Tuesday May 31, 2022 Anchorage, Alaska to Denali National Park

Kent and Mark on the Domed Rail Car to Denali
Views on the Way to Denali
Dead Pine Trees Along the Way
The Dining Car on the Train
Views on the Way to Denali
Denali Mountain
Nenana River Flowing by our Hotel

Our bags had to be outside our hotel room by 6:00am on this morning as we planned to depart Anchorage by train to our next stop, Denali National Park. We boarded a bus for the short five-minute ride to the train station at 8:15am. Our train departed Anchorage at 9:15am for an eight-hour train ride through the beautiful Alaskan terrain.

The train was a double decker domed car with large windows so everyone in our group could take in the stunning scenery at every turn. The mountains were still covered with a patchwork of snow resembling a zebra. The rivers were filled to their banks with water from the quickly melting snow as the temperatures were in the 70’s. There was not much wildlife to see along the way but the scenery made up for it.

The train consisted of only three cars and each car had only one group from Holland America on each car. The cars held about 75 guests but our groups only consisted of about 35 guests each so we had plenty of room to spread out. Each car had a bartender for drinks and snacks as well as a guide to narrate our journey with the history of what we were seeing. Breakfast and lunch were served on the lower level of the train in a dining room with tables of four people each.

The train trip took all day, but the time passed quickly with the guided tour, natural beauty of the landscape and dining. We passed several small towns along the way but mostly just untouched wilderness. The weather was clear and sunny so everything looked its best which we understand is rare for Alaska where it rains most of the summer months and can often be cloudy around Mount Denali. Similar to California, they have a bark beetle that is killing many of the pine trees in the area leaving them looking like they were burned in a fire. The hillsides are covered in lush green aspen trees with fresh leaves just springing out. The groves are so thick you can’t see through them.  

We stayed at a beautiful rustic style resort by the name of The McKinley Chalet Resort. Our room had a topography map of the area wallpaper on one wall and rustic wood siding on the other. There was a nice patio balcony with a table and chairs and a nice wooded view of the surrounding snowcapped mountains. We had a peak of a view of the Nenana River from our balcony. The resort, owned by Carnival Cruise Lines, had upscale dining, quality entertainment and some local shopping opportunities.

For dinner we walked a short distance to an area in our resort called Denali Square where they have a lovely restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating. The menu was quite limited but we did find some Brussel sprouts, pasta and a Caesar salad for dinner. The square also has a small stage where musicians perform live. There is a small theater and many small shops for your retail therapy.

Monday May 30, 2022 Anchorage, Alaska

James Cook Statue
Photo of the Earthquake Damage in 1964
Festive Gallery in the Anchorage Museum
One of the Sturdy & Waterproof Bear Intestine Coats on Display at the Museum
Mark and a Bear
World War II Memorial

This was the Memorial Day holiday across America and in Anchorage there was a fairly large celebration going on in the Delaney Park where there is a WWII Soldier Statue. Once again, the weather was spectacular with sunshine and temperatures ranging from about 55 to 70 degrees.

In the 19th century, Russia had a strong presence in south-central Alaska. In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward brokered a deal to purchase Alaska from Imperial Russia for just $7.2 million dollars. In 1888 gold was discovered just south of Anchorage which lead to the development of many small towns in the area. In 1912 Alaska became an organized incorporated United States territory.

We boarded the Anchorage Trolley Tour’s red trolley this morning for a live narrated 15-mile round trip tour of Anchorage. The tour guide gave lots of information about the area including the location, the annual snowfall of 75 inches, highest recorded temperature of 90 degrees, etc. We heard about James Cook exploring and mapping the area as he searched for the northwest passage, the fishing industry and the importance of tourism to the economy. We toured downtown, as well as many residential neighborhoods where there are all styles of homes built including those built underground for its insulating factors. We toured the area around the airport where there are more than a thousand private airplanes, many of which are float planes and sea planes that can take off and land on water, land or ice. We stopped at earthquake park where the most homes were destroyed in the 1964 earthquake and the uneven land still remains from the sinking of the soil that enveloped homes. Even in the central downtown, along 4th Avenue, the earth sunk more than twelve feet destroying many businesses.

