Dateline: 2018. One of the besties I grew up with, practically at his house, is a middle school science teacher. Summers off. He goes on sea cruises during the summer, he digs them. The thought of them made me recoil, which I did each winter when he invited me to join him, sharing a cabin, splitting the costs. Never thought of them otherwise, they seemed baffling. Except. He has a serious on again / off again illness. Currently in remission. Ergo, when he asked me again the winter of 2017, I reconsidered. He said there are two primary options: Caribbean or Alaskan. Departs Miami or Alaska. Big difference. I loathe humid heat ergo I started thinking about Alaska option. Never been to Alaska. Have you? Started to seem more appealing.
Heads were nodded, tickets were purchased, the $200 wifi access pass was purchased, and so in June 2018 we flew separately to Anchorage. Me from west, he from midwest and met up at baggage claim. I recall he had been in the airport for hours, or maybe all night, waiting on luggage snafu, but we synced. He insisted on making the other travel arrangements, such as the overnight in Anchorage. I'm a former sales guy, travelled all over the usa, all modes, planes trains etc. A couple biz trips to Europe, one to Mexico City. But he asked so I let him. Ergo, we found ourselves in a downtown Anchorage hotel that seemed to be made out of cardboard. Bit my tongue, I think, and crashed. We were to meet on a nearby dt location for the bus pickup to the actual departing town/port. Anchorage in June that day? Dark & windy & chilly.
Motorcoach arrives, takes a bunch of us to someplace on the coast, a couple hours away. Arrive there and it's in the 50s and raining & windy. Sweet jebus. Brought no clothes for this. Bought a $50 hoodie seen in the pic from tourist shop. So we take an uber to the ship loading tent area, it's a 1.5 mile walk on the road even though the marina is just off the shore. Plus we had luggage. Stop me when this gets too exciting. So we unload in the rain, go into the queue area, give our bags to the bag trolley guy. I'm looking around to get a sense of my 2,000 new friends for the next week. Never been a cruiser before, I had hopes apparently, that there were groovy hepcat types I could hang out. Looking around I realized quickly I was quite mistaken. (actual ship)
This was not a spring break crowd. Presumably they book the Caribbean option. This was the retiree crowd, by the hundreds, in every direction. In hindsight this makes total sense. Here's why. What I came to learn in the next week is what a sea cruise is in practical terms: an immense floating buffet. A place where gorging is not just ok, it's expected. There were something like 7 restaurants with a large area of the upper deck dedicated to a massive buffet & seating area. It was open early until late. It became too easy to find myself up there to get a quick bite. See my other blurb on buffets btw. Here's actual raw footage of the 'washy washy' girl walking into the buffet, she so happy:
There were special feeds, such as this gnarly paella gorger:
A theatre holding hundreds put on a stand up comedy show (good!) and a magician act (good!). Weirdly good actually. Also on the ship was a yuge collection of Peter Max original art. He's the famous colorful pop artist, cranks out paintings by the bushel, here's his work via pic I took onboard. They had dozens for sale. This was after a 30 minute crash course on the history of art going back centuries, it was impressive actually. The resident art expert gave me a private tour in a separate area as he knew I'm a legit collector. Now I'm having better memories of the trip suddenly. 🙉
By the way, we booked the cheapest possible cabin. No window of course, an interior cabin. It was the size of a tiny bedroom, because that's what it was. I had a small bed fold out from the wall, that hung over his bed. Small ladder to get up there. Tiny sitting desk, tiny TV. One channel showed the captain's cockpit area view, sort of cool, if you like endless ocean. And of course a wee bathroom.
We visited Alaska's only 'living' glacier they called it. Upon leaving this view from the bay in the pic, the massive ship somehow did a static 180 spin. I wouldn't think that possible, but it indeed is. Science!
We got off the ship most days, onto a coastal town. I chatted up the locals, who told me the actual town would be a couple miles away. Where these ships stop is a faux main street that is essentially a pop up main street designed to gather tourist cash. Lotsa gift shops, local art, food joints, and that's about it. A couple cool tours of local history stuff we did.
Ok to wrap up, an actual close call. So the final stop was Vancouver. We were both flying out of Seattle later that same day. Ergo, had to get from A to B in 5 hours or whatever it was. So because my buddy booked these details, he of course booked a bus ride from Vancouver Washington not Vancouver Canada. If I had made this mistake anywhere where I worked, in intense startups, my career would have ended right then. Attention to detail is how my career maybe not thrived but was functional enough. So we took train to the bus station where of course we had no tickets. I asked her how often this happened. She replied, 'every day.' So anyhoots we bought bus tickets to Seattle and set off. Got off bus to go through customs, got back on, deposited in downtown Seattle. Oddly I spent a few months working & visiting an HQ in Pioneer Square, for a gig I had for 6 months and hated. That gig was trying to sell software to health care insurance 3rd party processors who, wait for it, processed faxed info. I was literally explaining the internet to them. In 2015(!). Actually, I may write a separate blurb about that experience.
Anyhoots! Mentioning as we walked to the same tunnel station nearby that I used then, as has the train to the airport. One of the lines in Seattle goes to and actually ends at the airport, very handy. Especially considering how brutal the traffic is there, which we watched from the train window. How anyone can live and car commute in Seattle is beyond me. But we made our flights.
Oh finally, if you find yourself in Skagway, make sure to visit the Sippin' Sasquatch java joint:
