Vancouver: Days 1 and 2: Sneaking out in the Middle of the Night

Vancouver: Days 3 and 4: Eating our way through Vancouver

Day 1 of our Cruise: The Zaandam!

Zaandam Continued: Calling on the Ports

Zaandam, Continued: To Glacier Bay National Park!

I haven’t been as good with my blog post name titles but I’m pleased with myself today, you’re welcome.

Day 6: Ketchikan

We didn’t arrive in Ketchikan until 11 am, so we didn’t have to get up too early. We had a nice breakfast and then walked around the promenade and watched the ship come into Ketchikan.

It was a bit of a line getting off the ship–I think everybody was ready to leave all at once, and we were worried we would be late for our excursion, but we made it! We were the last to arrive though, but it was fine.

We signed up for a guided hike in a rainforest with a company called Tongass Teague. Originally we signed up for a longer hike which was more difficulty, but the guide (Tongass Teague himself) had gotten the flu and wasn’t up to guiding it, so he asked if we would be okay switching to a different hike with another guide. It made the hike a larger group than normal though, which at the time I agreed didn’t sound bad, but in practice was a little annoying as some of the people were quite slow. However, the guide was great and the hike was lovely–very easy, but lovely. Not to spoil it.

We drove in two cars to the other side of the island–yes, Ketchikan is on an island, and basically, we took the road to the end, and then parked and got out and walked. It was raining a bit, to be expected, because Ketchikan basically gets more rain than anywhere else in Alaska, with over 140 inches of rain per year. But it wasn’t raining hard. so it was fine with a rain coat and a hat. The hike was gorgeous, lush, all of that which we were growing to expect but also not expect, because, Alaska!

We basically hiked the entire time along this creek which was called Lunch Creek. We only hiked a little over a mile before turning back, and I think Louie and I would have loved to have gone further, but when you are on a cruise and need transportation and are on a tight schedule, you need a guided hike, so you do what you can.

The guide was great–I forget his name now, but he was very knowledgeable about the plants and told us a lot about them as well as the history of the area and many things like that. He said he had originally come to Ketchikan on a cruise and taken a hike with Tongass Teague and then decided to move to Ketchikan and work with him! Teague himself had been an English professor at a local university before working full time at the company. Tourism, as you would expect, is big business in Alaska.

We saw this angry mushroom. Don’t eat him, for sure.

And this weird looking slug or whatever.

At the halfway point, we stopped and enjoyed some hot tea before turning around and heading back. When we got back to practically the starting point, we then headed down to the ocean to see where the creek met the ocean.

Can you see Louie hiding?

Right there, there is where it meets the ocean!

It was a gorgeous scene! There was a campground and picnic area there. It made me want to come back and camp for awhile, though I would also be afraid of bears–when the salmon are running later in the season (not in May but later in the summer) I’m sure the bears are around.

We also saw several seals.

I believe you can see them in this photo. Maybe.

One more before we left.

Then it was back to the vans and back to the town.

After the hike, we were pretty hungry. It was cold and rainy, but I wanted to walk around town a bit. We took advice from the guide and got some food at the Alaska Fish House first. We both got fish and rice bowls with salmon, because it seemed like salmon was the thing to eat there, I think.

And then we walked over to Creek Street, which was a street built on a creek. It was pretty deserted, I guess because it was cold and rainy!

We walked up to see the fish ladder as well.

And then it was easy to find the ship! It was all downhill from there, actually. Literally.

I would say that it is possible that we went in the hot tub after that to warm up, but I don’t actually recall. Let’s put it as a strong maybe, because I was cold and wet, and that would have been very nice! Either way, you can guess what we did before dinner: watched the trio!

Dinner was fun then: it was a special “gala dinner!”

That night the ship started getting very…rocky. We were hitting some rough seas leaving Ketchikan! And it was also the night of the chocolate surprise, I believe. We went to a bar with Ben and Roz after dinner for a drink and at some point, a bunch of the staff starting walking through with trays of various chocolate goodies calling out “chocolate surprise” and giving out various chocolate goodies and making us take them! We were stuffed but tried a few things anyway: most were various cereals or nuts dipped in chocolate and were of course tasty.

Above: the room where the classical trio played.

We stayed up later than normal, but I was exhausted, and by the time I went to bed, the ship was visibly rocking and I had to hold on to the sink to brush my teeth! I suppose it helped us sleep well haha!

Elephant towel animal.

Picture outside the elevators on our floor.

Day 7: Day at Sea

We actually did sleep in a little bit, because breakfast wasn’t served until later: it was a special Alaskan brunch. I think we just got coffee at the coffee shop instead for a fee. We wanted to go walk around the promenade and look for wildlife but…it was closed due to the waves and high winds!

So we just chilled out for a bit, until we went to a program in the theater about how the ship works, something about a city within the ship, and how they feed everybody, how the water systems and electricity works, how they deal with the waste, and it was really quite interesting.

And then we went and got brunch. There were some good things and some other things we didn’t love as much, but overall it was nice. We chatted with some nice people as usual: we always met interesting people when we sat with them, though usually everybody was older and usually they had been on something like a dozen to 4 dozen cruises, haha!

After brunch, since we couldn’t walk on the promenade, we thought, well, maybe we can go in the hot tub. We weren’t sure, but we thought we would check it out. We got to the top and indeed, it seemed open. The pool deck was a bit crazy though: the pool was definitely dangerous: the waves in the pool were intense–it was unclear if it was officially closed, but nobody was in it, and that was a good idea, but the hot tub seemed perfectly safe unless you were particularly afraid of falling–the ship was still rocking but we weren’t terribly afraid of falling, and once you were seated in the tub, the waves in it were just an inch or two.

We ended up staying in the hot tub for over two hours. You might think, that sounds dangerous, but it wasn’t that hot. We were about to get out at one point but then somebody new got in and we started chatting with them and it was very interesting. It was a fun and relaxing afternoon!

After that, the waves finally settled down and the promenade deck was opened up again, so we were able to venture out.

We spent the afternoon just chilling out and of course, having to do a bit of packing. And then of course, one last evening with the trio, and we asked the cellist to join us for a drink after dinner, which she agreed.

The ship had a lot of interesting artwork.

We enjoyed our last dinner aboard the ship, and the servers sang a goodbye song as well. Then we met Annie for a drink and chatted with her about her life and life aboard the ship, and then we went to sleep.

Day 8: Headed home

We got up and had one last breakfast aboard. We did meet Ben and Roz for this as well. It was a more limited menu but still very nice. Unlike previous cruises we didn’t feel as rushed to leave and everybody was still very polite–in the past I had felt that as soon as you woke up on the last day people suddenly stopped being so kind and polite and just sort of pushed you off the ship, and this one they continued being nice until the very end. So that was great. We then disembarked and said goodbye the Zaandam and Holland America.

We found the SkyTrain and took it the Airport. We made our flight with PLENTY of time: we had a flight at noon and we had plenty of time to waste. Too much, probably, it was a boring day. But we made it home safely. And we would recommend Holland again.

Let me leave you with this moment of Zen, me eating soup on the Zaandam.

Thanks for reading!