Inside the Inside Passage

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We are finally catching up in the sleep-department after our marathon journey to the West Coast, and are looking forward to the first sea-day unhurried by tour itineraries of a port-of-call. Outside we were impressed by the closeness of the shores on either side of the ship as we traverse the Inside Passage in these scenic Canadian waters. Breakfast for us begins at 8AM in the main dining room where I had eggs Benedict and Sharon had the American breakfast, but her eggs were a bit too runny for her. She of course began the meal with a chocolate croissant. Afterwards we took in more scenery on the Lower Promenade deck, taking some pictures, and waving at some passengers on some smaller water-craft. At 10AM we went through the Seymore Narrows, and again, the weather was chilly but clear with wonderful visibility. We were both wearing our light jackets.

We made our way the Explorations Café and tried our hands at the Daily Sudoku. Sharon doesn’t like these pen and paper challenges, because her rapid-fire mouse skills at filling in solution sets don’t help her.

Sharon went to the Meet-and-Greet of the Cruise Critic followers/contributors where they served complimentary mimosas. John was taking a brief nap to deal with a mild headache, but he joined the group in time to say hello.

We headed down to what turned out to be nice and leisurely two hour lunch seated by the starboard-side window. We were joined by a couple from the Cruise Critic meeting who are from Kansas City. John thought the chicken & curry appetizer with Naan bread sticks was a quite tasty Indonesian treat, his cheddar crab soup was also yummy, and best of all was the coconut crusty tilapia. Sharon ordered the fried calamari with marinara sauce (yes, John helped her eat all of that). It was the lightest crispiest calamari he’d ever tasted, portioned in a tortilla shell just right for an appetizer. Sharon delighted in her pear cherry soup, served cold, which she claims to be her favorite. And then there was the steak sandwich incident… nowhere in the description did it mention the sandwich was to be served with mustard on the bread (much less top and bottom). Although our tablemates found it quite tasty, it didn’t help Sharon deal with the mustard, which had touched not only the top of her steak, but the bottom as well. The tilapia was the hands down winner in this menu, and I think even Sharon would have enjoyed it, if she ordered fish, which she doesn’t except for fish and chips. She is Catholic after all and during Lent we help out at St. Mary’s fish fries back home in Ohio.

I had just enough time to get to my massage, fifteen minutes early as they recommend. Unfortunately, this meant that we missed the first day of trivia. My massage therapist was Kristen, whose name at least will not raise the eyebrows like the name of my first therapist on the Volendam on our first cruise together during our engagement. This was a Valentine’s day gift to me from Sharon, and the therapist’s name was Elvira, a petite Asian girl, and Sharon’s co-workers kidded her about allowing her fiancée to be massaged by someone named Elvira. This massage was very good, but it would have a ways to go to compare to what Elvira did for me. She got rid of the chronic ache in my lower left back by balancing on my back on her knees. This pain had been with me for about 8 years, and went back to an old high school injury that would flair up occasionally, and then eventually stayed with me. This was the reason for the present in the first place, because during our Skype sessions I would be squirming trying to find some relief for my back. Well, Elvira fixed all that, and it hasn’t come back to plague me since.

Sharon tried a quick chance at the casino while I was at my massage and I guess caused a bit of commotion. She went to cash out her machine by pressing the Collect button which proceeded to start paying her out in 400 nickels. Of course these machines aren’t supposed to pay out in coins as it’s supposed to go onto your room key. She hadn’t put in her room key yet (figured it would ask her to when it needed it). So they had to get the manager to go get more coins in the machine to finish paying out and give her instructions on using the card (not that she needed them) and get a bucket for the 400 coins so she could cash them in. While in line to cash them out two other women came up asking where she’d got the bucket. Seems they’d done the same thing so she wasn’t alone. I guess the machines on the older ships have been retrofit to use the cards but they haven’t disable the original payout buttons which surprised even the workers there. And to make it all worse she’s still $20 down already.
When I returned from my massage, yes, Sharon wanted to know this one’s name, we went out on the Lower Promenade to take a few pictures, and then headed to the front of the ship to try our luck at Bingo in the Queen’s Lounge. Prices have gone up: One card (4-games) for $15 or three cards for $25. We each played three cards. DJ Mike was the caller, using one of the older mechanical bingo machines, and not the computerized ones on the newer HA ships. It’s the same rules as on our other cruises, you “poke-and-fold” the numbers. They encourage people to stand when they need just one number, and I actually got to stand a couple of times. I even had two cards in one game that needed just one number; unfortunately, it was the same number. Sharon hasn’t been living up to her successes of the past though.


