JUNEAU PHOTOS

         There was no interference with internet today so got photos on blog.

                                Some streams flowing down the mountain behind Juneau.

                                                                      Tram to top

My Caesar with 5 anchovies

             I had the fresh Alaskan salmon with a smokey hoisin barbecue sauce for lunch.

        After lunch I decided to make a quick trip off the ship.  Did not stay long as it was too cold and damp.

Our ship, Mariner.

                                               

Tram Station

Hard to see them unless you enlarge the photo but there are hundreds of gulls having lunch after the fishing boats discarded fish entrails.

              The Norwegian Sun is arriving at 2pm and will be docking in front of our ship.

Another shot of the gulls where the fishing boats unload their catch at the Taku Fisheries ice house.

DAY 4--JUNEAU, ALASKA

 BACKGROUND INFO:

        The City and Borough of Juneau is the capital city of Alaska and has a population of nearly 32,000.  Between the months of May and September the population can grow about 6,000 daily from visiting cruise ship passengers, us included.   It is the second largest city in the US by area and is located on the Gastineau Channel in the panhandle of Alaska.  It has been the Alaskan capital since 1906 when it was moved from Sitka.  The area of Juneau is almost as large as Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
        Juneau is named after a gold prospector named Joe Juneau.  Mining began here in the 1880’s.  Juneau grew from the growth of state government once Alaska became a State in 1959.  The biggest growth was due to the construction of the Alaska Pipeline in 1977.  Cruise passengers have increased from 230,000 per year in 1990 to well over 1,000,000 now.  The economy is driven by state government which employs roughly half, followed by tourism, fishing and mining.  Another bit of trivia:  Juneau is the only US capital city that is not connected to the rest of the state, or even North America as far as that is concerned, by roads.  There is ferry service for cars however.

                             

LAST NIGHT:

        We skipped the "block party".  Why you ask?  Well, yesterday afternoon I called reception to complain about our next door neighbors having a HUGE yelling match fight.  Not sure what country they are from but the fight was not in English so not sure what it was about.  They sent security up and so far we have not heard any more fights or loud talking.  So we did not want to have any issues at the block party.  Headed to the Mariner Lounge instead.
        Our jalapeno poppers which we had requested showed up at the bar shortly after we arrived.  We sat next to and had a nice conversation with a couple who had moved from New Jersey to Florida.  This is only their second cruise and first on Regent.     

              Boris, one of the orchestra members, was playing some nice cocktail hour music.

   Prasanjil (he said to just call him "Das") from India was waiting tables in the Mariner Lounge.
        At 7pm we headed in to the Compass Rose restaurant for dinner.  We asked to be seated at Dara's station again.  

We both started with some panko crusted prawns.  This is one of our favorite appetizers and sometimes on previous cruises we order it for our entrees.  We chose a pasta with shrimp as our entrees.

For dessert I had this malva pudding cake with butter pecan ice cream.  One of my favorite desserts.  It is like a bread pudding.

        After dinner Rebecca came back to the room but I went to see if the comedian was any good.  I left after about 5 minutes.  I ran into Linda Gentille in the elevator.  Linda was one of our headliner entertainers on the world cruise earlier this year and we loved her singing.  She will be tonight's entertainer in the theater at 9:30.  Can't wait!!

TODAY:

        I filled out our Canadian customs declaration and took it back down to reception.  They will need it for our arrival in Victoria BC next Wednesday.  Today's "Passages", the ship's daily newsletter/schedule of events, states that the ship's internet may be interfered with while in the Juneau port.  So I plan on making today's post early before our scheduled 11am arrival there.

        We will be heading to the fitness center this morning as usual.  We canceled our whale watching excursion for this afternoon as it is forecast for more rain and temperature in low 50's.  We have done it on previous cruises up here.

If you have Google Photos, here is a link to some whale pics.  Not sure is this will work for you.  Sorry if it doesn't.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/EbqEXupETYNiE9XG6

        I may walk into town later this afternoon.  Photos I take later today will be posted tomorrow.  We plan on dining up in Sette Mari, the Italian restaurant, this evening.  I have made a special order for veal parmesan.  Then we'll head to the theater for Linda Gentille's show. 

        I will go ahead and post this now at 10am.  If the internet cooperates I will add photos later today, or if not, tomorrow.