The Anchorage population of about 300,000 is quite spread out and that does not include the moose and bear population. The large moose are supposedly a common sighting in town but they eluded us on our visit. The neighborhoods we visited were well kept with lots of lush trees and vegetation as you might imagine when you have lots of rain and water. All around the city we saw snow peaked mountains making for a picturesque backdrop to the city. The downtown area has a wide variety of buildings, some from before the earthquake and then those built or rebuilt after 1964. There is also some new construction going on. We saw quite a lot of vacant store fronts, we assume that some were unable to survive the pandemic, and we saw a good number of homeless people, mostly younger looking men. Not my idea of a climate in which to be homeless, but there are homeless in Anchorage.

After our trolley tour we walked to the Anchorage Museum where we enjoyed much more information on the history, culture, science and art of Alaska and the north. The museum is very extensive on four floors of a modern mirrored glass exterior building. They have an extensive collection of items from the Alaskan native communities including oral histories, clothing, tools, baskets, weapons, headdresses and so much more. They have large galleries of art from landscapes to contemporary art, sculpture and jewelry.

After being exhausted by the walking and the museum, we retreated to our hotel for a rest before heading out for a bite to eat. We had an early dinner at the Glacier Brewing Company across the street from our hotel. Seafood pasta and fish and chips. After dinner we walked to the WWII Memorial for a closer up look that we had from the trolley this morning.

Sunday May 29, 2022 Whittier to Anchorage, Alaska

Town of Whittier, Alaska as taken from the ship including the train.
Our Domed Rail Car
A View from the Train
Brined Trees
Kent and Friends
Reindeer Hot Dog Stand

The small village of Whittier, where we disembarked the ship, is nestled along the Prince William Sound, known for its stunning array of wildlife like bald eagles, sea otters, killer whales, and more. The town of about 225 residents sits about 60 miles south of Anchorage and is comprised of just one 14-story Begich Towers building built as a Cold War outpost for the US Army.

This morning we boarded an Alaska Railroad train for a scenic two-hour ride to Anchorage. We transited along the Cook Inlet and the Kenai Peninsula through the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge, which is home to many moose and swans. The train uses the 2.5-mile-long, Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the longest combined vehicle-railroad tunnel in the United States. The tunnel was excavated in 1941-42 and upgraded between 1998 and 2000. The train tracks are embedded into the roadway allowing cars to transit over the tracks at a speed of 25 mph for a ten-minute journey. They have a strict schedule for times when trains can transit and when cars can transit the tunnel and the tunnel is only large enough to accommodate traffic in one direction at a time.

We passed the area, where on March 27, 1964 at 5:36pm local time, there was an earthquake that measured a magnitude of 9.2 on the Richter scale. The earthquake lasted 4.5 minutes and is the second largest earthquake ever recorded next to a 9.5 in Chile in 1960. The land sunk causing sea water to overtake what was forestland previously and the trees could not survive in the salt water and thus died. Today the remains of the saltwater brined trees still stand as if burnt in a fire.

The weather was sunny, clear and spectacular once again with temperatures into the low 70’s. The train was a seven-car train of glass dome cars so we could take in the surrounding snow-covered mountains. The cars each had a guide who also sold drinks, coffee mugs and a small menu of food items in between his narration. The train trip took a bit longer than two hours to transit the sixty miles to the city of Anchorage.

Once we arrived in Anchorage we were transported by bus to a convention center located in the downtown area until our hotel rooms were ready. We checked our hand luggage at a coat check and went to a local brew pub called “The 49th State Brewing Company” for lunch. Mark had some halibut and chips, their version of fish and chips, while Kent enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich. Because the tourist season has started the pub was packed with tourists wanting to dine in the very large two-story restaurant with an outdoor patio.

