Wednesday 4/29 – First of our long stretch of sea days, we are up early, as usual – even though our blanket/towel light blocker does work really well – without it, we’d be up at 4 in the morning with the sunrise – and off to the Lido for coffee and the gym for our morning routine. Our day is filled with lectures and activities: first off Coffee with Jose with Hotel Director (who they call Hotel General Manager) Dustin. We’ve sailed with him before and like him a lot, he is funny and personable, and the youngest HD in all the fleet. Then Ian at 10 with Warrior Nation, and even though we’ve seen it, we stay to keep our seats for the 11am presentation about Hokkaido, Land of the Ainus by Manolo Abella. The content is good, but oh the delivery. He is just so dry and slow and hesitates so very much. Sigh.
We rush up to the Lido for lunch, because we are changing the clocks now, every day at noon, going forward to 1pm. Changing during the day actually seems to work better – we like it. The challenge is that the guest lecturer is at 1 which means he is right at the time change and we have to rush to eat at 11:30, when Lido opens, then rush back to the World Stage to catch the talk.
We fortunately make it back in time to the World Stage without missing too much of the Protecting our Personal Data talk with Luke Lewando. And it was well worth attending. We actually learned that the complexity of passwords doesn’t matter as much as the length: 12 character passwords are virtually impossible to crack. And you can use the same 12 character password with a dash and the name of whatever website or service you are using at the end to keep it all easy to remember. Brilliant! Glad we ended up coming to this lecture as we initially through we’d skip it. Retiring to our cabin for a bit, I blog, we watch a movie, and then begin our evening wanderings. The norm – and no show again tonight as it is a pianist whom we decide to skip. But we do go to Billboard to see the onboard Piano guy who has a fantastic 1970’s set – we can’t decide who we enjoy watching more – the Piano guy or the sweet little kid who is fascinated watching him.
Then back to the cabin for night caps and Netflix. A nice little relatively calm sea day.
Thursday 4/30 – Another busy sea day…..phew! Coffee, gym, breakfast, Coffee chat with Jose and Executive Chef Gabriel, then a super fun Travel Trivia with Ian called “Been there, seen it, done it! Now prove it!” We have to identify the location of photos he shows on the screen. Very fun. Next is ‘The much contested Island of Sakhalin’ with Manolo. Again, another fascinating topic, just not the best delivery. Sigh.
Next up to lunch, then back to World Stage for ‘AI: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly” with Luke. Nothing much we didn’t know there – although the hysterical thing is he used AI to create a photo of Mt. Sinai hospital for the presentation – and the letters on the Building say “Mt. Sina Hospital.” Too freaking funny. AI. Sigh.
Back in the cabin we hang out, I sort of blog, while also watching The Duke, a really sweet and funny movie based on the real life story of a bus driver who stole Goya’s ‘The Portrait of the Duke of Wellington’ in 1961. Then gym, drinks, dinner and the magic of Steve Marshall, who we are pretty sure we have sailed with previously. He is good and funny and a great way to end our evening.
On our way back to the cabin, stopping for our take away room beer and wine at Ocean’s Bar, I can’t stand the clock being wrong anymore and borrow a straw from some lovely chatty people at the bar to adjust the time. Adrin comes over to give me grief – we think he was kidding, maybe? – telling me the clock is attached to the bridge and gets changed automatically, even shining his flashlight behind the clock to show me. I’m like, yeah, I know, but the time is wrong – it isn’t 6:00!!!! It is 8:45!!! Now when the Bridge changes the clocks it will change correctly! We shall see tomorrow if it worked.
Friday 5/1 – Up way too early, for some unknown reason, but what can we do? Just made our morning longer, gym earlier, etc. Back in the room, we watch as sleet pellets hammer the balcony! Oh, yeah, definitely a Northern Pacific crossing! Then hit the World Stage for Coffee with Jose and Rolf the Chief Engineer, then stayed for Ian’s Whale presentation that turned into a presentation on Marconi due to technical difficulties with the Whales. Actually fascinating information – particularly that Marconi was a Fascist! And I learned what RADAR stands for: Radio Detection and Ranging. Never knew that!
