Wednesday May 23rd: Day 1 - Milwaukee, WI to Vancouver, B.C.
This year I had two full days to prepare for departure, and did I need it! I had ample time to clean, pack, shut down my house and visit friends before time for departure. I got up on Wednesday at 3:40am and was out of the house by 4:30am to get to the Milwaukee International Airport.
My Northwest Airlines flight was leaving at 6:30am and I knew that I needed to allot extra time to get myself through security and baggage. Last summer I almost missed my flight because with all of my luggage I was selected for extra screening. This summer I breezed right through (except I forgot to declare my water bottle and the scanner picked it up-after explaining about my Sjogren’s Syndrome and showing my Sjogren’s “club membership card” they allowed my water to go through the check point. Hey if you got it you might as well use it to your advantage -- Sjogren’s is otherwise a pain, but in this type of circumstance has its advantages!!
I got on the plane in plenty of time but I couldn’t fit my laptop backpack (the “purse you’re allowed besides the carryon) in the overhead bin or under seat area. The stewards were giving me a very hard time and the desk personnel kept threatening to deplane me, complaining that I was holding up the flight. There was absolutely no way I could miss this flight or else I would miss the ship and it would be my fault. In that instance I would have had to pay my whole way to Juneau, AK which I WASN’T going to do. Thankfully I had all of my loose stuff in ziplocs and such, so after hauling a few of those bags out of the backpack and stuffing them in the seat pocket in front of my the bag fit snugly under the seat. Yay!!! :)
I arrived in Minneapolis 15 minutes ahead of schedule and made my way leisurely to the next gate. There I met lots of passengers preparing for cruises departing from Vancouver (I mean, why else would people be flying from the MSP airport to Vancouver if they WEREN’T going on a cruise right!! ).
Several of the families were even going to be on the same line I worked for, just a different ship. They were in fact going on the ship my friend Wendy works on, the Volendam. I gave them my name and told them to say hi to Wendy from me, we’ll see if they do. That was quite fun.The flight was very smooth and relatively short into Vancouver.
We were warned of turbulence, but it was quite a good flight. We arrived on time in Vancouver and then the adventure began.Customs was backed up over an hour with numerous transatlantic (think non-english speaking) flights arriving at the same time as our flight and the tour groups were trying desperately to stay together. The “queue” was so long that they opened up a holding area that was as large as the main queue for overflow, but thankfully I was in the very front of that group. We slowly snaked our way up to the customs officials and I made it through quickly and without any hitches. I now have 3 stamps in my passport!!! I also found my luggage quickly and in good condition. I was nervous the whole flight as I had to check a bag with very expensive camera equipment right at the gangway of the Milwaukee flight and I’ve SEEN how well they take care of precious cargo! :P
I could barely move my baggage at this point as I had been traveling with it all day and was exhausted. I had gotten a few hours of sleep thankfully, so I was mentally alert, just had sore muscles from carting 4 heavy suitcases and a formal dress all over timbuktu.
After the airport I grabbed a taxi and headed to the ship. I was so thankful to be going to the same ship, when I saw her I felt like I was coming home. The porters gave me a cart on the gangway and I headed into the terminal building. The Vancouver terminal building is quite nice compared to Seattle and very easy to navigate heavy objects. I didn’t have to go up a crew staircase, merely haul the bags along an indoor ramp. It was a lot like the “Love Boat” where you just kind of walk across the gangway into the ship without having to go outside. Very Nice!
The night before I had received an email from my former Zaandam roommate and I was able to see some of her pictures from this past year. I deduced which person was a girl named Liz, that I’d be working with this summer, and sure enough there she was on the gangway waiting for me by the Club HAL table. I waited 10 minutes for her to finish her gangway shift and then she helped me get situated in the ship.
My room this summer is the same size as last summer, has carpet, a working air conditioner (I am glad I brought my heated blanket again!), working toilet, etc. It is also very conveniently located across from the wi-fi hotspot so I am able to use the internet in my cabin without going out into the hallway-NICE. Actually it’s very nice because I’ve got an “in” with Shore Excursions and they put me on several excursions in ports this week that have kept me from having any free port wi-fi time. The only downside is that the internet costs me $20 for every 200 minutes. If anyone wants to help in the continuation of this blog this summer with donations towards internet cards I’d be SO grateful!! Don’t all volunteer at once though, feel free to spread it out throughout the summer. I’ll give you a byline - “This week’s blog brought to you by.....”. I’m kidding of course, this blog is free, but I certainly would never turn down any donations if you really wanted to contribute! :)
Club HAL is much as it was last year, the rooms are the same and the girls I’m working with currently are very nice. So far so good!
