North to Alaska--And Southbound on Summit--Thoughts

[markeb]

We just returned from 7 nights in Alaska followed by a 7 night cruise on Summit from Seward to Vancouver. Thought I'd string together some thoughts and a few photos. Somewhat random order, so bear with me. This will take a day or two!

[markeb]

We left Virginia on May 24th. United added a direct flight from Washington Dulles to Anchorage; I think this was the second day of the flight (we originally thought it was the first day, but I'm pretty sure it was the second day). Of course, there were multiple upstream flight delays and our 5:44 pm departure ultimately left at 6:32, and we got into Anchorage at about 10:30 AKDT, or 2:26 am Saturday morning Washington time! Eight hours in a 737 Max 8, even in the front, is a long time!

 

PRECRUISE

 

After a short night/morning we set off on the first phase of our adventure. We rented our own car for freedom. FYI: Hertz at ANC is a (poorly run) franchise. It took forever to get the car, and we ultimately ended up with a Highlander that had SiriusXM installed, but not activated. Long story...

 

We headed out from Anchorage to Denali National Park. It's 243 miles and theoretically 4 hours from Anchorage to Denali. We probably took 7 hours with stops. It's a very scenic drive, with probably the best view you can get of Denali. The peak, of course, was in the clouds, but it's a magical view from the southern viewing point!

 

 

We had reservations for three nights at the Denali Bluffs Hotel, just outside the main park entrance and visitor center. It was a very nice hotel. It's multiple buildings on a hillside. We had an amazing view. No elevators. Staff hauled luggage to the building in golf carts and people with much younger backs hauled it up the stairs...

 

 

We would stay there again. There are a handful of nicer hotels near the park. They all have shuttles to the bus depot and visitor center. Had some nice pizza and a couple of good beers and walked back in a drizzly miserable rain for a good night's sleep before our first day in the park...

 

 

[markeb]

Playing around with how I want to break this up, so let's see how this works.

 

DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE

 

It's really worth looking up the history of the park. It's a pretty fascinating mix of preservation and politics and a decision to rename the mountain McKinley to get support from the Ohio congressional delegation and to initially name it McKinley National Park. Mind you, this was I believe 1907, 52 years before Alaska was admitted to statehood.

 

Denali National Park has the only sled dog team in the National Park Service. You take a shuttle bus from the visitor center to the kennel for either a 10:00 am or 2:00 pm demonstration (I believe they add a third later in the season). Absolutely fascinating. I've worked with working dogs in my life, but the Alaskan Huskies they use in the park are unique. High strung when they need to be but happy to just lay down and soak up the sun when they don't. These guys take sleds of supplies and mushers into the wilderness area of the park throughout the winter.

 

 

 

 

TUNDRA WILDERNESS TOUR

 

You can drive a personal vehicle 15 miles into the park. Beyond that, you're on a Park Service concession modified school bus. The park road is closed at mile 43 due to a landslide. The current estimate is 2026-2027 I believe to essentially build a bridge around the landslide. The Tundra Wilderness Tour lasts over 5 hours and goes as far as mile 43. I know there's debate as to whether the tour is worth it only going halfway into the park. We thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm hard pressed to imagine 7+ hours on a bus. The Wilderness Tour is a wildlife tour. The driver/tour guide has a video camera that links to monitors on the bus so they can zoom in on wildlife in the distance. I had decent success also shooting through the windows. Caribou, Dall Sheep, Ptarmigan, Moose, and porcupines. We didn't see bear on our tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went back to the park on our way back to Anchorage, and were rewarded with this guy right beside the road

 

 

 

And even better (apparently only about 3% of visitors actually see the mountain when visiting the park; it has its own weather pattern)...

 

[markeb]

From Denali we returned to Anchorage. But not before Denali Bluffs reminded us of some of the lesser but annoying residents of the area

 

 

We had scheduled the Alaska Railroad Coastal Classic Gold Star Service to Seward. The Gold Star Service wasn't available the day before the cruise so we decided to spend two nights in Seward. The train leaves at 6:45 am and you're supposed to be there an hour early! Very early morning. Luckily the Gold Star comes with breakfast and copious amounts of coffee! It's also a beautiful ride.

