Great week-May 22-29 Northbound Millennium

PRE-CRUISE: we arrived in Vancouver on Wednesday afternoon around 3:00 after three flights from the Midwest. We stayed at the Marriott Pinnacle, which is convenient to the port. We had made reservations in advance at Joe Fortes Seafood and Steaks and it was less than a 10-minute walk from the hotel. We were happy with our choice. The food was very good (filet steak, scallops and prawns), though the restaurant was somewhat noisy. In hindsight we should have asked to be seated outside (upstairs, not along the front sidewalk) but we didn't know this was an option.

Cycle City Tours - On Thursday we took the 5-hour biking tour of Vancouver which was awesome. Even if you are a less experienced biker it would be fine. It's almost all flat and there were lots of stops for photos. Lunch on our own at the Granville Market was great. We walked to the bike shop and back from the Marriott and it was about a mile each way.

Dinner Thursday night was at the Blue Water Cafe, expensive but delicious and about a $10 taxi ride from the hotel.

BOARDING THE SHIP: We had gotten up early Friday and walked to the dock to see the Millennium in port. Very exciting to know we'd be on in a few hours. We then walked just up the street from the hotel to a liquor store to get two bottles of wine and took a taxi to the port around 11:30. The process was pretty smooth and after sitting in the assigned area for suite passengers we were told boarding would begin by 12:30. It actually began at 12:15 and we were at Bistro on 5 ordering lunch by 12:30 and in our cabin by 1:15. Others we talked to later in the week had a much worse experience with waits of two or three hours. The hold up was not at customs but rather in the waiting room with the rows of chairs. Evidently as it got busier it became less organized than it had been for us.

THE SHIP: Our previous two cruises were both RCCL on ships larger and newer than the Millennium. Before this cruise I read reviews of the ship. Many were positive and some less so. I think the Millennium is a special ship. It was clean and well maintained. Our cabin was beautiful and looked spotless. I liked the size of the ship and the more relaxed pace. I would happily sail on Celebrity and on the Millennium again.

CABIN: We were in cabin 1133, one of the five aft facing cabins on deck 11. It is in Aqua Class, which comes with a few extra amenities but we chose the cabin for location on the ship. I was concerned that being on the port side of the aft we might smell smoke from the deck 10 Sunset Bar just below our balcony (much discussion about this issue has taken place on this forum.) However, we never saw anyone smoking on deck 10. There were no ashtrays out and even though the Sunset Bar had heavy use, the smell of smoke was not an issue all week since no one was smoking.

The cabin was awesome and we loved the view from the aft. The cabin was compact (compared to the Junior Suite on RCCL we had in January) but it was what we expected and had adequate storage. Our large suitcase fit under the bed. The balcony was huge compared to side balconies. We had two chairs that reclined, two footstools and a small table. There is a size-able overhang for protection from rain, which we did not experience all week. I would definitely book this cabin again. We liked its convenience to the "back stairs" down to the bar to get drinks. If you stand by your railing, people from the bar below can look up and see you but this didn't bother us. Once seated in our chairs, no one could see us or vice-versa. I asked our attendant to bring robes, slippers and wine glasses and he did by early evening.

FOOD AND DRINK: The classic drink package was included in our booking and we upgraded it to premium before sailing. We found the bar service to be good and loved the Martini bar and coffee bar equally. The Sunset Bar was so convenient to our cabin and was busy, but still had good service.

We ate at Qsine on the first night (50% off). It was a fun experience and we tried about six different menu choices. The service, atmosphere and food presentation is fun. We also ate at Olympic once (worth the splurge to us) and in Blu the remaining five nights. The food and service in Blu were all great. We sometimes ordered something not on the menu, such as shrimp cocktail or Caesar salad and the waiter was accommodating. My only complaint of Blu is how close together the tables for two are. It was impossible for us to have dinner "alone" on any of the nights we ate there. It was always interesting to meet and chat with those seated next to us but we could not have a private conversation over a glass of wine, which we enjoy doing at dinner. Of course it was not so bad that we didn't want to eat there We also ate at Blu for breakfast nearly every morning and loved the menu choices.

DRESS: Every night in Blu is supposed to be smart casual dress. This was not completely evident on the first or last evening where there was a lot of really casual wear. People dressed up a little more on other nights, especially on formal nights. Even though Blu does not require formal dress, there were men in suits and a few tuxes on those nights. Still, well over half the men did not wear suits or jackets. Women wore anything from dresses - dressier and casual, to capris, to dark jeans with nice tops. It seemed like any nice restaurant at home - there's a wide range of what people wear. One evening I saw a man in a hoodie and jeans. He seemed a bit out of place but he certainly did not get turned away.

