Ketchikan, Alaska

Hello from Ketchikan, Alaska!

View from my balcony

I was up early this morning but not by choice. With a 9+ hour time different between Alaska and the European countries where I spent my whole summer my body doesn't know if it's daytime, nighttime, or somewhere in between. But a benefit of waking at weird hours is I get to see things I probably would have slept through like the hint of sunrise at 4:59 AM.

Good thing I was wide awake at that 4:59 AM because when I went onto the balcony to take the picture I had quite a scare as a bird flew off my footstool and onto the railing. I say flew but I really mean broken wing, flying sideways and falling (and repeat again and again), and then barely making it to the railing kind of flying. I left the poor fella alone and he stayed in that same spot until we arrived in port. I didn't see him leave but I'm guessing it was a free fall on the way down. TMI - I know he had been on the footstool for a long time because it's covered with a LOT of bird poo.

Poor lonely guy

Getting close to town!

Once 8 AM hit and the laundry room opened I washed some clothes.

No one there but me

With one token left over from the Island Princess I decided to dry them in the cabin instead of buying a second token for the dryer. Clothes are everywhere in here right now, balcony included. Anyway, I had plenty of time to hang them and dry them since I didn't have any big plans for Ketchikan. This is the 25th(!) time I've been here and have done all I care to do.

Totem Poles? Been to both Totem Bight Saxman Native Village.
Visit Creek Street? Yep. Totem Bight Park and Creek Street photos are here.
Salmon fishing? Yep. Salmon fishing photos can be found here.
See the salmon run? Yep. You can see the salmon run photos here.
Duck tour? Yep.

Take a photo of the rain gauge? Yep.

Take the Deadliest Catch tour? Yep.
Watch bald eagles at work and at rest? Yep.

Misty Fjords flight? That would be a hard no. After our passengers were killed on their excursion in 2019 I swore never to get on a float plane.

Lumberjack Show and sightseeing? Yep. You can see some of those photos here.

And even more views of the area can be found here.

So I did what I would do if Ed was here with me, go to the Arctic Bar and order a Long Island Iced Tea. 

Even though we were in Alaska for a month last summer, we haven't been back to the bar since Covid. So when I sat down and saw this sign I knew it was meant for me.

The Arctic Bar is a unique place on the waterfront where about every third word from the staff's mouths begins with the letter F. Here's what I wrote about our visit to the Arctic Bar a few years ago. 

I was going to order from Burger Queen (need food to soak up the alcohol) but I forgot it was Monday and they're closed. That meant lady on a scooter who just consumed a strong alcoholic beverage would be driving her scooter back to the ship. Not one to be irresponsible, I stopped off at the store and bought a bag of cheese puffs (sounded like a good alcohol-soaker-upper) and sat on a bench in the sun and watched the going ons around the area. 

The Ruby Princess was in port with us and the Crab Boat tour was on its way back.

I saw my cabin.

Hey, that's mine

Spotted some bright flowers. Nasturtiums?

And as the cheese puffs soaked up the alcohol I soaked up the rays. The weather was simply perfect. I then remembered about a popular donut place across the street so I wandered over there and found an animal cookie one. It was pretty dense, and doggone it, I couldn't taste it. For the record that makes three donuts for me this summer, three times more than I've consumed in the last three years.

As you'd expect with a combination of Long Island Iced Tea, cheese puffs, and a part of a donut I had to take a little nap. I didn't sleep long because crew members from the Island were sending me videos of today's port for them, Holyhead, Wales. They were a bit bummed because it was a national holiday and everything was closed, but their short videos gave me the idea to do a quick one, too. Just a view from my balcony, but if you haven't been to Ketchikan it gives you an idea of what you might see when you visit.

I think when we're back here next week we dock somewhere different. If so, I'll give you a quick video overlook of that area.

Tomorrow we're in Juneau, Alaska. See you there!

Grand Princess Embarkation Day

Hello from the Grand Princess!

My home for the next two weeks

Before I start with today I must go back to yesterday. Really, it’s a must. While my flight was late getting into Vancouver last night, the excitement of what I saw during the flight made up for any delay. 

How would you feel if you saw this on your plane’s map?

Being I just came back from Greenland you can imagine how I was feeling. When I looked out the window and found the cloudy skies had cleared and started snapping photos I may have even quoted a Macklemore song and whispered to myself, “This is f***ing awesome.” 

