Ken and Linda Cruise Alaska
By Linda Carpenter
August 2006
Years ago, Ken (spouse and fellow Mensan) and I considered going with friends in RVs to explore Alaska. That would have required at least a month, with a lot of the time just getting there from Arizona. So this summer we opted for more comfort and less effort on a 7 day cruise of the Inside Passage. There are lots of cruise lines, ships, dates, and itineraries to choose from. We chose Holland America’s Volendam because the cruise line doesn’t have the party reputation of some others. It offers more of a traditional cruise experience and caters to an older crowd. We selected Vancouver, BC, as our embarkation and disembarkation point because we had been through there many times for ski trips to Whistler/Blackcomb and wanted to finally spend some time in the city.
We got to Vancouver late and went to the Days Inn Downtown, where we stayed 2 nights for about $150 US per night plus tax. Better hotels were over $400 US. It didn’t help that the exchange rate was about $1.12 Can to $1 US. We spent one full day sightseeing, slept late the second morning, and had granola bars in the room before taking the hotel’s shuttle to the harbor around noon. Going through customs and boarding the ship took no time at all.
Since staterooms would not be ready until 1:30, we hung around the Lido Deck and started some serious eating. Luggage was delivered later, so we had kept everything we needed in our small carryon bags. Our very comfortable veranda stateroom was ready when promised. It had plenty of space, including a sitting area, large bathroom, and our own private balcony. The honor bar included a good variety, with prices slightly lower than drinks in the bars on board. The only alcohol that passengers were allowed to bring on board was wine. Everything purchased on the ship was billed to the room in US dollars.
We chose the second seating for dinner, mostly to allow us to do shore excursions and still be able to enjoy full service dinners. Our table mates were a couple from New Zealand in their late 70s and another couple from England in their early 50s. We did not become good friends, but it was nice to have people to talk to about the day’s activities. Each night there was a different menu for a 5 course meal, including 3 or 4 appetizers, 2 hot soups and a cold soup, 2 salads, several entrees, and a couple of desserts. The waiters soon knew everybody’s preferences, such as Ken’s need for Tabasco to spice up the continental cuisine. The food was well prepared and the service was good. On the second night of the cruise, we paid $20 each to have a special dinner in the Pinnacle Grill on our own. There was not as much variety on the menu there and beef seemed to be the right thing to order. The filet mignon and the rest of the meal were exceptional.
Ken had been looking forward to gorging on lobster, as all of the brochures and websites displayed it to show off the fine dining. Those must be old pictures. There was a lobster bisque one night. On the last night, there was a surf and turf choice, so we both ordered that, Linda ate the steaks, and Ken had both lobster tails, which didn’t amount to enough to satisfy his craving. There was salmon available in at least one entrée every night and some other seafood dishes.
Each night we ordered a bottle of wine, which ran about $30 on average, with the 15% gratuity that was automatically added. There were many more expensive wines. We also participated in a wine tasting, which cost $11 each, plus 15%. We tasted some fairly good wines, but most were not available in the “Wine Navigator” packages that were offered. There is a corkage fee of $15 if you bring your own wine and have it in one of the dining rooms. Unless you want to bring a really special wine, it is hardly worth the effort to BYOB.
Full service breakfast was available in the Rotterdam. The breakfast in the Lido Restaurant was cafeteria style, but with many items cooked to order. We made some attempt to take it easy, but could not pass up the lox with all the fixings (except no bagels!) near the beginning of the line. I developed a taste for the Swiss muesli, made from uncooked oatmeal, milk, yogurt, fruit, and honey. It sounds bad and looked worse. There were omelets, scrambled eggs, eggs cooked to order, a wide variety of freshly baked pastries, cold and hot cereals, fruit, and a couple of hot specialties each day.
It was next to impossible to find anything spicy. We usually managed to locate the one bottle of Tabasco floating around the restaurant. There was an Indonesian chile paste, but it was sweet and not very hot. Ken ordered biscuits and gravy once and found that the biscuits were tiny and dense, the gravy was brown, and the sausage was Portuguese. Not bad, he said, but not what he had in mind.