DAY 3--KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

BACKGROUND INFO:

        Ketchikan is the southernmost city in Alaska, located on the southern part of its panhandle, and has a population of 8,000.  Oddly enough this makes it the 6^th largest city in Alaska.  When you include the borough, the population is 13,000.  The city is known as “the Salmon Capital of the World” and Ketchikan Creek flows right through downtown where you can see plenty of salmon swimming upstream.
        Ketchikan is located on Revillagigedo Island was established in 1885.  It is surrounded by the Tongrass National Forest, 700 miles north of Seattle and 235 miles south of Juneau.  Air service and ferries are the  only way to get here.  As you might suspect cruise ship passengers fill the small town during the summer months.  Ketchikan’s economy is based on government services, tourism, and commercial fishing.  Their lumber industry was basically shut down by the Clinton Administration in 1996.  Is that Federal government getting involved in a State’s rights??  Ok, off my soapbox.  More trivia for you:  Ketchikan has the world’s largest collection of standing totem poles.     

        Our position today from 7am to 5pm is docked in Ketchikan, Alaska.  It is know as the rain capital of the world as they get 13 1/2 feet of rain annually.  Yes, it is raining this morning as folks are heading out for their tours.  It is 58 degrees here today.

        

When we opened our balcony curtains this morning this was our view.  It is just about 50 feet from us on other side of the pier.  There is a tv just above the life boats showing a tennis match for us to watch.

  

It is the NCL Encore next to us.  4000 passengers and 1735 crew members.  There are only 600 passengers on our ship and 460 crew.

        Not sure if someone needed this ambulance parked next to our gangway this morning.

LAST NIGHT:

Here are some photos I took last evening at dinner and the show.  To enjoy them more, click on them to enlarge.

This is Benji who is the head waiter in charge of room service.  He assured us our eggs would be nice and hot for breakfast from now on.  Sure enough today, our eggs were hot.  In fact he called us to say our order was on the way and about 10 seconds later they arrived.  We have known Benji from previous cruises and he was also on our world cruise earlier this year.  Note the pigs in a blanket that we have a standing order for every other day,

This is Grace who is the acting head sommelier bringing our La Crema chardonnay.  We have known Grace for several years and is a dear friend of ours.

Another sweetheart of ours is Dara.  She was working up in La Veranda buffet during the day and later in Sette Mari (Italian) during evenings.  We became good friends also.  This cruise she works at the pool grill for lunch and in Compass Rose evenings.  Both Grace and Dara are from the Philippines and best friends.

                                                 Maurice from Goa was assisting Dara.

We both chose the roasted duck with plum sauce as our entree after starting with some cream of asparagus soup.  I also had a side of asparagus risotto.  Of course I had dessert--molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

Andy, our cruise director, is introducing the production show "Divos & Divas".  Here are a few photos I took during it.

        We are disappointed with this production cast.  The dancing was great as was the two female singers, BUT the two male singers were very weak.  Also the audio technicians had their mikes turned down making it hard to hear them and we were sitting on the front row, center.  I left before the show was over but Rebecca stayed to the end.  I told Andy as I left the theater that I was disappointed with the male singers and he agreed.

On our bed when I returned to the suite were these:  my laundry that I sent out the first night on right.

   In the box with a bow were these 4 coasters with Regent's 30 year anniversary logo on them.

 Also on the bed was this book about Alaska's inside passage written by Terry Breen.  Terry is our favorite lecturer and a walking encyclopedia on Alaska and South America.  Unfortunately, she is not on this cruise.

TODAY:

This is Perdiansyah.  I never knew his real name until looking at his name tag this morning.  We call him "Skinny" and have known him for years also.  Super nice guy.  He brought our room service breakfast yesterday and again today.

This is this evening's Compass Rose menu.  We can see the menus on our suite tv.  Several of our favorite's on tonight's menu.  YUMMY!

       The 1 liter bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon that I requested showed up last night.

                      They download, print, and deliver the Dallas newspaper for us daily.

        We headed down to the fitness center at 9:30 for our usual 1 hour on the treadmills.  We were surprised that there were several people working out this morning.  At 10:15 the ship had a crew emergency drill that lasted just over a half hour.  They hold these drill once a week.  After showering I thought I might run off the ship to the terminal but it is still raining so not going anywhere off the ship today.  We cancelled the "St George Inlet and Crab Feast" scheduled for here.  We have done this tour several times as this is our 7th Alaska cruise.

Dennis was our waiter at lunch in Compass Rose.  We have known him for many years.  He has been with Regent for over 20 years now.  Definitely one of our favorite waiters.

                                                           I started with this empanada.

Then some panko & sesame coated sole with parsley potatoes and green beans.  Of course Rebecca had her Atkins meal bar.

        Just after returning to our suite after lunch the huge NCL ship departed so this is now our view after it left.  We were hoping that the tv news channels would be available again.  I called reception and asked but they said not until we sail at 5pm.

        This afternoon we had a visit from Ulanda, the housekeeping supervisor for this part of the ship.  She asked if we were happy and did we need anything to make our suite better.  She is from South Africa so I told her we would be there on next year's world cruise.  Of course she knew the WC was going around Africa already.