 

 

 

In Seward we stayed at the Hotel Edgewater. There were other hotels people recommend in Seward as well, but they weren't available when we booked. The Edgewater was formerly affiliated with Best Western. Rooms were clean and well cared for. The center of the hotel is a multi story atrium, so sound in the lobby gets amplified upstairs. A little odd. Nice breakfast that when we booked seemed to be included, but actually wasn't (pretty sure the webpage has been updated, and the confirmation email was silent). 

 

The hotel is at the opposite end of town from the railroad station and the cruise terminal near the Mile 0 marker for the Iditarod. We had a great meal at Ray's Waterfront and walked back to the hotel where we came across someone staring across the inlet at...Humpbacks! Got back to the hotel as fast as we could, grabbed the camera and the new telephoto zoom lens, put it on burst, and stared!

 

 

 

We haven't even made it to the ship yet, and this is already a great trip!

 

Tomorrow we'll board Summit!

[barneyboy]

Thanks for doing this review. My friend and I fly to Anchorage on 8th July for a land tour followed by a south bound cruise on Summit. 

[themickeyd98465]

I grew up in Anchorage, could see Denali pretty good (some times) But I have been in the park maybe a dozen times, but only got a clear view of the peak maybe once or twice. One time was at 3 am and my dad had gone to the outhouse and insisted I get out of the tent  and look since the mountain was out 🤣

[markeb]

Forgive me if this gets random. This isn't a "live from" thread so I'm planning to break it up into some other structure. That I'm making up as I go...

 

Boarding Process

 

Summit was scheduled to sail from Seward at 8:00 pm on Friday, May 31st. The hotel was starting its shuttle at 10:00 anticipating an 11:00 start to boarding (we were in the Retreat; I'll circle back on that later). We took a roughly 10:30 shuttle with no issues. We arrived at the terminal, easily dropped our bags, and headed towards the terminal building. Where everything was essentially at an all stop, with little information. And then they started handing out the "We're deep cleaning your ship" cards. There had been (as previously reported) a noro outbreak on the northbound leg. Mind you, they have our email address, I think our cellphone/text numbers, and there's the vaunted Celebrity app. Any of which could have been used to inform us there would be delays in boarding and delays in accessing our cabins. None were used. A bit frustrating. 

 

Ditto on information flow once there was activity. Seward is a nice, simple facility. I'm pretty sure most of the folks on hand work for Seward, not RCG or Celebrity. There was a sign for Retreat guests (and priority access, etc.) but not a lot of info. Ultimately they started processing people and we were able to check in (about 30 seconds of effort) and proceed down the way towards boarding, to be told the ship wasn't cleared for boarding and they hadn't started security screening. It didn't take long, and we were there early, but it was strange.

 

Because of the cleaning, we weren't able to drop off our carry ons when we first boarded (I'm still a little confused by that because there were a lot of Retreat guests walking around without bags). The Retreat Lounge was open, and Luminae was serving lunch, and we headed for lunch. We met Andy who would be our waiter for the week, and I had the Lobster Roll and my wife had the Cobb Salad. Then back to the lounge until we were cleared into our cabins, close to 2:00 pm.

[markeb]

Our Cabin

 

We had a port side Sky Suite on Deck 6. There's a bit of a story on that. We made an open booking in July of 2022 while on Equinox. We reserved a Southern Caribbean cruise on Equinox for 2023, and wanted to do an Alaska cruise in 2024. We had to commit the booking against a date and ship we knew we weren't taking to preserve the open booking when they didn't release the 2024 Alaska schedule within 90 days of our open booking (rules at that time). When the dates were released, we started looking at the dates, and the pricing. The early season bookings were substantially less expensive than the later season bookings, so we went with late May and our TA put us in a Sky Suite on Deck 9. But it was the only Sky Suite on Deck 9, and other than convenience to the the sundeck, it wasn't near any other Retreat areas. And a lot of the cabin information on Summit discussed the overhang blocking upward views. So we switched to Deck 6. Deck 9 might have been fine, but Deck 6 was excellent.