At 3:45 we were taken a few blocks down the road to the Westmark Hotel, our home for the next two nights. The hotel is very dated with cottage cheese ceilings, vinyl wallpaper and an old five-gallon flush toilet twelve inches from the ground from the 1970’s. They had attempted to update it with newer headboards, linens, draperies and carpeting but it still had the smell of an old motel.

After our large lunch we just took a walk in the evening before heading back to the hotel where we stopped at another brewery for a couple of small salads. Downtown we came across a busy hot dog stand on the street where people were enjoying a local treat, the reindeer hot dog. Maybe we will try one tomorrow? Many of the gift shops have large stuffed bears outside their doors to attract visitors into their shops.

Saturday May 28, 2022 Sea Day and College Fjord

Mark on deck
Kent and Mark at the Mariner Appreciation Cocktail Party
College Fjord
College Fjord

This morning we packed our bags for our disembarkation the following day in Whittier, Alaska. Then we attended a Holland America mariner appreciation cocktail party. The captain was unable to attend due to the thick fog on the sea this morning so we had the hotel manager hosting the event. There were only five couples present at the party so we assumed that it was for five-star mariners only, which are those who have sailed for 500 or more days with Holland America. We got our photo taken with the hotel manager.

The naturalist hosted a wildlife spotting event on the aft pool deck, but there was no wildlife to be seen. They say that the water has been colder than usual this winter and the whales are slow to return from giving birth in Hawaii. She said the scenery is much more spectacular at this time of year when the mountains are still capped with snow. May can also be a very dry month were as July and August can be much wetter, so we are happy that the fog cleared and we had beautiful clear skies once again.

We attended a multi-media presentation on the history of Holland America Line from its start 150 years ago in Rotterdam, Holland. They have adapted over all those years from transporting immigrants from Europe to the United States, to transporting cargo, to transporting troops during wartime, to passenger cruise line, survived the pandemic and now a ship is even used as a humanitarian hotel for Ukrainian refugees. They have had a very interesting history.

After lunch in the dining room we enjoyed a concert at the Lincoln Center Stage with the violinist and the pianist. They performed a selection of Johannes Brahm composed music.

In the afternoon we transited the Prince William Sound headed for College Fjord located in the northern sector of Prince William Sound; with its five tidewater glaciers terminating at the water’s edge and five large valley glaciers and dozens of smaller glaciers. This fjord was discovered in 1899 during the Harriman Expedition which included a Harvard and Amherst professor and thus the name College Fjord. Many of the area’s glaciers are named after East Coast colleges (women’s colleges for the northwest side and men’s colleges for the southeast side). Some of the names include Smith, Yale, Wellesley, Vassar and Harvard. Between 6:00pm and 8:00pm Kristi the onboard naturalist narrated the items that we were seeing in the College Fjord. The sunshine, the warm temperatures and the sheer beauty of the day was unbelievable.

The evenings main show was another production with the onboard dance team and one of the singers from the B.B. King show. This production included a lot of acrobatic moves and the dance moves appeared more complex. All of the dancers are very skilled dancers and they do an excellent job.

Friday May 27, 2022 Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve

Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay
Glacier Bay

On this day we cruised the beautiful fjords as a local Park Service Ranger narrated what we were seeing around us. The weather was remarkably sunny and clear once again. We explored many fjords (long narrow waterways between high cliffs), inlets, rivers and streams. While we had hoped to see some of the local wildlife along our day’s journey, we saw very little.

Captain George Vancouver first set eyes on this five-mile inlet that is Glacier Bay in 1794. At that time George described the inlet as “a sheet of ice as far as the eye could distinguish.”  By 1879, when John Muir visited the area, the ice had retreated and began to expose the bay and the surrounding majestic wilderness areas.  The park consists of 3.3 million acres of mountains, glaciers, forests and waterways with mountain peaks rising to over 15,000 feet in elevation. There are many tidewater glaciers or great rivers of ice that flow into the sea and calve large chunks of ice into the ocean.

