Review and Journal: Sapphire Northbound Voyage of the Glaciers 8/10/2013

[Woobstr112G]

Jimmy;

One of the best reviews I've read in a long time. The pictures are simply amazing.....:):):)

Bob

 

[JimmyVWine]

After lunch, (which we will get to in a future post), we grabbed some pastries and coffees/espresso and headed up to Skywalker’s for a bird’s eye view of sailaway. Several of these photos were taken from just outside there, and others were shot through the blue windows. So sorry for the off colors on some of them.

 

A view of the town as we pulled out of dock.

 

 

 

 

Our Neighbors for the day.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not sure, but I think that this was an excursion from another ship out looking for Alaska’s State bird.

 

 

 

No. Not the Ptarmigan. But THIS!

 

 

 

 

And here is another.

 

 

 

And here is a nesting pair.

 

 

 

Honestly, I thought that we were on the USS Nimitz and that these puppies were going to land on the Sun Deck.

[JimmyVWine]

So here we are, pulling out of Ketchikan. If you haven’t spent any time up there, you simply must go to a forward looking seat in one of the corners of Skywalker’s. The cantilevered view over the edge of the ship is breathtaking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we are, waving, (or “waking”) goodbye to Ketchikan.

 

 

[JimmyVWine]

Jimmy;

 

One of the best reviews I've read in a long time. The pictures are simply amazing.....:):):)

 

Bob

 

 

Thanks, Bob. So many people here have done this itinerary that I wanted to make it entertaining for those remembering their trips as well as informative for people planning theirs. Hopefully this is working.

[JimmyVWine]

Remember Sandra that Naturalist? (Sounds like a “clothing optional” lifestyle, no?), well, at her lecture the day before, she gave us five “Prime Times” (different spelling from the band), to watch for whales and other sea life. One of those times was as we departed Ketchikan and headed to and through the Snow Passage which would be around 5:30-6:30. She invited everyone up to the bow of the Promenade on Emerald Deck to join her. And I do mean everyone. It was mobbed. And we had a dinner reservation at Sabatini’s at 7:30. We waited a frustrating 40 minutes but didn’t see anything. As seemed to be the theme on this trip, just as we were about to leave to dress for dinner...

 

Thar She Blows!!

 

 

 

Off in the distance was the telltale spouting of a humpback whale. We came upon it very quickly, and is at times like this that you realize just how fast we are traveling relative to the lumbering sea life. (For the record, the whale was off the starboard side, but I hardly think that this chance encounter gains that side a point in the contest of which side is better.) Given the size of the crowd on deck and my late-to-the-game location several people deep, I did my best to squeeze off a few shots and this is what I got.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandra earned her paycheck today! Confirmed whale sighting. Orcas. Bald Eagles. Humpbacks. Our “Bingo card” was starting to fill up.

 

To be continued…

[Northender]

Thanks, Bob. So many people here have done this itinerary that I wanted to make it entertaining for those remembering their trips as well as informative for people planning theirs. Hopefully this is working.

 

Be assured, it is working. Loving your prose.:)

[Buck-White Boys]

Be assured, it is working. Loving your prose.:)

 

It's definitely working! Loving the style, the pictures, the stories . . . Not sure what's worse, waiting on the next installment of this or re-generating lives in Candy Crush. :-) Keep it coming!

[nickthecruiser]

Great review and pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[SweetpeaOne]

What an awesome review. Love the pictures. Thanks for sharing. Will be waiting for the rest.

[Assateague Island Princes]

OUTSTANDING review Jimmy! I'm loving every minute of it - thanx so much for posting.

 

One tiny correction though - sorry to tell you those weren't orcas in the photos you posted:o - they are Dahl's Porpoise. You can tell because the dorsal fins are much smaller than an Orca. But hey! Great shots of Dahl's!:D

[JimmyVWine]

they are Dahl's Porpoise.

 

I thought so. But I didn't have the heart to tell my daughter that they weren't orcas. ;)

[IdahoCruises]

Love the Alaska state bird paragraph. Gave me a good laugh early on a Monday morning!

[Assateague Island Princes]

LOL! I love it when a Dad does everything in his power to please his little girl - you go, Jimmy!

 

Well then, SHHHHHHHHH! Lets keep the Orca/Dahl's Porpoise thing just between you and me, k?;)

[Julia’s Journey’s]

Thanks, Bob. So many people here have done this itinerary that I wanted to make it entertaining for those remembering their trips as well as informative for people planning theirs. Hopefully this is working.

