It was as picturesque as promised. The food was pretty good but not great, though I have a hard time pinpointing why not. I went on the food galley tour at the end and found out that everything is made fresh everyday - including the bread, ice cream, and desserts. So that's impressive when they're making 15-20k meals/day!
We ate almost every dinner together at the 5:30 slot. We had 2 formal nights where the kids looked so cute all dressed up. We had 3 birthdays - Adan, Susan and Emme's. And just missed mine. We spent a lot of our time taking pictures, getting formal pictures taken, and then looking at all the pictures. Susan and Bill got upgraded to a suite with a balcony looking out from the back of the ship, so we all clambered into their room for the amazing view.
The kids didn't really like the kid's club, but their favorite activity was "exploring." They found the small private deck 17 which they used to play their game of "statue." The kids accepted the "Egg drop challenge" and amazingly their peanut-butter and balloons contraption successfully protected the raw egg from the 30 foot drop in the main atrium. They also really enjoyed playing "The Game," a combination of Taboo and Charades, where we make up our own words. ML's Peppermint Patty game (put the Peppermint Patty on your forehead, try to get it into your mouth without using your hands, enjoy the melt on your face) was amusing as always. The kids also liked the Trivia game.
I really don't have a good idea of how the adults spent our time when we were on the ship, but the time passed quickly. One day, I ran around the boardwalk on deck 7, 3 laps making up a mile. Another day, I tried my hand at gambling, and even though I got the super hard three-of-a-kind, I didn't put in the extra chip for the bonus payouts, so I eventually lost my $100 starting capital, which is my gambling loss tolerance. At night, we watched some of the shows. Gary Carson's comedy magic show was great - yes, mom bought the DVD. Libby Riddles' presentation on how she was the first woman who won the Alaskan dog sled race, the Iditarod, was fascinating.
We only did 2 excursions. The first one up the Tracy Arm Fjord was on a nice sunny day, and we saw glaciers calving (big chunks of ice falling off with a satisfying thunder crack), porpoises, sea otters, waterfalls (the captain backed the ship into the waterfall on purpose to splash us on the deck), bald eagle, and amazingly a school of orca killer whales (they told us that this was very rare to spot them). The second excursion was the train ride up the Yukon pass where the gold miners climbed during the gold rush. This trip was marred by rain and heavy fog, but the trip ended in a nice garden.
We explored the small towns of Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway. ML and I had the best Alaskan crab leg ever at The Hanger in Juneau. My flight of 8 Alaskan beers also helped it go down easy.
Our final dinner in the specialty steakhouse restaurant was awesome. The lobster, scallops, ribeye, and dessert were all amazing. For each of the dinners, I brought one or two of our Washington State wine tour wines. It was really fun trying each of them with family and fine food.
Overall, a great trip with family. Too bad it'll be our last with Cheryl since she's foresworn cruising ever again due to her seasickness - but then that's what she said the last 2 times.