We ordered breakfast in our cabin and enjoyed the stunning scenery from our cabin’s wall of glass and our balcony. The ship sailed at a very slow speed through the park so it was a relaxing day of enjoying the snow-covered mountains. The onboard naturalist was giving narration from the crow’s nest and we could tune our television to the bow’s camera and hear her narration.

The most photographed glacier in the park is the Margerie Glacier known to be the state’s most active calving glacier.  Calving is when large chunks of the glacier crack off and fall into the ocean. We spent about an hour at the glacier and saw several smaller chunks falling into the water below but nothing major. There were many seagull type birds as well as a variety of other birds in the area.

After lunch we attended a lecture with the National Park Ranger on Glacier National Park. It was a fast-paced overview of the history of the park and the changes in the park area through history. Too much information too fast to remember. About 3:00pm we disembarked the park rangers and began sailing towards the open ocean bound for College Fjord.

This night was a more dressy night so dinner in the dining room included traditional items like beef tenderloin, shrimp cocktail, chocolate soufflé and escargot. We shared a table with four ladies, two from Vancouver and two from Orange County, California. They were all very nice.

The show this evening was another BBC Earth presents Alaska in concert. Beautiful photography of Alaskan wildlife like bears, bald eagles, fox, etc. accompanied by the pianist and violinist from the Lincoln Center Stage. After the show they had a chocolate extravaganza in the bars and casino. All of the waiters from the dining room paraded silver trays filled with everything chocolate. Kent was in heaven.

As a follow-up to my post yesterday; my father was released from the hospital and is home resting comfortably now. He seems to be feeling better and returned to his normal self.

Thursday May 26, 2022 Skagway, Alaska

Skagway from our Ship
Skagway’s Broadway
Broadway with the Ship at the end of the Street
Moore Homestead
Unique Facade

Skagway has a year-round population of approximately 1,250 inhabitants, which doubles in summer months to accommodate the million or more visitors each year. The weather on this day was extraordinarily beautiful with clear skies and sunshine.

Skagway was a part of the Klondike gold rush frenzy when, in 1896, gold was found in the Klondike region of Canada’s Yukon Territory. Ships began bringing thousands of hopeful miners to town as they prepared to make the 500-mile journey to the Canadian gold fields. The town population soon grew to 30,000, mostly American gold prospectors. Within weeks the town was filled with trading posts, guest houses, stores, and saloons; offices lined the streets of Skagway and it was the largest city in Alaska. Along with its fast growth came fights, prostitutes, liquor and con-men, all taking advantage of the hopeful prospectors. Canada began imposing new restrictions on the prospectors and by 1899 the town’s economy began to collapse as the stream of gold seekers dried up.

Much of the town has been preserved as part of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park and rangers offer free walking tours around the historic district. We visited the National Park offices where we watched a 25-minute film about the goldrush days.

The main street of town is called Broadway and it began just at the bow of our ship. The street is very wide and filled with shops on both sides of the street. Many of the buildings are from the goldrush days and most are filled with souvenir shops for the summer tourists. Most of the merchandise was similar to what we had seen in other shops along the way.

We stopped at the Moore Homestead where we toured the home of one of the early settlers of the town. The home belonged to a Captain William Moore who predicted that the area would grow when gold was discovered nearby and so he homesteaded 160 acres of land. He made remarkable amounts of money on his land and would later build a sawmill and wharf.

For dinner we dined at the specialty restaurant Tamarind again. We tried a variety of different dishes like the lamb chops and three sorbets for dessert. Everything was delicious and we ate everything.

After dinner we attended a 45-minute concert in the Lincoln Center Stage. The violinist and the pianist performed but the viola player was absent with no mention. There are many rumors about how many of the crew may be under quarantine or in isolation but it is unknown. Since we have been on the ship there has been no mention about Covid. There are signs all over the ship that say “masks recommended” but that is the extent of any mention. All crew members wear KN95 masks that fit well and they seem very comfortable with them at this point.

