Our review of the 14 day Alaska Amsterdam cruise--6-22-14

[rajkr74]

Thanks for posting the review and pictures. We are doing this cruise in August and your pictures are adding to the anticipation! Can't wait to see otters.

 

Terry

 

We got into them in Sitka on an excursion, photos to follow.

[SunLakesBob]

We got into them in Sitka on an excursion, photos to follow.

 

Rick,

 

Will you be sharing your pictures via OneDrive?

[rajkr74]

Rick,

 

Will you be sharing your pictures via OneDrive?

 

Yes. I think joyce has gotten thru all the cards and photos culling out the bad ones. We shot far too many! She spent some time getting these for the review and now has to par them down and decide which ones go on OneDrive. It could be a few more days before she gets there. We are very happy with all the wildlife photos this trip.

[rajkr74]

Anchorage. Well we sailed into the Anchorage dock with another clear nice day, hard to believe we have another port day with no rain. The Anchorage port is one of the most secure and policed ports we have been at. You cannot walk anywhere there in the dock area since this is the commercial entry point for all the main shipping. Shuttle service was provided to downtown due to the security of the port area. We were bused to the Dena’ina Civic Center which is 2 blocks south of the Eagan Center which is where they normally drop and pick up cruisers. This was done to keep HAL passengers coming to Anchorage for busing to Seward and the Osterdam from getting mixed up with Amsterdam passengers.

 

We took the bus to downtown and went to the Anchorage Museum which charges $15/person. Not a bad museum with good history of Anchorage and Alaska but in our opinion priced a little high. It took about an hour and a half to go thru it. From there we went to the visitor center on 4th and F St. to pick up brochures. Then we walked to the Public Lands building which is a federal building…..get ready for a security check just like at the airport. It was free and provided additional information about parks and public lands in Alaska. We then walked north 2 blocks to the Sunday Market. Well worth going to it with everything you could think of for sale from crafts to food booths. A lot of local artists with items associated with Alaska. We took an hour walking thru the booths and enjoyed an ice cream bar. From there we walked down to Ship Creek to see the fisherman. However it was low tide and most of the fisherman had left, besides the rumor was there was nothing caught that morning since it was toward the end of King Salmon season. From there we hopped over the railroad tracks and went to the Ulu factory/salesroom to view the knives. After purchasing some items we took their free shuttle back to the visitor center. They run this free shuttle back and forth between the factory and the visitor center but will stop at the Market when going to the visitor center from the factory. We then walked to a mall a few blocks away and noticed a bunch of HAL staff seated around….can you say FREE WIFI? Sat there and hooked up for a few e-mails and web browsing. After that walk back to catch the shuttle back to the ship.

 

When we got back to the ship we noticed how low the ship had dropped due to the low tide. When we left in the morning we took the gangway down from level 2. Now the gangway was set so we walked down to the promenade deck from the dock. It was a pretty drastic tide change. We were told that it was a tide change of 30’ and they constantly had to change the gangway all day long. See pictures below.

 

Sailing into Anchorage.

 

Container ship being unloaded next to us.

 

Anchorage museum.

 

Sunday Market with Amsterdam off in the distance.

 

Ship level when disembarking in the morning.

 

Dock level in late afternoon when reboarding.

Additional pictures on next posting.

 

[Traveling Dot]

Loving your pictures and review. :) Thinking of this cruise for next year.

[rajkr74]

Anchorage Continued.....

 

Mud flats in late afternoon. Amazed the Amsterdam was not sitting on the bottom????

 

Walking DOWN the gangway to the Amsterdam. I did watch my head on the lifeboat!

 

Edited July 13, 2014 by RAJKR74

[rajkr74]

Thank you everyone for your kind comments on the review and pictures. I have to give most of the credit for the good photos to my wife joyce. She does a better job of composing pictures. I might get one good shot out of a hundred. :D

More to follow along with reviews on the ship, the crew and the cruise in general.

[Bill the cat's mom]

Hi thanks for the picture posting. I will be on the July cruise and it will be my fifth cruise to Alaska. This one cruise that goes to Anchorage as Anchorage has the highest tides. Hope the gangway will not be too steep. Was in Portland Maine and gangway was so steep I didn't get off for a tour. Gangway must have been at a 60 degree angle. It was a different cruise line and I don't think they had moved the gangway.

Your pictures are fantastic and put up some more!

