DAY 4---JUNEAU, ALASKA

 BACKGROUND INFO

JUNEAU

        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 EVENING

                                                                Grey Goose martini

                 Hendra was our waiter in Compass Rose.  We have known him for a long time.

        Jessica, head sommelier, suggested this carmenere red wine to compliment our dinner.  Here Elvin, our sommelier this evening, is opening it.

                                             We all started with the vegetable spring roll.

               The we all had this Szechuan beef stir fry with Jasmine rice.  Always very good.

        After dinner we headed to the theater for the 9:30 show.  Rebecca and I were the only ones on the front row.  Arianne led the show off with some 60's & 70's rock n roll songs.  Her performance was great.

                      Next was Marsha with a very high energy show featuring soul songs.

     Both singers were very good and we gave them a standing ovation at the end of their show.

TODAY

          Up and attem at 6am.  Very foggy and 50 degrees when I opened the curtains.  At 6:30 I went down to get our Americanos as usual.  

        Rebecca has room service breakfast every morning.  Had been ordered for 7:30 but moved the time up to 7:00 today.  At exactly 7:00 this was delivered.  Scrambled eggs, sausage, and salsa.  Jeff and I went up to La Veranda at 7:30 for our breakfast.

                                            Jeff and I both had the special of the day.

                                                A few potatoes, mushrooms, and a sausage.

        Rebecca and I were originally booked on a helicopter tour that was to land on two glaciers and let us walk around on them.  We did this on a previous cruise and was my first ride in a helicopter.  Well, Rebecca did not want to go so I had hers transferred to Jeff.  Before we arrived in Juneau this morning we got a call saying it was cancelled due to the weather.  The tour price was $499 but with our Diamond discount it was to only cost us $199 each.  That was refunded.  

        So now Jeff and I have no tours booked here.  With this damp, light rainy day I did not go down and try to book something else.  After lunch I think Jeff and I may walk into town which is just off our pier.

                           There is a Princess ship, Carnival ship, and another one already here.

                                              We will be docking between these two ships.

                     About to dock.  Luckily we have the city view from our balcony today. 

                                                         The city is just off our pier.

                                                                Fishery icehouse.

        Lunch with Jeff again up in La Veranda.  Forgot my phone so no food photos.  I had an empanada and pasta.  After lunch we asked Jeff to come to our suite so we could divulge our estate plan with him.  This to give him his first idea of what he may be inheriting.

        After that he was going to walk into town.  I decided not to go as it was cold and too wet.  Actually this is typical Alaska weather.  We're been here on several other cruises so nothing I need here.  Rebecca called her good friend, Kaye Hill, since we have cell coverage here.

                                                   Closer view of the downtown area.

        There is a pre-dinner show at 5:45 this evening.  It is featuring Chris Lash a singer.  We have not seen his shows before.  We plan to go and listen to the first 15 minutes of his show before heading for our cocktail hour.  

        Here is tonight's Compass Rose menu.  We did not care for it so last night Mihai, the Food & Beverage Director and John, Executive Chef, came to our table to say hello.  I asked Chef John if we could have veal osso bucco in a red wine sauce served of creamy polenta.  But I also asked for a double order of black mussels in a white wine sauce as my appetizer.

        The show at 9:30 is featuring the singers in the production show cast doing "Broadway in Concert".  We plan to see this show.  We've seen this on several other ships but not this cast doing it.

        We are sailing again at 9:00 tonight.  It's only 91nm up to Skagway where we will be docked by 7am tomorrow.        

DAY 3---KLAWOCK, ALASKA

BACKGROUND INFO

KLAWOCK

        Klawock is a city on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island with a population of 720.  It is 56 miles from Ketchikan which is on the east side of the island.  Klawock’s first settlers were Tlingit who came from the northern winter village of Tuxekan.  They used it as a fishing camp during summers.  In 1868, European Americans opened a trading post and a salmon saltery.  Ten year later a San Francisco firm opened the first cannery in Alaska

        Today, Klawock has the oldest hatchery in Alaska with salmon, coho, and steelhead.  There is also a sawmill for area logging operations.  A cruise ship dock opened in May 2024 but apparently another cruise line beat us to it today as we are tendering ashore today.  A Totem Park has 21 totem poles, one of the largest collections in Alaska.  We will be seeing this park in our tour today. 

LAST EVENING

        I don't know how AC can make a better Makers Mark Manhattan than me, but he does!

                                                        Jalapeno poppers as our canapes 
        We went up to Sette Mari at 6:30 when it opened.  They were already seating people and there was still a long line.  But out came Teguh, maitre d, and led us past the long line to our table.  I bet the people in line wondered what that was about.  Yes, we are being spoiled as usual.

        This is our Executive Chef, John Pugh.  We have cruised with him many times and he is now a very good friend besides being the chef who oversees things in all the restaurants.  Great guy!

                                                   Chef Ronald on right and his cooks.

                                                                  My veal parmesan.

