In the prior post, I set the scene regarding my milestone birthday Alaskan cruise in August 2025. The second post covers the days of the cruise, the various ports and activities both on and off the ship, and a summary of the trip as a whole and my willingness to continue to travel on my 50-state goal.
The Cruise Route
It seems obvious in retrospect, but I got aboard the ship knowing that the seven day cruise would consist of 1) departure from Seattle and a day at sea, 2) a stop at Sitka, 3) a tour of Glacier Bay, 4) a stop at Ketchikan, 5) another day at sea, and finally, 6) an almost full day in port at Victoria, BC, before returning to Seattle overnight to disembark the following morning.
It wasn’t until I looked at the map that I realized that Ketchikan is actually closer to Seattle than Sitka, and that we would bypass it on the way out to stop there on the way back. For some reason I assumed that it would be the opposite, with Ketchikan the furthest port out.
Regardless, we left Seattle on Thursday afternoon, spent all of Friday at sea, and shifted to Alaska Daylight Time (1 hour earlier than Seattle time) overnight before we made port in Sitka on Saturday early afternoon.
The whole point of a cruise, for me, was to see a new state, not to bask on deck in the sun with waiters bringing me drinks. Although the latter might be fun for some people, I don’t look good in a swimsuit, I get sunburned easily, I don’t really drink much, and I don’t really like to swim anymore. So the benefits of cruising, for me, was to get somewhere I wanted to see without having to drive myself to get there.
My usual way to see new places has been to fly in, get a hotel to use as a base, and with a rental car, take day trips to see the things I wanted to see. But Alaska put me off of that method, as I was not confident of my ability to manage that in Alaska. The cruise, I felt, would be safer. As long as I didn’t manage to miss the ship departure, I would be okay.
So, my first port in Alaska was in Sitka.
Sitka
Sitka, we were told, was the first capital of Alaska, before Juneau, and went back to the time that the Russians owned Alaska. That bypasses the Native American peoples that were there for thousands of years beforehand, of course, but explains the Russian Orthodox church that is a centerpiece of the small downtown area. The port is about 15 minutes by bus from the town, and it is small.
There is a main street of shops, a couple of parks, a nature trail, a totem pole in the center of town, and a few cafés and restaurants. The Russian influence included a shop of Pel’Meni, or Russian dumplings. The filling options are potato or beef, but the dumplings are no bigger than a thumb and can be covered with butter, cilantro, sriracha vinaigrette, and/or curr. They are served alongside a slice of dark bread, which is helpful in soaking up the sauces. I got an order with everything except cilantro, and it was spicy, hot and good. A new discovery!
Regardless, there was not a lot to see at Sitka. It was not unlike my own hometown in Northern Michigan, where the summer businesses are primarily tourist shops, selling T-shirts and souvenirs. However, Sitka did differ in that there was a lot – a lot – of fur for sale, from clothing, coats, tanned deer hides that could be wall hangings or rugs, and even fur bikinis and fur codpieces.
I bought a couple of T-shirts, and chatted with the store clerk, who had gone to school at University of Kentucky before somehow ending up in Sitka.
Glacier Bay
Sunday was the best day of the cruise, no doubt. Michelle and I got up before dawn, having been told that sunrise over the bay was spectacular. We managed to get coffee during the morning, but otherwise rarely left the deck all day. Yes, it was cold, especially in the morning, but there was one amazing view upon another, and it was worth being cold. We were blessed with a clear day, and learned later that this was rare. Fog is usual due to the contrast in temperatures from the glaciers and the air and water, but it was sunny and clear.
While the open decks were cold with the wind, some of the shielded decks were quite warm, and I kept moving back and forth all morning. A couple of decks were opened to passengers that usually are only for crew, and these, at the bow, were frigid with the wind coming straight on. I took many pictures but it was impossible to capture the massive size of the mountains, the icebergs, and the glaciers.
After we got to the ultimate glacier, just south of the Canadian border, and headed back south towards our next port, Michelle and I found that we could make the afternoon English tea at 3pm, so we went to the Queen’s Room on Deck 2.
The afternoon tea is a production. A huge room is filled with tables for four (we were seated with a couple, Randy and Sam(antha), who proved to be entertaining company), and at precisely 3pm, a parade of waiters in white jackets streamed into the room carrying silver teapots, spreading out in all directions to fill teacups. Behind them came other waiters, or the same again, with huge silver trays and tongs, first with little crustless sandwiches, then later with scones, and still later with cakes and sweets. In the meantime, teapots were brought round again and again with refills. It was perfect.
