Serenade to Alaska 8/1/04 Part 3: At Sea and Hubbard

[fajitapita]

Monday, August 2nd: At Sea

I woke up early, and as DH likes to sleep in while on vacation, I headed down to the ShipShape Gym. (Here's one area that I like on the Voyager class better- the Explorer/Mariner held their aerobics, etc. classes in its own little area while the classes on the Serenade were basically in the middle of the gym.) The gym was popular this morning, but I only had to wait about 2 minutes for a treadmill to open up. After DH woke up, we went to the Windjammer for breakfast and ate at the outdoor (but covered) area at the back of the ship (here's another thing I liked better about the Serenade over the Mariner/Explorer- more places to eat outside). At 11:00 I headed down to the Safari Lounge for Bingo- the first time I've ever played on a cruise- as I had "won" a free card at karaoke the night before. Of course I ended up spending another $25 to buy the "minimum" amount of cards. At 1:30 DH and I went to the Tropical Theater for the Destination Seminar: Glaciers- the chisel that carved Alaska. The speaker wasn't that inspiring, but I did learn a lot of glacier vocabulary. We used the Solarium pool (salt water) and spa in the afternoon. So did a lot of families as there was Family Time in the Solarium every day for 2-4 hours (12-2 or 12-4). I liked the Solarium Cafe (another plus over the Voyager class) as you could get up to get a snack without having to go all the way to the Windjammer (and thus possibly lose your pool chair!). Granted the pizza at the solarium wasn't the world's greatest, but they also had cookies, brownies, and fruit. Combine that with the Solarium Bar on the other side, and you were set! (BTW, speaking of pool chairs, I didn't see a lot of chair hogging going on, and there were lots of available chairs. Maybe not if you're a party of 6, but the 2 of us always found 2 chairs together). Pool towels were available at the pool (different from our last 2 cruises as we had to make sure we had 2 in our room by the end of the cruise or we'd get charged). Saw signs posted stating "Royal Caribbean does not allow for the saving of chairs" and always saw at least one member of the "Pool Crew" around. That night was the Captain's Welcome Aboard Reception at the Safari Lounge. I went, had my picture taken with Captain Nikolaos Antalis, had a glass of champagne, hors d'oeuvres, and listened to the band before the Captain introduced some of his crew. It was formal night, and there were a lot of people looking their best, smiling pretty for the cameras. For dinner that night I had shrimp cocktail, Caesar salad, Alaskan salmon, and low-fat strawberry cheesecake. All very good, but I'd have to argue with RCI's definition of cheesecake- more like a sponge/angel food cake. After dinner we headed up to the Viking Crown Lounge where I saw the one whale of the entire trip up close and personal (all the other whales I saw were just spouting or I caught the tail-end (pun intended). This whale (a small one) passed close to the ship, rolled on its side, and seemed to wave one of its pectoral fins at us! (I think he was also smiling at us...) Celebrity Showtime was at 9:00, and we saw Bowzer from Sha-na-na for the second time this year (saw him on the Mariner in January). DH and I actually didn't mind sitting through the show a second time (and it was the same exact show...) DH retired early tonight, so I went to karaoke (just to observe this time), took pictures of the chocolate buffet in the dining room (there was a great chocolate statue of liberty!), and then went up to the Vortex Disco (Viking Crown Lounge) to watch a bit of 70's night. The cruise director staff was teaching passengers how to do the Manhattan Skyline dance (or something like that). The Royal Caribbean dancers also performed a tribute to Mama Mia (Abba), and then all the male cruise director staff dressed up as the Village People and did a great rendition of their songs. Tim the CD actually seemed to let his hair down (o.k., so he doesn't have a lot of hair to let down...) and dressed up as the guy with the black hat, leather jacket (no shirt!) and jeans. It was pretty funny.... Oh, today was the only day we saw any rain. It was mostly cloudy all day, but didn't rain until the sun went down.

 

Tuesday, August 3: Hubbard Glacier!!!

Woke up to beautiful skies! Glad the rain cleared away during the night! DH and I ate at the aft covered section of the Windjammer again for breakfast and enjoyed the beautiful snow-capped mountains. When we got up to leave and walked toward the front of the ship, I was in awe of the towering snowy mountains we were approaching! BEAUTIFUL! Evidently they're not visible a lot due to clouds, but we had a very clear day. As we approached Yukatat Bay we staked out some deck chairs on deck 12 forward right by the gym. We picked up 3 locals who were going to narrate our passage to the glacier. It was amazing to see their small boat dock up next to the ship. As we pulled in to the bay, the Celebrity Mercury was pulling out. We decided to move to the deck above us (portside) and stood the entire time as there weren't any deck chairs there.There were a lot of ice chunks/bergs in the water, and as we approached the glacier we saw many harbor seals sunning themselves on them. The water was smooth as glass and the winds were minimal. As we pulled up to the glacier HAL's Oosterdam pulled out. The captain pulled up to the glacier starboard side first (right side). There was quite a bit of calving going on, and we heard the white thunder. One of the best shots we got was on deck 12 above the outdoor pool looking across the ship to the glacier as the size of the people on the other side put the size of the glacier in perspective. While we were eating lunch at the Windjammer, a big chunk of the glacier fell off and bobbed up and down in the water a few times. When the ship pulled away, we went up to the golf course and took pictures and video from up there as nobody was using the course at the time. Tonight was Italian night: creamy garlic soup, salad, chicken marsala, and tiramisu- all very yummy. The waiters also sang tonight (O Solo Mio, or something like that?) At 8:30 we went to the Movie Madness Game Show (movie trivia) at the Tropical Theater with Tim (CD) and Jerome (Asst. I believe). It was a lot of fun... Tonight's entertainment was the production show "Vibeology" which I really enjoyed- Elvis, Beatles, Motown, Bee Gees, Paula Abdul, George Michael, Jacksons, Eurythmics, etc. People may disagree with me, but RCI has great production shows (o.k. so I've only cruised RCI in the last 2 years, maybe I'm prejudiced)- great music, singing, dancing, costumes, lighting, special effects, etc. Where else can you see entertainers flying above a stage at sea? At 10:30 we returned to the theater for the Love and Marriage Game Show. The CD seemed to ask the same questions as the ones that were asked in January on the Mariner. The couple who was married for 45 years won.