ON THE SHIP: On the first full day on board, we took advantage of going to two talks by John Manka, the naturalist on board our ship. The talks were on wildlife of Alaska and glaciers. Both were excellent and I would definitely recommend going to the naturalist's presentations (one hour each). John has many years experience as a National Park ranger and his presentations were humorous and informative. There was a lecture about bears by John in the afternoon of our day in Hoonah but we were still on our excursion and missed it.

We had a couple of spa appointments that were a real treat. We did not attend any of the evening shows, though we did listen to live music in some of the small bars. We were so busy in ports that by the time we cleaned up and had dinner, we just weren't interested in the shows.

EXCURSIONS: we made reservations for all the excursions directly with vendors in advance, rather than through the cruise ship.

KETCHIKAN - lovely little port town in the foothills. It was fun to sit in the lounge by Cafe de Baico, sipping cappuccinos and watching as the ship pulled into port. We also were able to FaceTime our grandkids as cellular service was restored. (Verizon worked fairly well in all the ports.) We disembarked soon after 7:15 and easily found the rep from the Bering Sea Crab Excursion waiting for us. We were given directions to walk to the Aleutian Ballad where we boarded and waited for our 8:00 departure. It was a great tour. We have never watched the show The Deadliest Catch but still found the tour interesting and the crew was entertaining and professional. One of the highlights was the eagle feeding. I had never seen so many eagles in one place.

ICY STRAIT POINT - Hoonah is another small, quaint town and we had a double excursion scheduled through Misty Bay tours - whale watching and bear combo. The morning was whale watching on a small 6-passenger boat. It was a pleasant tour and we saw some whales, especially whale tails. It was great to be able to go on the top deck of the boat for photos. We had about a half hour before the bear watching tour so we were asked if we wanted them to prepare a lunch for us at the lodge. Without thinking to ask the price, I said sure. With tax it was $25.57 for two sack lunches of a cold turkey lunchmeat sandwich, chips and a mini bottle of water. Wow! My mistake for not asking but I was sure wishing we had waited until getting back on the ship to eat. The bear watching is not a tour I would repeat. There is no guarantee of seeing bears, of course, but the only wildlife we saw was one deer after driving around for over three hours in a van. The driver said they often go for weeks without seeing bears. There were four rows of seats in the van and those of us in the third and fourth rows could not hear the driver's commentary. Finally someone asked if he could please use a microphone. He apologized and said it just got fixed so he wasn't used to remembering to use it. But even with that reminder he still used it inconsistently. I was very relieved when this tour was over. The people at Misty Bay were pleasant to deal with but the overall level of professionalism and feeling of good value for the money was much less than what we experienced with other tours.

JUNEAU - This was a busy day. We were off the ship and met with the rep from Harv and Marv for a morning of whale watching. It was another warm, sunny day. There were only four of us on this tour. We saw whales from a distance, probably not as close as we had in Hoonah. Captain Shel was friendly and professional and it was evident he had a passion for the sea. Jen was learning the ropes and she did a great job as well. We had a short stop at Mendenhall Glacier on the return. Once back on Juneau we went for lunch at Tracy's Crab Shack and sat outside and shared the crab combo lunch – delicious! After lunch we took the Gold Rush Dog Sled tour where we learned about the dogs and took a short ride in a cart with the sled dogs pulling. We were the only two people on our tour but the tour that followed ours had about 15 people. Then it was downtown to ride the tram to the top for a view of the city. We wanted to walk around a bit but it had been a long day so back to the ship to relax we went.

SKAGWAY - We struggled to decide between the train and renting a car but ultimately decided on the car. It was great. I'm sure the train ride is scenic but we were ready for a day without a tour. Our rental at Avis was easy with no wait at 8:00 am. We has a Toyota Four Runner and it was great to be able to sit a bit higher and see the scenery. We drove to Emerald Lake, stopping in Carcross for a quick lunch. We had several photo stops along the way and we were back in Skagway by 1:30. It was truly a beautiful ride and we used Murray's Guide to help us with stops. We had declined all extra insurance and as luck would have it, we had a rock hit our windshield leaving a bullseye chip. Avis charged us $45 to cover repairs. In hindsight, we should have paid the $8 windshield insurance but our damage bill could have been much worse. Avis was great to work with.