The main stage show on this evening was a combination show with both the dance troupe and the two piano players from the Billboard 100 piano bar. The theme of the show was music from Billboards number one songs.

As a side note, I wanted to mention that my father had an Ischemic Stroke this morning. The facility where he lives was able to get him transported to UCI Medical Center quickly. A scan showed that he had a blood clot in the brain and was given a blood thinner. By afternoon he appeared to be recovering well and they were planning to do an MRI. We wish him a speedy and complete recovery.

Wednesday May 25, 2022 Juneau, Alaska

Sailing into Juneau
Monument to Patsy Ann the Dog
Mark with a Bronze Totem Pole
St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church
St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church Interior

Juneau is the capital city of Alaska, the second largest city in the United States by area and a population of approximately 32,000 inhabitants. No roads connect the city to the state or North America so all goods and services need to be brought in by ship or by air.

It was another beautifully clear morning in Alaska with sunshine and temperatures ranging from 35 to 55 degrees. We arrived in Juneau about 10:00am and we disembarked shortly thereafter to explore the town on foot.

Our first stop was the Juneau-Douglas City Museum where we watched a 35-minute film about the history of the city, its gold rush expansion in the late 1800’s, and about Alaska becoming a state. The museum, although small, had a wide variety of artifacts honoring its native people, its mining days, famous local people, its fishing history and more. They had a temporary exhibit on the life of a local artist who had lived in the city since the 1950’s but had recently passed away.

Our next stop was at the very small St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church built in 1894. The small blue and white church is built in a hexagon shape with a small entry way.  Once inside the church the room is divided into two spaces, divided by a wall with double doors. The church was quite ornate although only had a couple of benches for parishioners to sit.

We wanted to visit the Sealaska Heritage cultural center where the native people of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian people tell their stories but it was not open on this day.

Several blocks of town are filled with restaurants and shops selling tourist merchandise like clothing, packaged fish, tree ornaments, local handicraft items, etc. On our way back to the ship we stopped at a monument to Juneau’s most famous dog named Patsy Ann. Patsy Ann lived about a half-mile from the port in the1930’s and seemed to know when ships were pulling into the port. She would come down to the port and greet all of the steamships and visitors.

Mark spent a little time working on a puzzle before heading to the main dining room for afternoon tea. The tea was served with a tri-level serving dish of sweet and savory treats. Scones, finger sandwiches, cream puffs and more came one dish after another. Given that it was a port day there were only three tables of people participating in tea on this day. We enjoyed the tea with a couple from Austin, Texas (Susie and Archi) who were on their first Holland America cruise.

After dinner in the dining room we enjoyed a BBC Earth film called Blue Planet II with live orchestration by the girls who perform on the Lincoln Center Stage. The films photography of all things related to the sea is spectacular. The creatures like squid, walrus, whales, crabs and birds that live in and around the sea close up in vivid color.

Tuesday May 24, 2022 Ketchikan, Alaska

Ketchikan Waterfront
Kent in front of the Nieuw Amsterdam
Locals Shopping Center in Ketchikan
Mark in Ketchikan
Sailing Away from Ketchikan

Located on Revillagigedo Island, Ketchikan is 90 miles north of Prince Rupert, British Columbia and is the first Alaskan city you reach when cruising north. The town is approximately 30 miles in length and not more than 10 blocks in width as it hugs the steep bluffs of the forested landscape. Incorporated in 1900, Ketchikan has a population of about 8,500 residents and is the sixth largest city in Alaska.

Ketchikan has the world’s largest collection of totem poles located throughout the city as well as at several parks and heritage centers. If you enjoy the rain this may be the spot for you. The annual rainfall is 197.8 inches and they recorded 42.69 inches of rain in October of 1974. Their economy is based around commercial fishing, canneries, government services, and tourism. In 2018 the city saw more than 40 cruise ships making over 500 stops in the harbor and bringing more than one million visitors to town.