I found Greenland is just like you see on the maps - green and brown on the edges, more glacier-y a little farther in, and then it’s nothing but ice and snow. You can see exactly what I mean by following the progression of photos from the east coast towards the middle.

It was nothing short of spectacular being able to experience Greenland by way of cruising Prince Christian Sound, visiting two coastal villages, and seeing it from above, all in one week. Wow. Just wow.

Okay, back to today. I stayed at the Fairmont Waterfront, a new hotel for me. It’s right across from the cruise port and was arranged by Princess. We always book our own hotel but since I was coming in late and I’m only paying for a solo, it was a better deal to book through them this time. And clearly they get some nice rooms because when I went to look out my window this morning I found I had a little terrace. What a nice surprise. So I went next door to Tim Horton’s, bought a donut, and brought it back and spent my morning outside. Such a nice way to start the day.

I went across the street about 11 and rolled around outside for a while before I decided to go inside the terminal. It’s so nice finally being somewhere I’ve been dozens of times, but in my exploration I discovered something new today. I found an entrance up top where I could avoid all the initial craziness of downstairs. If you’ve been to the port before you’ll recognize the area as the out/back in/escalator area. Being on a scooter I was able to use the door to cut across into the main hallway instead. I’ll be using this entrance from now on, if possible.

You can tell it’s near the end of the season because they have the process down, although being on the scooter saved me a bunch of time and steps. I was onboard with a glass of water sitting in the sun at the back of the ship by 12:03.

My happy place 

Even though I never went to the dining room on the Island Princess I went for lunch today for old times sake on the Grand. The place was empty (yay) and I quickly had my old standby in front of me, the salmon and orange soufflé. Sorry, I wolfed down the soufflé and completely forgot the picture!

My cabin on this ship is a weird one. It’s in the mini suite category - and is considered accessible - but it’s the smallest accessible mini suite I’ve ever been in. Oh, yeah…and it’s only a twin bed set up. No spreading out on an empty bed for me on this ship.

On the plus side, what I lose in cabin space I gain in balcony space. It doesn’t completely wrap around the back but it gets close. It’s totally uncovered which means I’ll either get wet from the rain or people looking down on me. Can’t have it all!

Oops, finger in the way

Our departure time has been delayed to a bunkering (fuel) barge issue but we’ll be off to Alaska with our first port being Ketchikan on Monday. See you then!

Smoky sail away

My 106th Day on the Island Princess

Goodbye to the Island Princess. Today, my 106th day on the ship, was my last. 

May 11 view of the ship from my hotel room

August 25 view of the ship from the airport transfer

What an amazing solo-on-a-scooter adventure it has been. While it's not over yet (Alaska, I'm coming for you tomorrow!) I thought I should do a wrap up of my time on the Island before I join my next ship. 

The Itinerary

It's why I chose this ship for the summer. What an amazing combinations of places I've been to! Over the last 3½ months I've visited:

• Mexico - Huatulco and Puerto Vallarta
• Puntarenas, Costa Rica
• Panama - Panama City and the Panama Canal
• Cartagena, Columbia
• Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Iceland - Akureyri x3, Grundarfjördur, Isafjordur x2, Reykjavik x3, Seydisfjordur
• Greenland - Nanortalik, Prince Christian Sound, Qaqortoq
• Norway - Ålesund, Åndalsnes x2, Haugesund x3, Honningsvag x2, Lofoten Islands x2, Olden, Skjolden, Tromso x2, Trondheim x2
• Denmark - Bornholm, Copenhagen, Skagen
• Sweden - Stockholm
• England - Falmouth x2, Newcastle
• Scotland - Edinburgh, Greenock, Shetland Islands
• Cobh, Ireland
• Tallin, Estonia
• Riga, Latvia
• Klaipėda, Lithuania
• Gdynia, Poland

I even crossed above the Arctic Circle five times.

Click here to read about all my adventures in port 

I'd love to pick a favorite port or experience but I can't as there were just too many. I do have to say I believe Prince Christian Sound in Greenland is probably the most beautiful place on Earth. Then there was the stuff my husband and daughter like so much. I learned so much about past history and current events, geography, and geology again and again and again. They both would be proud. 

