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Published: July 11th 2019
Mendenhall Glacier - 1
The Glacier from the shorter photo point....In my last post, we had just completed Day 2 on board and I thought that this time, rather than bore you even more silly than I have in previous episodes, by giving you a blow by blow account of each and every day of the cruise, I would take a slightly different approach. In a nutshell, I decided to wait until the cruise is finished and then provide one overall post summarising highlights/lowlights, tips and suggestions, do's and don't's and thoughts on the excursions we participated in. But firstly, an apology.......there are a lot if words in this post and........a lot of photos as well........sorry!! So, in no particular order, here goes:
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The Ship - whilst Mandy and I haven't really got any previous (large ship) cruising experience to go by, the Celebrity Millennium is, by any standards, a beautiful ship and although there were over 2,300 passengers on board, it never really felt crowded at any point. As I said in my last post, the vessel had been refurbished earlier this year and it certainly had a brand new feel to it. The passenger mix was pretty eclectic, although predominately American, with some, but not that many,
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........and nearer.... Brits that we came across; as per usual, of course, we were normally mistaken for Australians on our first encounters with our American friends, but we soon put them right. There is every possible amenity you could need on board and with so many things going on, there is little chance of you ever getting bored, assuming you wanted to join in, of course. Whilst not blazing sunshine, the weather was pretty reasonable and the sea very calm and even when the swell did pick up, we rarely felt any movement on the ship.
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Dining - the ship has a number of restaurant options, ranging from casual to more formal, although the 'formal' is really only smart casual. We tended to use the Oceanview Cafe for breakfast and lunch, with this set out on a hot and cold buffet style, with food to suit all tastes, while in the evening, we dined at the Metropolitan Restaurant, with proper 'silver service' and an A La Carte menu. The food really was astonishingly good and if you were so inclined, you could 'eat for England' or indeed, any other country, for that matter. We had chosen the
'Celebrity Select Dining Mendenhall Glacier - 3
.....and from nearer still. Package' when we booked, which gave us 'free' access to all of the dining options, other than a handful of speciality restaurants which you could book at an additional cost, if you so desired, although we didn't bother.
The only negative aspect of dining at The Metropolitan in the evening, was getting a table at peak times. On our first night, we got a great table for the five of us at around 8pm and the head waiter and his team that looked after us were brilliant (see later), so we were keen to be looked after by them on subsequent visits. We were able to book a time for the following nights, but they couldn't guarantee a particular table (or area of tables), so this did involve us having to wait for a while on most nights. However, the delay was worth it, because we had a really great experience on every evening and built up an excellent rapport with the staff.
Dress code is an interesting issue, with Celebrity adopting a more relaxed approach to the two 'formal evenings', which they have renamed 'Chic Nights'. If you wished to, you could go the whole hog and
wear tuxedo and ball gown, but we didn't see anyone go that far. Instead, Celebrity were looking for men to wear a minimum of smart trousers with a long sleeved, button down shirt and optional jacket and for ladies, cocktail dresses or smart trousers and chic top. Most people dressed appropriately, but there were exceptions and it was a little disappointing that they weren't asked to change - this isn't being pompous, but if most people make the effort, it's a shame when some don't. On the other nights, the dress code for men did allow short sleeved shirts or smart polo shirts, with smart casual trousers and for ladies it was just a notch down from Chic Night and on these nights, some guests really did take the mickey, with flip flops, fleeces, tee shirts etc., all on show. At the end of the day, people are on vacation and they should be able to relax, but..........
Away from the main restaurants, you could get food of one variety or another, from meals to snacks, at pretty much any time, day or night, if you really wanted it, including room service in your stateroom, if that was what
you preferred.
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Drinking - yep, there was a bit of drinking going on and here again, there was plenty to choose from. When we booked, Celebrity were offering 'free' upgrades to their
Classic Drinks Package for two passengers in each stateroom, as an incentive to book. To be honest, the 'small print' of this package was not that clear on the website, but as it turned out, it was really quite straightforward. Essentially, the package entitles the individual to purchase any drinks from the Classic Drinks Package Menu (pretty much anything you could want, with the exception of some premium brands) with a cost of $9 or less, at no charge. There were a small number of drinks costing up to about $12 and if you wanted these, you would be billed for the extra cost above $9, but we never needed to.
