When we went for breakfast this last full day at sea, one of the ship's personnel walked around the buffet encouraging attendance at a cooking demo in the theater later on that day. We thought why not? Who doesn't like food?
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| We saw lots of towel animals randomly placed around the ship! |
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| By the time we got to the theater to attend the cooking demo, the seats were nearly full. We had to sit separately. The demo was being given by the head chef and the head maitre'd. A few minutes in, it was apparent this was for laffs. |
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| Maitre'D must have had stage experience because he knew how to play to the crowd. Every time someone came in late, he would stop what he was doing and politely greet the latecomer, thank them for coming and ask for their cabin #. He would assign someone to send them chocolate covered strawberries. I wish I'd been late. Chef would giggle at MaitreD's antics (over filling a pot with pasta, picking up pasta from the floor and putting it back in the pot, not following directions in the way intended, adding vodka to everything, dumping ALL the salt in the pot, etc) and occasionally have to turn away from the audience to laugh outright. |
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| MaitreD showing his plating technique |
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| Chef said you need to add lipstick and a mouth |
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| They each made a black forest cake--MaitreD' added lots of vodka (which is not a normal black forest cake ingredient), and celery and kale (ditto). I had such a laugh at these two. |
In the afternoon, we arrived in the College Fjords with some majestic views!
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| There are 5 glaciers in the pictures (one is dark gray and therefore not very visible) |
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| Apparently there are 2 glaciers here |
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| more random towel animals |
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| another glacier |
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| we loved all the desserts in the main dining room |
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| Beautiful sunset at the end of a fabulous cruise with my two girlies! |
Thoughts on the cruise: I wasn't really worried about sharing a room with my daughters, but if I had been, all my imaginary worrying would have been for naught because we had no trouble sharing a room (at least I had no trouble sharing with them. I hope I didn't bother them too much. I tried not to snore). Even given the small space we shared, there was plenty of room for our things, and we managed to not fight over the real estate. If we needed to spread out, we went elsewhere on the ship, which despite being full of people, still had places to sit and relax. Both girls were excited to go on a vacation, but both of them viewed the actual cruise as a means to visit Alaska, and not necessarily a fun way to vacation. Both were quite surprised to discover that the cruise by itself was awesome! Katie had so much fun that she's booked another cruise for herself and Christian next year because she thinks Christian will enjoy it.
Alaska was gorgeous! All the snow-capped mountains and wilderness just begs for me to walk around in it (I recognize that wilderness/nature is not particularly kind to wandering humans who are not aware of potential dangers). I loved the towns we got to visit. Ketchikan was my favorite--there were lots of tourist shops. Creek Street was very cool, bright and colorful. I am not basing my assessment on weather, but Ketchikan did have the best weather. Juneau was bigger and had more city to see, but I was tired after the excursion and left the girls to go back to the ship. They saw parts that tourists don't usually get to, like the Chicken Yard park (just a neighborhood playground). Skagway was so small that it probably almost disappears when tourists aren't around.
The glaciers and fjords are amazing to see and I could have spent all day up on the deck watching the scenery go by.
I would definitely do another Alaskan cruise. I might want to do a whale watching excursion, or the totem pole museum, or little hikes up the mountains.
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