Trip Report: CCL Legend, Alaska, Very Photo Heavy! And it's late, from Sept. 2017

[Tennessee Rose]

After muster drill,we headed to Serenity and got the last clamshell facing the very back of the ship to wait for sailaway which was supposed to be at 4:00 p.m. Well, we didn’t leave until 5:00 because, it was announced, that the Coast Guard was having to make some fishing boats move out of the area so we could get out. We kinda looked at each other and other people too, thinking now how do a couple of tiny fishing boats not get out of the way of a giant ship? While we waited we did see some little sea otters playing right out from the stern of the ship. So, we did have entertainment! I did take some pics of the Seattle skyline but you can barely see the city because of the wildfire smoke haze. The city looked ghostly. The haze and low visibility would continue throughout this trip. We didn’t have that perfect weather some get----we had a small amount of sun and a lot of mist, sprinkles, clouds, fog, and just plain rain. But it didn’t deter us from having a fabulous cruise—in fact, I consider it my favorite cruise ever(this was my 9th cruise). Alaska is just so beautiful!

After sailaway, we went back to the cabin and Jaime’s bag arrived so she got her unpacking done also. That’s when I got to try out my bed for an “almost nap”. I must say the beds, at least ours, on Legend were the most comfortable ones I’ve ever slept on while on a cruise ship. They felt like they had a layer of marshmallow, so soft and cushy. And the comforter was comfy and squishy also. I had no trouble at all sleeping on this cruise. But do wish all their ships had these beds/bedding.

 

Because of the late departure times at 2 of our ports, we had selected late dining which in Alaska was at 7:45 instead of the normal 8:30. This is later than either of us normally eat but I’m just grateful they moved the times up a bit. Early dining was at 5:30 instead of the normal 6:00. So, on this first night we went to the outside deck on 3 at about 7:00 p.m. to kill time until dinner. It was nice and cool, and a bit windy. At dinner, we met our tablemates for our 6-top table----a mother/daughter from Houston and 2 friends from near Naples, FL. Although we had thought about seeing if we could change to anytime dining so we wouldn’t have to wait “so late” for dinner, we ended up keeping our assigned late dining. Because of our wonderful tablemates! We thoroughly enjoyed their company and we all got along very well. Unfortunately, the 2 FL ladies were having to try to keep track of Hurricane Irma which ended up hitting their area, but they thankfully didn’t receive a lot of damage. I’m happy that although they had the worry of not knowing what was going to happen they still seemed to enjoy their cruise.

[Tyskie]

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Although these rooms have a French door that you can open to the inside, there is a rail that blocks you from going outside. They are not balcony rooms; nothing to go out onto. Here is what is outside the door. We could easily see the open deck below the lifeboats. And then you can see our view between lifeboats. I had specifically chosen this one so as to not be directly and wholey behind a lifeboat.

 

 

I don’t cruise Carnival but it did look like a lovely ship

 

Your room is different with the French doors but on other lines it would be considered an obstructed OV - not inside cabin. Certainly interesting [emoji4]

 

 

 

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[Tennessee Rose]

Medusa's Lair Dance Club---I think it would freak people out who might have had a bit much to drink! Although we explored a bit the first day and the next (1st sea day), we didn't really go to all areas of the ship. Found our spots and pretty much stuck to them.

 

Legend has 2 pools on the Lido deck. This one was open air; the other had the roof covering it the entire time. This pic was taken our first sea day and you can see how much movement there was in the pool---splashing everywhere. But it didn't really feel rough to us.

 

 

 

[Tennessee Rose]

I’ve been known to take way too many pictures while on vacation but this time I refrained from taking food pics, except for just a couple. For a week vacation, my pics usually end up being about 1,000 then edited down to about 600-700. On this trip, I ended up with 2,100 photos (yikes!) and narrowed down to about 1,100. In the MDR, I found the food to be very good. We ate several times at seaday brunch and that was good as well as what we had from the Unicorn Café buffet. For food overall, I would give the Legend a B+/A. But at dinner, our main server, Suda, would get an A+ because after I asked for my Arnold Palmer (tea +lemonade) on night 1, he always had my very own pitcher of AP already mixed together. I never even had to tell him what I wanted to drink. He just poured my AP from “my” pitcher every time my glass got a little low!