We had understood that although our drinks would be free (within the package), a 20%!t(MISSING)ip would be charged on every drink, but it soon became apparent that this wasn't the case. We had, in fact, chosen to prepay our tips for the restaurant and cabin staff when we booked, at a cost of
Glacier Gardens - 1
The Flower Towers........ $120 each passenger and whilst this might seem quite a lot and a bit premature 'paying in advance' for service you haven't had yet, it actually worked really well. Whilst, we were prepared for the 20% tip being levied on all drinks, it seems that this was covered in the Select Dining Package/Classic Drinks Package and it was a cost that we didn't have to worry about after all!
The Classic Drinks Package should be fine for most people, but think twice before having one person in your party on that package and the rest on the cheaper non-alcohol package, working on the basis that the person with the CDP would go to the bar and order alcoholic drinks for the rest of the group as well - it doesn't work that way. In essence, each person's SeaPass Card has to be handed over to the waiter or bar tender, i.e. one card per drink and the card shows which drinks package that person is entitled to and if one individual looks to go to a bar to order a round of drinks, that person would need to be in possession of all SeaPass Cards for the entire group.
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.......and more..... *
The Crew - there is only one phrase to describe the crew on the ship and that is 'absolutely fantastic'! Nothing was too much trouble and all of the crew that we came into contact with were, without exception, extremely friendly and pleasant and spoke (and joked!) in excellent English; from Frederick (a Filipino and the chief steward looking after our cabin), who called me by my name the very first time I came out of our cabin, through to the young lady sorting out tables at the Metropolitan (who remembered our cabin number after the first night) and to Nolasco and Lee Christy (both from India) the two waiters who looked after us every night and Lludmyla (from the Ukraine) our Sommelier for the week, they were all brilliant. Whilst these were the members of the crew with whom we had daily contact, everyone else we came into contact with (at every level) were so helpful and friendly and I have nothing but the highest praise for all of them and indeed for Celebrity, whose training programme must be top notch.
Nolasco and Lee Chisty were absolutely top drawer, remembering all our names after the first
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.........and even more..... night (Steve and I were, 'Sir Steve' and 'Sir Paul'!!) and Lee Christy in particular, was a big cricket fan, so was keeping us informed on progress in the Cricket World Cup every night, much to Mandy and Lily's despair! LC's home was in Mumbai (where his young wife was living and who he wouldn't be seeing again until December, at the earliest!), although, he was born in Bangalore and near a paricular suburb where Lily still has family connections, so they were chatting away about that link, like mother and son! Lludmyla was a little reserved at first, but it WAS her very first week on the ship and she was really finding her feet. In any event, she soon warmed up and after finding a red wine that we loved on the first night, she had it ready to pour out for us on every other night, before we had even asked for it! Nolasco took all our food orders and again after the first night, knew how we wanted our meat cooked (if we were having meat, of course) and with Lily being allergic to Salmon and Anchovies, he would bring the next night's menu at the
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........yet more..... end of each night's meal, so that she could choose what she wanted and he could then double check that there were no ingredients that could be problematical - another good reason for us having the same table every night.
We had some great photos with these guys on the last night and we can honestly say that they were a highlight of the trip.
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Excursions - the itinerary of the cruise, started at Seward, then day 2 was at sea (including the Hubbard Glacier visit), day 3 was in Juneau, day 4 Skagway, day 5 Icy Strait Point, day 6 Ketchikan, day 7 at sea cruising the Inside Passage and day 8 arriving in Vancouver. Incidentally, the Inside Passage is the name given to the stretch of water which weaves between the southern end of mainland Alaska/ British Columbia and various islands, including Vacouver Island and is used by shipping (especially cruise ships) to avoid the potential for bad weather in the open Pacific Ocean. As you would expect, Celebrity offers a whole range of excursions at every port of call, with prices ranging from a relatively moderate sum to trips that can cost hundreds of
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.......and more still! dollars! It is, of course, possible to book any trips that you wish go on when you arrive and with local suppliers, but from what I heard, there were a couple of distinct advantages in using the Celebrity option, namely (a) there didn't seem to be any major difference in price, certainly not with the major suppliers and (b) in the event that there was a delay getting back from a tour that could result in you missing the ship's departure, it is clearly far more likely that the ship would wait for a Celebrity delayed tour, than a private tour.