Ketchikan
Monday morning, we arrived in Ketchikan about 11 am, and due to the early arrival, we had our first served breakfast in the Britannica restaurant of the cruise. The poached eggs on avocado toast sounded promising, but the portion was shockingly small, with a piece of sourdough toast that may have been larger than a silver dollar holding a smear of avocado and two tiny poached eggs, but not by much. Too bad, as if it were three times larger, it would have been satisfying as well as tasty.
This was the port where I had booked the shore experience months before, paying around $450 for an expedition to see bears feeding in the wild. The experience was to last 4 to 5 hours, and much of that was travel – a bus from the port taking about 30 minutes, then a boat that toured the archipelago in a fairly rapid fashion while the guide did point out eagles nesting and a secret submarine testing area, among other attractions. A half hour on the boat got us to a salmon hatchery, where silver salmon were raised from fingerlings and then released into the water there. This meant that the adult salmon, in turn, would return there to spawn, which translated into dinnertime for bears.
Unfortunately, there were disappointments. I had, for some reason, expected to see grizzlies, not black bears, as I had followed the Alaska Fat Bear contest for some years. That, however, takes place in a national park further to the north. What we saw here were black bears.
Even though there was a trail and viewing stands overlooking the river and waterfall where the salmon ran, and near the fish ladder where they came to lay their eggs, the bears were difficult to see and photograph. To be fair, the bears wanted to eat, not to show off for tourists, but I was sadly disappointed at my failure to even take a good photo.
The trip back felt long, even though the guide on the boat told a lot of good stories, and the captain was able to stop by a series of islets topped with a variety of sea lions and harbor seals. Unfortunately, we could not get close enough to take good pictures, nor did the boat do me the favor of holding still while I tried. I had a photo of a bunch of brown lumps in the ocean – not really of help.
While I was on the boat and bus, however, I met a solo traveler as well (Michelle did not join me) whose wife was feeling poorly, so we sat together and chatted. He was from the midlands in the UK, in the Birmingham area, and for some reason we talked a lot about healthcare and the differences between our two systems. Both he and his wife had had cancer, and they were both avid travelers. They’d flown the polar route from London to Seattle just to take this cruise.
When I got back to port, Michelle and I met in town. She had spent the day at the spa aboard ship and had a new haircut and manicure, and had gotten a hot stone massage as well. I almost envied her that. We did a bit of shopping around town, then went back aboard for dinner, and found a note at our cabin from Randy and Sam, our friends from the afternoon tea the day before, inviting us for a drink. We met them at the Commodore Club (this was easily my favorite bar by this time) and had a couple drinks and a nice chat.
At Sea
By now, the trip was winding down and, having been through the highlights of the cruise, I was ready to sleep in and take it easy on Tuesday, which was going to be a day that we would be fully at sea. Our good fortune continued with perfect weather, but we were far enough out to sea that land was a vague smudge on the horizon. Michelle pointed out to me that this is more like a typical cruise, where one is far from land most of the time. This cruise had been threading its way through canals between various islands for a good part of the last three days, so it was different to be back truly at sea. We also, sometime during the night, had lost our extra Alaska hour, so we were back on Pacific Daylight Time.
In order to go ashore in Canada, all passengers had to fill out Canadian Declaration Forms to be filed by the Purser in order for us to disembark there. We were also reminded that we had to take our passports with us ashore, although I was never sure if we would be stopped going in to Canada, or coming back. But apparently, we misfiled the entry forms on our first try, so we spent some time Tuesday in line at the Purser’s counter completing them again.
We spent most of the day on the aft pool deck. I saw Maurice from the Ketchikan bus and introduced him to Michelle and we met his wife Bernie (Bernadette) and chatted for a bit. Later on, we decided we’d had enough of the pool for a while and spent some time indoors at a concert by a classical guitarist in the Queen’s Room lounge.
Tuesday night was another Gala night, this one a Masquerade Ball. While Michelle and I opted out, we did find seats in the Grand Lobby, where couples were having their pictures taken in their finery and Mardi Gras-style masks while a string trio played. It was all very elegant and we enjoyed seeing the outfits people had brought to wear.
Later on, we went down to the Royal Theatre at the bow of the boat, and slipped in to see a comedian, followed by an amazing act of a woman aerialist who played violin while dangling from the ceiling on streamers of pink fabric. It was quite something.
Victoria, BC
Our final full day aboard. Victoria, BC, is amazingly close to Seattle, so it was no wonder that the ship arrived early at port and planned to spend the day there, not leaving until after 9pm that night. A very short trip back to Seattle would have us docked by 6am. Shuttles from the port to downtown Victoria began running shortly after 9am, though Michelle and I took our time, had coffee, and didn’t disembark until after 10.
