Thursday, April 08, 2004
Thanks Carrie. I spoke to Tricia today. Like the rest of us, she's happy with the new and improved SJC. We should hear from her soon. I'll try to invite her with the instructions you posted. Let's see if I can get it right.
Terry, I sent you an email....I need your lawyerly advice.
GBS, the glacial fjords are lovely and the views are amazing, as lovely as can be given the the fact that you're stuck on a huge ship with 2500 other beings. We had a balcony room, so we escaped to privacy and the view on our terms. The deck, whenever it was sunny, was people, and deck chairs, and more people. If there was something to see, everyone crowded the railings. Overheard: "I paid to see whales. They better get me some whales." Unfortunately, although most of the passengers seemed to be nice enough, there were enough of the "we're doing this to tell our friends we did this" set to really get on my nerves.
We did our own day trips, didn't pay the outrageous $$$ to do it with the cruise social directors. That left us free to do what we wanted, as far away from the others as possible. That was nice. We saw bald eagles just overhead while hiking in Sitka National Park. Salmon in a creek outside Ketchikan that you could almost walk across the creek on top of them. Outside Klondike, at the recommendation of an NPS ranger we spoke to, we joined a funny little local geologist/archiology who does very small tours (for $25 each) and explored the forests, often crawling on hands & knees to see rare mushrooms, artifacts of the native tribes, and other treasures that the NPS would never let a large cruise ship group near. As we were driving to one of the sites, he picked up a hitchhiker, a young lady whom he believed worked in town. She didn't; she was backpacking her way across the US, but he let her ride with us anyhow, but she had to take the tour with us because we didn't have time to drop her off anywhere else. She complied and got the free tour. Funny Alaska sort of thing.
We planned to do some flight seeing that I arranged through a contact at work, but typical Juneau, the wind and rains came in at about 60 mph and grounded us. So we visited museums and the local pub (the one where locals hang out, not the Red Dog Saloon, which was created for tourists). Back on ship, we heard a lot of grumbling about how people went on the cruise for helicopter and glacial flights and they were "rooked" out of that experience. I guess people think we're kidding when we say that Alaska has tempermental weather even in summer. Or maybe the cruise company is supposed to fix the weather somehow!
Our parents had a great time. They loved hanging out with us and each other. My parents were in the discos every night til they closed at 4am. Patrick & I ditched the parents when we wanted to go on hikes or wild mushroom hunting excursions.
My perspective on cruises? There is, of course, the whole envirornmental concern (I researched to avoid the known contaminators), and the impact of all those people on small Native towns, which is an issue I grapple with. But cruises also keep all those masses out of the more pristine wilderness, for the most part. I think that IF the cruise industry cleans up its act, cruises are all right. But we'll be avoiding them -- we only have so much vacation and discretionary spending money. I can cruise when my knees give out (hopefully when I'm about 98). For now on, we're packing our packs and going the same old way we always have -- on foot
Terry, I sent you an email....I need your lawyerly advice.
GBS, the glacial fjords are lovely and the views are amazing, as lovely as can be given the the fact that you're stuck on a huge ship with 2500 other beings. We had a balcony room, so we escaped to privacy and the view on our terms. The deck, whenever it was sunny, was people, and deck chairs, and more people. If there was something to see, everyone crowded the railings. Overheard: "I paid to see whales. They better get me some whales." Unfortunately, although most of the passengers seemed to be nice enough, there were enough of the "we're doing this to tell our friends we did this" set to really get on my nerves.
We did our own day trips, didn't pay the outrageous $$$ to do it with the cruise social directors. That left us free to do what we wanted, as far away from the others as possible. That was nice. We saw bald eagles just overhead while hiking in Sitka National Park. Salmon in a creek outside Ketchikan that you could almost walk across the creek on top of them. Outside Klondike, at the recommendation of an NPS ranger we spoke to, we joined a funny little local geologist/archiology who does very small tours (for $25 each) and explored the forests, often crawling on hands & knees to see rare mushrooms, artifacts of the native tribes, and other treasures that the NPS would never let a large cruise ship group near. As we were driving to one of the sites, he picked up a hitchhiker, a young lady whom he believed worked in town. She didn't; she was backpacking her way across the US, but he let her ride with us anyhow, but she had to take the tour with us because we didn't have time to drop her off anywhere else. She complied and got the free tour. Funny Alaska sort of thing.
We planned to do some flight seeing that I arranged through a contact at work, but typical Juneau, the wind and rains came in at about 60 mph and grounded us. So we visited museums and the local pub (the one where locals hang out, not the Red Dog Saloon, which was created for tourists). Back on ship, we heard a lot of grumbling about how people went on the cruise for helicopter and glacial flights and they were "rooked" out of that experience. I guess people think we're kidding when we say that Alaska has tempermental weather even in summer. Or maybe the cruise company is supposed to fix the weather somehow!
Our parents had a great time. They loved hanging out with us and each other. My parents were in the discos every night til they closed at 4am. Patrick & I ditched the parents when we wanted to go on hikes or wild mushroom hunting excursions.
My perspective on cruises? There is, of course, the whole envirornmental concern (I researched to avoid the known contaminators), and the impact of all those people on small Native towns, which is an issue I grapple with. But cruises also keep all those masses out of the more pristine wilderness, for the most part. I think that IF the cruise industry cleans up its act, cruises are all right. But we'll be avoiding them -- we only have so much vacation and discretionary spending money. I can cruise when my knees give out (hopefully when I'm about 98). For now on, we're packing our packs and going the same old way we always have -- on foot