        This evening at 6pm there will be a Regent tradition called "Block Party".  Since 2019 there has been none due to the covid pandemic.  Corporate has just approved the block parties to return on all Regent ships effective 3 days ago.  Ok, so at 6pm a bell will ring over the PA signaling for everyone to come out of their suites to meet their neighbors.  Our stewards & stewardesses will be serving wine and canapes while we visit.  Then the Captain, General Manager, and Cruise Director races down all the hallways saying hi.  As I said this is unique to Regent cruises.

        After this we will head down to the Mariner Lounge again for drinks.  Followed by dinner in Compass Rose at 7pm.  Tonight's show in the theater at 9:30 is featuring a comedian, Ritch Shydner.

We will sit in the back in case he is not so good and we can make a hasty escape.

        Tomorrow we will be docked in Juneau from 11am to 8pm.  That's about it for today.   

DAY TWO--CRUISING THE INSIDE PASSAGE

 

        We both slept like babies last night.  Last night and this morning we are cruising in the inside passage off the Canadian coast.  So it is very smooth sailing and can hardly tell we are on a ship.  Our next door neighbors had a fight this morning so I was awakened at 6:30.  Rebecca wears ear plugs so was still sleeping.  We finally got out of bed at 7:15 and this was our view when I opened our balcony curtains.  About an hour later we ran into a very dense fog.  Visibility maybe a couple hundred yards.  When in fog like this the ship has to blow its horn every minute to warn any other ships we are here.  Of course they have radar but small boats would probably not show.
        I threw on some clothes and ran down to coffee connection to get a couple cups of "double shot Americano coffees).  I do this every morning.  The barista there is our old friend, Rommel.  He made our coffees when on our world cruise earlier this year.  Back then he and I had a long conversation as he raises pigs when home in the Philippines. 

                                                                    This is Rommel

                                                                  Coffee Connection

This is Mustafa, a bar waiter.  He was also with us on our world cruise and has been on for 10 months now.

        I had requested room service breakfast for 8am.  Jerry showed up with it at 8:05.  My french toast and Rebecca's scrambled eggs were not real warm but the pot of coffee was VERY hot.

This is Hugo who is the internet manager who helps us passengers get hooked up on the ship's internet sight.  I managed to get our cell phones and my laptop hooked up but still had a question for him.

        The fog finally lifted around 10am.  So we suited up and headed down to the fitness center.  It is just one deck below us and forward.  There were 4 treadmills but one was inoperative.  While I was there a technician showed up and reset the inop one.

This is the cardio side of the fitness center.  The other side is for the fitness person to conduct stretching classes and there are also some spinning bikes in it.

        This is our position at noon today.  It is 55 degrees outside with reduced visibility again due to mist and light rain.  Weather is basically, yucky!!  So far still smooth sailing.

                                                                           Abegail

        At noon we went to Compass Rose for some lunch.  Of course, Rebecca only eats one of her Atkins meal bars for EVERY lunch.  We asked for Joseph as our waiter as he is one of our long time favorite waiters.  I had a small Caesar salad with 5 anchovies and then a seafood bouillabaisse for my entree.  It was a small bowl so I asked for another.  OINK!  We also asked Anne (one of the head waiters who is in charge of special orders) for a standing order of 5 pigs-in-a-blanket and on alternating nights jalapeno poppers as hors d'oeuvres to be waiting for us in the Mariner lounge at 6pm for our cocktail hour.  Rebecca also has a standing order for a small plate of gouda cheese to have for her afternoon snacks.

        We have asked Aries to clean our room at noon every day while we are at lunch.  Rebecca has an allergy issue with the feathers in the duvet covering our bed so we asked Aries to remove it and put a blanket on the bed instead.  She also asked for foam pillows yesterday.
        In case you are wondering what our suite looks like, here are some photos of it.

                       I bring magnets to put things on the wall (walls are metal with covering)

        We spent the afternoon in our suite watching some tv and reading.  Just a lazy day at sea.  This evening at 6pm is the Captain's Welcome Reception in the theater.  He will be introducing the ship's senior officers while drinks and canapes will be served.  Well, we have been to many of these so will skip it and head back to the Mariner Lounge once again for pre-dinner cocktails and our pigs in a blanket.

        We will be dining in the main restaurant, Compass Rose, this evening.  At 9:30 we will going to the theater for the first production show of this cruise.  The production cast (12 singers and dancers) will be performing one of our favorite shows, "Divos & Divas".  It is a concert style show that pays tribute to some of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time.

        We will be docking in Ketchikan, Alaska, tomorrow morning by 7am.  More tomorrow!