 

Night 1 dinner: I had chicken quesadilla, pork chop (became a theme for me!), baked potato, and one of the new regular side options, mac ‘n cheese with bacon---oh my, that was so yummy. The baked pork chop was an option a 2nd night and I had it again, it was that good. Plus, I had the mac/cheese/bacon each time it was offered. Jaime’s birthday was actually a couple of days before our trip started so I had emailed the Legend’s maître ‘d, Manuel, a few days before we left, asking if I ordered one of the small birthday cakes if they could bring it out at dinner with candles. I explained that we chose that specific cruise after her birthday because we wanted to sail into Glacier Bay. His response a day later was that they would take care of it. I wasn’t sure what that meant, since I had not actually ordered it. I figured I’d wait and see what happened, if anything.

 

As they were removing our dinner plates, Suda told me they would bring “my”birthday cake. I had not told Jaime anything about talking to them about a birthday cake for her, so I was telling him it wasn’t MY birthday. I was trying to tell him secretively that it was Jaime’s birthday. Well, everyone at the table knew what was going on by then. But, they brought a beautiful heart shaped chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and ganache to Jaime and a group of servers, us, and people at the nearby tables all sang Happy Birthday to her! It was fun. They cut the cake up for everyone at our table with extra for her to take to the cabin. It was a great cake! A bit later, Manuel, came over and specifically asked for me. He wanted to make sure everything was going well at our table. He was very nice. And I was thrilled that they had taken my one little email and ran with it. We didn’t go to any shows or anything this night; went straight back to the room after dinner, about 9:30 p.m.

[Tennessee Rose]

 

We had never seen a towel animal like this one; we decided to call it a bat!

 

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Wed., Sept. 6, Sea Day:

We woke up about 7:30 a.m. and decided to have breakfast at the brunch in Truffles MDR, arriving about 8:30. I had a bacon & cheese omelet with a side of bacon, with orange juice and coffee. Sorry, I didn’t keep track of what Jaime had at each meal. Hard enough to track mine. After breakfast, we just wandered around the ship, stopping to sit and rest here and there. Then, we had lunch on Lido --- cheeseburger, fries, and chicken tenders from the grill. Legend doesn’t have Guy’s Burgers but I’ve found I like the regular grill burgers better than Guy’s; and love the chicken tenders!

We went out to Serenity to spend some time outside and saw lots of dolphins (wait, maybe those were the Dall’s porpoises?) jumping by the ship and Jaime saw some whale spouts. While standing near the rail on the port side of Serenity, we thought a quick rain shower started and people started jumping up and heading under the roofed area. Then, everyone started looking at their arms and clothing. We had black speckles of “something” all over us. It turned out that the funnel exhaust on port side had “shot out” some black stuff. It was all over people who were in that one area. Someone got a crew member to come out and he took our names and cabin numbers, and said someone would pick up our clothing later in the day and clean it free of charge. Since we were wearing short sleeved shirts (I think it was in about the upper 60s/low 70s temperature wise that first day before getting farther north), we had black speckles on our shirts, plus our arms, faces and in our hair! We went back to the cabin to clean up and change shirts. Our room steward, Henry, picked up the shirts later in the afternoon. When they were returned the next morning, mine was clean, but Jaime’s did not come clean at all. They had a note on it to submit the cost of the item, which we did. CCL immediately added that amount to our on-board credit. They had told us it was a problem with the ship exhaust and it had been fixed. I really thought they handled this problem very well and very quickly. Things happen.

 

 

[Tennessee Rose]

We had booked a whale and wildlife excursion through the ship for the next day’s port, Juneau. Our tickets were delivered with instructions to meet right on the dock at the tour busses.

 

Okay, since we have that late dining time, we found we really had to participate in lupper. This term was started by a friend of ours for the “light meal” he has to have in between lunch and supper, therefore “lupper”. We had pizza about 3:30 to carry us over until dinner!

This was the 1st of 2 elegant nights at dinner. Although we saw a lot of ladies in sparkly, dressy dresses and men in suits, we did see those who wore just nice clothes. I wore my typical black pants and a nice, somewhat dressy top. Jaime wore a black skirt and dressy top. For dinner, I had the new blackened pork appetizer, prime rib, and baked potato. I had one of the new desserts---hazelnut chocolate cake with hot chocolate sauce. I have to say I was not impressed with this dessert and would not order this again. The cake was more like 2 thin crispy wafers with filling, then they pour a very thin chocolate sauce over it. It sounded great to me, but not so much. I had seen menus from someone else’s trip that showed several new desserts that I wanted to try. Some were very good; some weren’t.