 

This was our first time on an M Class ship, and a revolutionized M Class at that. Equinox didn't get the full treatment. We now fully understand the head scratching about some of the design choices. 

 

 

We generally liked the layout and decor. It's a little tight on the right side of the bed, but we did feel like the cabin felt larger with the bed facing the door. But...

 

 

 

So much wasted space! It looks pretty, but why? All of our stuff fit, maybe a bit tight, but you could easily have another hanging section of the closet and mount those two cute cubies on the side of the closet! 

 

No photos, but same in the bathroom. One thing I've loved on Equinox (and most RCI ships I've sailed in the past) was the ample storage to the side of the mirror in the bathroom. Nope. None of that. There's a strange shelf that the door opens into, but no cubby holes or drawers. Form over function, I suppose. 

 

Probably the strangest thing was essentially a plastic tray, solid (no drain holes) glued to the wall in the tub/shower that held the shower toiletries. And filled with water with no way to drain...

 

The cabin was very comfortable. It was convenient to everything on this cruise (we never even touched a pool), and we had plenty of space to not trip over each other. And it looked great. But...

[NBliving]

Enjoying your review so far! We had out in July on a north bound to Seward cruise.  Love all the info about Denali Park.  We aren't doing it this time, but maybe another trip...

[markeb]

FOOD AND DRINK...

 

Okay. Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way. TL;DR: Mixed bag but a bit disappointing overall.

 

We ate breakfast in Luminae 5 of the 7 mornings. In Skagway we had a very early excursion and had room service delivered, and on Day 7 we were both tired and just had coffee and bagels delivered by room service.

 

Luminae breakfast was excellent. We bounced around a bit, but Eggs Benedict, blueberry pancakes (a bigger stack of small pancakes compared to what I remember on other ships) and omelets were all great. Good service and no complaints at all.

 

We only at lunch in Luminae on embarkation day. On Day 7 it was sunny on the Sun Deck and I had a Luminae burger and my wife had a wrap up there. Very nice.

 

And then there was dinner...

 

We probably had most of the current menu in November on Equinox. I'm generally an adventurous eater within bounds, so enjoy the concept of the Luminae menu. The first night I had a lobster appetizer and pan-seared snapper. Both were excellent (well, the fish is almost always overcooked on the ship, but that's a different story). My wife had the Artichoke soup and potato mezzaluna pasta and liked them both. The second day I had smoked tomato soup, which was again wonderful, and the filet. She started switching to the MDR Caesar salad (which she had most nights for the rest of the cruise) and the tamarind glazed chicken breast. The chicken was excellent; the beef was OK. That will be a theme here...

 

Our third day we were in Juneau until late, and rather than rushing back for dinner on the ship, even though we'd paid for it, we had some of the best crab I've ever had at Tracy's Crab Shack, literally across the pier from Summit. I can't comment on that night's menu!

 

The next night I had the Ginger Crab Cake appetizer, which was frankly huge, much larger than I remember, but delicious. She had the MDR salad again, and seared black bass. Again, very good. I decided to have the lamb loin. This was either a very old lamb or a ewe. Tough, sinewy, hard to cut, etc. It tasted fine, once you could cut it, but it was not a quality cut of meat. And I really hate to say that because I've defended Celebrity on their meat options. but this wasn't a good one.

 

Day 5 she had the roasted half chicken with spaetzle. Again, very good. I had the confit cod loin, which was also very good. The salmon sashimi was a very nice appetizer as well.

 

Day 6 I took one for the team and tried the Pig's Foot Carpaccio. I thought I'd had this before, but I don't believe so. I may have a picture somewhere, but mine did not look at all like @Georgia_Peaches photos. It could be good, but it wasn't. The poached lobster was good, but was swimming in the quinoa rather than enhanced by it. I'm confident I've had that before, and I don't remember it looking like that. 