We also found a notice in our mail indicating that our Tour in Juneau has been canceled. We knew we were taking a risk booking the Helicopter/Dog Sled tour in Sep but with the rain they’ve had they have now had to shut down the camp for the season. We’ll try to do this tour the next trip here and will look thru the tour list tomorrow to see what we want to book as a replacement.
Mass continued in the Queens Lounge immediately following Bingo. Being a Vigil Mass (Sharon says this means you can go Saturday night and therefore do not need to go on Sunday), and I guess they figured to get a large Catholic holdover from the Bingo game. One couple came in just as mass was to start. They had stopped by the theater where mass is usually held but they were having a wine tasting there. And with over fifty attending the mass, it looks like it worked. Now there is one thing that you should know about the Queens Lounge, and they may want to rethink the décor if they plan to hold masses here in the future, and that is the many gold colored topless mermaids that adorn the lounge including two two-story sized ones on either side of the stage, just behind the altar set in front of the stage. Their arms a stretched to the sides and up and appear to be supporting a crystal globe on their shoulders. Do you get the picture, I mean do you? Not that dissimilar from the often gold figure with arms stretched to the side and up and appearing behind altars at church. Today we got a correction as to the spelling of Father’s name, I wonder if he reads our blog… It’s spelled the same way as the former mayor of New York, Father Koch (pronounced Coke), but he says the former mayor didn’t know a lot of things including how to pronounce his name.

Being a sea-day, this was a formal dining day, and with mass ending at 6PM and John being ever so slow in dressing in his formal duds, Sharon thinks this is hilarious, but she did a much better job of arranging the formal tux bow-tie than the best man at the wedding… Hi Ron, remember the fun we had with that! The “splash-of-color” was gold to go with Sharon’s Top. When we got to the dining room, they were full… I’d never had that happen before, they gave us a pager and we had to wait, and there were others waiting… including Bob and Val from the night before. We chatted a bit, and then they were paged, and we were paged, and we had dinner with Bob and Val. The subject of massages naturally came up, and then the story about Elvira, and it turned out that Val had had an Elvira as a massage therapist on the Niew Amsterdam, and some more discussion determined it was the same Elvira. In all likelihood, I could have had Elvira give me a massage on our honeymoon last October! For dinner, I had the jumbo shrimp cocktail for starters, three very delicious plump shrimp and some tangy cocktail sauce, but it needed much more horseradish to suit me. Sharon started with the crab cake, which I was more than happy to eat for her… did I mention that Sharon really doesn’t care for seafood, but after the steak fiasco at lunch I was worried she might find something she liked. For my second course I tried their Gold Rush Soup, a creamy tomato based soup with creamy Yukon potatoes and spices which was very tasty. For my entrée I had the mushroom ravioli in crème sauce, which went well with the Shiraz I had chosen, and Sharon had the rack of lamb with very thick chops which she said were delicious. Neither of us had to look past the first line of the desert menu, selecting the chocolate soufflé with chocolate sauce… Yummy. And the recommended cordial, the Rattlesnake (Kahlua, Irish Crème and Frangelico), sounded like it would go well with the soufflé, and it did! We missed the 7:30PM show and captain’s toast, because of our late start to dinner, and (Linda, you better sit down) John didn’t feel like going to the casino. Okay, so on past cruises I haven’t done well on the first night. So we retired early. There was no way we were going to make the late show.

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