We opted for a total of four tours, which we booked quite a while before we travelled to ensure they were available and there was room on each trip for all 5 of us. We chose one at Juneau, two at Skagway and one at Icy Strait Point and Celebrity's organisation in getting us to each of the 'start points' on time and without any hassle, was very slick. So, how about a few highlights from each of our tours:
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Mendenhall Glacier and Glacier Gardens, Juneau: this was a two part trip, lasting about four hours
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And one they call the Flower Tower Shower! in total. Our coach driver Zach was really good value and a real joker, with plenty of good one liners, mostly at the expense of Juneau, a city that grew out of the Klondyke Gold Rush and was originally a mix of bars and brothels! Apparently during the Gold Rush, there were about five men to every woman in town and according to Zach, this led to a phrase said to have originated then and oft repeated by women throughout Alaska today........'the odds were good, but the goods were odd!'. Today, it is mainly bars and jewellery stores - the brothels weren't immediately obvious any longer! The town is only a very short walk from the cruise ships and there were 4 ships docked, including ourselves and Royal Carribean's 'Ovation of the Sea', a ship capable of carrying more than double the number on the Celebrity Miilennium. It didn't quite dwarf our ship, but wasn't far off it! Zach gave us a brief tour of the city before heading off to the Glacier and on passing the pretty ugly 'City Hall', Zach mentioned that it had been voted the '50th most beautiful State Capital in the USA!', ha ha.
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The view back to the ship from the Gardens' viewing platform.... The ride to the Glacier didn't take very long at all, because the fact is you can't actually go very far at all out of Juneau by road and here is the answer to one of my earlier quiz questions - the unusual thing about the Juneau road network is that you can't get anywhere by road from Juneau, because.......there simply aren't any roads leading any place! Our first stop was the Mendenhall Glacier, not a 'Hubbard' by any means, but still a 14 mile glacier that flows into Mendenhall Lake. On arrival at our destination, we had a one mile walk (or a shorter quarter miler to a photo point if you preferred) to the edge of the lake which gave us the closest view of the glacier that we could get, plus a close up of the adjoining Nugget Falls, a waterfall nearly 400 feet high. Some good pics and then we walked back to the coach for the next leg, our visit to Glacier Gardens, a botanical garden set in a small corner of the Tongass forest, the second largest, temperate rainforest in the world, after the Amazonian Rainforest.
The gardens opened in 1998, (after being
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......and the view over the 'International Airport'! purchased as a 50 acre section of storm damaged land and forest by local landscape designers, Steve and Cindy Bowhay in 1994) and have a unique feature, developed out of a fit of anger! Apparently, when clearing the storm damaged land, Steve nearly wrecked a $250,000 digger that was on hire and uninsured (!) and in a fit of pique, picked up a fallen tree trunk with the digger and rammed it into a hole in the ground upside down, with the roots at the top. This design subsequently became the basis for the 'flower towers' across the gardens, which have up to 200 different flowers growing in the roots of each tower - a design which we felt reminded us of the fantastical 'Gardens by the Bay' in Singapore. The gardens were lovely and after a short walk and talk at the bottom of the mountain, we then boarded what was effectively a large golf buggy and were driven through the garden, up the mountainside, with a really informative talk on the way. At the top, there was a large viewing platform, with great views back down the valley and across the city, even down to our ship in
Glacier Gardens - 9
Not a bad view in the gift shop either! the distance, although once again the smoke from further up the coast was still a factor. We also had a good view of Juneau's 'international airport', with the airport getting the 'international' moniker after an Air Canada flight had to make a forced landing there some years ago - how true this is I'm not sure because we had the same story for Skagway's 'international airport'! but who cares, it's a good story! This was a terrific tour and really good value, comparatively!!
Zach dropped us back in downturn Juneau to give us a chance to have a look around and after a bit of retail therapy and a coffee stop, we caught the free shuttle back to the ship. There is an aerial tramway up Mount Roberts, but after being told that we would be unlikely to get any better view than we had already had back at the top of the gardens, we decided to pass (and save $35 per person!).
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Skagway Street Car Tour: Skagway is another town built on the back of the Gold Rush, but unlike Juneau (population about 30,000 and very commercialised), Skagway is a tiny community of no more than
Juneau - 1
Two old timers about to mosey into the saloon! 1500 people and the town is only 4 blocks wide and 8 blocks (about a mile) end to end. Whilst most of the main streets are still designed like buildings from the original Gold Rush period, they do look authentic (and in many cases are) and not just some 'theme park' version and the very good news is..........there are far less jewellery stores than in Juneau, although there are still some! It is, in fact, a lovely little place and by all accounts, has a very strong community ethic, especially during the long and rough winter months.