 

This will seem random right here but I might forget it later----one thing we noticed from day 1 was that there were very few children on this cruise. Yes, school was back in session so it did make a big difference. Because there were mostly mid to older age adults and because it seemed more about the scenery, this was a much quieter cruise than the tropical ones. People seemed to be just mesmerized by the beautiful Alaskan landscape. This was a good thing for this cruise!

 

 

My handy dandy large thermal Bubba mug was used every day---for my ever-present hot chocolate because when I could be I was outside. Yes, it was cold! That hot chocolate was goooood!

[Tennessee Rose]

Thur., Sept. 7, Juneau, 2:00 p.m.-11:00 p.m.

Since we wouldn’t be to Juneau until 2:00 that afternoon, we slept in again and had breakfast at 8:00 a.m. in the MDR. Again, I had a bacon/cheese omelet, bacon, OJ, and coffee. About 9:00 a.m. we went to the open deck on 3 to watch our approach through the channels toward Juneau. One thing I absolutely did not like about this trip is that there were no chairs at all on this open deck. There were always at least some people out there, but with no place to sit. This is a great close-to-the-water open deck that people enjoy, but not so much when you have difficulty standing for very long. All the Caribbean cruises have chairs available on this deck. I don’t know why they didn’t on this one. I really should have asked staff if they could bring us a couple of chairs, but I didn't. I will next time though. At lunchtime, we grazed around the Lido Unicorn Café again.

 

Legend docked in Juneau at 2:00 p.m. and we got off at 2:15 to meet our bus right at the dock. Our tour time was 2:15-6:15 p.m. We quickly found our bus and waited until they boarded; then we were off to Auke Bay just north of town for our excursion with Allen Marine, on the St. Aquilina, a 2- level large boat with a 3rd level open deck on top. The drive was about 25 minutes; our driver was Kaitlyn/Bruce (Jenner as a reminder! She told us that.). Although we chose seats in the 2nd level enclosed area, I stayed outside on the back open deck most of the time. Yes, it was cold and windy and rainy at times, but I didn’t want any glass between me and what I was seeing.

 

We starting seeing a few spouts then some humpback whales just coming out of the water to see their backs then tails. Altogether, we saw about 7 different whales, including “Flame” a female known to the tour operators. I think they actually know many of them. After several hours of watching for and seeing whales, we headed back toward the docks but by a different route where we saw some Steller sea lions sleeping on a buoy. They were oblivious to the boat beside them. We also saw several eagles in the trees, and the naturalist also pointed out 2 glaciers we saw from the boat---Eagle Glacier and Hubbard Glacier (I “think” I have those names right; don’t persecute me if I have them wrong!).

 

Allen Marine has a naturalist on board who told us about the area and what we were seeing throughout the tour. They have a very nice and capable crew. The interior areas of the boat were nice and heated. If you stayed in the open areas like I did, it was chilly and it rained/sprinkled most of the time we were out, but it wasn’t “cold” cold unless you just stayed out the whole time. Like I did! I didn’t care how cold I got, I wanted to experience it all to the hilt! It was lightly raining when we returned to Juneau and starting to get toward dusk, so, although we had hoped to ride the tram to the top of Mt. Roberts, we decided not to. At $33 per person, we thought that was too much for a quick trip up and then back down. It would have been dark by the time we looked around even a little bit at the top. Although we got off the bus near the tram, we ended up just walking back to the ship to get dry and warm. It was farther than I have walked in a very long time and I didn’t know if I could make it back. Again, I don’t walk well. We had seen pedicabs earlier in the afternoon, but there were none out this late; not sure if that was because of the time or the rain. We skipped the MDR that night and just got pizza on Lido for dinner. After going back to the cabin, Jaime ordered room service---a BLT for her breakfast the next morning and milk and cookies for me! We also ordered our room service breakfast for the next a.m. since we were leaving early in Skagway.

And now the Juneau pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

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The brown brick building right in the center of this pic is the state capitol.

[Tennessee Rose]

This is a floating bridge that our big bus drives over at the Auke Bay dock to get to the excursion boats. Our driver explained that when the tide is up the bridge has quite an angle, and it scares some passengers! It was flat for us.

 

 

 

 

 

[Tennessee Rose]

 

 

 

 

 

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[Tennessee Rose]

Fri., Sept. 8, Skagway, 7:00 a.m.-9:00 p.m.:

We had ordered room service breakfast the night before for delivery between 6:00-6:30 a.m. It was delivered at 5:45 a.m.! We got up and ate, then got ready for our day. We had reserved a rental car with Avis about 6 months before; an economy at what was the going rate of $156 for the day! Wow! But there are very few options in tiny Skagway and I had read that they sometimes run out of cars for rent. I did periodically check rental rates (on lots of websites) from when we first started looking about a year before the cruise. So, about 3 months before the cruise, I caught Avis having a sale and got the same car for $126. I made the reservation then went online and cancelled the other one. I had all the documents with me when we went to pick up the car---cancellation and new reservation---just in case there was an issue. No issue at all.