HUBBARD GLACIER - what a spectacular morning this was! The weather was postcard perfect. The captain was able to get the ship 1/2 mile from the face of the glacier, which the cruise director said was a record for him in 12 years on this route. He had never been this close and had never had a morning so clear. The sky was blue without a cloud. The sun shined brilliantly on the glacier. It was breathtaking! It was much warmer on deck than I expected and we were very comfortable in layers and a jacket. We were on deck 12 from 6:30-9:00. The naturalist narrated for about an hour of that time and we took hundreds of pictures. As the ship left, we went back to our cabin and had a wonderful view from the aft.

SEWARD – The cruise ended here and we had to be off the ship around 8:00 am. We took a 6-hour Kenai Fjords Wildlife Tour through Major Marine. It was another beautiful day – awesome cruise – saw lots of wildlife including seeing a whale breach several times, orcas, puffins, sea otters and Steller sea lions. The salmon and prime rib buffet was very good. From there we walked to the train to take the Alaskan Railroad (Gold Star Service) to Anchorage. Well worth it to sit in the car with a dome and beautiful views during the 4-hour trip.

ANCHORAGE – we had just a couple days before flying home so we stayed in Anchorage. We rented bikes from Pablo’s Bike Shop downtown and road the Coastal Train (11 miles each way – beautiful trail). We also drove out to Flat Top Mountain but did not hike all the way up. Had good meals at Snow City Café (make reservations online for breakfast or be prepared to wait), Glacier Bewhouse and Simon and Seaforts.

All in all it was a great cruise and we had wonderful visits pre- and post-cruise in Vancouver and Anchorage. If time had permitted we would have added a land portion, but that will have to be a future trip. We can’t wait to return to Alaska!

I enjoyed your review. Thanks for posting it.

Excellent Review. Thanks for sharing this.

Keith

Thanks so much for your review! I have a couple of questions:

Once you disembarked in Seward, what did you do with your luggage while you went on the wildlife viewing trip?

How was the train ride between Seward and Anchorage? Comfortable?

Thanks!

Thanks so much for your review! I have a couple of questions:

 

Once you disembarked in Seward, what did you do with your luggage while you went on the wildlife viewing trip?

 

How was the train ride between Seward and Anchorage? Comfortable?

 

Thanks!

Once we disembarked in Seward, we went directly to the train station and checked our luggage in. We took the yellow public bus from the dock to the train station. The station checked our luggage in around 8:30 am. Our Major Marine tour was a short walk from the train station so we killed tome at a coffee shop and boarded the boat at 11:00. After the tour we high-tailed it a few blocks to board the train, hoping our luggage had made it, which it did. Train was very comfortable. We were in Gold Star class which included two drinks and dinner. Great views and daylight the whole way?

Sounds like a great thing to do before heading home. Thanks for the details!

Surgie we must have seen you and possibly even talked to you somewhere along the way! We did exactly the same as you in Seward - disembarked at 9.00am, checked our luggage in at the railroad, did the 11am Kenai Fjords tour with Major Marine and then the 6pm train to Anchorage! We spent almost the whole Kenai Fjords cruise outside on the bow of the boat. While everyone was ooing and aahing over Holgate Glacier I couldnt help but think that while it was beautiful, if you have seen Hubbard the way we did the day before, nothing could compare! Did you know that John Manka the naturalist from the ship, was on the Kenai cruise with us. We had a nice chat to him.

Sounds like you had a far better boarding experience in Vancouver than we did. It was a complete nightmare and took us almost 2 hours to get on. I know there were 2 large ships in port but I have never seen anything like it! Not Celebrity's fault, Canada Place really need to get their act together. When we finally got to passport control I said to the customs guy 'Is it always like this?' And he answered ' Nah, some days it's really busy' :rolleyes: Oh well, we got on eventually and within 10 minutes and a mimosa had forgotten the pain of the boarding process.

It really was a wonderful cruise, and how blessed were we with the weather!! Just loved everything!

Thanks for the great review. We will be traveling on Holland in July. Looking forward to it!!

Surgie we must have seen you and possibly even talked to you somewhere along the way! We did exactly the same as you in Seward - disembarked at 9.00am, checked our luggage in at the railroad, did the 11am Kenai Fjords tour with Major Marine and then the 6pm train to Anchorage! We spent almost the whole Kenai Fjords cruise outside on the bow of the boat. While everyone was ooing and aahing over Holgate Glacier I couldnt help but think that while it was beautiful, if you have seen Hubbard the way we did the day before, nothing could compare! Did you know that John Manka the naturalist from the ship, was on the Kenai cruise with us. We had a nice chat to him.

 

Sounds like you had a far better boarding experience in Vancouver than we did. It was a complete nightmare and took us almost 2 hours to get on. I know there were 2 large ships in port but I have never seen anything like it! Not Celebrity's fault, Canada Place really need to get their act together. When we finally got to passport control I said to the customs guy 'Is it always like this?' And he answered ' Nah, some days it's really busy' :rolleyes: Oh well, we got on eventually and within 10 minutes and a mimosa had forgotten the pain of the boarding process.