The Food (and a bit about crew members)

I never went to the dining room, but I did order dinner from the dining room menu quite frequently. Once the ship's home port became Southampton the menu changed and included more local flavors. It was a welcome change from those Caribbean and Mexico 7 day cruise menus.

I ordered from the regular room service menu, too. It was consistently inconsistent. And sometimes downright terrible. Just check what the app shows the item should look like compared to what arrived.

Beginning today the ship will start charging $5 for each room service order placed by phone. If you want to use the app you'll pay a one time $14.99 charge. I know if I had to pay anything for some of the items I ordered I'd be asking for my money back. They're going to have to step it up or there will be lots of unhappy guests.

The buffet on the ship is small but they do have theme nights where they have an extra couple of dishes to choose from. 

Princess has hired a large number of crew from African nations who are about the only ones working with the food in the buffet area now, at least on this ship. They are some of the nicest crew members ever. So were the wheelchair assist team who helped me and my scooter up and down every gangway and on and off every tender boat for 106 days.

Which leads me to...

The Least Pleasant Crew on the Ship

The staff working the Guest Services Desk. I had to visit the front desk more than a dozen times over the course of my trip. I was there during quiet times and at busier times and at no point did they ever show a welcoming disposition or even some empathy. In the overall scheme of things my issues were minor but I was there when someone had reported their lost wallet and another time when someone reported their lost phone. The staff showed not one bit of understanding or compassion in either case. And when I went 5 hours without toilet paper when I was sick with Covid there was no apology for twice forgetting to let anyone know about it. I tried used the crew chat on the app several times during my time onboard and they weren't helpful either. They would quickly end the conversation whether it was done or not. Then they would delete the past conversations.

They want to close their end up, but sorry, we aren't finished yet!

MedallionNet Internet

As soon as the ship switched over to Starlink (Elon Musk's satellite internet) the service improved dramatically. I never had a problem with a page not loading or a blog post not posting. While not super fast it's a tremendous improvement over what we've had on the ship in the past. Heck, I was messaging and posting from Greenland and Iceland. 

Places I Never Went

I never watched a production show or watched a comedian or participated in any of the activities. I never ate in the dining room. Didn't have the clothes being I only took one suitcase and a backpack!

Never went to an art auction or played bingo. I had planned on doing a lot of writing but found I preferred sitting on the balcony, listening to and watching the waves. 

All the audiobooks I downloaded never were listened to, either. I stopped swimming after I caught Covid in the pool. (I'm certain I caught it from the lady I wrote about on May 21. She was near me coughing a nasty cough and it aligned with when I got sick on May 26.) I had planned on using the bike in the fitness room but found exploring ports and having to get on and off the scooter and push it (and those cobblestones - oh, those cobblestones) did my joints in enough that I needed more rest instead of more exercise.

Weird Quirks

The ship is old. The rust is there. 

The rust would get wet from all the moisture in the air and it would drop orange rust drops onto everything underneath it on my balcony. My cabin was almost at the very back of the ship and occasionally I'd also get soot on my furniture so I learned to put a towel down before I sat anywhere. 

Handicapped cabins aren't truly handicapped because you can't access the balcony in a wheelchair or scooter. I had three different cabins and each one had the regular height threshold that needed to be stepped over. One cabin did have a ramp - but only from the outside. Um, that's not going to work.

And the safe in these cabins was in the desk cabinet. Even in a wheelchair you practically have to stand on your head to access it. In all three cabins the first row of numbers weren't working either.

Being far from the elevator made it difficult to get through the hallways when the cleaning carts were out there. Thankfully this ship has all kinds of little hallways of cabins at the back I could use as a maze to try and avoid them. But what worked one day didn't necessarily work the next. 

If the steward was cleaning the cabin I could get them to move the cart but sometimes they wouldn't be around and I would get stuck. Let's not even talk about when I needed to access the midship elevators. Or talk about how to scooter around room service trays people have left in the hallway.

Anything Else

I'm sure there is something else worth mentioning, but after 106 days things that were important at the beginning became not-so-important by the end. All the negative things combined certainly wouldn’t stop me from traveling another amazing itinerary on the Island Princess. If you have any specific questions on other things I skipped I'd be happy to answer them.