One of the remarkable things about Victoria was that there were so many float planes. Many shore excursions here involved getting aboard a float plane for an aerial tour of the region, and during our visit, we could see planes taking off from the harbor almost constantly.
Because of the distance to downtown, shuttle buses ran constantly. There was one gift shop at the port, and the bus driver pointed out that it was unique in that it operated only in US dollars, so if you bought souvenirs there, you would not have to worry about currency exchange. Since almost everyone uses credit cards, which generally convert at the rate that is in effect at the moment, I wasn’t really impressed but it may have meant a lot if one were buying something expensive.
Anyway, we wanted to go downtown to look at, among other things, luggage. Michelle had brought a lot aboard, and had bought a number of items while we were in Sitka and Ketchikan, as well as on the ship herself, and so was afraid she would never fit everything into her suitcases. Since she was an efficient packer (using a method of plastic vacuum bags to get the maximum use of the available space), this was a real concern. A local tried to counsel me about where we could find a shop dealing in used goods where we might find an inexpensive suitcase, but we never located it. Maybe I was sent on a snipe hunt – I know I look pretty gullible.
The plan in Victoria had been to tour the famous Butchart Gardens outside of town, as the flowers and the butterfly garden were quite famous and Michelle had wanted to go. I was willing but the cost, about $150 each, ended up deterring her. I hadn’t spent much and would have gone, but I think she might have decided that she’d indulged enough. So we ended up going downtown only, to look at the harbor and photograph some of the gorgeous flowers that adorned the central attraction of downtown, the Empress Hotel. We were told that almost every English Royal and American President had stayed there at one time, back fifty years or longer. It certainly is a lovely place.
If the cruise had begun, rather than concluded, in Victoria, I would have had a lot more energy and would either have done the garden tour, or signed up for an afternoon of whale watching by boat. One regret I had was that I never saw a whale, although we did spot pods of dolphins a few times, but I had hoped, very much, to see a whale. It didn’t happen.
At the end of the day, we had dinner aboard and began to work on settling what we would do about our luggage and when we would disembark the next day. Early departure was necessary (and encouraged) since port day in Seattle would see all 2000 passengers off and a new cohort on, all to happen between about 9am and about 4pm that day.
While guests were supplied with luggage tags and encouraged to drop their bags cab side upon arrival, with a large number of luggage handlers ready to bring bags aboard and drop them outside of cabins for the guests, the options for handling luggage upon leaving the ship were more numerous and more challenging, either way.
Option one was to commit to taking all your luggage off the ship in the morning by yourself. I myself could probably have managed this, as I had one large suitcase and one carry-on, a bit bigger than a purse, that I could have managed on my own if need be. It would have required me to use the elevator, though, instead of stairs and I had a sense of how busy it would be with 2000 people trying to use (a total of) 12 elevators to get to the disembarkation deck to get off the ship. It seemed like pressing my luck to try.
Michelle had five bags, which included 2 suitcases, a large purse, a CPAP machine, and a large tote. It would have been too much for her to manage, and while I could have helped her with one bag, we still would have been overwhelmed. So we decided to leave our largest bags outside the room, tagged, to be taken off the ship overnight. It was not hard to manage that, except that anything one would need for bedtime and to dress for the next day would then have to go into the carry-on at the end. I really streamlined what I saved out for the morning, with a t-shirt and shorts to sleep in, and only minimal toiletries for the next day. It was inconvenient but the better alternative as far as I was concerned.
Seattle and Home
We had asked for a later departure, partly to avoid the crowds (which did not work), and partly to load up on a last coffee at the Café Carinthia and to say goodbye and tip Joseph lavishly. He had been our waiter there every day, and we had come to look forward to seeing him daily for lattes, Americanos, and pastry. It was a relaxed and welcome spot that we both added to our routine.
After a last coffee, we went up to gather our things and depart. Our twin beds had already been remade as a single king bed, ready for the next guests, even though nothing else had yet been cleaned. We knew it was time to go.
We went directly to the airport, which was an absolute nightmare (Seattle needs better signage, more space, more help, and maybe even a new airport). It was almost impossible to figure out how to check in for the flight since there were only kiosks, no counters available for the regular traveler. Once we located kiosks behind a crowd of customers, with a single attendant available to help, and machines that kept crashing, we did manage to check in. I got through security in a reasonable time, and met Michelle later once she got through the Clear section of security, where she had to work with them to merge her two different Clear profiles into a single one.
