Westerdam Alaska 8/2-9 Highlights (LONG)

[dancermom09]

Just from our perspective, overall we had a very enjoyable time on the cruise. Meant this to be succinct, sorry!

 

The best bits:

 

Juneau Whale Watching, Rain forest trail, and Mendenhall glacier tour. I'd give this one a 10. Long, but fantastic and informative. Our guide was a local kid named Nathan who had lived in Juneau all his life, on the trail walk our bus driver led us and she is Native Alaskan. Our boat captain Brandon was great too, we had a pod of seven humpbacks feeding very close by. Then a couple on a different tour said they had seen a pod of Orcas feeding on sea lions! Terrible and fantastic at the same time. Weather was nice and warm at the glacier. Finished the stop with really excellent King Crab at Tracy's. Super great day.

 

Glacier Bay. Due to some ship shuffling, we spent extra time at Margery glacier, with our port side facing twice. Lots of small calving, pops and groans. Fascinating. The bad I will talk about below.

 

Sitka was charming. They only get a ship twice a week, I think, and they are very friendly. Went to the Raptor Center on the trolley and saw Tootsie. DH took off on the trail and worried me, but he's ok. Lots of bears around Sitka. We were craving some good fresh wild salmon, and we found some here at the Westmark. Lovely little shop called WinterSong Soap Company had wild huckleberry jelly and Devil's Club Salve. Walked up to the lookout, took lots of photos. Lovely stop.

 

Bus tour in Seattle after disembarking. Worth the $$. You see several neighborhoods from the bus, you can leave your stuff on the bus, and you get a couple of hours each at the Space Needle and Pike's Market. So much better than waiting at the airport all day for a 4pm flight. Cons are getting up extra early for a 7:30 am excursion meeting!

 

Dancing with the Stars. This was one of the cruises with the Pros and Celebs from the show along with the troupe. I would say this accounted for 50% of our enjoyment of the cruise. We had Kym Johnson, Tristan McManus, Emma Slater, Sabrina Bryan, and Carson Kressley. The troupe was so impressive, very young and energetic and included former SYTYCD contestants Anya Garnis and James Tuileva. The classes were a blast (Tristan is very funny), the host was excellent and funny, the show was outstanding. The finale with the "amateurs" was funny, moving, and entertaining. We went to everything, Carson Kressley even signed my husband's wine glass. DH was picked to do the Cha Cha on stage, but didn't win. We can dance, but had a very hard time remembering the choreo. It moved fast!

 

Pinnacle Grill and Le Cirq. Both were excellent. Excellent steaks, pretty good King Crab. Very sweet female servers, the only ones we saw. Husband loved the crab cakes. Not sure Le Cirq was worth nearly twice as much, but that was an excellent meal. Best dessert I had on the cruise and all gluten free! Note to future cruisers, the Chateaubriand serving is HUGE. You might want to think about getting a different entree if there are two people, there's plenty to share.

 

The Middle. Didn't have too much problem getting gluten free meals, but I did feel pretty limited, especially with sweets. Didn't need all that sugar anyway. We had a couple of meals in the dining room which just weren't very good, but considered those light eating nights. Pass on the chicken, do get the pear soup! At one point I told my husband that I might lose weight on the cruise. Didn't happen.

 

The Not So Great.

 

Ketchikan has rain almost all the time, so plan on that. The blocks around the port are wall to wall jewelry stores and have very aggressive salespeople. We booked the floatplane to the fjords and for the price, I wasn't thrilled. Very misty day with low clouds and the views were not very magnificent. Husband picked this one and he liked it, I think because he got to sit up front in a Beaver floatplane and his little boy inside was happy. We were the last ones back to the ship because the visibility got worse and some planes had to go "the long way".

 

The Briefly Bad but hey, we're on a cruise:

 

Had some cabin problems. First day, the heat was stuck on high. Already hot in Seattle, but this made unpacking and dinner dressing miserable. They tested the temp, it was 96F. At the first call, we were told to stay put and someone would come up. Well, they didn't. It finally got fixed while we were at the show. So over the night and Juneau day, our cold air conditioning was stuck on high. They didn't tell us the temp but I would guess about 50F. Also fixed in the evening and worked fine for the rest of the cruise.