Marilyn

[rajkr74]

Hi thanks for the picture posting. I will be on the July cruise and it will be my fifth cruise to Alaska. This one cruise that goes to Anchorage as Anchorage has the highest tides. Hope the gangway will not be too steep. Was in Portland Maine and gangway was so steep I didn't get off for a tour. Gangway must have been at a 60 degree angle. It was a different cruise line and I don't think they had moved the gangway.

Your pictures are fantastic and put up some more!

Marilyn

 

I don't think you will have any problems in Anchorage with the gangway. They appeared to be changing the gangway constantly with the raising and lowering tides. We saw that after we got back to the ship in the afternoon as the tide was rising.

[rajkr74]

Homer. We got into the dock around 10:00am with the weather cloudy again. Looks like 3 days of sun in a row is the most we are going to get. No rain though. This stop, we figure, is for passengers to take fishing excursions since there is not a lot to do here. You have the spit to go thru shops and there is a free shuttle bus to take you about a mile to the spit, but it is a long flat walk. You are taken over in school buses. There is also a shuttle that will take you to the town of Homer which is about 6+ miles away. The cost is $15 round trip and I heard they have 3-4 stops in town they can drop you off at. From feedback that we got we felt it was not worth the time and money to in. Homer does not get a lot of cruise ships so the development of excursions ar limited to the fishing trade. The boats involved in the TV show Deadliest Catch (Time Bandit) were not in the harbor so we missed them again this year. The Time Bandit souvenir shop has moved into town from the spit. There were quite a number of vehicles parked in the parking lots on the spit and the owners appear to have gone fishing. There were not as many eagles perched around as we saw in 2011. We found out from a local that a law had been passed that made it illegal to feed them during the winter.

 

Homer harbor.

 

Additional harbor picture.

 

Stacked crab pots.

 

Eagle on a boat mast.

 

Eagle ready to fly off.

 

Harbor

 

[mhg7274]

Thank you so much for posting your photos and updates about your cruise. We are leaving in two weeks on the same itinerary. This has got me even more excited now!

[rajkr74]

Kodiak. We sailed in to Kodiak with a little light rain falling. We had decided to go to Fort Abercrombie on our own and had contacted a taxi cab company prior to the cruise. We called them from the ship and they got there right as we stepped onto the dock, pretty good. For $17, one way, they took us out to the entrance of the park, perfect. By the time we got to the park it has stopped raining and we nearly had the park to ourselves as we walked thru the trails down to the ocean. From there we walked up to the WWII gun emplacements which looked over the ocean. The barrels are still there after the Army blew them up in 1948. I took the tour thru the military museum located near the emplacements which was open. It was a $5 fee and it had some addition information on Fort Abercrombie from WWII along with two WWII vehicles. We then walked on some more of the trails to see additional concrete emplacements and wildlife meadows. This is a nice park with some great views of the ocean and an interesting place to explore. We walked back to the entrance of the park and called the cab company who promptly showed up and took us back to town. We had them drop us off at the Russian Orthodox Church downtown which cost us only $16.

 

The church was open and we spent some time viewing the inside. We walked around town visiting some of the shops and then over to the boat harbor. The walk back to the ship was an easy walk back thru the industrial area and fish processing plants. We stopped off at one plant and watched inside as workers processed and packaged fish.

 

Walking thru the mossy trails in the park.

 

More mossy trails.

 

WWII gun emplacement and barrel.

 

Observation post.

 

Museum and ammunition bunker.

 

Wildflowers over looking the ocean.

More Kodiak pictures on next post.

 

[racer72]

Great pictures. My wife and I will be on a 7 day cruise on the Amsterdam one week from today. Like to see more pics of the ship.

[rajkr74]

Kodiak continued.......

 

Cones on a tree in the park.

 

Wildflowers.

 

Russian Orthodox church.

 

Inside the church.

 

Kodiak harbor.

 

Looking for a free meal at a public fish cleaning station.

[rajkr74]

Great pictures. My wife and I will be on a 7 day cruise on the Amsterdam one week from today. Like to see more pics of the ship.

Will do. Just about done with the excursions/ports then we will review the ship with pictures. Will try to do that before you leave.

[racer72]

Will do. Just about done with the excursions/ports then we will review the ship with pictures. Will try to do that before you leave.

Thank you.

[AlohaPride]

Thank you so much for the wonderful review!! I can't wait for our 14 day cruise next month. We don't have anything planned for Kodiak yet, so the park looks like fun. Is the only way to get there by taxi or do you know if there were shuttles or if the public bus has a stop close by?

 

Also, we were thinking about renting a car in Anchorage and going to the State Fair. Now I'm wondering if we should just go to the Sunday Market. It looks like it was a lot of fun.