I ate, we sat and talked for a while, but eventually we did have to separate as our respective gates were far apart at the airport. I bought a neck pillow and snoozed in the chair at the gate for the next three hours, until my flight departed. I left Seattle at about 5pm and arrived in Detroit very near midnight EDT. However, my body time was still on Seattle time, so it felt like around 9pm to me. I had not realized that would happen, but it meant that the drive home to Lansing was not done by me being in a complete fog. I got home around 2am, and it felt like 11 – just bedtime.
Arriving Home
After a few hours’ sleep, I unpacked, did two loads of laundry and cleaned the house – even with cat sitters, there was a mess including a set of curtains that someone had ripped down from the window, probably in fear as the door opened for the sitters. I was glad I took the time and effort, because that Friday night, I began to get sick.
Whether it was the time zone changes, the change in weather (from non-humid but temperate Pacific weather to very cold and damp Michigan autumn) or some virus from the ship, the airport, or the plane, I developed a respiratory illness that took me down hard. (Eventually I had a COVID test, and it was not COVID, but it was still pretty bad.) I couldn’t really sleep, especially not lying down, and I didn’t eat because the coughing didn’t allow me to keep anything down. After a visit to Urgent Care the next Tuesday, and a doctor’s appointment on Thursday, I got a cough suppressant on Friday that finally, after a week, allowed me to begin recovery.
Summary
When thinking about doing the cruise, I had talked to my grandnieces, who had been on many Caribbean cruises, about what they liked the most. Their top answer was “the food”. While the buffet was abundant and available at almost every minute, even for a “midnight snack” from 10pm to 12 midnight, I didn’t find it all that memorable, although it was perfectly fine. I didn’t wait in line at the omelet station, so as I needed protein in the morning, I generally had scrambled eggs with cheese, American bacon, and some kind of toast or other carb. They did offer full English breakfast so I tried the mushrooms but did not try the fried tomatoes and the blood sausage and the sardines.
The served meals in the Britannica were elegant, but not always good. Their soups, without an exception, were extraordinary so I always chose a soup. The menu always offered an appetizer, a soup or salad, an entree and a sweet, but Michelle and I cancelled the sweet twice due to lack of room. A couple of the ones we did eat, carrot cake and a Baked Alaska, were dry and flavorless, even though presented attractively, so I think we did not miss much.
The other reason to cruise for many people is to spend time with friends and family. I had planned to go solo, at the beginning, but in retrospect, I am really glad that Michelle went with me. It’s possible that if I had gone alone, I still would have done some of the things I did, and I would still have enjoyed the trip, but as an introvert, it was really helpful to have a wingman, someone who would pull me into situations where I would interact with people. While I would like to think that I still would have had a good time alone, I’m glad I didn’t have to test it this time.
A cruise ship is still a ship, and I had worried about feeling claustrophobic in being trapped aboard, and also that I might have motion sickness. I brought medicine along for it, not knowing if it would affect me, but didn’t find it to be a problem. Occasionally I could feel the ship surging beneath me, a peculiar feeling but it didn’t really bother me. However, we had calm seas and great weather. There was a day when we were poolside and the water in the pool was surging forward and aft in such a way that I understood why they had such a large sunken walk around the pool. One swimmer was holding on to the ladder for dear life while a wave battered him due to the surge. This was due to the bow of the ship dipping into and rising up on waves in a restless sea. But the largest waves I saw, maybe a few feet, generally didn’t disturb a boat of this size.
Finally, my primary reason for this particular vacation was to see Alaska. I know I barely saw it – the panhandle only, and there is much more I could have seen and would try to see if I returned, but there are 50 states and only so much time left. I have seen nothing of Massachusetts outside of the city of Boston, nothing of Wyoming except the roads to and from Devil’s Tower, and so forth. I can only sample states, these days. Even living in Michigan my whole life, there are still parts of it I have never seen. One does what one can.
I count a state as visited when I have set foot in it, and either had a meal or visited a natural landmark within it. Some places are better than others for one or both of these. I hope to continue to travel in the upcoming years.
However, I noted at the beginning of part I of this post that I didn’t know how much my health will affect my ability to travel in the future. This came because the change in time zones and climate, with the coming of fall while I was away, managed to take me down pretty quickly upon my return. I have always been healthy, although fall allergies are common for me, and a runny nose is usually no big deal. This was very different, and difficult for me to manage. I can see I will not age well, as I have no patience with illness at all.
I’m still glad I went.
Thanks for the very detailed travel notes. Hope you’re feeling better. Let’s catch up soon.