The verdict on cruising

With all the ports done we had one more day of scenic cruising and that wrapped up our cruise. So what was the verdict? Well very positive actually. I must say my expectations where not very high and I had quite some negative prejudices but was hoping that in a place like Alaska and by picking a 'higher hurdle' one way cruise things would be more up my alley. I have no means of comparison of course - but I would go again in a place like Alaska.

For me the image of cruise ships is the one below - and even when it was 'my cruise ship' it looked rather humongous and ugly from the key. However at certain angles - like above I could learn to love the view.

The kids loved it onboard and loved being near and around us so much. Kaatje sang, climbed, played, smiled,...

and walked

and walked

and walked some more accros all the different decks & rooms

All in all out of 2100 passengers there where only 14 under 12 year olds so the kids got loads of attention and mainly played together. They where too young to be left at the kids club (fancy but cut off is 3 yrs) and so could only go if one of us stayed too. Considering Rick & Kaat consider everything a payground no need to specifically go down there with them if it did not result in more play buddies. (Not a school holiday) Safe to say that in no time everyone knew us and we recognized nobody. We had lots of self proclaimed friends, most with grandkids they missed dearly.

The kids where perfectly happy using places like the onboard mini golf course as a play ground.

Or at night when we would hang out at the bar the kids climbed around in the enormous hall with fancy shiny lit stairs.

Onboard there is plenty entertainment in case the views or the ports don't offer enough. In some events, like the ice carving below, we had more interest in watching the audience then the carver. There where also talks by park rangers and other people of interest (dog sledge racers, writers etc), gambling tournaments, way too expensive art auctions, movies, shopping events, cooking demos, dance & song groups to take part in, a spa, a gym, a golf clinic and probably more. A daily captains log is issued to yoru cabin with 4 pages of updates on the days progress, plans & activities as well as a 'romantic quote of the day'

The pool opened once we where out of the worst wet grey and with some hot springs there too some people ventured out. Eelco and the kids stuck to the indoor pool a deck lower.

The ship had quite a lot of Restaurant almost all included in the all in price (except alcohol) and much much better food quality then I expected.  We would eat 3 course meals for dinner, breakfast could be formal or from teh buffet restaurant, cookies & snacks are provided everywhere all day and themes lunches or dinners are provided in the restaurants or on deck during 'scenic cruising'. The ice cream parlor, pizza place and the grill (greasy spoon) where more or less open all day and you could have (for free) fruit delivered to your room. Twice there was also a huge cake buffet.   

In the meantime the views during cruising days where amazing. It was not just a transit tour there was actually loads to see almost all the time!

Including lost of water planes landing or taking off near us

 

Alaska can be very wet & grey, but apart from the first 18 hours or so this is about as bad as it got for us from a cloud & grey perspective. Nothing to complain about either!

At night things tended to get more mysterious looking.

And closer to Vancouver and in the narrow passages there much more water transport of any kind. Did you know they invented the sea container in that region? 

I was kind of sad when are last night on board came up. Sharing the small cabin with the kids had not been ideal for my sleep, but just hanging around on the ship was very relaxing and there was lots too see and life was very easy. The tackier cruising port of Juneau was not my thing and I also did not like how many attempts there where to make more money out of us by Pictures of every port & dinner, or with sometimes very overprised excursions and the need to pay extra for decent coffee etc. However I felt more at home well not age wise, amongst the passengers then I thought and I have by far not seen and done everything there was to do on the ship. Still I am not so certain I would do something like this in the Carib. I think a somewhat more unusual location with more barriers to get to/from would be more appealing and I would want my own bed! Alaska is gorgeous though and with little kids this was an ideal way to see & experience loads.

Fortunately for us the holiday was not over at that stage. We had 4 more days in Vancouver left!

117!

This weekend was kind of nuts from a temperature perspective and today was supposed to be worse at 103F = 39.5 C but with a significant heat index making it more like 110 F = 43.5 C. When I left the office today to go home though it was just plain uncomfortable outside. The heat enveloped me in no time and I could feel it crawl up my skin almost. The air was heavy and form the 300m walk to my car my bare legs had a burning sensation which I normally feel when I have been sunbathing too long and feel I need to cool off. Got to my car which was parked under cover all day kind of in the shade but nevertheless outside and the outside temperature was reading at 117F = 47C!!!

I cannot be motivated to move o Dubai or something like it anytime soon. This is just not nice.

3!

Ric is not 3 till next week but as we will be in NL we had his kids party this weekend. As we did / do not want to drag all his presents to the Netherlands and back we decided to just celebrate his hole Houstonian birthday the same day.

What a big boy! And clearly pleased to have a party. After he unwrapped his new drum though he did not care much about unwrapping anything else.

I made him the puppet theatre and dad made him a rack for his new puppets.

We also gave Rick a dress up box - mainly with costumes he or we already had.

which went down well with both!

Considering the late evening events on Saturday (Rugby), Rick was allowed to chill in front of the TV for a while to save energy for his party. With a stick and a pirate sword he was very very happy.

Then his friends arrived and we did a few games such as cookie decorating and spijkerpoepen....

Ms Me Too wanted to play as well.