 

For this trouble, they sent us chocolate strawberries a couple of days, and I wound up asking for some of our corkage fees back. We discovered that the wine we brought on board had been damaged. Because of my allergy issues (good excuse), we seek out wine from boutique wineries that are more naturally made and don't have preservatives. Not supposed to get over 80F, and certainly not for a whole day. Expensive lesson, we forgot about the wine.

 

I liked and disliked Anytime dining. We truly treated it as anytime, going when we were hungry and ready to eat. Only two of us and we always sat with new people, which was fun. Did miss being pampered a bit by our servers. They were efficient and impersonal.

 

OK, the worst was other passengers. There were several large family groups and the kids were running amuck. A group of boys we called The Orphans were at every DWTS lesson, up front and dancing in bear paw slippers. No parents in sight. They were pretty much in the way of the instructors at times. And there was constant running in the hallway, but at least it stopped at night. A group of teens (I think) right above us were feeding the seagulls in glacier bay. They did it for quite a while and were very loud about it. You are supposed to be quiet in Glacier Bay, not smoke, and NOT feed the wildlife. The Captain finally had to scold about feeding the birds, and they did stop, but it had already gone on for most of an hour. He did this before we reached the glacier, thank goodness. Someone smoked around us, but it was quick.

 

We are now curious about the Skagway train so may be looking for another Alaska cruise, not sure it will be on a dam ship. Don't like the balcony smoking, and do like variety. If there's a chance for another special DWTS cruise, might consider it. It was a late booking, and I'm really glad we went. Alaska is something you really need to see, at least once.

 

Questions?

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you for your review.

Glad you enjoyed Alaska and are thinking about going again.

Our first Alaskan cruise was back in the 80's -- and we have done quite a few since then.

[Typhoon1]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a well done review.

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for taking the time to write and post a nice review of your Alaskan cruise on the Westerdam.

[clagkids]

Thanks for your review. We leave this coming Saturday on the same cruise. What was your cabin #? That extreme heat and cold would be miserable. We took a Princess land and cruise tour in 2012. Highlights included a 360 degree flight around Mt McKinley with Talkeetna Air Taxi - absolutely breathtaking. At Skagway, we took the White Pass Railway up to Fraser and the Chilikoot minibus to Carcross. Enjoyed the Yukon Wildlife Taxidermy Museum. It was foggy that morning so train ride ok, not great.

[erewhon]

Thank you for your review.

 

We also have experienced passengers up on top deck smoking while at Glacier Bay.

[portofrome]

Thanks for the review.

[dancermom09]

Clagkids, it was 5072. I was wondering why the people before us didn't get it taken care of.

 

Krazy Kruizers, I'd do another Alaska cruise over yet another Caribbean cruise in a heartbeat. But I'd really love to take a Med cruise. Wonder about the chances for a great deal on one of those with airfare. Ha.

 

Thanks for reading, everyone.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report! Sounds like outside of some unsupervised kids, everything was pretty good.

[sportsmum]

Thank you! We leave this Saturday as well. :)

 

Were there movies shown onboard? Do you remember any of the titles?

[Keith1010]

Thank you for your review.

 

Keith

[Spunky946]

Thank you! We leave this Saturday as well. :)

 

Were there movies shown onboard? Do you remember any of the titles?

 

We leave this Saturday too. We are getting so excited.

[dancermom09]

Hi, there were movies. In the Culinary center, I think. I remember Draft Day, Frozen, and Insurgent. I know there were different ones every day, but that's all I remember, sorry.

 

Enjoy your cruises!

[Crew News]

Thank you! We leave this Saturday as well. :)

 

Were there movies shown onboard? Do you remember any of the titles?

 

All of the movies at the Culinary Arts Center are repeated the next day on your room TV but without popcorn.

[sportsmum]

Thank you!!