Ahoy the shore from Alaska (5th in a series)

Day 4 Skagway:

Our second Alaskan port of call was Skagway—a town made famous by the Gold Rush. We had a busy day arranged in Skagway having booked two excursions through NCL. Our first tour departed one half hour after we reached port at 7:00. So we rose early at 6:00 AM, ate an express breakfast at the (24 hour) Blue Lagoon Café and were on shore in time to meet Jen-- our main guide for our morning glacial point wilderness safari.

We boarded a bus at the port which took us out to The Spirit—a high speed catamaran. After boarding, it was expertly guided (by Captain John Smith) down river (past Haines) on a 40 minute cruise along a deep wide fjord to our beach destination. There we boarded “off road safari vehicles” (aka re-purposed school buses) to reach a river-side dressing area where we were outfitted in boots, extra layers of outer wear and life vests. Thereafter, riverside, we were assigned to one of four 31 foot canoes, each holding 8 to 11 persons. Our canoe, captained by a guide named Teresa and nicknamed Team Brown Bear, had 4 other paddlers in addition to us. After paddling leisurely (albeit against the river current) for 15 or 20 minutes and reaching a certain point cut-over point, Teresa ripped the cord on the outboard motor to power us through the ice flows for a closer look at the Glacier Point ice formations. She even scooped up a small ice flow from the river to pass around the canoe. After a few minutes maneuvering us in front of the glacier, we reversed course and headed back downstream. On the return catamaran trip we were served a tasty box lunch consisting of a turkey mini-sub, sun chips, some carrot sticks, a massive chocolate chip cookies and bottled water.

We arrived back in town around 1 PM and spent about an hour watching salmon running upstream and shopping in the town shops. The Skagway streets are laid out in a logical grid pattern with Broadway being the main arterial road running from our port at the southern end of town and intersected by numbered avenues. At 2:30 new headed back to the ship for two hours of down time before setting out on our 2nd excursion of the day.

At 4:30 PM in the afternoon we boarded a White Pass and Yukon railway car for our round trip 21 mile evening summit ride to at an elevation of 2,865 ft. The hi-lights along the route included a gold rush cemetery, rocky point, bridal veil falls and inspiration point. We also passed through two tunnels and passed an old steel cantilever bridge (now de-commissioned) built in 1901. Most of the best views were on the left hand side of the car (both coming and going, as the seats simply reverse when you reach the summit and the engine re-hooks to the other end of the car to begin the descent leg. You are permitted to go outside the cars to snap photos on the platforms between the cars during the trip but are not permitted to walk between them.

Two advantages of the evening summit over the rides earlier in the day are that the cars tend to be less crowded and that the later afternoon lighting conditions are more camera-friendly. Following our return to the Skagway station we returned immediately to the ship.

Rather than dining immediately upon our return, our group (minus one—moi) decided to take in the 8:45 Second City scripted comedy show in the Stardust theatre. That pushed our dinner out to 9:45. As the Summer Garden closes at 9:30, that left us no anytime dining option other than to return to Indigo for a second night. The advantage of late dining there was that there was no wait time. The disadvantage was that by the end of the meal we were one of only 3 remaining parties dining and we felt like we were in the way as staff scurried all around us re-setting the room for an art auction event that was to take place in the venue later in the evening.

Despite this, both the meal and the service were better than one night earlier. The popular app was the onion soup, while the entrée selections included a Thai noodle dish, roast turkey and tilapia. Our dessert entrees included a mocha flavoured cream filled layer cake and blueberry crumble (a little too sweet for my palate).

Following dinner and changing into our all-white party outfits we joined the White Hot Night party already in progress in the Spinnaker Lounge. By the time we arrived at 11:00 PM the party was already petering out and most of those on the dance floor were from the ship’s dance troupe and cruise staff. Moreover, the staff again started stripping the room of its white décor accents before midnight. Having enjoyed the White Hot Party immensely on our last NCL cruise we were sorely disappointed by this weak facsimile. However we were thoroughly tired at midnight and were more than happy to adjourn for the evening.

Still to come… Glacier Bay