not “tasting”) cake and sang their hearts out.




The little guy on the right is Rizal…he was our server for the week in the dining room and the cutest little Asian man ever. To his right is Yeffry, who was our maitre d. The other guy I have no idea. More singing and dancing followed.




The fat guy on the left in the white coat was the head chef. He was all was giggling and joking whenever I saw him around and it was the cutest thing next to Rizal.

I didn’t fare well through dinner that night. As I mentioned earlier, as the ship made its way out onto the ocean, things became extremely rough. The boat became like a toy boat in a child’s bathtub and the horizon out the dining room windows came and went like a metronome. Urgh. The whole restaurant smelled like shrimp gumbo, which didn’t help the situation. After beating a hasty retreat from dinner, I dumped myself into bed. Even there, as your feet are higher than your head, then lower, I thought I was going to kutz. I snoozed. A while later, Marty joined me as he too began feeling the effects. At 11:00, I woke up. I was determined to go to the chocolate extravaganza late night snack for obvious reasons and wobbily made my way up to the Lido. It was not-surprisingly deserted and I managed to choke down several chocolate delicacies before heading back down to the cabin.











Day 6

Waking up, the boat was once again stable. We had left the ocean behind and were almost in port in our last stop, Ketchikan.





After doing our brunch on the Lido, we headed out with the swarms as we were late docking and our excursion was about to start.



Our excursion that day was the “Misty Fjords and Wilderness Explorer”. Again, we boarded a catamaran and zipped off into the blue.

”Remote and wild, Misty Fiords National Monument supports many nearly untouched coastal ecosystems and covers about 3,570 square miles (9,246 square kilometers). Several major rivers and hundreds of streams are fed by misty rain and snow each year, as well as by meltwater from glaciers that begin near the Canadian border. Mineral springs and volcanic lava flows add to the unique geological features.” Exactly what I was just gonna say.







A bald eagle’s nest (of which we saw many):






Little tugboat! Big barge.


This is a volcanic plug on a tiny island in the water.
















Lookin’ haggard.











Over 100 years ago, the Tlingit natives painted symbols on these rocks, and if you look closely…





…it looks kind of crappy. But its old.

After making it back to shore, we briefly descended upon the shops so I could get my token souvenir before heading back to the boat.









That day was pretty chill – since it was the second formal night, we ate dinner at the Lido and saw the crappy singers and dancers in the Mondriaan lounge do a tribute show to “H2O – Our Favorite Molecule.” Boo. Terrible it was. After that, we watched Spiderman 3 in the Wajang theatre and headed up for the late night snack which was oriental and strange.

Day 7

Our last full day on board. I spent a chunk of the morning in the gym and in the library and then we relaxed around the boat in the afternoon. We headed out to our spot on the sky deck where we lounged on the first day and I snoozed there while Marty watched the dolphins play in the surf of the boat. We had our last dinner in the Rotterdam dining room and went to the farewell show with the hot Aussie magician/comedian, James Galea, the juggler/comedian Dave Deeble, and the violinist/comedian, I forget his name. We didn’t get to see the full James Galea show as it was the insane-o waves night, but his tricks that night left me dumbfounded – not that it is hard. After a round of solo karaoke up at Les Deux (I sang “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper thankyourverymuch.), we had our last late night snack which was a French theme.

Day 8-ish
We were up earrrrrrly this morning as the boat docked at 7 am. We ate our breakfast in the Lido as the ship pulled past Stanley Park and eventually arrived at the Pan Pacific. We chose the express disembarkation as we knew all the foggles would be picking the assisted option. We were off the boat and on our way to the Skytrain within 15 minutes and I shed a single tear in memory of our whirlwind week upon the ms Zaandam.



Editor’s Note: Today is October 2nd and the last of my cruise to Alaska blogs. Later today, I leave for Scotland for a week so be prepared for some whiskey-tinged escapade recaps upon my return. Oy!