We must be living right; we arrived in Ketchikan about 6:30am with sunshine and scattered clouds but no rain. After breakfast we walked north of the ship towards the older part of town where the locals shop and work. There was a Safeway market connected to a very small two-story shopping mall with many empty shops. Then we walked just south of the ship to the tourist area of town where there is one tourist shop after another. The main street is filled with diamond and jewelry shops while the other streets are mostly filled with salmon shops, souvenir clothing and small gift items. We did experience a light rain sprinkle but it did not last long. The town streets were very clean and flower filled with tulips, rhododendrons and other spring flowers.

We sailed away from Ketchikan about 3:00pm bound for Juneau. The skies had scattered clouds but the light rain sprinkles had quickly passed and it was a beautiful afternoon. The naturalist onboard was on deck helping people spot wildlife in the area as we sailed. She spotted a bear and her two cubs and a bald eagle but they were quite far from the ship and you needed good binoculars to see them.

Late afternoon we attended a program with our cruise director Nick called Ancestral Memories. Nick narrated the story of the local native people whose land was sold to the United States by Russia although the natives believed that Russia had no right to sell land that did not belong to them. Alaska was then broken into several pieces, each to have schools built and laws created to control the native people and to make them more American. They were forced to give up their native languages, their natives dances and dress. They were forced to attend schools where they were punished for who they were.

After dinner we attended a musical presentation in the Lincoln Center Stage with a pianist, violaist and violinist. They performed a variety of musical numbers from famous operas as well as a collection of serenades. They are all very accomplished musicians and we enjoyed their concert very much.

The main stage show on this evening was another dance program called Musicology. Six dancers performed in front of a screen projection of a variety of musical instruments. The dances created the feelings of each instrument’s sounds. For example, a flute may have a soft humming sound and the dance might be flowing but a drum may have a lot of quick bold movements to the dance.

Monday May 23, 2022 Inside Passage, Alaska

Panang Curry with Chicken

The Alaskan portion of the inside passage is approximately 500 miles from north to south and approximately100 miles from west to east. There are some 1,000 islands and thousands of bays and coves making it a popular tourist destination. There are wildlife viewing opportunities from land and sea, whether you are exploring the rugged coastal mountain ranges or exploring by boat, cruise ship or kayak on the water. Over 2 two million visitors a year cruise this region in a variety of cruise ships. In addition to the cruise ships, more than 35,000 recreation boats transit the inside passage annually.

This day was a quiet sea day as we slowly wound our way north. The morning weather was very gray, cloudy and foggy. By afternoon the weather cleared and temperatures reached about 50 degrees.

We attended a lecture with the ship’s naturalist who gave us an overview of the types of wildlife that we might see along the way. She let us know that it was early in the season and that the whales who spend the winter near the Hawaiian Islands were slow to return this year. The surface temperature of the water was cooler than normal so the whales were waiting for the water to warm. She said we would most likely see some whales that winter in the area but closer to Juneau. Bald eagles would be plentiful along the shore, as would bears, birds and seals.

Nick the cruise director gave a presentation on the Iconic Whales of the Northwest with photos and videos about the different types of whales in the area, their migration patterns and feeding habits.

At lunch in the main dining room we sat with two very nice ladies named Mary and Ann from Las Vegas. There parents were Holocaust survivors who migrated from Holland to the United states in the 1950’s and settled in Covina not far from Whittier where I grew up. We had lovely lunch exchanging stories about our lives with them.

