Cruising Alaska on the Golden Princess - Skagway

Today's plan in Skagway was to meet up with a crew member from another ship. We blocked out our whole day to make sure we could make it happen. She's on the Ruby Princess and they are in port with us today. We were looking forward to treating her to lunch and delivering some of her favorite snacks to her. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to go off the ship today. We even tried to arrange for someone to take them to her but security frowns a bit upon that. Neither of us have sailed yet, so until one of our ships pulls away from the dock I'm still holding out hope we can get them to her.
(Update: After much waiting and patience and convincing, we were able to get a security supervisor to take it from us. Hope she gets it.)

The Ruby is so close yet so far

We've been to Skagway a lot so we weren't too worried about missing out on an excursion.

We've done the train ride.

We've done the Streetcar tour.

And just take a look at what we've done in Skagway since I started the blog:

• You can find out about last week's dogsledding here.
• You can find out about the Yukon Suspension Bridge trip here.
• You can see Skagway in black and white photos here.
• You can see their wildflowers in bloom here.
• You can see the beauty of the area here.
• Here's the best Thai food in Alaska.

While we were waiting to find out if our gal could join us, we stopped at the place with the best darn patty melt ever, The Sweet Tooth Cafe.

Just look at how the onions and meat and bread and cheese are all melted together. Oh, my.

And look at dessert!

Of course I stopped in at the the quilt shop. I always spy quilts I'd love to make but the price tag of the kits always gives me sticker shock. I liked these quilts the best.

We meandered back to the ship mid-afternoon and I'm hanging in Skywalkers doing some writing.

Nice view from up here.

On the way up I did see another leak on the ship. Technically, they aren't leaks I guess. They are drips from the ceiling. (I don't want you to think the ship has a hole in the hull and is leaking!)

Here is the link to today's Patter.

Off to Juneau tomorrow.

Cruising Alaska on the Golden Princess - Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay day is always special. And always spectacular. Rain or fog or sun, there is nothing like it. It is what I consider pretty much the best day of any Alaskan cruise.

There are some things to know when scenic cruising in Glacier Bay:
*Park rangers join the ship for the entire time. For us today, that was from around 9:00 am – 7:00 pm.
*Shops are closed for most of the day.
*The casino is closed until after the rangers leave the ship.
*Limited activities are happening around the ship during the day – the focus is on the park.
*No paper cups, straws, or napkins are allowed in any of the venues.
*Since it’s a National Park you can go to the makeshift ranger station onboard and get a National Park passport stamp. They also have a Junior Ranger program for the kiddos.

*Rangers give presentations during the day and also do commentary from the Bridge.
*There is a limit on how many ships can be in Glacier Bay on the same day. We were lucky enough to see the Coral sailing by us. We waved hello to our crew member buddy on the ship. (Not really, but I did send him the picture of his ship.) 

Today turned out to be a nice day for calving and a nice day for the sun.

Want more Glacier Bay pictures? I've done many posts about Glacier Bay over the last seven years of the blog.

• You can see my photos from last week here.
• This is the day in Glacier Bay where someone needed a Coast Guard rescue. It was also the only time we had such a huge chunk of ice fall that we felt it on the ship.
• Here is the day we saw a bear while traversing Glacier Bay.
• This is the day of the birds in Glacier Bay.
• This is the day when we saw lots of breaching whales when leaving Glacier Bay.
• Rainy Glacier Bay day is here.

A few other random thoughts about today…
Hubby had rock fish chowder from International Café for lunch. He said it was delicious.

For those wanting to know about the Escape Room, signups were this afternoon. When I mentioned it to hubby he gave me the no way look so I didn’t try and find out any more.

The laundry rooms here use a machine to dispense tokens. The only way to pay for them is through your cruise card.

Leak update – I ran across two more leaks today. And I’m not even purposely looking for them! One was on the starboard side between the entrance to the Princess Theater and the elevators. The other one was on outside the port side glass elevator on our deck (Caribe). That’s four leaks I’ve seen in three days. Some have towels and some have buckets collecting the water. Again, I’m not actively looking for them so I’m guessing yes, there looks to be a leaking water problem on the Golden.

Tomorrow is our first port, Skagway.

Here is the link to today's Patter.