Jewel sailing from Seward AK to Vancouver 8/1-8/8

[AllenO]

After a two year cruising haitus, we finally sailed again on the Jewel from Seward AK, to Vancouver BC.  Overall, I would give the cruise a solid B, maybe a B- and I'll give you all the good and the bad from my particular POV.

 

First the bad.  I got COVID probably while I was on the ship.  On the next to last day we were in Ketchikan.  Had a great fishing trip with a wonderful guide and that night started to feel a tickle in the back of my throat which I naively attributed to being out in the open water and eating a wonderful meal of salmon that we caught cooked over an open smokey fire.  On the last day we were at sea but started to have a stuffy nose so I wore my mask everywhere.  However, there were people coughing, hacking and sneezing everywhere on board so me wearing my mask seemed like a drop in the bucket.  The staff all wore masks all of the time, but even they were always taking them down slightly to talk and so they could be understood.  By the time we got home on Monday night, I had a full blown "cold" and when I tested yesterday at home I was positive.  My case is mild with stuffy nose and sneezing which I attribute to being fully vaxed and boosted.  In retrospect, all the efforts to do pre-cruise testing and isolation we did seem to be just so much window dressing.  I personally witnessed one guy sneeze into his hand then use the same hand to grab tongs in the cafe oblivious to what he just did.  And don't get me started on the guy who I saw use a urinal while using his phone, put his phone away in his pocket (yes, he used THAT hand), wash his hands then take his phone back out and use it again. Ewww.  Like COVID is the least of his worries.   The only other bad incident I had onboard really seemed minor in comparison.  We had reservations at Moderno one evening so we all dressed up a bit.  I was wearing a nice shirt, linen pants and made the mistake of wearing dress sandals.  I was told I needed close toed shoes.  My wife was wearing open toed shoes, but that was OK because she was a lady.  Not even the least bit sexist.  I changed into my dirty muddy sneakers that I had worn ashore that day which apparently met their dress code and had a wonderful meal.  Another item to watch out for are their after cruise excursions.  We originally signed up for a ship to airport transfer.  We had hoped for a Vancouver city tour, but as of a couple days before we left, nothing like that was offered.  However, the last day before disembarkation we heard them announce city tours in combination with the transfers, but before we could get down to the excursion desk, they were sold out.  Lesson learned: Check with the excursion desk every day if there is something you  want because all the really fun excursions sell out fast.  Another huge minus was letting NCL arrange your flights.  Yes, two people flying for $750 sounds like a good deal, but when they initially split up our party of six and had us arriving in Anchorage TWO DAYS apart that savings was insignificant.  We ended up rebooking two of our flights to arrive all together for the low low price of $2,700.  Combine that with the initial $750 we paid and our airfare for two people cost $3,400.  It made it even better that the airlines cancelled our first flight the night before we left and we were on the phone for several hours rebooking new flights which we successfully made.

 

Now the good.  Although bad for NCL, the ship was only at about half capacity.  This made the ship not crowded at all, even on sea days when you'd expect the cafe to be packed.  There was always plenty of overflow seating available.  Staff was wonderful and accommodating at every turn, except the stuffy maitre d' at Moderno and I'm sure he was only doing what he was told.  First was at Icy Point Straight in Hoonah.  This is what they called a "wilderness" dock.  This used to be a fishing village with a canning factory that was redesigned as a cruise ship stop in the 90's.   When you first dock, you see nothing but the forest.  No buildings whatsoever. First whale watching a half hour or so away which was great.  Whales breaching and tail slapping everywhere followed by the zip chair ride back near the dock.  Frankly, having done ziplining many times before I thought this would be too "tame" but you go really fast and are very high up and six of went at once and had a great time. The port doesn't have much in the way of services, but they have really made an effort to build an entertaining stop.  The bored high school/college aged  kids who were staffing most of the facilities could have used a few customer service lessons, but overall, it was a good stop.   Next was Juneau and rafting on the Mendenhall River.  Good outfitting, a fairly mild ride, but great weather and wonderful scenery.  Our rafting was only three hours, but because the ship left at 1 p.m., there was no time to do any other activities on your own.  The glacier in the afternoon was spectacular.  No way could you do anything close to social distancing as everyone was elbow to elbow trying to get the best view of the glacier at all times.  Skagway was a bit disappointing because none of the excursions interested us. However, we made the best of the day by just exploring on our own.  The issue at play in Skagway is that one of their cruise ship docks is closed because of an unstable hillside right next to the dock.  They have been having frequent rockslides that makes docking two cruise ships at the same time too dangerous so we were the only ship there, and we only had half as many tourists as normal.  We did our level best to pump up the economy as we could and but you could tell the local merchants were desperate for business.  I had never before seen shop owners hawking for people to enter their stores out on the boardwalk.\. Our last stop was in Ketchikan and we did the open water fishing in a 20 ft. open skiff followed by a wilderness campsite meal.  Our guide was a local young woman who was third generation born and raised in Ketchikan.  Her name is Jamie and her real job was junior high music teacher but had been raised around boats and on the water and we could not have been happier with the experience.  We were caught probably around a dozen rockfish and two salmon that was cooked at their campsite on another island in the Tongass National Forest.  I think the company they used was called Baranoff Fishing Excursions and they were excellent.  

 

So in summary, the cruise had more ups than downs.  It could have been better in some areas, but was great in others.  It was our second Alaskan cruise and the better of the two.  However, I'll be glad when COVID is just a memory and things return closer to what we can call normal. 

 

 

[cruisequeen4ever]

Can you imagine how many people may have caught Covid or whatever the dude may have had from that set of tongs used by “sneezy hands”?? I don’t know how people can do such messed up and inconsiderate stuff like that. I’m glad you had a good cruise overall and wish you a speedy recovery!