September 7th
Today is our Glacier day!
The weather was perfect! A little cool but not too windy and no rain!
We ate at Triton's again for breakfast and this time I asked for a table by the window and I was so glad we did! It wasn't the best window but we got to see a couple dozen whales! Chuck was so happy, he was like a little kid in a candy store. It was so fun to watch.
After breakfast, we hurried out to deck 4 and spent the next hour or two watching tons of whales and dolphins. The water was like glass, so it was super easy to spot them. Honestly, I wish we had skipped breakfast that morning and just camped out on deck 4 the entire time. It was that amazing!
We had no idea which Arm we were heading into it. I learned on my July cruise that the captain makes a last-minute decision as to which one we go down. Just as we headed up to deck 10, Captain Thord announced that we were heading for Endicott Arm.
We headed to the very front of the ship where it was very cold but we put our big girl panties on (and hoods!) and braved it for the scenery. At this point, I recognized the area and knew we were actually heading into Tracy Arm.
Captain was smoking something.
I marked the two Arms on the Marine Traffic app screenshot I took, so that you could see just how close both Arms are to each other.
It was soooooo windy up on deck 10, not too many people were as brave or crazy as us but we wanted to watch as we entered. Just then, the wind stopped as we slowed down while the people on the first glacier excursion boarded their little boats. It was nice to get a little break from that chill. Then, we continued on in, as both excursion boats left ahead of us.
We had a funny moment just then, Spiderman appeared out of nowhere and was chatting with Nancy and then admired the scenery and then left. After we got back to the room, she was talking about it and said something like "Why would someone wear a costume of all days???!!!"
I said "Nanc, that was Spiderman! THE Spiderman! The one that kids wait an hour to see in the Atrium!"
Once we got into the Arm, we left the cold, windy deck 10 for the much warmer, much less breezy verandah. This was where the big verandah came in handy, we could see what was on the side of us, a little of what was coming up and all of what we had just passed!
We watched in awe for over an hour and then we started to get hungry. I suggested we get room service because none of us wanted to leave those majestic views for a single minute! We ended up ordering a ton, just like I had on the last cruise.
We also ordered crackers so we could finally eat that cheese platter that we had wrapped up and stuck in the fridge. It was all delicious!
Once we got to the glacier, I suggested we head up to deck 10 again to see it because we wouldn't see it from our verandah for a while yet.
It was gorgeous! Even more gorgeous than it was in July because the left side was even more blue than the last time! Chuck and Nancy were in their happy place and we were joking around taking silly pics! What a great day this was.
Then someone was kind enough to take a group shot for us.
Once we started turning, we headed back to the verandah. When we got there, we had stopped. We stayed there for about 20 minutes without moving. I was starting to freak out a little because this is where I think we had hit that ice back in July, the one that broke our propeller and caused us to miss Ketchikan. I was looking down below and saw tons of ice!
Eventually, we started moving again, not only did we start turning around so we could see Sawyer Glacier but we also started moving closer to it. I still can't believe how close we got to it! Way closer than July! As we moved towards it, you could see all the seals with your own eyes. If you used the binoculars, you could see them really well! It was so cool!!! And because we were closer, I was able to zoom in more with my iPhone!
This was as cold as it got that day, about the same as July, I would say. The one difference is that we saw a lot of little bugs. Little gnat-type ones and they were super annoying! I don't recall see a single bug in July, the entire cruise.
Look at those little babies!!
All those dark spots are seals.
It's hard to appreciate the size of this sucker until one of those excursion boats pass by.
Sadly, it was time to head back.
We were cruising by until before we turned that final corner of the Arm and then we stopped. I had put on the Bridge Cam channel on the TV and saw that we were parked right next to a gorgeous waterfall! Chuck and I boogied our butts down to deck 4, to see it up close. We were there for about 10-15 minutes, where I thought we were loading the second excursion boat passengers but we ended up backing up and turning around and then stopping for another 15 minutes to load them back on I think.
By the way, I discovered a cute little trick for waterfall pics on an iPhone. You have to take a Live Photo of it then click on "Live" at the top left of the photo and then check "Long Exposure".
It turns this....
Into this!
You're welcome!
We turned around and now we could see the waterfall from our verandah.
Chuck and I had been spotting "pictures" in the rocks and mountains all day long. I showed him the bunny, that I had posted in my previous trip report and he spotted whole cities and towns, it was pretty cool. As we turned to leave, I yelled out to Chuck "DOG! I see a dog!!!"
Chuck saw it immediately, Nancy thought we were both drinking and smoking things we shouldn't be.
Here's a time lapse of our journey down Tracy Arm. The battery died just as we reached the glacier. I was able to charge it enough, in the time we spent sitting there, just before turning around, to capture the rest though.
I have to tell you about something I forgot to mention in the last post. The scenery had been so amazing up to this point. Sometime during our first At Sea day, we were out on the verandah and Chuck was in awe of it all, he had had loudly exclaimed "Are you
seeing this, people!!!"
This became the motto of the entire cruise, whenever we saw something beautiful or spotted some whales, we would repeatedly yell out "ARE YOU SEEING THIS, PEOPLE!" It was soooo funny!
Those words were said many times on this glacier day!
Reluctantly, we headed down to dinner. I don't have any pics but this was the Frozen menu with that delicious carrot soup! Yum!
When I saw our room host earlier that day, he had asked me how everything was so far. I told him that the mattress on the couch was a little firm and I asked if they had any toppers for it. Back in 2016, on the Magic, during a cruise I took with my co-workers, they had put an egg crate topper on the couch, which made it more comfortable. I wasn't sure if they even had them anymore but I asked Pande and he said he would check for me.
That night, after dinner, my bed was now a few inches higher with a foam topper added to it.
It made it so much more comfortable but I had to be very careful because it was a tad smaller than the mattress and I would fall off of it if I wasn't perfectly placed in the middle.
I spent my usual 2 hours in the pool and on the way back, I had noticed that they had banana ice cream!! This was Chuck's favourite!! I tried texting Nancy & Chuck to see if he would like some but they didn't see the text so I brought him a little one, just in case he hadn't seen it. I didn't want him to miss it!
It turns out that he had, indeed, spotted it earlier and had grabbed one but he was not opposed to having another one.
Sadly, this was the one and only day they had banana
After my shower, I had stepped out onto the verandah and saw that we were passing a town. I was fairly sure that this had to be Juneau. I had no idea you could see it from the ship! So cool! Sorry, this is a terrible photo but the best my iPhone could do.
And that wraps up another phenomenal day! It was, by far, the best day of this cruise for all three of us.
Even with Chuck pushing and me there to help open doors, it was not easy getting around sometimes.