[geocruiser]

Thank you so much for the wonderful review!! I can't wait for our 14 day cruise next month. We don't have anything planned for Kodiak yet, so the park looks like fun. Is the only way to get there by taxi or do you know if there were shuttles or if the public bus has a stop close by?

 

Also, we were thinking about renting a car in Anchorage and going to the State Fair. Now I'm wondering if we should just go to the Sunday Market. It looks like it was a lot of fun.

 

Here is some info on the park. You might be able to E-mail them for more info.

 

http://dnr.alaska.gov/parks/aspunits/kodiak/fortabercrombieshp.htm

[AlohaPride]

Thanks! I'll check it out!

[rajkr74]

Hubbard Glacier. The day started with fog and we could not see much out while on the decks. So we had pea soup out on the deck, very good pea soup don't miss it. We then went to lunch and had the salmon being grilled by the mid-ship Lido pool area. Excellent barbequed salmon, don't miss this either.

 

The captain was blowing the fog horn at times as we headed toward Hubbard Glacier…we think? Then like you drew back the drapes on a window we came out of the fog and could then see all the way to the glacier. This was very different then our approach to Hubbard in 2011. That year we thought we were going up a fiord so this year we were surprised when we came out of the fog and we could see the glacier and the mountains. In fact there was no fiord. We then headed slowly toward the glacier. We feel that this is the best glacier and with all the calving events we witnessed it still is the highest on our list. It clouded over as we got closer to the glacier.

 

Eating HAL's pea soup. Ummmmm.

 

More of the salmon barbeque.

 

Salmon barbeque on the mid-ship Lido.

 

Mountain range near Hubbard glacier. Hubbard is located to the far right edge of the picture.

 

Heading toward Hubbard glacier.

 

Getting closer to Hubbard.

[vbmom87]

You were very fortunate to get so close to the glacier in Tracy Arm Fjord. I have been in the fjord twice....it is a surreal place....loved, loved, loved Tracy Arm.

 

As for Homer, if you go back, check out:

 

http://www.akcoastalstudies.org/guided-tours.html

 

When we used them for a tour, they had a special Peterson Bay Field Station tour for cruise passengers that was shorter. I am not sure if their current tour accommodates cruise passengers or not. I highly recommend this tour, but you do need to have NO MOBILITY issues. The trail is not easy going for those with limited mobility. We had one grandmother on our tour and it took two people to help her navigate the trail. It really slowed up the group, but I must say no one complained. The woman was having so much fun, it was heart-warming to see her enjoy herself so much. She had an awesome attitude.

[rajkr74]

Thank you so much for the wonderful review!! I can't wait for our 14 day cruise next month. We don't have anything planned for Kodiak yet, so the park looks like fun. Is the only way to get there by taxi or do you know if there were shuttles or if the public bus has a stop close by?

 

Also, we were thinking about renting a car in Anchorage and going to the State Fair. Now I'm wondering if we should just go to the Sunday Market. It looks like it was a lot of fun.

 

We think there is a Kodiak bus system but we did not research it very much since we wanted the flexibility of a taxi....meaning we did not want to wait for a bus. We did not see any busses while we waited for the taxi to pick us up to take us back to town. We are pretty sure there were no shuttles going out there only private excursions and HAL excursions.

 

The state fair would be pretty neat but you might consider the Zoo. We heard from others that is was pretty good zoo. The market was free and but not have any rides...lol.

[rajkr74]

Hubbard Glacier continued......

 

Getting closer.

 

Face of Hubbard Glacier with calving event occurring.

 

Splash!

 

Face of the glacier.

 

Calving event.

 

Calving event continued.

 

Now if you want to see a 21 photo sequence of a calving event we photo'd go to the link below at Microsoft OneDrive. Joyce shot this sequence.

Click the link below then click the first photo and a slide show will start. You can click the forward arrow fast and it will make it look like a video.

 

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=07AFC87CDF2F6DCA&id=7AFC87CDF2F6DCA%218455&sc=photos

 

[rajkr74]

Hubbard continued......

 

I kept waiting and waiting for this one to fall...but it never did.

 

Time to leave.

 

Our last view of the glacier.

[canadianbear]

Hate to sound repetitive but your review is great to read and the photos are fabulous (thanks to your wife I understand!). We have only done the 7 day Alaska cruises but our son did the 2 week a couple of years ago and said it was the only way to go-he loved it and keeps telling us we should go. He did the float plane tour in Homer to see the bears-expensive but well worth it.

 

Looking forward to more from you. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this.