The afternoon included another presentation with cruise director Nick titled Breaking the Ice ceiling. In this segment he told the stories of three accomplished Alaskan women. One who had nearly died climbing Mount McKinley and went on to become a pilot. Today she flies climbers into and out of the camps at Mount McKinley when not being a domestic mother to her two children. The second was a coast guard captain who risked her and her crew’s life to reach the town of Nome in Alaska during a horrible winter. If not for her knowledge of her ice breaker ship and the assistance of a Russian ship, the town may not have survived the winter without fuel and supplies. The third woman featured was a fisherman who enjoys the risky job of fishing the high seas in a world mostly occupied by men. She comes from a family with many generations of fisherman in Alaska.

Later in the afternoon Kent watched a Disney film called Disney Nature Bears about an Alaskan bear family as its cubs are taught life’s most important lessons. Mark attended a performance at the Lincoln Center Stage with a pianist, a violinist and a violaist. They performed music by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.

Dinner this evening was classified as dressy which appeared to mean anything goes. People were wearing sneakers, t-shirts and most anything else. As time goes by cruise ship dress seems to get more and more casual. We made a reservation at the Tamarind dining room for dinner. They serve a variety of Asian cuisine that was excellent. Our appetizers included a mixed satay sampler and shrimp tempura. For our entrees we tried the Panang curry with chicken and the Thai basil Szechuan shrimp accompanied by steamed jasmine rice, Dungeness crab fried rice and Asian eggplant with spicy coconut. For dessert we had a mango posset which included a coconut macaroon, passion fruit jelly and mango sorbet. Also, a Yuzu cheesecake with honey tuile and white chocolate. Yum!!

After dinner we attended a dance performance on the main stage. I’m assuming this is a cost saving measure to only have dancers and no singers. Also gone were the elaborate sets like we used to see in the past. The dance show featured only projected colors and images on large white panels.

Sunday May 22, 2022 Depart Vancouver for Alaska

Vancouver Statuary
Cruise Itinerary

This morning our friends Bob Cox and Eugene Wang picked us up at our hotel and walked us a few blocks back to their nearby apartment for lunch. They have a spacious two-bedroom apartment just a few doors from Stanley Park and a large terrace overlooking the city and park. We enjoyed catching up with them over Bob’s fresh crab and bacon quiche and a fresh fruit salad. With good friends, even though years have gone by since we last saw them, we easily picked up where we last left off with ease.

About 1:00pm Eugene and Bob drove us to the cruise ship terminal at Canada Place to board the Nieuw Amsterdam. The check-in process was quick and efficient although the route around the building to the different check-in points for Covid test results, passports, photos, etc. was complex.

Since it is a celebration for our 30th anniversary, I thought that we should have an upgraded cabin, so I got us a cabin with a balcony on deck 8 rather than our original cabin on deck 1. After many years of traveling on Holland America, the ships and cabins all look familiar. We understood that the ship was only about 50% full so that explains why there were not many people at embarkation.

Due to Covid the long-standing procedure of a life boat drill has been altered dramatically. You are now required to watch a video in your cabin about the life boat procedures along with paying a visit to your muster station to check-in prior to sailing.

At 4:00pm we sailed from Vancouver harbor, gliding under the Lion’s Gate Bridge, and entered the scenic waters of the Inside Passage. They had a very subdued sail away party on the pool deck. No live music, no snacks and just drinks to purchase. What has the world come to! Although mask wearing is recommended onboard, maybe 35% of the passengers opt to wear masks onboard.

There was an LGBTQ+ gathering in the Tamarind Bar where we met a small group of fellow passengers. Our next stop was dinner in the main dining room. Given the fact that the ship was only half full, the dining room was quite busy. The menus and service appear to have survived the pandemic well.

After dinner there was a unique presentation about Alaska given by the ship’s cruise director, Nick, from Belgium. Nick narrated a story about the history of Holland America in Alaska interspersed with photos and videos projected onto two large movie screens onstage. It gave you a good starting point for the history and culture of Alaska.

After the show we visited the Billboard 100 lounge where two excellent young pianists, George and Lena, sang current Billboard top 100 songs and those from past years.  They both played specially arranged piano accompaniments and had great voices.