Thursday May 24th: Day 2 - First Sea Day
All my hopes were dashed in the area of the less rocky route from Vancouver. It is the same. We actually had very NICE weather today, so I hate to imagine a bad weather day. We’ll see how the summer progresses though, I know that May and Later in August are the worst, so hopefully it will be at least a little better this summer than last.
I had my safety training this morning and then I got the privilege of selling bingo cards in the Mondrian Lounge. This year there is no cruise staff so the Club HAL staff gets pulled to do all the jobs that don’t have anyone to cover them. Overall this is actually fun, it gives me new experiences I didn’t have last year :)
The kids this week are super smart and funny. Adrienne, our five year old, is in kindergarten and can read/write/spell/do math/etc. at 2nd grade level. She is a gem. The other kids like Jordan and Ryan are perfectly in line with their age but the three get along beautifully. We have several other families on board with kids who come occasionally and they try to pull the “I’m too cool to be in a room with a slide for kids” routine, but always manage to have fun-even when they are trying hard not to show it! :)
We have an orthodontists international convention on board and so several of our kids are from South Korea and Hong Kong and don’t speak barely any English. This is quite humorous, but they are great kids and we have a lot of fun with them.
Our big theme night tonight was “Spy Night” and with the kids this means we have a little scavenger hunt in the room and down in the Lido Restaurant and they have to make all their spy gear before the hunt begins. Creating all the stuff took most of the evening, but when the kids are on a roll you go with the flow.
I was thankful for the end of the shift tonight though as the ship is gently rolling side to side continuously and so is my gut. Hopefully I’ll get my sea legs really soon. :)
Friday May 25th: Day 3 - Juneau, AK
I LOVE this itinerary. It is so much better than last year! We pulled into Juneau last year around 11:30 and it was a mad rush to get everyone through the food line and out the door to their excursions. This year we don’t arrive until 2:30pm (approx.) and so we all ate a casual lunch, had time to change clothes and relax for a few minutes, and then get off the ship. We still ended up with 4 hours off in port, which for Juneau is plenty after you’ve been there 14 times the previous summer already!!
I got on a whale watching and wildlife excursion!!!!!!! I had SO MUCH fun!
I saw some really amazing whale behaviors that are completely unusual for Alaska. The first thing we saw was cooperative feeding or group feeding. This means that the usually solitary whales were all congregating in a particular area because of an abundance of food right there. We saw “lunge feeding”. This is where the whales fly up out of the water with their mouths wide open, drink literally an olympic swimming pool amount of water, and dive back into the ocean. The baleen, the teeth of a humpback whale that is made out of keratin like fingernails, then strains the water and leaves the food. A whales gut can expand (like a pregnant belly holding septuplets) incredibly large, I couldn’t believe it. We also saw bubble net feeding where the whales all group together to blow bubbles and this “net” traps the fish so that they can’t escape. Then the whales perform the lunging behavior to eat those fish.I saw groups of 6 or more whales at a time diving, lunging, flipping their dorsals...it was amazing and beautiful. And THEN, if that wasn’t enough sea lions decided we had been ignoring them for too long and came over to our ship to show off. :)
Too cute! I loved this excursion, even though it rained the whole time it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience to see all the types of social behavior that I saw today. Normally the whales are only social in Hawaii where they mate and concentrate solely on feeding in Alaska, but with the abundance of fish here, they were all eating in the same area and it shocked even the excursion leaders.After arriving back at the pier I called home and talked to Dad for a while and then had to come back aboard to get ready for work.
Tonight's theme was Camp night. When I arrived in the room the paint bucket had been transformed into a tent and we had s'mores, and a little fake campfire that lights up and blows tissue fire upwards. Fun. Then the kids get to create the theme of the camp, draw a map of our camp, create rules for the camp and tell spooky stories in the tent before eating their s'mores and going home to bed. We had fun with the four kids that showed up.
Saturday May 26th: Day 4 - Skagway, AK
Today I didn’t have to work at all until evening programming. I had to be up early though because I was going on a scenic railway car excursion that took me all the way to the Yukon province of Canada! Wow, I’m a world traveler!
The historic railway winds its way up 3000 feet of treacherous terrain and across narrow trestle bridges before making its way to the top. Today the weather was rainy and overcast and we were literally “in the clouds” at the top. I was traveling with families from Tennessee and Australia so it was fun to see their reactions to the cold and snow. I am now a much heartier (not quite the wimpo I used to be) Milwaukee native and would venture outside with a short sleeved shirt and zip-up sweatshirt and they wore parkas and ran inside to stand by the wood stove. Yes, our train was old fashioned with a wood stove, very cute and fun. The conductor and brakeman wore old-fashioned outfits from 1800’s.