 

From where we got off the ship, it was a bit too much of a walk for me with my arthritis issues, so we decided to wait for the local shuttle bus for the $2 ride over to Avis. There is a bus sign by the little bridge by the dock. We waited and waited, and several people just decided to walk on into town. This might have been all of about ½ mile, but I can’t walk that. So, the bus. Well, it took it 30 minutes to get there. Finally, we are on the way to get the rental and be on our way----we were spending the day driving up the Klondike Highway into Canada (British Columbia and the Yukon Territory). Although the next day in Glacier Bay was by far my favorite day of the cruise, this day of driving ourselves through Alaska and seeing some of the most gorgeous scenery I’ve ever come across was my 2nd favorite. The bus dropped us off ½ block from the Avis office which is in the part of the Westmark Inn on the south side of the street. This was about 8:30 a.m. and there was a short line out the door. When we got close to the door we heard what was causing the slowdown. Avis’ computer system was down and they couldn’t take any credit card payments. If you had a card tied to your reservation, it would be processed later but they couldn’t give you any kind of print out/receipt. Not a problem for us. We finally got our keys and walked the half block to their car lot to pick up our Chevy Cruze. It was a very good little car; drove well and after our drive to Emerald Lake and back, we had used only 3/8 of a tank of gas! That’s even better since we had to fill the tank before return and gas was $3.59/gallon!

 

It was 9:00 a.m. when we left the lot in our Cruze. We had brought our bottled water off the ship and stopped at the single grocery store in Skagway to buy some snacks for our drive. Although we both would have loved the train excursion, I really like having control over where I stop and how long I get to spend at each stop. Having that control and the fact that the car rental was going to be less than half the cost of the train ride made our decision an easy one. Someday, if I ever get back to Skagway, I’ll do the train trip. But we didn’t regret at all our decision to drive our own excursion. It was a great day, even though we had some mist/fog/sprinkles early in the day, mainly going up the pass, then again at the end of the day.

 

I had read about Murray’s Guide, a milepost by milepost travel guide, from Cruise Critic last year. You can download this to print out for $5. It was great to have this with us; I had used a highlighter for specific items that we wouldn’t want to miss. The guide follows from Skagway and goes I think all the way to White Horse. We, as many others have done, turned around at Emerald Lake. This is undoubtedly some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen in my entire life. I had wondered if the area would have any fall colors to see during this first week of September. Well, it did. I believe some of the trees in the farther north areas are aspen. They were in their full-on fall yellows. Plus, the many lichens and mosses get their fall colors also. Those plus the gorgeous green glacial lakes were stunning.

 

I had also read about the Chilkoot Sourdough Bakery in Carcross and we had planned to have lunch there. But it was closed. We ended up going to the Spirit Lake Wilderness Lodge for lunch. We both had the Hawaiian cheeseburger which was fabulous---best burger I’ve had in many, many years. Richard, one of the owners, was a wonderful host and I enjoyed talking to him. Especially when I heard those Canadian “eh”s scattered in! If I remember when in another country, I try to get some of the local currency as souvenirs. Well, Richard gave me a “twonie” as my change, then explained it to me. I had forgotten to ask for Canadian currency, and it was by accident he gave it to me. Then, he gave me one of each of the other Canadian coins. Although we weren’t really ready to leave the area, we had to start back toward Skagway. We really wanted to turn in the car keys before they closed the office. On the way back, it started misting, then turned to a light rain. By the time we were at the top of the pass, near the “one side attached bridge” area, the fog was so heavy you could barely see the road. I was really scared. Not so much my driving it, but that someone would come upon me from behind and slam into us. This foggy area only lasted about 10-15 minutes thankfully, then it was clear the rest of the way down to town.

 

Note about Canadian Customs and Border Patrol and the highway in general: Of course, we had our passports with us and going into Canada we were asked a couple of simple questions, he checked our passports, then, we were on our way. Took only a minute or so. Returning, again we had to show passports to the US agent. He asked if we had purchased anything in Canada. I picked up the can of sweet tea I had bought at the restaurant and told him that was all I had bought, except for lunch and that we had eaten that. Because he was so serious, I was dead serious also. He cracked the slightest smile when I told him about the tea and lunch. I wasn’t trying to get him to smile; I just was being completely sincere and honest! Again, customs took all of about 2-3 minutes. Coming and going there were only 2-3 cars each time.