 

Day 7 I was probably just tired of food! I had the turkey escarole soup and the "Grilled New York Strip Steak"*. Soup was great. The asterisk on the menu is the warning that eating raw or undercooked meat can be dangerous. My asterisk is I'm hard pressed to call it a steak, and although I have to assume it's technically a strip, it doesn't resemble any strip steak I've had in my life. I know a few months ago there was a serious discussion on this menu item, and I'm pretty sure the description on the menu has changed. It was tough, and not very good, although I'll confess by the last night I was pretty fried. She went back to the MDR menu that night for oven roasted jerk chicken which was cooked perfectly and delicious. Should be on the Luminae menu...

 

Luminae service was excellent. I like the feel of Luminae on Summit. It's one big room, but it was never crowded (maybe Day 6) and we mostly had window seats for every meal. The staff were friendly and very helpful. We had a couple of really nice assistant waiters that were always smiling and always there. 

 

That was longer than I planned. I'll deal with drink in the next post!

 

 

[markeb]

3 hours ago, NBliving said:

Enjoying your review so far! We had out in July on a north bound to Seward cruise.  Love all the info about Denali Park.  We aren't doing it this time, but maybe another trip...

 

Denali was amazing. If we do this again, I'm probably voting for the Kenai Peninsula. We'll see.

 

(Bizarrely, we're going to be in New Braunfels next week. We have property in Comal County that we're trying to make a build or sell decision on. Not an easy decision.)

[markeb]

FOOD AND DRINK (CONTINUED)

 

DRINK

 

The Retreat booking comes with the premium drink package. There are probably dozens of threads on Cruise Critic about wine selections and availability in particular. Celebrity has an award winning wine program, but that award is based on its bottle program, not the by the glass program. The bottle list is outstanding. And pricing for higher end wines is not outrageous. The by the glass program has always been good, in my opinion, as long as you're willing to branch out into something other than California cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. That's harder for me to say after this trip...

 

We had a very good sommelier in Luminae from South Africa. Not a region well represented on the Celebrity wine list, unfortunately. He did a good job suggesting pairings. Even though I said upfront I was fine going to a better wine, he never really suggested anything outside the package. The whites were generally fine. A couple of pairings were very good with classic package wines. I'm OK with that if the pairing works. The current reds are pretty much universally meh. I don't expect a great cab at the price they've set. Historically, you could get an interesting Tempranillo or Primitivo in the package price. On this cruise, I had one Tempranillo the first day at the Rendevouz Lounge, $17 for an unaged fruit bomb. Charles offered wines that were fine and generally paired with the meal, but none of the reds in particular were memorable or really enhanced the food. I had expected to buy a bottle or two over the course of the cruise, but didn't. I think part of that was it was a port heavy itinerary, and several of the stops had excellent to outstanding local breweries and the beer won.

 

The martini bar was more often than not strangely "unbusy" on Summit. They do have the best selection of gin and are set up for twists instead of just olives, so I did consume a few Plymouth martinis.

 

Again, this wasn't an itinerary that I was searching out the bar as much as on some cruises. We only walked through Cellar Masters on the first day and somehow never went back. I did try to get a decent bourbon at a couple of places, and Buffalo Trace was what was available. On some cruises I would have tried harder on that and maybe found a nice bourbon or scotch whisky. They didn't jump out at me like they have on other cruises. 

 

This deserves its own comment, but the Retreat bar on Summit is just strange. There is a physical bar, but there's nothing behind the bar and there was no menu. I asked the bartender about bourbon, probably the first day, looking at the blank space with no shelf behind him. He actually said there was no menu. On other ships I've been on there is a traditional bar with bottles on the shelf. Not on Summit. And the bar is in a strange location away from the bulk of the lounge.

 

I can't tell you if some of the more asked about wines were available. Most of them aren't something I'd normally drink, and they weren't offered as a pairing.

 

So no real complaints with drinks, but nothing stands out as great either. Our last couple of cruises we did buy at least one bottle and that elevated the experience quite a bit. We just didn't do that on this cruise.