 

It's working, I so want to book another Alaska cruise while reading and remembering ours:D

 

Awesome review :)

[JimmyVWine]

Now that we have covered the “off the ship” portion of the day, it’s now time to cover and review the “on the ship” adventures. As mentioned earlier, breakfast today was room service. We find this to be a distant “second” in preference to taking food back to the room from the IC, as the fresh coffee and hot chocolate are better from the IC as are the pastries. Why the croissants and Danish are so dramatically different from one place to the other is a mystery. Love the IC. Room service pastries, on the other hand, are more like doorstops or hockey pucks. Nevertheless, we all had to bathe/shower and dress in time to walk off the ship, walk the 1/3 of a mile to our meeting place, and connect with our kayak guide. There would be no time for a relaxing breakfast on the balcony. So breakfast was serviceable, but nothing more. Of note is the fact that you select a range of delivery time for your food to arrive. While I know that this is surely one of those things that will vary from cruise to cruise, and even day to day, but we ordered room service twice and both times our food arrived exactly 5 minutes before the earliest time in the half-hour range. Better early than late. Unless you are still in the shower. I was.

We have already covered the day in port, so let’s flash forward (which, by the way, was a really cool TV show that I am bummed got cancelled), to the time when we got back on the ship. We noted in the Patter that a Pub Lunch would be served today. “And there was much rejoicing.” (That is a line from my daughter’s all-time favorite movie, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and we use it often when good fortune descends upon us.) We were looking the part of wharf rats when we returned from kayaking, but we figured that no one at a Pub Lunch would care, so we did a really quick Ten-Second-Tidy, (a shout out to “The Big Comfy Couch”—google it if you don’t get it) back at the room and headed for the Savoy Dining Room to partake before it closed at 2:00. Now, on our previous cruise on the Crown, (see…I told you that I would say that a lot), the Pub Lunch was served twice, both times in the Wheelhouse. Pub Lunch served in a British style Pub, complete with a neat bar, Guinness on tap, brass, wood, the whole nine yards. Perfect. But Sapphire’s Pub Lunch in Savoy just seemed so….ill-fitted. As I stated earlier, we thought that the entertainment venues were under-utilized, and this was probably the result of the itinerary, with people being so active all the time. But here was a perfect opportunity to use the Wheelhouse to its full measure, and….nothing. Instead of a full bar, front and center, Savoy used a display table outside of the restaurant to awkwardly display the beers available for purchase, including some local Alaskan beers. At least, they appeared to be Alaskan and had Alaska in the name.

We were seated quickly, (though they seemed a bit put off that we insisted on dining alone. They really wanted to join us with others, but we just weren’t feeling presentable, and when a teenage girl is the least bit self-conscious about her appearance, no quarter will be given). Ironically, we were seated immediately, and the group of four in front of us that asked to be paired up with others had to wait! Trying to make the venue as properly pub-like as possible, I eschewed the Alaskan beers and ordered up a Guinness, which our waiter called a “Chocolate Beer”. He thought he was being funny. Me? Not so much. My wife had whichever beer he described which sounded to be the most like a Newcastle, one of her favorites. My wife ordered the Cottage Pie, which she was hoping would be something like what she knew to be a Sheppard’s Pie, (and it was). My daughter ordered the Fish and Chips which she had been craving since the time I told her that there might be a Pub Lunch on board. I couldn’t decide between the Bangers and Mash and the Fish and Chips. I figured that if I ordered the former, I could steal some of the latter from my daughter. And then it hit me. I’m on a cruise ship! So I ordered the Bangers and Mash and told our server to bring us an extra order of Fish and Chips and place it in the center of the table, even though I knew that I was going to eat most of it. Heck. I didn’t enjoy breakfast all that much, and I had actually gotten some exercise that day. Everything was excellent. Now, I am a bit of a foodie. Alright, who am I kidding. I am an insufferable foodie. But I am no expert in fish and chips. But from what I have had, I must say that these were really, really good. Hot. Crisp. Dense white fish which I assume was cod. Really fine job with the lunch.

Afterwards we went back to our cabin to freshen up a little bit more, got some small pastries and our coffees/espresso (I always write it like that because my wife and daughter usually get some sort of coffee concoction of dubious Italian origin, (meaning that it probably originated in Seattle), and I always get an espresso) and we headed up to Skywalker’s for sailaway as noted by the photos above. We stayed there for a good long while. Or, at least my wife and I did. My daughter went to Remix to connect with her friends. Where they roamed off to, I do not know, but the stories were always interesting.