I skipped out on the 11am Russian Settlement of Alaska presentation to go grab our table in the Lido Buffet. I just can’t handle the Manolo. The information is all very interesting, but sadly, his delivery is deadly….so….I’m happy to just read the synopsis on the Navigator app. Oh, and the Ocean’s clock is definitely busted – it said it was 3:00 when I went by to check it at 11am. Nope. Busted.
Lunch, afternoon lecture on Personalized Medicine – fascinating talk about how doctors can sequence a person’s specific cancer DNA then search a medicine data base to match the correct medicine for treatment. One Stage 4 Prostate patient was matched with a blood pressure medication – seriously – and his cancer disappeared wihtin weeks. Another with Stage 4 Breast cancer was matched with a Diabetes medication, and 99% of her cancer disappeared after a year. Incredible!
Then downtime where I should have blogged but instead watched My Life In Ruins – which was really silly and cute. Gym, drinks, dinner at Tamarind then back to the room for Netflix – the show is the singer this evening, and she just didn’t appeal to us.
Friday 5/1 – AGAIN! Ground Hog Day! We wake up to May 1st all over again. So bizarrely weird. We are much more used to going the opposite direction and losing a day, but doing one twice? Just mind boggling.
But, it is what we are doing as we wake up, early again, then head up to an absolutely freezing Lido Buffet for coffee. The doors to the Aft deck on the Port side are stuck open and the frigid wind is whipping through that entire place. Brrr….It is cold enough for me to run back down to the room for the puffy coats! Once in the gym, we warm up nicely, then have our light breakfast and we are off to the Coffee Chat with F&B stars – 2 chefs, 2 dining room waiters, 1 bar server and Charles, our fav bartender. All really sweet and nice with really interesting stories.
Ian has his presentation on Breaking the Ice Ceiling – which we have seen before, about 3 women who are doing typically male jobs in Alaska. There is nothing at 11, so we head up to the Lido to secure our seating, which was a good thing because it is still packed up there! We manage to get our little 2-top behind the pole, but it was touch and go there for a while.
At 1 there is a really great Safety First presentation at the pool – we’ve seen this before (in warmer, calmer weather) and it is great fun to see the life raft, etc. It is a little too cold and way to wiggly (what I call the state of the seas we are having today) to actually float the raft, so it just stayed on the deck while 3 of the officers race to see who can put their water suits on the quickest then hop in the pool to show us the formations to use if we are ever in the water. They demonstrate manning the life raft too, albeit not a float. There is a fireman suit demonstration and a display of different items that would be found in the raft. A fun little afternoon interlude.
We skip the Swim Across the Dateline event – a) we don’t go in the pool, b) even if we did it is far too rough to even think about going in the pool, and c) that water has got to be frigid! It is a cute idea, but the cabin is calling…..
….then at 3pm, a special show by the Rolling Stone Lounge band – and excellent showcase of the band, called Miles Beyond, who are actually a band (as opposed to the typical thrown together individuals who play set lists). The lead singer and lead guitar have been together for a while, and they, along with the drummer, are writing new material. This show was a first for them, debuting their songs, mixed along with other greatest hits, and promoting their EP which will be released in August. Really great. And totally different than the normal great set list bands.
Afterward, we are onto our evening activities. No show again tonight – it’s the pianist. So we hit the Rolling Stone lounge instead to see Beyond Miles again. They are that good! A nightcap later and it is the cabin for TV and an end to another good sea day.
Saturday 5/2 – Yay, a new day! Lots of roll and list last night, which made for really good sleeping. The Dramamine didn’t hurt either! We actually slept all the way until 6am. Shocking. Of course the blanket/towel window drapes help immensely.
The seas are calming, making our normal morning activities, coffee, gym, and breakfast nice and calm – not exactly peaceful as there are a ton more people up in the Lido than have been on previous mornings. I can’t figure this crowd out…just weird.
Today’s agenda is much the same as yesterday – Coffee Chat with Jose and the HR guy and Learning and Development gal; The Itidarod with Ian (even though we’ve seen it, his presentation is still great – that race is just amazing, and he does mention that the “race” started with the Nome crisis in 1925, which we obviously didn’t remember from the first time we saw the presentation); I skip out of Manolo’s Migration from Asia to North America presentation for reasons stated above and grab our “Pole table” in the Lido for lunch. We are skipping the Mariner’s lunch in the dining room in favor of a Dive-In burger – the first of our trip!