We were a little worried when we arrived at the end of the pier to board our tour bus, a lovely old and original vehicle, with Valerie our driver in period dress, but with only about 10 of us on board; we really wondered if this was going to be a bit of a damp squib! But we needn't have been concerned. Valerie was a real bundle of laughs, imparting lots of good info about the town and its' history in a fun and enjoyable way. If she wasn't an actress, she really should be! We were taken around all the key
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The cable car up Mount Roberts, that we didn't bother with. parts of the 'city' in much the same way as entrepreneur (and founder of the Steetcar Company) Martin Itjen did, when he painted his coal truck yellow and called it a street car, to give a tour to President Harding when he visited Skagway for a whole 3 hours in 1923 - Harding famously hated the place, but the locals still named one of the mountains after him.
One key place that we visited was the Gold Rush Cemetary, where two characters from the most famous gun fight in Skagway's history are buried; a gun fight in 1898 where 'Soapy' Smith a notorious con man and Frank Reid, the town's hero (who was later found to have been a murderer on the run and as much of a rogue as Soapy, but a hero nevertheless because he killed Soapy), both died from their wounds in the fight. Valerie was in her absolute element telling this tale with as much high drama as she could manage. The tour also took as up to a look out point over the town, which gave us the opportunity for yet more snaps. After finishing a really enjoyable 90 minute tour, Steve asked if
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The good old Celebrity Millennium docked in Juneau. he could have a picture with Valerie outside the vehicle. When she asked how he would like her to pose, Steve said 'how about draped across the bonnet', which meant nothing to her, other than her 'hat', of course! When Steve explained what he meant, she dissolved in laughter, hence the picture attached. A really good tour and excellent value. Valerie dropped us off in downtown after the tour, giving us the chance to have a good look round, grab an ice cream and buy a few souvenirs!
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The White Pass and Yukon Railway: after popping back to the ship for some lunch, we were back out in the afternoon for our second tour in Skagway, namely a journey into the Yukon on the White Pass and Yukon Railway, a railway system designed to get gold prospectors up to the gold fields in a few hours, as opposed to the weeks or months it could take normally on foot or mule. The railway took two years to build (which sounds incredibly quick to me, bearing in mind the route up into the mountains), by which time the gold rush was over!! The track was mainly used for carrying
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And the Millennium in Skagway, ironically behind the 'Small Ships Harbour' sign!! freight thereafter, but today, of course, it is a tourist route and a very good one.
When I was first researching this trip, I found out about the WPYR and thought that this was a journey I really wanted to do. However, it turns out that not all cruise ships stop at Skagway, although fortunately, Celebrity do and this was another reason for sailing with them. The trip we did travelled as far as a place called Fraser in the mountains and the journey is truly spectacular, with some incredible views. The railroad does have some original steam locomotives, but these days most engines are diesel (although the classic Amercian type of diesel trains, much like the Coastal Classic train engine we had from Anchorage to Seward, as opposed to modern day diesels), but the carriages are all original from the period, with the great thing as far as I was concerned, being the footplate at the back of each carriage where we could stand outside to take pictures. Fraser is actually over the Canadian border and we had to take our passports, which were checked by border guards on arrival in Fraser, after which we left our train
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This seems to be how they walk their dogs in Skagway! and got back on our coach for the ride back to Skagway. This took us back across the boarder but this time we didn't have to show our passports - go figure?!!
Two great tours in a really lovely place and well worth it.
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The Spasski River Valley Wildlife Tour, Icy Strait Point: Icy Strait Point is unusual in this Alaska cruise, in that it is the only destination that is privately owned, in fact, owned by the 1350 native Alaskans, mostly from the Tlingit people and who live in the nearby village of Hoonah. There really isn't much at Icy Strait Point, other than the newly built floating dock to accommodate the cruise ships (and we were amazed how close the ships were to the shore and how quickly the water must get very deep) and the visitor centre and numerous gift shops, plus a new, mile long zip line for the more adventurous types. Having said this, it is an extremely beautiful spot and we were there to do this one tour, which was primarily to search for Coastal Brown Bears.