At 5:30 we headed up to the bow of the Promenade for whale watching. Our daughter found us (miraculously) at around 6:00. After we got our “money shots” of the whale, we went back to the cabin to shower and change for dinner at Sabitini’s. Our reservation was for 7:30.

We arrived at Sabatini’s a bit on the early side, much to the dismay of my entourage. I am habitually five minutes early, and consider anything other than that, late. This causes no shortage of unrest as the ladies dress and do their hair for dinner. Someday I will learn. But our early arrival gave us time to peruse the stock photos that had been taken of us so far that were posted in the gallery right outside of the restaurant. Let’s see. There was the picture while boarding. Nope. The picture of us with the hot chick in the pirate wench outfit taken as we exited the Pacific Moon dining room. Uh…no. And there was the picture of us taken with the Gorton Fisherman taken as we walked off the ship earlier that day. Are you kidding me? What would be next? A person dressed up in a fuzzy orca costume? Oh, ye of little faith!

We were seated for dinner at a nice, quiet table. It was away from the windows, but also away from some birthday celebration that had waiters singing and cameras flying. Good for them, but I didn’t want or need to be a part of it. Our out-of –the-way table was fine. We brought with us a 2006 Scarecrow Cabernet and our glasses. For the third night in a row, our server commented on our lovely glasses, and for the third night in a row, my wife was quick to deflect and confess that we bought them at Walmart at a price that even Walmart would blush over. I tried to explain to her that if the servers wanted to think that we were really Thurston and Lovey Howell (the third), then let them. No need to apologize and let on that we are a couple of Walmart bargain rack wanna-bees. She was having none of it. The corkage fee was mentioned, and we were charged.

Dinner started out as it always does, with Crostini with Proscuitto and a dish of olives “compliments of the chef.” I chuckle under my breath each and every time the server puts the plates down and says that. Of course the dishes are “compliments of the chef.” We are paying a set fee of $25 and everything is paid for. Nothing is extra, and, per force, nothing is complimentary. Ah, well. We moved from there to the starters of Calamari (very good), Twice-Baked Artichoke Soufflé, (very good, if a tad undercooked), the Mosaic of Grilled Vegetables, (best starter of the bunch) and a Soft-Shelled Crab. Fail. OK. So here it is, mid-August. And I am in Alaska. On a ship. My inner foodie is telling me that: a) this ain’t soft-shelled crab season; and b) this ain’t blue crab territory. Muuuuusssst reeeeesisssst. But no. I order it anyway. It was awful. Not to worry. We had plenty of food. And besides, just like the Crostini with Proscuitto, the crab was “compliments of the chef.” Nothing gained or wasted.

Then came the pasta of the day. I can’t recall the shape of the pasta, but the sauce was a red sauce with meatballs. Not fancy in any way, but well prepared.

For the mains, we had a Veal Chop, (excellent), Lobster Three Ways, (very good) and the Strip Steak (uninspired). We were so stuffed that we skipped dessert. The room was never more than half-filled and the service and setting were very nice. Do I prefer the “up top” Sabatini’s on Crown? Yes. But this was certainly worth the trip.

After dinner my daughter took her leave to hang out with her new best friends, and my wife and I tried to walk off a few of those calories before heading to the 10:00 show—the amazing comedy and funny magic of Lorenzo Clark. I loved the title of his show, and that pretty much summed it up. Finding a seat was a snap. One odd note, however. As you sit down for the 10:00 show, no fewer than 5 servers will warn/inform you that it is “last call from the bar.” I find this bizarre since any number of bars on board will serve you will past 10:00. But in the theater, last call is 10:00. Go figure. The show was very good, if a bit short, but such is the new normal. After the show, we called it a night.

To be continued once I get more pictures ready for uploading…..

Edited August 26, 2013 by JimmyVWine

[caribill]

As you sit down for the 10:00 show, no fewer than 5 servers will warn/inform you that it is “last call from the bar.” I find this bizarre since any number of bars on board will serve you will past 10:00. But in the theater, last call is 10:00. Go figure.

 

I figure it is because they do not interfere with the show by blocking people's views by serving during it.

[JimmyVWine]

I figure it is because they do not interfere with the show by blocking people's views by serving during it.

So what excuse do they use for the 8:15 show? Or do those people get interfered with and no one cares? ;)

[DougH]

Nice reveiw so far, very detailed. If you had visited before about 2003/2004 the big souvenier shops did not exist. There we lots of little locally owned Mom/Pop stores and bars that disappeared when the Caribbean chain / jewelry stores moved in. (Same thing in Juneau and Skagway)

 

Really ruined it for me, but I don't go to Aalska to shop. The trick is to ignore all the shops and get out of town for all of the scenery

[forfamily]

I am loving your review! I've been on the Sapphire twice, and am counting down the days to an Alaska trip in 2 weeks.

