Tuesday, July 14, 2015

July 10th - 13th: So many Glaciers

On Friday, we headed back to Anchorage to meet up with our traveling party. We had a late lunch, did laundry, and then headed to Glacier Brewhouse. That was a great choice. The service and good was excellent. I had the King salmon special. Glenn had the halibut special with cajun seasoning. Both dishes were really good. The beer was also excellent. The best beer the thought was the cask conditioned IPA. After dinner, we headed to Snow Goose restaurant. The restaurant has a rooftop bar with views of the mountains.

On Saturday, we boarded the Alaska railroad for a ride to Whittier. 


We were in the back car on the second level so we had great views of the mountains. We saw two moose on the way. We  passed through a couple tunnels chiseled in the mountains. Boarding the ship was really easy. 


We had a great first lunch in the dining room. Impressed with the size of our cabins balcony. It was largest balcony we ever had. Dinner Saturday night was terrible - both the service and the food.  We were worried about the rest of the trip. After dinner, we went up to the nightclub and enjoyed the great DJ. It was incredible to be sitting in the night club at 11 o'clock at night with a full daylight view. We even saw some otters.

On Sunday, the ship headed to Hubbard Glacier. In the morning, we attended a lecture from the naturalist on board. She had a lot of great info about glaciers and what our best opportunities for wildlife sightings would be. We played morning trivia and had a great pub lunch in the Crown Grill. We heard a pioneer filmmaker talk about living in Alaska and his National Geographic show - Dead End Express. We took a penny whistle class that comically serious. Imagine Glenn and I playing a recorder. Then we saw Hubbard Glacier.  

The glacier is six miles wide. Entering the bay we saw icebergs with seals laying on top. We took turns going back and forth between our balcony and  Jon and Jackie's balcony on the other side of the ship. 

It was incredible. Dinner Sunday night was very good. It was formal night so Princess had their signature Champagne toast. 



On Monday, the ship entered Glacier Bay National Park. We got up early and met the naturalist on the front of the ship. We saw otters and a pod of humpback whales. As we cruised through the bay, we enjoyed all the glaciers and commentary by the park rangers. At Margerie glacier we saw a huge area of the glacier calve off into the ocean. 

The sounds of the glacier were incredible. It sounds like gun shots and thunder as pieces of ice break off. We had another great dinner. I had a great Thai halibut and the king crab legs were so delicious. This was the best menu we have ever seen on a cruise ship. Glenn sang karaoke. We listened to Mosaic a bit more and headed to bed.

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