Trip log, day eight. At Sea – the day of the whale.
9-Night Alaskan Cruise from Vancouver
July 15, 2019
Personal Navigator – Day 8
It’s day 8, and our second full sea day of this cruise. I’m not counting Hubbard Glacier day as a sea day even though that is technically what it is. I woke up and discovered I was down to my final day of clothing so instead of going to the gym with Emily, I set off to the laundry, which was completely empty. Awesome; I can get the laundry finished before most people wake up today. Emily said the gym was empty. When I returned to the laundry, the washer was displaying an error message and the clothes were soaking wet. I should have moved the clothes to another washer and started over, but I didn’t and I learned a lesson this fine morning. The washer never finished the rinse cycle so there were still some suds. I used the utility tub in the laundry room to rinse the clothes and attempted to ring as much water out of them as possible. I made progress; they were not as soaked as they were when I took them out of the wash. Now on to the dryer, which has been amazing so far this cruise and the clothes have been dry well before the allotted dry time expired. Not so lucky today, because the clothes were still wet it took 2 cycles of dying. It was at this point, I learned if this happens again, I should just reset and put the clothes in the washing machine so they can get a full rinse and spin.
When I reported the washer as out of service, Guest Services refunded the credits. It wasn’t necessary as I did technically wash my clothes, however, I was able to move the credits over for the extra dryer. This put me behind, but really my morning was wide open except for joining Isabelle in the Promenade Lounge for a series of crafts beginning with coloring, then back to back learning to draw sessions drawing Ray from Princess & the Frog, and Daisy Duck.
Finally, it was time for brunch. I opted to forego any sort of breakfast and held out for brunch. We were joined by our friends and seated along a port side window near the private room.
I was wearing my Forky tie, so this must be where they seat trash. I’m kidding, the seat was great because all throughout our time in Palo we were blessed by whale and kid sightings!
The brunch was set up really well, I loved the cheese setup along the counter near the pizza oven.
For the most part, the offerings remained unchanged from prior visits.
Like I said, I held out for today’s brunch.
In addition to the dessert selections from the buffet, a warm chocolate lava cake is available along with a strawberry sorbet.
Following brunch was the pinnacle event of the cruise, Jack-Jack’s Diaper Dash. Racing babies in the atrium is the Super Bowl of cruise events and generates a massive turnout along all levels of the atrium.
Doug Jones, the naturalist onboard for the second half of the cruise, was in the Buena Vista Theatre next with a presentation on Humpback and Killer Whales.
We attended a similar talk of Doug’s two years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed the updated version. Doug’s presentations are phenomenal, his passion for the subject is evident and his openness share his knowledge with guests is unparalleled – he literally gives everyone his stateroom number and invites you to call or leave a message and he will get back to you.
His presentations are follow an outline, but he updates the talk on the fly based on discussions with passengers and what has been seen or not seen during this cruise. If you miss the live naturalist’s presentations, they are replayed on you stateroom TV. Hopefully, once the on-demand goes live on the Wonder, these will be available on demand instead of playing in a loop.
On demand on the Wonder!?!?….. Well, the box was installed behind the television, but there were no cables installed to power the box or connect it to the television.
We spent a few minutes in the Promenade Lounge, but there was some sort of Vibe activity going on making the venue much louder than it needed to be on a relaxing sea day. We moved to our permanent afternoon positions in loungers on deck 4 and I’d like to thank youth activities for scheduling whichever Vibe event in Promenade Lounge because we were blessed with an afternoon of amazing whale watching. We saw a plethora of sea life and a lot of whales.
So many that we started to regret booking the whale watching Port Adventure in Icy Strait Point. Murphy’s Law I guess; two years ago we didn’t go on any sort of whale watching excursion and all we saw were distant glimpses of whales. This year, we go on a whale watching tour and its like we cannot look out at the ocean and not see whales. It was such an amazing afternoon lounging, relaxing, and enjoying the sea life.
This evening was semi-formal night and the characters were out in their formal attire.
Something feels right about formal and semi-formal nights in Triton’s which is precisely how our dinner rotation for this cruise played out. The lobster menu, I mean, Captains Gala menu was served tonight in Triton’s.
Service continues to be amazing and we were out in time to order some drinks before trivia started in Crown & Fin. 2000s Music Trivia – I was useless, but it was still a lot of fun.
As we were walking out of Crown & Fin, we heard a familiar racket. Buckets N Boards were in Azure for a little percussion class of sorts. The show was coming close to an end, but the girls were given the microphone to call out some signals to the drummers.
Afterwards, when Matt and Gareth extended their show to allow for one last person to beat on the buckets, the girls jumped at the opportunity to participate.
After a day of relaxation, it was time for bed. Tomorrow we are visiting another new port for us and a rare port of call for the Alaskan itinerary.
Thanks for sharing this 9-day Alaska cruise with us.
Thanks for sticking with me, I fell behind posting while onboard. The final day will be posted today then I hope to get the personal navigators scanned.
Good insight into doing laundry on board. Thanks for taking the time to detail what happened so others can learn from you!
We were on the same cruise and it was amazing! The amount of wildlife that was seen was amazing and the Captain did such a great job of navigating the Hubbard Glacier so the entire boat had ample time to see this spectacular vision! I was going to ask if you happen to have the personal navigator for Monday July 15 as it is the only one we are missing and it was my son’s 16th Birthday! Thanks for all your help!
I will be posting those soon. Just need to scan them first.
Thank you!