[BuckeyeMark]

Really good review.  Making me think about a trip to Denali ...

[NBliving]

13 hours ago, markeb said:

 

Denali was amazing. If we do this again, I'm probably voting for the Kenai Peninsula. We'll see.

 

(Bizarrely, we're going to be in New Braunfels next week. We have property in Comal County that we're trying to make a build or sell decision on. Not an easy decision.)

We are doing a day cruise into the Kenai NP. We hope to go back there soon to do a fishing trip with our kids. 
We love living here. But real estate is booming so either decision would be a win for you. 

[generichandle]

I do want to respond to conditions on the Summit. We did up/back 5-24 to 6-7. Let me say the good first. Service at virtually all points was excellent! They went literally 'out of the way' to help with all questions. And service is of much importance to an old man!

 

Food was just mediocre, and I am being generous. Whether we ate in the MD, or in the buffet, NOTHING was done well. We ate in MD a lot 1st leg to meet people, and that worked well, lotsa fun. But no matter what dish we tried, we wished we had tried otherwise. [P.S.: As a Southerner, the abuse of the ham hock was SO disheartening. God's own offering was given into horrible baking and dried so much it was inedible. Shameful, that!]. I have never been on a Celebrity cruise so badly fed.

 

We got sick near the transition of the two cruises, and missed our most desired excursion, Kenai Fjords sailing. This sickness was NOT norovirus, much as Celebrity tried to sell that. It was covid and it was widespread, not 'a few cases', period. Why do they insist on downplaying this. 

 

I have liked Celebrity in the past, but I suspect other lines [even mortal enemy lines] are in my future. Hello Princess.  

[markeb]

ENTERTAINMENT

 

A few thoughts on the entertainment onboard Summit for this cruise.

 

We are not production show people. On most cruises we find a band and/or location around the ship and either follow the band or stick to the location. On the S Class that's mostly been the Grand Foyer and the last couple of cruises the house band, both of which were guitar focused pop/rock bands that we really enjoyed. Summit doesn't have that Grand Foyer. We did discover one band playing the Rendezvous Lounge that we enjoyed but after the first night or so we were just half hour or so out of synch with them. And this was a port intensive itinerary. We ultimately went to the theater most nights.

 

We didn't go to the theater the first night. The singer was apparently very good and did a Whitney Houston tribute show. The second night we were expecting (and found) seas so they swapped the comedian who was supposed to perform on the third night for the show. The comedian was Brad Tassell and was very good. I'm not normally a huge fan of comedy shows, but this one was a lot of fun.

 

The first production show, postponed a day, was called Soundtrack. This was a somewhat typical song and dance with random for no particular reason aerial performances production set around show tunes. The singers were very good (that will be a theme here!). The material is so-so. One of the singers was a frankly stunning blonde who later in the week introduced herself as from Finland. She did a solo performance of Over the Rainbow (although in 2024 I was seriously wishing she was doing Defying Gravity, which she would have nailed). There was a segment towards the end of James Bond themes that was generally well done. I do subscribe to a couple of show business theories: do not perform with children and pets, and do not, under any circumstances, cover Adele. Sadly, the singer who was clearly supposed to be the featured singer performed Skyfall, and went down on "sky....fall" instead of up. That's a nit, honestly. The show was very good, but it was so noticeable after the other singer's rendition of Rainbow.

 

There was an equally good comedy magician named Brad Brizendine. Likewise a good show.

 

The Broadway Caberet was a selection of Broadway showtunes performed by the singers with no other additions. I don't remember all the tunes, but they did a very nice selection from Les Miserables. Again, a lot of talent.

 

The most interesting performer was Hyperion Knight. A great concert pianist who was on a rhapsody theme. That included a piano version of Bohemian Rhapsody! As well as Stairway to Heaven. Of course Rhapsody in Blue. 

 

I missed the last show. My wife enjoyed it.