Then we did some 'koek happen'

 ...including Ms Me Too

and an egg race demonstrated by Eelco, with bouncy balls

followed by 'mummies'

the games went down with about 50% participation which is pretty good I guess at this age. The cake eating reached 100% of course -:)

And then it was finally time to cool off. The kids lasted forever in the water and we where pleased to see that we could fit 3-4 dads + 11 kids Rick's age + a few of the 'little sisters' also there. With 18 kids + 1 baby at the party we had a full house!

And a happy house

Rick had a fab day with no tears and a big smile till the end when it was just him & best friend Roddy left.

and Ms Me Too of course -;)

Rugby in Houston

Houston has a new stadium. It is a stadium built for the local soccer team - Dynamo. They are actually pretty good and won a few national titles etc. But news coverage national is apparently pretty bad and low if a Texas team wins (according to the Texans) as a more northern based team is supposed to win the soccer. Anyway - Houston has plenty of good sports facilities but this is a nice & shiny new one and not so big for a change (22,000 capacity) and all the seats in it are orange  - which makes us feel at home - because that is Dynamo's team color.

But this is the US and so where money is being sunk in something like this there is usually a decent marketing budget and some other show events in the early years such that the place is paid back sooner. So more or less thanks to the new soccer stadium Houston this year also got the one and only international Rugby match played in the US - being USA vs Italy - so no excuses we had to go.

The warm-up, done within the stadium for both teams took forever and was part of the event probably to showcase Rugby USA. They also took some effort to really highlight its addition as an olympic sport recently - as it is easy to rally up Americans for Olympics.

Rick was pleased enough to go. Almost everyone we knew in town also went and still the stadium got fuller then this but not full. We also saw a lot of ineternational Houstonians or visitors and about half the locals we met there  - had never seen a rugby game in their life!

It has been very very hot in Houston - above 40C with an additional heat index of a few degrees - sp the open air stadium sounded really nice and probably looks attractive to those of you with lesser summers but it was almost too much for us and many others. Exhausting that kind of heat! And a little sickening as Kaat emptied her stomach - and felt much better after -;)

In the end it was nice to see some Rugby again. The booing by the Americans every time the Italians did anything got kind of annoying (not Rugby like!), but the Italians where just quite a bit better (and won 10-30). Not a beauty of a game and the heat also appeared to get to the players but regardless a nice couple of hours out just a few miles from home. Can't complain about that!

Funny thing was that for a while the Italians where at 10 points. That did not appear the scoreboard - until they readjusted after a while - of course in soccer double digit scores are not the norm!

Lumberjacks & Totems

Our last stop in Alaska was Ketchikan, the salmon capital of the world and also holder of some not so beneficial records for a tourist town on annual rainfall. Records in most rainfall in a day, most rainfall in a year and something about most liquid sunshine - in short - it more or less always rains in Ketchikan.....except the 1 day that we come an visit that is!

Ketchikan is almost at the southernmost point of Alaska and has a more tempered climate and a lot of forrest around so home to a decent population of Lumberjacks. And in good American style they of course managed to also turn that into a tourist attraction by hosting a lumberjack show. The viewing arena is completely open to the elements which considering the local climate. But the show was fun and structured around a made up competition between the American & Canadian lumberjack team.

Plenty of bad jokes where also included in the show as well as some fun made of prejudices about lumberjacks.

They ended the show with what we of course all hoped to see - the log running in the water .

So now Rick wants to be a Lumberjack 

After the show and some strolling to town we took a trip to Saxman Village. The village is a little outside town and there it was good to see why the local climate is so amazing for trees & forrest. It smelled fresh, crisp and as very pretty to wonder around in but I could imagine it could be quite scary in the more normal foggy & wet conditions.

furry trees everywhere!

 

Saxsman village itself is now the home of the Saanya Kwan tribe (Tlingits). Historically there have been several tribes who populated the area over time but the resent inhabitants where forced away from their original location in some land acts shuffle after world war II. The tribe is trying to keep their culutre alive and evolving and has brought many of the totem poles from the original village to the new one and continued adding more, meaning that the place is now the Totem capital of the world with just 450 residents or so.  The visit started of with an information centre & movie after which we where treated to a dance show in the Beaver Clan House with some self participation as well. 

The totems are pretty impressive too - as ou can see from teh lady seen near the bottom of the pole. Meaning and reason for creation can be quite divers but family, tale telling, showing off status and even shaming (someone) etc all plays a role. The totems tend to be made from Red Cedar and totem maintenance was not standard practise till more recently so hard to find to many real old ones. Many we saw where replica's or upgrade's of the ones of the original village. Most totems are made from Giant red cedar trees.

Effectively the totems where all set along a little uphill road directly from a bay, a circular park at the top of the little road and the clan house at the highest point facing back over out at the water again. Felt a bit like Roman grandeur architecture.

Kaat by then had well adjusted to wearing plenty of warm gear except that she refused her socks & shoes half the time. Lots of bad looks from everyone for letting her run around bare footed in the whole place - as if there is any telling Kaat -;)

The totems only depict animals or humans never any objects and each has their own story of course usually with a little too much morals and deeper meanings to be much fun for young kids.

And then it was time to get back to town. We had time for one last quick tour though the former red light district of the town, now the older and more pittoresque part, looking very much like the Alaskan version of Delft.

Not even enough time to find a bar before we left but as the cruise ship had plenty we did our 5 o clock toast there whilst sailing off. 

The last of Alaska for us. A few more hours on the water and we would be in Canada.