Another less than solid night’s sleep, but at 3:30am, I sat in the small room of our cabin and managed to finish the Connolly book.
I was awake at 6am when they launched the tender boats. There were 4 cruise ships in Juneau and as we were the least frequent visitor, we had to anchor and tender ashore, which was just fine, as the ship’s tenders would drop us downtown. We were only a couple of minutes from the shore and the water looked very calm.
Ship at anchor, tender port on this visit (but not always the case).
Paula’s el Cheapo, $30 Vodafone pre-pay phone worked. Mine didn’t.
Tender port so the usual grab a numbered ticket. No priority Elite transfers with 1200 of us!
No formalities as we are still in the USA.
Cruise cards checked on returning to the ship.
Ship scanning of hand luggage on return.
Paula slept on until after 8am, then a light, leisurely breakfast. We weren’t seduced by the constant offers of the $45 deluxe breakfast. There was no rush to go ashore as we were only wandering, but for the first time ever, I took the laptop ashore, just so that I could get access to our banking.
We went to the Marquis dining room and picked up our numbered tender ticket. Mine was 666… We only sat around for a few minutes, when they said that it was ‘all other passengers’, meaning the end of the ticketing process.
Once ashore, we just walked around, enjoying the various souvenir and clothing shops, but no music shop in town. Plenty of bargains to be had, particularly clothing. By the time we were ready for a sit down and a drink, we bumped into Pat again and she said she’d had a 3 fish taco sampler and thought it excellent. I did briefly consider some sort of crab dish, being a local speciality of course, but the queue to place orders and the prices were a bit off-putting, though the crab did look nice.
We settled on a trailer selling pizza (Forno Rosso) and opted for a 9” pepperoni, but they also had free Wi-Fi. I handed over the laptop for them to put in the password, paid for the pizza with the Air NZ OneCard and sat down. There was only one table and a couple of benches and a couple of chairs. Yup, straight through to the ASB banking, so that I could transfer more cash onto the debit card, and there was already an email to confirm the pizza payment! Ironic that a shack in Alaska can offer a safer internet connection than Princess. (Incidentally, I have not had any acknowledgement or reply to my complaint about the ship’s internet.)
After shutting down the computer and sharing a pizza, we went to the next food outlet stall, ‘Deckhand Dave’s’, and ordered the 3 fish tacos sampler. Freshly made, soft tacos, one was lightly crumbed salmon, one blackened rockfish and the third was battered halibut. Each with a mildly spicy red cabbage coleslaw type topping with coriander and for $14.99, a much better experience than Icy Strait Point. A can of sparkling lemon to wash it down and we were happy.
We were back on board at 3pm, before the last minute rush and grabbed a cuppa, before hitting the cabin and a short nana nap, after catching up with the blog. Looking out, there were four sea planes taking off and landing most of the day.
At dinner, my slow roasted ribeye was probably the largest slab of meat I have ever had and it was delicious and very tender. I also managed to assist Paula with a couple of slices of her roast lamb. Me a vegetarian? I don’t think so.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking”… Our informed source was correct. We were staying overnight in San Francisco anyway, but that is now two nights and no San Diego, which is a pity, as we were looking forward to that. Instead, they have slotted in an extra Hawaiian stop, Kauai (Nawilliwili). Might as well add that to the computer’s dictionary now. That will now be the day before Honolulu, Monday August 15th. The reason given is for some maintenance work on the ship’s electrical system. As the ship is powered by electric motors, the electrical system is crucial. It didn’t stop one passenger overheard, grizzling, “What takes so long to fix?” Obviously not a mechanic, engineer or tradie or with any practical knowledge.
The late show was Ric Steel, billed as a guitarist and vocalist. The Perspex screen had disappeared from in front of the drummer, which effectively drowned out the orchestra’s bass and rhythm guitar again and also dulled Ric’s performance. He abandoned the guitar half way through his set, just to sing. From my perspective, a big mistake. I enjoyed his guitar far more than his singing.
So far, Paula’s tummy has settled down again and tomorrow, Ketchikan, the most expensive tour we have done so far, hoping to see bears. We are looking forward to that and probably even more than the whale watching. Fingers crossed, batteries charged.
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