 

I know people really, really, really enjoy the production shows. I'm not a huge fan of taking a bunch of sort of recent (and some much older) pop songs and stringing them together as though that creates a plot. When they isolate on the performers, they are incredibly talented. 

 

We were happy with the entertainment on Summit.

[markeb]

A couple of more comments on food:

 

We didn't eat at any specialty restaurants on this cruise. We had sort of planned to grab lunch at Sushi on Five at some point but it just didn't happen. We ate at Tuscan Grille on Equinox last cruise and it was just too much food. Never really considered it this time.

 

We normally grab something at the OVC most cruises, usually on the way to the pool. We never made it to the pool. Again, very port heavy itinerary and the two sea days were sightseeing days on their own. But, the OVC had one of the best Indian stations I've seen on Celebrity. By itself with typically 6-8 dishes plus rice and roti. I'd probably consider all of it Punjabi style (I'm a big fan of Southern Indian which tends more to vegetarian or even vegan) but it was very good. There was actually some real spice in the dishes! We grabbed a couple of late lunches there coming back from excursions.

[Georgia_Peaches]

Your wild life pics are stunning!  I’m jealous of all of your animal sightings!  We saw a duck!  

[markeb]

1 minute ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Your wild life pics are stunning!  I’m jealous of all of your animal sightings!  We saw a duck!  

 

Two things: We started way north of where you turned around, and I splurged on a 70-350mm zoom just for this trip. It may be the best lens I've ever bought!

[Georgia_Peaches]

2 minutes ago, markeb said:

 

Two things: We started way north of where you turned around, and I splurged on a 70-350mm zoom just for this trip. It may be the best lens I've ever bought!

I’m not a photographer at all. But I’ve added your bear pics to my album because it’s just too special. So thank you!

[markeb]

I was going to do the ports tonight, but life happened...

 

Just for a completely random add-on to the entertainment. One of the male singers could have been a dead ringer for Fredo in the Godfather. Same hairstyle and hairline, and they dressed him mostly in suits with wide open collars. Very Coppola NY mob look.

 

Towards the end of Soundtrack, they performed Journey's Don't Stop Believin', which is in School of Rock (the tie in to the show). I kept listening thinking MAYBE someone has the guts to cut the lights and mike... (And see if anyone gets it.) Alas, they didn't. It would have been epic.

 

Ports tomorrow.

[markeb]

PORTS

 

The ports were the stars on this cruise. And this is an itinerary that would be very difficult to replicate without cruising between those ports. I don't know how you'd get to the Hubbard Glacier otherwise, and the Inside Passage was a destination of its own.

 

DW has suffered with motion sickness as long as I've known her. She does fine with regular meclizine tablets on a cruise ship, but she's had bad experiences on smaller craft. She generally does OK on planes, although we were caught in a Pineapple Express flying to Hawaii a couple of years back and it was pretty rough. Which is a long way of saying we never really considered helicopter excursions or small craft whale watching.

 

Hubbard Glacier

 

This isn't a port so much as a destination. It was a fascinating sail to the glacier, crossing bands of glacial ice and glacial silt, with small icebergs along the way. It was pretty much impossible to judge distance, but we got a lot closer than the onboard naturalist said many captains would go. According to the crew, two days earlier on the northbound cruise it an been bright and sunny; we were overcast, cold, and wet. Most people were watching the glacier from the Sky Lounge which was a surprisingly good view, other than you were hard pressed to hear the narration. Oh, well. As we pulled away to start leaving, the captain did a 360 degree rotation so everyone would get a full on view of the glacier. Very nice touch.

 

 

 

There was a nice group of sea lions along the rocks as we left the glacier.

 

 

 

Juneau

 

We had a late morning arrival into Juneau, which gave us the opportunity to once again see Humpbacks...

 

 

 

We did an excursion to the Mendenhall Glacier and the Glacier Gardens. The glacier is impressive, although it's receding fairly quickly these days.

 

 

The Glacier Gardens was interesting. It's essentially a manmade garden in a natural forest. Cool, but I don't know that I'd do it again. But we did see this  youngster hanging out and flying around...