 

(Note----Since I already had this "report" typed up, it is easier and quicker for me to just copy/paste these sections, then attach sections of just photos. I'm sorry if it is confusing. I'm trying to keep the photos at least in the order of the day I'm talking about!)

[Tennessee Rose]

The Klondike Highway is a 2-lane, very well-kept road. It was in very good condition, even in the bridge area where they were doing a bit of road work. There were a couple of areas that had a slightly different surface but it was still in good, smooth condition. Except in the tiny village of Carcross, I think we may have seen all of about 10-12 or so cars all day long. Hardly anyone was on this road. There are turn-offs for some scenic lookouts and it was just overall a great road with incredible scenery. Oh, the speed limit on this highway is 40 mph in the US and 55 mph in CA. Although the CA signs had kilometers, the car gauge had miles, so you need to make sure to know and watch how fast you are going.

 

Just before getting back into Skagway, we turned off onto the Dyea Road to go to the overlook of town. It’s about a mile down this road. We got some great photos of the ship and town, then headed back to fill the gas tank and drop the car off. It was about 5:00 p.m. or so. Since it was lightly raining by this time, we just caught the $2 bus back to the ship. When we got off the bus, we noticed a number of people looking over the dock rail back to the ship. We looked over by the little bridge and there were salmon trying to jump into a large culvert with water rushing out of it. And there were 3 little speckled harbor seals trying to catch those fish! They were so cute and a perfect end to our perfect day in Skagway. We watched for about 15 minutes then boarded Legend.

 

Back in the cabin, we got ready for dinner and went down to our favorite pre-dinner waiting spot, the Atlantis Lounge right across from the entrance to the restaurant. It was a great people watching spot and, each evening before dinner, there was a young couple who sang old 1940s-50s songs. They were very good. Tonight, I had the beef tenderloin, polenta, baked potato, my nightly AP, and the new dessert S’more Parfait. I did really like this new dessert. After dinner, we went to the Love and Marriage Game in the Follies Theater with Kim and Lucille, 2 of our dinner tablemates who had never seen this show. As usual, it was hilarious. Then, to the cabin for another sleep-in night.

 

And now the section of Skagway day photos. I promise you some beautiful ones, if I do say so myself!

[Tennessee Rose]

 

 

 

 

 

[Tennessee Rose]

Oh, since I was driving on this day, I was taking quite a few pictures through the windshield by simply holding the camera up and clicking while driving, sometimes pointing out the side window. Nope, not even looking to see what the viewfinder was actually showing! I've found I get some interesting pictures that way. The only thing is that those through the windshield have that weird odd coloration due to the tinted car windshield. You'll be able to tell which are the car window pics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Tennessee Rose]

I have to tell a bit of a funny story here. See, Jaime, my co-cruiser, is terrified of bears. As much as I wanted to see bears, she absolutely did not want to see any bear within about half a mile of us! So, at each stop I would get out and walk around, looking at everything and taking a ton of pictures with her sitting in the car telling me to watch and listen for bears. And that if one attacked me, well, my tough luck. She would take a picture to prove that a bear got me! We only saw one bear----from the ship! Now, back to the show.....

[Tennessee Rose]

 

 

 

 

 

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[Beachiekeen]

Your pictures are just breathtaking! It's bringing back so many memories! :) My MIL was scared of bears also. She even bought a bear bell. We saw a local later in our trip and she said they call those "dinner bells!"

[Tennessee Rose]

Bove Island

 

 

I was excited at the pull-out where I took this shot; there was a sign that said Do Not Feed the Bears! Apparently, this was a good bear-spotting site----probably because there were a ton of these low-growing wild roses covered with rose hips. I think that is a perfect bear food! But, no bears for me on that day.

 

 

 

[Tennessee Rose]

Your pictures are just breathtaking! It's bringing back so many memories! :) My MIL was scared of bears also. She even bought a bear bell. We saw a local later in our trip and she said they call those "dinner bells!"

 

That is too funny! I'll have to tell Jaime she must get a bear bell the next time she's going near the woods. Thing is, she's not afraid of much of anything, except bears and, as I found out while planning this trip, heights. So, no flightseeing for us.

[Durack0830]

Have really enjoyed your post and photos! :D