Our guide was a young guy called Ben (or a young Freddie Flintoff
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One of Skagway's buildings...... as I thought!) and he had two colleagues with him carrying guns for our protection - in 15 years of doing this tour, they have never had to use the guns, but we were potentially dealing with wild animals and, they were prepared just in case. If the truth be known, Ben was the least chatty of all the guides we had had on the whole vacation, but perhaps he had to be a bit more serious in view of the potential risks involved. We drove for about 30 minutes and after a little welcome talk from one of the guides (who happened to be from the Tlingit tribe), we were off into the trees to look for bears. In actual fact, we soon reached a boardwalk, which would take us over a peat bog area and then down to a series of viewing platforms alongside the Spasski River. It was a very picturesque spot and a lovely nature walk whether we saw any bears or not, but we did we see any bears............no, we didn't! Not a sausage! Personally, I think the Bears were all on a viewing platform in the trees on the other side of the river,
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Me entering the infamous Red Onion Saloon, the main brothel of its time! laughing at the stupid humans looking for them!!
The trip was obviously a bit disappointing in that we didn't see the Bears, but it was still worth doing, albeit the price is only really worth it, if you get the prize of seeing the Coastal Bears.
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Ketchikan: the last stop on the cruise was the small town of Ketchikan which, rather grandiosely calls itself 'Alaska's First City', but only because it is the first city reached in Alaska, if you approaching from the south. After decent weather at the other stops, our arrival in Ketchikan was greeted with, very low, dirty grey cloud and a few spots of rain, but surprisingly not much rain at all for a place that has the nickname, 'Rain Capital of Alasaka'. The clouds were so low in fact, that we could barely see half way up the surrounding mountains. But, we had no trouble at all in seeing the town, because the cruise ships are berthed literally on the doorstop of the main shopping street, so close that I could have actually picked up the WiFi of the nearest shop to our cabin.........if only I had the password!!
Lumber, fishing
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Never mind selling tours....... and tourism are the three main industries, but fishing is the most important, with Ketchikan also carrying the soubriquet of 'Salmon Capital of the World'. Whether that is true or not, I have no idea, but we were told a neat way of remembering the five different types of Alaskan Pacific Salmon which are, Chum, Sockeye, King, Silver and Pink and that is by using your left hand:
Chum is your thumb, because it rhymes;
Sockeye is your index finger, because it is the finger you would use to poke or punch someone in the eye;
King is your middle finger, or biggest finger;
Silver is your ring finger, because that is where you would usually put a silver band; and
Pink, is your little finger, or your pinkie.
Completely useless in many ways, but neat nevertheless!
We didn't have any excursions booked in Ketchikan, although we had decided to leave our options open on a seaplane flight over the Misty Fjords National Monument (a flight over the nearby glacier and landing on a lake in the middle of the mountains), because it was hugely expensive and there seemed little point in wasting
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'Broadway' in Skagway..... money if the weather was bad. As it turned out, we were satisfied that we had made the correct decision. There were plenty of 'salmon based excursions' but with Lily being allergic to the fish, there seemed little point in going on these and we all decided that the 'lumberjack show' was a bit too corny for us. So instead, we had a wander around town and had a bit more retail therapy, where we did manage to find some WiFi and catch up on messages and stuff. We did split up for a while and after looking around the few main streets, I found a coffee shop to sit and catch up on a bit of blogging, while Mandy went further towards the back of the town and found a small waterfall, nice bridge and lots of old houses built on stilts.
After a morning in the town, we went back on board ship for lunch and then popped back out again to buy a couple of cushion covers that Mandy really liked, but needed my opinion on - goodness knows why, but need it she did! Ketchikan is an odd place, not particularly pretty and with the
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And more of Broadway. types of shops we have become used to on this cruise, but nevertheless it was oddly interesting and had the benefit of some WiFi..........although, how sad is that?!
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Miscellaneous thoughts - both our cabins were on the port side, thinking that we would be facing land most of the time as we traveled south and whilst this was true, it really didn't matter. When we were in the open sea, we were really too far from land for it to make any significant difference and when we were heading to ports or through the Inside Passage, there was land close by on either side.
- We did see some wildlife in the sea with a couple of whale and seal sightings, plus quite a few bald eagles, but there wasn't quite as much wildlife spotted whilst at sea as I thought there might be.