                                              Teguh brought Chef Ronald out to our table.

           My dessert, very decadent!!  They also always bring biscotti (at top of this photo).

         Emmanuel stopped by to say hello.  He is also a long time friend and excellent waiter.

No comedian show for us as we stopped by the Meridian Lounge for a amaretto on rocks for me and glass of vino for Rebecca.  Then back to suite and jumped into bed.

TODAY

        Remember our clocks were set back an hour at 2am.  I woke up at 3:30 but still had almost 8 hours of sleep.  Laid there until we finally got up at 5:45.  At 6:00 I went out and walked (as fast as I could walk) around the deck 7 (our hallway) hallway for a half hour.  I went down to get our Americano coffees at 6:30 when Coffee Connection opens.

                When I opened the balcony window shades, there was a full moon still there.

                 This morning we turned in an inlet of Prince of Wales Island from the ocean.

       So now we have a beautiful view of shore line as we sail to our anchorage at Klawock.  It will take a couple hours to arrive there.  Sunny skies and 55 degrees this morning.

        I met Jeff up at La Veranda at 7:30 for breakfast.  There was a long line at the omelet station but Teguh saw me and took my order.  Again I was put at head of the line but this time they did not know it.

I ordered a cheddar cheese and ham omelet and gave Jeff half.  About 10 minutes later here came another omelet.  Jeff and I managed to eat most of it too!

                    During breakfast the port pilot boat arrived to transfer the pilot onboard.

        Jeff has another cooking class at 9:30 this morning.  Then at 11:00 he and I will be meeting in the theater to get tender tickets for our excursion, "Taste of Klawock & Totem Park".

                                     We arrived at our anchorage outside of Klawock at 9am.

                                                            Sailed past this on way here.

        They use the ship's life boats as tenders to take people ashore.  They started the operation right on time at 9:30.

        At 11:00 Jeff and I were in the theater to get our tour group numbers and wait until they called us to go down and board the tender to start our tour.  Here we are boarding.

                                                              This is the Explorer.

        It was the shortest tender ride I have ever had.  Maybe 5 minute ride.  There was just 12 of us in our "Taste of Klawock & Totem" tour.  There was a very nice little van that held us.  Sorry now I did not get a photo of it.  The driver was a very nice lady who describe the area.  We never did get into the small town of Klawock.  She said 800 lived here year round and they got very little snow in the winters

We got out along the road with path leading into the woods.  This lady who was half Tlingit and half Haida (native Alaska tribes) was our guide and discussed the different plants as was walked the path into the woods.

                 She later said she made what she was wearing and it took a year to do so.

        About 100 feet into the woods we came to tables of food and wines.  This was our tasting part of the tour and spend 90 minutes here.  Jeff & I sat in a plastic tent like thing and was served the three different tastings.

              This was the menu of what we would be tasting and what wine was paired with them.

        First each of us were given two plates with raw oysters with different sauces.  Now I never eat raw oysters but I did have three.  Jeff passed on them.  I won't be having any more raw oysters in this life time.  It was paired with a sparling wine

                     There was this interesting bottle of hot sauce on our little table..

           Next was this pita bread with salmon.  Very good and served with a Bogle zinfandel.

        Lastly was halibut on a crostini.  Again I did not get a photo.  I should have taken more photos on this tour.  It was very good and served with a pinot noir wine.  The lady came by each tent thing and explained her heritage, her garb, and sang a couple Tlingit songs.  

        There was a stream there also and salmon were swimming up it to spawn at this time of the year.

The air was so fresh and it was not that cold (62 degrees) with the sun shining.  We both loved this tour.

        Back on the bus for a short ride to Veterans Memorial Park where we viewed totem poles.  I took these photos and told the driver I was ready to go back to the ship.  She said we were to be there for another 30 minutes but would take us back to the ship now.  How nice!  I gave here a nice tip.

        Jeff and I were back onboard before 2pm so headed up to the pool grill for lunch.  Jeff had a big burger and I had these lobster nachos.  Very yummy!

        Rebecca was reading a James Patterson book when I got back to the suite.  I sat down and worked on this post. Again, I wished I had gotten more photos.  As I said this is a new Alaskan cruise port and our first time here,  Love this quaint little port.  We are booked on another Alaska cruise next year and will be returning to Klawock then.  Same as this year, Jeff will be with us the first 7 days of our 14 day cruise.

        At 4pm every day they have a tea time with tea, these foods, and piano music.  I gained 2 pounds just taking these photos.  We don't do tea time!

                                        This is an ocean fishing boat coming back in at 4:30.

        This is this evening's Compass Rose menu.  We will be having our usual cocktail hour in the Meridian Lounge and then adjourning to Compass Rose for our first dinner there this cruise.  We will probably be going to toinght's show at 9:30 as it is featuring two female singers--one singing rock n roll and the other soul.

        We will be sailing at 6:30 this evening for our 227nm cruise to Juneau.  Arriving there at 11:00am tomorrow.