I thought I was impatient before, but now I can't think of anything else! Your photos are fabulous and your writing is just the right blend of sarcastic and funny!

And anyone that routinely quotes Monty Python is someone I want to know!

Thanks for a wonderful review, I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment!

--Kim

[JimmyVWine]

I am loving your review! I've been on the Sapphire twice, and am counting down the days to an Alaska trip in 2 weeks.

I thought I was impatient before, but now I can't think of anything else! Your photos are fabulous and your writing is just the right blend of sarcastic and funny!

And anyone that routinely quotes Monty Python is someone I want to know!

Thanks for a wonderful review, I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment!

--Kim

 

Thank you for the kind words. With any luck, the next installment will be up tomorrow. It's already written, but I have to insert photos, and I can only do that from home.

[forfamily]

I forgot to ask if you are using a small point and shoot camera or if these photos are from a bigger/nicer camera.... ?

I thought my husband and I were the only ones who staked ourselves out in Sky Walkers. We were there everyday for a few hours at least, never saw another passenger during the day.

Maybe we shouldn't tell anyone!

Haha!

[JimmyVWine]

I forgot to ask if you are using a small point and shoot camera or if these photos are from a bigger/nicer camera.... ?

 

So far, all the pictures posted have been from the antithesis of a point and shoot. For way too many years, I clung to my 35mm Canon Elan IIe, certain that film was superior to all but the extreme high end of digital photography. And for a good long while, that was true. My family supplemented our photography with a variety of point and shoot digitals, but the "serious" pictures were still taken on film. But buying film and getting it developed is such an expensive chore now that I broke down and at Christmas bought myself a nice digital SLR, in large part because I knew that my trip to Alaska would warrant me lugging around that equipment. So I got a Canon T3i and a couple of "consumer" lenses. But for this trip, I went all out and rented an "L" Series 100-400 zoom lens as well. It is a beast of a lens, but paid off in spades. The pictures posted are a combination of the 18-55mm lens and the 100-400mm lens.

 

We took additional pictures on my daughter's Nikon point and shoot and she also took some great shots on her Samsung phone. In fact, she has a picture of Creek Street on her phone that beats mine, as I forgot to take one that has the "Creek Street" sign in it. Subconsiously, I think that I tried to frame my pictures so that the sign was out of the frame. But when I saw hers with the sign in the photo, I really liked it. But I need her to process those, and with school about to start, it isn't a high priority. Soon, I hope, since our kayaking adventure was shot entirely with the point and shoot. I couldn't risk my equipment going for a swim. ;)

[forfamily]

I knew it couldn't be a simple point and shoot, your pics are way too good for that! Your camera purchase paid off!

[pkt1976]

I went to Alaska last year and loved it. Your cruise went to ports I didn't see so I can't wait to read more

[CTGirl]

So far, all the pictures posted have been from the antithesis of a point and shoot. For way too many years, I clung to my 35mm Canon Elan IIe, certain that film was superior to all but the extreme high end of digital photography. And for a good long while, that was true. My family supplemented our photography with a variety of point and shoot digitals, but the "serious" pictures were still taken on film. But buying film and getting it developed is such an expensive chore now that I broke down and at Christmas bought myself a nice digital SLR, in large part because I knew that my trip to Alaska would warrant me lugging around that equipment. So I got a Canon T3i and a couple of "consumer" lenses. But for this trip, I went all out and rented an "L" Series 100-400 zoom lens as well. It is a beast of a lens, but paid off in spades. The pictures posted are a combination of the 18-55mm lens and the 100-400mm lens.

 

We took additional pictures on my daughter's Nikon point and shoot and she also took some great shots on her Samsung phone. In fact, she has a picture of Creek Street on her phone that beats mine, as I forgot to take one that has the "Creek Street" sign in it. Subconsiously, I think that I tried to frame my pictures so that the sign was out of the frame. But when I saw hers with the sign in the photo, I really liked it. But I need her to process those, and with school about to start, it isn't a high priority. Soon, I hope, since our kayaking adventure was shot entirely with the point and shoot. I couldn't risk my equipment going for a swim. ;)

I am really enjoying your review. We leave for Fairbanks 2 weeks from today. I am bringing my Nikon D70 with a 400 lens. I bought the lens to take wildlife pictures. The last time we were in Alaska (2002) I had camera problems with two different cameras. This time I'm hoping for shots like yours.