After lunch, I hit the cabin to blog, Ed goes to the 2pm Nuclear Reactors for Electricity lecture and the rest of the day follows our norm sort of: gym & drinks, but drinks on the balcony because we are coming through the pass heading to the other side of the Aleutian islands and the scenery is gorgeous. We are off the island of Unimak with some incredible snow capped mountains as our scenery.
Not to mention the amazing Mt. Shishaldin volcano which is actually smoking. Totally cool.
Then it is onto dinner where we finally sit with Buche again. Next a change in the daily program tonight: a show! Yay. “Timeless.” Fantastic – just the singers (minus one male singer who is obviously ill or hurt or something) doing “timeless” classics both new and old. Amazing vocal talent these guys and gals have. Really stellar cast, we are so glad we have seen their shows – and we have 2 more before the cruise is done. Another sea day in the books!
Sunday 5/3 – While the skies might have cleared yesterday afternoon, they have definitely reverted back to typical Alaskan icky weather overnight. The foghorn is blowing again – thank heavens we are far enough aft, and the windows are excellent, that we can’t hear it and it doesn’t disturb our sleep. We have a slightly accelerated morning as we have to go line up for our Immigration tickets this morning. So it is off to the gym early, a quick breakfast and down to go stand in line at 7:30 – with about 50 people already in line in front of us. Good timing! To the staff’s credit, they have everything completely organized. They seat us in the lounge outside where they are handing out the tickets and then remember the order in which we were in line to escort us inside. It is easy and simple and we get group #1 7:30a tickets with no problem. We figure we’d rather be first through Immigration, even if we don’t go out until later. That way it is all done and behind us, giving us options.
We also want the first slots because tomorrow will be a CF, we are sure of it! We are going forward 1 hour at lunch, but need to go forward another hour at 2am in the morning. Half these people are not going to get it and will be showing up an hour late for their immigration time. Guaranteed! We want it done and over and do not want to be caught up in the melee of the confusion!
Task accomplished, we move on to our regularly scheduled day: Coffee chat with Jose and Environmental Officer who is extremely funny, making a dry subject interesting. Then it is Ian with his Kodiak port talk – which is very quick because, as he says, Kodiak is a small place! And it is a Monday, and everything is closed! All the museums say they are closed, but because there is a cruise ship in, Ian and ShoreX are hoping they will open especially for us. I searched and found the history museum is open for cruise ships from 10a – 2p, so depending upon the weather, we’ll head there first before meeting our tour to Fort Abercrombie Park (maybe) at 12.
The Q&A session is hysterical – more so than usual because, well, the questions. “Why is everything closed on Monday?” Ummm, because? If Kodiak is the 2nd biggest island in the states, what is the 1st? Ian has to go get his phone to Google it. Somebody asks if the ship is handling the immigration for us. Um, yep, CF tomorrow! Somebody else asks about the gangway from the tender pier and the tides to determine the steepness – which was outlined fully in a full color flyer – with pictures! – that we all got in our cabins yesterday (oh along with all the information about immigration as well, thank you). Don’t these people read???? Another asked if there was Wi-Fi in the cruise terminal. Again, do you NOT even look at what they put in the cabins? You can clearly see there is NO terminal at the tender pier. We’re lucky there is a pier!
I skipped out on the last bit of questions and poor Manolo’s talk on how Alaska was sold by Russia to the US. Just can’t do it. It works though, because then I can establish a table hold in the Lido for when Ed comes up after the lecture. Otherwise, we’d never get a seat.
After lunch, I retire to the cabin to blog, Ed goes to Luke’s Climate change talk. I just wasn’t into it. Then it is more blogging, reading, movie watching before our evening activities – which tonight, again, include another show. Originally scheduled to be “Smooth Sailing,” but ends up being “Solid Gold” which we have seen on the last leg – but this cast is so good, they are worth seeing again.
Then we are back to the cabin – with the last of the Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio….here we go again…..sigh…for a nice night’s sleep.
Andiamo 