 

 

We spent time wandering around Juneau and as I said before we ultimately decided to have a seafood dinner in town before going back on board. Tracy's is truly a crab shack. They had either 3 or 4 different Alaska crabs on the menu. Huge and delicious.

 

 

Skagway

 

Skagway makes a big deal of its history as a gold rush town. Much of the downtown area is a national park. There were some very interesting exhibits dedicated to the Yukon gold rush.

 

We knew we were going to take the White Pass & Yukon Railroad. We booked an excursion that combined the railroad with a cool suspension bridge not far from where we'd board the train. It was a scenic bus ride up with about an hour at the bridge site, then a short ride to the train. These guys may not have wanted us to catch our train!

 

 

 

Mama and three cubs. Just ambled out in front of the bus. In no hurry whatsoever...

 

The train is "rustic". Bench seats, chemical toilet, power for the  PA system. The end of the cars had a small observation platform where you could get unobstructed views and take pictures. The train route goes places that the road doesn't, and it's was a great scenic ride. 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent the rest of our time wandering around Skagway and visiting the park museums. Fun day.

 

 

 

 

Icy Strait Point

 

We didn't know quite what to expect here. We hadn't signed up for an excursion, which probably saved us a ton of money. There are two gondolas that take you to the top of the mountain with amazing views. Total for the day was about $105 for both of us. You could see eagles flying around and had a great view of the surrounding area. And there was a cool place serving barbecued tacos at the top. We hiked down from the middle point on the gondola and walked around the old salmon cannery. There were a lot of whale watching boats and most people saw whales.

 

 

This guy was just hanging out along the water, proud and happy.

 

 

 

Ketchikan

 

In Ketchikan we had signed up for a small group photo safari. It truly was a small group excursion; we had five people and he maxed out at I believe 7. It was a crappy day in Ketchikan, which is probably the case more often than not. The excursion was largely a walking and driving tour to various sites for photography with a professional photographer. Not really a "safari"; we didn't look for or find any wildlife. But it was a fun morning. We wandered around Ketchikan for awhile, then went back to Summit one last time...

 

 

 

Inside Passage

 

I don't know why, but I don't have any photos. It was just a beautiful passage and probably hard to capture. I know my wife saw at least one Orca, and we kept staring at every disturbance in the water along the way. Just a beautiful, peaceful stretch of water.

 

[haynesra]

At Icy Point, how much was the Gondola and zipline?

 

Thanks

[markeb]

The Gondola was $49. Not sure about the zipline. 

[markeb]

DISEMBARKATION

 

We weren't in a hurry to leave as we were spending the day and night in Vancouver. The disembarkation was very quick and easy, other than finding our red tagged bags which were as far from the ship as possible (and we were among the last off).

 

Canada has a somewhat oversized arrival and declaration card that we filled out the day before. Customs and immigrations amounted to handing them that card and walking on. Pretty simple. Uber was a bit entertaining. The Uber pickup zone is about a block and a half away, although the sign made it look like it was right there. Still pretty simple and an easy ride to our hotel, where miraculously our room was ready at about 10:30 am!

 

We didn't do much in Vancouver. I had a bit of generic cruise crud and we ultimately rested for the early flight the next day. We've been to Vancouver before and weren't planning on doing much, but we did even less than planned. Although we did make it to Tim Horton's!

 

FLIGHT HOME

 

We had an 8:30 am Air Canada flight to Washington. Air Canada recommended arriving at 6:30 in their app; we got there a little earlier than that. Last Saturday 6:30 would have been fine. We have Global Entry and United/Star Alliance status. We were able to drop our bags, walk straight to a priority security line (30 seconds), and straight to a facial ID Global Entry terminal. We started walking to the CBP agent at the end of the row, and he just waved us on with essentially a have a good flight. From doorway to Duty Free in probably 10 minutes. (Unfortunately there wasn't anything in Duty Free that I wanted!)  About 5 hours of a mostly smooth flight and we were in Virginia.