 

It really was a wonderful cruise, and how blessed were we with the weather!! Just loved everything!

That is funny that we spent the whole day "together" on Friday without knowing it! We were on the upper deck on the Kenai cruise - I think table 17. We did chat a minute with John Manka as well. I tried to stalk him a bit in case he was noticing something I missed lol! Agree about the glacier we saw on that tour. Wow - after Hubbard on a clear day it would be hard for anything else to measure up. But then...we've never been to Glacier Bay so maybe another cruise in our future!

Hello,

Thanks for all the good information. I plan to cruise Alaska during the month of August. I did not want to take the pre or post tours with the cruise ships as I felt they were expensive and did not offer the tours I wanted. I had not decided as as to whether I will do Northbound or Southbound. I did want to take the Kenai Fjords tour, but I was not sure if I would have enough time. I was contemplating staying over-rnite in Seward. I had plan to do the Kenai tour and check out the Alaska Sea Life Center and maybe Exit Glacier. Now, that I have all this good information I don't have to stay over-nite stay!!! An over-nite stay would have been hotel and transportation. I will have enough time to do the Alaska Sea Life Center but that's fine. Was the train express and chartered only for the cruise passengers? Did you book the tour in advance and what was the cost?

Thanks

Hello,

 

Thanks for all the good information. I plan to cruise Alaska during the month of August. I did not want to take the pre or post tours with the cruise ships as I felt they were expensive and did not offer the tours I wanted. I had not decided as as to whether I will do Northbound or Southbound. I did want to take the Kenai Fjords tour, but I was not sure if I would have enough time. I was contemplating staying over-rnite in Seward. I had plan to do the Kenai tour and check out the Alaska Sea Life Center and maybe Exit Glacier. Now, that I have all this good information I don't have to stay over-nite stay!!! An over-nite stay would have been hotel and transportation. I will have enough time to do the Alaska Sea Life Center but that's fine. Was the train express and chartered only for the cruise passengers? Did you book the tour in advance and what was the cost?

 

Thanks

Here is a link to available transportation in Seward, it explains the difference in services and has cost. Hope this helps

http://www.alaskatravel.com/seward/transportation.html

Hello,

 

Thanks for all the good information. I plan to cruise Alaska during the month of August. I did not want to take the pre or post tours with the cruise ships as I felt they were expensive and did not offer the tours I wanted. I had not decided as as to whether I will do Northbound or Southbound. I did want to take the Kenai Fjords tour, but I was not sure if I would have enough time. I was contemplating staying over-rnite in Seward. I had plan to do the Kenai tour and check out the Alaska Sea Life Center and maybe Exit Glacier. Now, that I have all this good information I don't have to stay over-nite stay!!! An over-nite stay would have been hotel and transportation. I will have enough time to do the Alaska Sea Life Center but that's fine. Was the train express and chartered only for the cruise passengers? Did you book the tour in advance and what was the cost?

 

Thanks

They were not on the cruise contracted trip, that leaves around 7am. they were on the regular run.

It is WELL worth the time and expense to spend time in Seward. Plenty to see and do, and if you are already there, taking advantage of it offers and excellent adventure. How often are you going to be going there in the future?

Most Kenai Fjords Park tours do allow you to take the train after the tour.

Once we disembarked in Seward, we went directly to the train station and checked our luggage in. We took the yellow public bus from the dock to the train station. The station checked our luggage in around 8:30 am. Our Major Marine tour was a short walk from the train station so we killed tome at a coffee shop and boarded the boat at 11:00. After the tour we high-tailed it a few blocks to board the train, hoping our luggage had made it, which it did. Train was very comfortable. We were in Gold Star class which included two drinks and dinner. Great views and daylight the whole way?

Thanks Surgie for the report. I will be doing the same cruise July 2016. I am planning on doing the Major Marine tour and board the train. From you comments looks like there is enough time to board the train after the tour that was one my concern. Nice hint to drop off luggage before taking the tour. Much appreciated.

Hi

Where did you get a map from to drive to Emerald lake. Where else did you stop on the way? We intend going next year>

Thanks

Hi

 

Where did you get a map from to drive to Emerald lake. Where else did you stop on the way? We intend going next year>

 

Thanks

You can read the route via The Milepost. A great resource that really enhances a trip is Murrays Guide.

Stop where and when you wish.

Thanks very much.

Is Murray's guide the online one or the book?

Thanks