At Sea

We’re not much for gambling, hanging at the bar, or partaking of the constant entertainment provided on board. Too many people and often too much noise for me. We do like to be outdoors though and we spent much of the day walking about topside, watching the sun play on the cold silvery water and getting some steps in by walking the ship on decks 5, 11, and 12.

I attended a couple of the informational presentations and was a bit disappointed. The excursion presentation highlighted a handful of excursions available for each port, but didn’t really provide the detailed differences between similar excursions I hoped for. The pictures of the White Pass train ride in Skagway, however, inspired us to add that to our excursion list (we only had one excursion scheduled for Juneau).

The other presentation was for shopping in town at each port visit. I had hoped it would provide a run down of the various stores available and what kind of merchandise Alaska and each town is known for.  Maybe mention some of the local galleries, local artists and best foods and restaurants. Nope. The presentation turned out to be a huge infomercial for a couple of high priced jewelry stores, a fancy sunglass store, and an environmentally friendly (read expensive) linen/clothing store. I won’t give them any advertising by mentioning the names of the businesses here because I’m sure they pay handsomely for the ship endorsements. I left about ten minutes into the presentation, annoyed with the commercialism, the lack of useful information, and the excitable loudness of the presenter’s voice. I definitely had a false expectation of the “shopping hints” presentation.

In the evening, we caught an amazing sunset over the North Pacific.