Carrying around a 70-300 mm zoom lens on a camera that also has a vertical battery grip arouses a lot of interest from fellow passengers and sparks lots of conversation. I got to talk a lot about photography, of course I’m always asked to take people’s picture, and opens up the communication in a fun way. The scary thing about being asked to take people’s picture comes when I can’t operate their point and shoot cameras. I always tease the group by saying “Yeah, all this high tech stuff I just don’t get!” It always gets a laugh cuz I’m holding a huge pro camera with big lens and i can’t operate there little teeny point and shoot!!
After the train I walked around Skagway and went across the bridge to the other side where I didn’t venture last summer on my one day in Skagway.
There was a very adorable garden 
and luncheon room with a very cute sun room where I enjoyed a private lunch of smoked salmon quiche, fresh organic greens from the garden and homemade vinaigrette dressing, foccacia bread and herbed oil dipping sauce, and delicious fresh garden rhubarb granola cake/bar dessert. Ymm, good.Our theme night tonight was Country Carnival. After all day in port it was really fun having an active theme night with games, dress up clothes, face painting, etc. I love carnival night. The kids had a great time too.
Sunday May 27th: Day 5 - Glacier Bay National Park
I’m loving everything about this itinerary so far. The spacing of port days and non port days is perfect. Today we slowly cruised around in Glacier Bay and I got a morning off. With so few kids attending we ended up with three staff with only 5 kids so I didn’t have to come in until 10:30. I had a fun surprise waiting for me as well -- I got volunteered to perform for Master Chef dinner in the Rotterdam dining room. I’d never been in the Rotterdam and had never done Master Chef dinner, but I was certainly game to try something new. If you know me at all you know how I love being “on stage”. Well, I of course had a fun floppy chefs hat and chefs coat that I got to wear and was quickly oriented on my part in this dinner production that turns each course of the meal into a musical number. It was a blast, really long waits in between courses and dinner hours, but overall a fun experience. The guests loved it and I totally hammed it up. If you have to go and make a fool of yourself you might as well have a blast doing it so that the guest laugh along with you instead of AT you!! :)
I didn’t get up to Club HAL until just about the time all the kids were leaving and they all had to tell me that they saw me in the dining room dancing with their dinner, they are so cute.
Monday May 28th: Day 6 - Ketchikan, AK
Another first for today, tendering in Ketch. We must have pulled the short straw because our ship was anchored out in the bay along with two others instead of pulled up to the pier like usual. Thank GOODNESS this is the only week we have to tender because if it could go wrong it did. The poor guest were getting so MAD at me because I made them wait in line for almost 2 hours to get a tender ticket to get off the ship. People on excursions were scared they’d miss their excursions and after paying a ton of money for the trips I don’t blame them for their anger and anxiety. I only don’t appreciate it when they take it out on me. It was so nice when one of the guest got up to me in line finally and said “finally a smiling face” (meaning one in a sea of upset guests).
It turns out that one of our tender platforms wasn’t working at all so we thought there were two platforms in operation when in reality only one was. So this made everything take twice as long. As soon as that was remedied by opening up both tender platforms on the aft deck we quickly depleted a line of 300+ people in about 10 minutes....whew! Everyone made their tours and hopefully were able to have a great day despite a rocky start.
I receive kudos from the Cruise Director, my supervisor and the Hotel Manager for my stellar customer service in the face of chaos (it was ME against the masses for most of the morning!). I had a couple moments of frustration, but otherwise smiled and talked with the guest to help them relax in line and get their mind off the wait. It seemed to work and most were appreciative of not being crammed into our small movie theater where they were supposed to be waiting. I instead left them all out in the hallways snaking halfway around the ship (very unorthodox but NOT 100 degrees with no place to sit - that would have been a heart attack waiting to happen). So, for our one time tendering this summer it went as well as could be expected with the given circumstances.
I finally got off the ship and walked in gorgeously sunny and 65 degree Ketchikan to my friendly neighborhood walmart where I purchased a pillow (I’m allergic to ship pillows) and laundry detergent. We have free laundry on the ship but have to provide our own soap. I then took the free shuttle back the 5 miles to the ship tender spot and boarded the ship an hour and a half before sail away.
I have not been neglecting to update the blog, just really busy and today was my first real opportunity to work on it. As you’ve read I’ve had a few adventures already and if this is indicative of my summer I will have many more stories to tell in the upcoming weeks!!!
So, until next time I look forward to hearing from you.
Snail mail/packages (or blog donations!!) may be mailed to:
Trisha Buster - Youth Staff
ms Zaandam
Cruiseline Agencies, Juneau
1130 Eastaugh Way #4
Juneau, AK 99802
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Cruiseline Agencies, Skagway
#1 White Pass Plaza
Skagway, AK 99840
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Cruiseline Agencies, Ketchikan
1249 Tongass Ave
Ketchikan, AK 99901