Coming Up Tomorrow

So what's next for me? Well, I’m not flying home - I’m flying from London Heathrow to Vancouver, Canada today and will be joining the Grand Princess tomorrow for two cruises to Alaska. I may be done with the ice and glaciers and fjords in Greenland, Iceland, and Norway but not Alaska. See you tomorrow from Vancouver!

Nanortalik, Greenland

Hello from Nanortalik, Greenland! Today was another spectacular day.

With the lack of sleep I'm not sure how I made it onto the first tender this morning, but I did. Last night I was fascinated by all the icebergs I saw it took me forever to get into bed. (If you didn't see yesterday's iceberg video, be sure to check it out here near the bottom of the post.) Then when I got in bed I spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, trying to find a comfortable spot for my knees. I was so obsessed with finding the sweet spot that I completely missed the Northern Lights out my balcony door at 1:30 in the morning. I saw the pictures one of the crew members took but it's not the same as seeing them in person.

I finally gave up on trying to sleep at about five this morning. I wrapped myself in a blanket like a mummy and sat on the balcony, waiting for the sun to rise. At 5:09 AM my view looked like this

See the icebergs out there?

so I knew the sun had to be following soon. But it was another hour and a half before it popped over the mountain. Not even where I was expecting it! I wasn't expecting the jet trail to look 3D either, but I'll gladly take it.

Being up so early made it easy for me to get on the first tender to shore. Not only was I on the first tender, I was the first person on the first tender. In almost 20 years of cruising that's never, ever happened before. Lucky me. Something important to know about tendering in Nanortalik - there is space for only one tender to unload and load at a time. It slows down the tendering process greatly. I can't imagine what it would look like for a larger ship. How would all those passengers make it to shore and back? Makes me thankful I'm on a smaller ship, although those returning midafternoon reported having to wait in line more than an hour to get on a tender for the ride back.

The way the dock is built the space between the yellow steps and the tender is quite large.
Thank goodness for my wheelchair assist guys!

Once onshore I found the scooter-ing surface just outside the port to be difficult. Scooters, wheelchairs, and walkers are going to have a hard time with this area. So instead of going left out of the port area like everyone else did I went right and found actual pavement that took me everywhere I wanted to go. Another benefit of not following the crowd.

Not this way for me

In an empty town on an early Sunday morning I spent my day wandering. 

I first headed towards the church but it was still all closed up.

I went to the area where the open air museum was. It was closed - and not handicapped accessible anyway - but I was able to look around outside. I found out later it opened at 8AM and was $10 so I left in just the nick of time. Didn’t want to have to pay for something I couldn’t do.

Thanks to the narrow path I can't get to the rock house

Thanks to the big gravel I can't get to the iceberg

I really wanted to climb to the viewing platform at the base of the flagpole. I carefully climbed the narrow dirt and grass path to get to the bottom of the stairs. I know it doesn't look steep, but it was for me. You can see I had to leave Scooter behind.

But when I saw the steps? Uh, no. I think I might have been able to make it up the wooden ones since there was a railing, but the steep cement steps with no railing? No way in hell.

I called it good and took a picture without touching a step.

Just like our visit yesterday in Qaqortoq the houses were colorful, but thankfully today the hills were less steep. (Notice a theme? Steep = bad)

One group was heading to their boat but I was pretty much alone

Three colors in one

Gotta love houses with clotheslines

I did make my way up and down some hills. Without them I would never have found the cemetery on the other side. 

I found many homes with walkers or wheelchairs near the little wooden walkways. Can you imagine how hard it would be to get in your house with terrain like this?

I also discovered the soccer field (this one's for you, Ed), a mural, and some flowers.

What a view

Looking at my photo locations, I did pretty good for a gal on a scooter in Greenland.

There were only a few of us riding the tender back to the ship because it was still early. Guess who rode on top again?

Doing all my exploring in the morning left the afternoon for sitting in the sun on the balcony. Look to the right and see this..

Icebergs again

and look to the left and see this...

It was another glorious day in Greenland. Word on the street ship is the Northern Lights will be showing themselves again tonight. Can't wait! If they appear (and I'm awake), I'll pop a picture in here later. 

Update: Two hours standing in the cold in the middle of the night on a windy cruise ship deck and this is the best I can do.

We have four sea days as we make our way back to Southampton. I expect I'll be back before then with some catch up stuff. See you then, whenever then is!