We went to only 2 stage shows on board. There was one very good pianist. None of the other performers were remarkable. Everyone had a picture taken with the captain. These were available for purchase for $10.95. Since we had cleaned up so nice, we bought one. The photographers kept busy and photos of all activities were available for purchase.
The ship docked at 3 ports besides Vancouver. First was Juneau, then Skagway, then Ketchikan. We made reservations online for shore excursions at each of these well before the trip. Although there are numerous excursions available, it’s practical to do only one at each port. There were some strenuous and expensive “adventure” tours that we avoided. We also stayed away from tours that offered a salmon bake or other meal, since we did not want to spend our sightseeing time eating even more food.
Each time a passenger got on or off the ship, the crew scanned his shipboard ID and his picture came up on a monitor. A metal detector and baggage scanner were also used when boarding. Although it didn’t seem to be as thorough as at airports, it was some measure of security and they would know if somebody had not gotten back on the ship. Before boarding and before entering a bar or dining area, each passenger had to use a hand disinfectant (something like Purell). This seemed like a good idea, considering the occasional outbreak of gastrointestinal problems on cruise ships. The crew was very serious about this and made sure that everyone used the stuff.
Getting off at the various ports was downright claustrophobic because everyone was jamming the staircases at the same time. Our first excursion was the 5 hour “Grand Tour of Juneau,” which was a bus tour of the city and visits to the salmon hatchery, the Glacier Gardens, and the Mendenhall Glacier. The “city tour” was the driver pointing out a few downtown buildings as we went by. At the salmon hatchery, we saw nothing but the gift shop. The Glacier Gardens gave us a chance to see the rain forest up close and had a great overlook spot. The Mendenhall Glacier was our first look at a glacier and also gave us a better feel for the forest. Our recommendation would be a different excursion to just the glacier and gardens. That tour is only 3½ hours, which would allow some time to explore Juneau on your own, since the Volendam was docked for 8 hours.
At Skagway we took the White Pass Summit Scenic Railway from the station near the dock. This was the 4½ hour “White Pass Railway, Klondike Highway, and Gold Camp” trip. The narrow gauge train with picture windows went up into the mountains and across the Canadian border to the continental divide at Frasier, B.C. It was not possible to capture most of the fabulous views by taking pictures from the train. At the summit we got off the train, had a few minutes to take pictures and use the restrooms, then took the bus back. There were some picture stops when we could get off the bus and an unnecessarily long stop at Liarsville, a gold mining town that had been turned into Alaska’s version of Tombstone. The show, gold panning, and gift shop were not worthwhile for us. It would have been better to do only the railway roundtrip for 3 hours or bus into the Yukon Territory and railway back from Frasier for 8 hours. The Volendam was docked for 11 hours.
At Ketchikan we had signed up for a boat carrying 111 passengers to the Misty Fiords, a 4 hour tour. On deck it was cold and wet, but the spectacular scenery made it worth the trip. There is enclosed seating for everyone, with an observation deck that has a small enclosure and a lot of open deck. The Volendam was docked for 8 hours, which gave us more than enough time to roam around the downtown area afterwards.
The Volendam has a gym with exercise equipment and classes, a basketball court, a volleyball court, and an enclosed pool. We did our usual daily walk of a little over 2 miles by circling the lower promenade deck 8 times (3.5 laps to a mile). Even without participating in such things as the late night buffets and skipping lunch most days, the constantly available food added a couple of pounds on each of us.
At the end of the cruise, everyone is expected to get off the ship early in the day so the crew can prepare for the next bunch of passengers. Those who wanted to disembark on their own and have no help with luggage would be in the earliest group, around 7:30 AM. Each group is called on the PA system, so you can wait in your stateroom or in a public area. Those who do not vacate the place on their own and do not have travel connections that day had to linger on the ship, but still had to be off by 9:30. It was no problem for each of us to take one wheeled bag and a carryon, so we were out of there early. Getting a taxi when 1400 cruise passengers were trying to do the same thing was a problem, so we rolled our stuff the couple of blocks to the Days Inn, left it with the bellman, and went off to spend 2 more days exploring Vancouver.
Except for our luggage not arriving back in Tucson when we did, the whole trip was fabulous. We would definitely do another cruise and would likely choose Holland America again.
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