- The procedure for disembarkation is that you leave your main luggage outside your cabin on the last night (keeping an overnight bag with essentials) and the next time you should be reunited with your luggage, should be on the quayside as you disembark. However, if you want to get away first
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Looking the other way down Broadway, with train passing across a mountain. and are happy to take your own bags off down the gangway, then just ask for an early departure at Guest Relations. It was well worth it for us.
- Hygiene is taken very seriously on board and dispensers dishing out hand sanitiser are positioned throughout the ship, a bit like in a hospital. In addition, whenever we came back on board, more sanitiser was dispensed before you were asked to flash your SeaPass card.
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Entertainment - there was plenty of live entertainment on the ship, with a classical duo, an acoustic duo, a solo guitarist, a band playing more jazz orientated music and the house band 'Bristol Fashion' playing pop and rock, both old and new. They all took turns in playing in the wide range of different bars and lounges around the ship and they were really not that bad. In particular, Bristol Fashion were the stand out performers and this delighted Steve, bearing in mind that they actually were from Bristol, England, his home town.
The main source of live entertainment was in the Celebrity Theatre, located at the aft of the ship over two decks. Live shows took place at seven and
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Our battle bus for tour... nine each evening and we tended to go to the 7 o'clock show, before we went off to dinner. In additional to the ship's company of singers and dancers (who were really pretty good) who did shows on three separate nights, there were a couple of solo singers and two comedians (who we didn't see) and an acrobatic act starring Alex and Yulia, both from Russia. Acrobats are not normally my thing but these two put on an incredible show of strength and daring and were really impressive In a Cirque de Soleil style.
The Entertainments' Director was a Mexican chap called Manuel who spoke very good English and was actually pretty amusing. His number two was a Brit called Tim and he was very good value also, putting on various quizzes and game shows between them. Whether you join in these sort of things is entirely up to the individual, but the fact is there are plenty of options for all tastes on board. One game that was played involved throwing bean bags from about 15 metres onto a small raised platform with a ten inch diameter hole in it, the aim being to get the bags into
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Valerie telling her dramatic tale of the two gunslingers! the hole.......quite simple really. On one occasion, we all happened to be on the swimming pool deck and the bean bags were lying there unused and Steve and I decided to have a go and after several throws, we had been pretty accurate, but neither if us had managed to get one in the hole so far. Then Mandy decided to have a go. Now, based on past experience, I expected the bean bag to be either launched into the swimming pool or one of the hot tubs, or more likely straight back over her own head and over the side of the ship! But no, Mandy takes aim, has a deep breath and then tosses the bag straight through the hole, first time, no messing. Steve and I were stunned and Mandy decided to rest on that 100% success rate!
Our last full day on board was 4th July and with the majority of passengers being American, Celebrity understandably, went to town, with US bunting and flags dotted around the ship, some specialty Fourth of July food in the Oceanview Cafe and a special show by Bristol Fashion at the top of the stairs to the Grand Foyer
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The view back to the ship from the Skagway overlook. covering decks three and four at ten that night, starting with a red, white and blue balloon drop for the kids and then a super rendition of the star spangled banner by professional singer Anne Steele and I have to say that although it is easy to mock the Americans, all of those crowded around the balconies overlooking the Grand Foyer, sang their National Anthem with a pride, respect and total enthusiasm that was humbling to watch. What was even better though occurred just before the anthem, when the ship's DJ had been playing a number of rousing American Rock and Country tracks, with the last one being Don McLean's full length version of American Pie, with everyone singing along. It almost brought a tear to the eye!
It was a terrific way to end an amazing time on the Millennium, a time that we will never forget, although I don't think it will change our view about cruising. This was a one-off in a very special place and we wouldn't want to spoil our memories by trying to replicate the experience somewhere else. We arrive in Vancouver first thing tomorrow morning and Steve, Lily and Sarah are then
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Valerie reacting to being asked to drape herself over the bonnet! flying home to Manchester, while Mandy and I have another six days to go on Vancouver Island and in Vancouver itself, with an early departure from the ship tomorrow at 8.00am in order to catch our ferry to the island. So it was hugs and kisses and fond farewells with the Forbes Clan tonight. It has been another great holiday with them, having great fun, a few scrapes, seeing some amazing places and culminating with a terrific cruise. Thanks so much Steve, Liliy and Sarah and here's looking forward to our next adventure.
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