Thursday – Cruising the Inside Passage

First off, here’s a map of our cruise.

Today we are sailing the Inside Passage. No port today, but we have land on both sides of the ship most of the time. It’s quite beautiful. The seas are relatively calm, but we can tell we are on a ship. It’s not like the cruise in Norway when there was barely a ripple in the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea, and the North Sea. It was fogged in when we got up this morning, and the fog horn was blaring. But the sun has burned it off, and by 11:00 am it was quite pleasant. Elaine went for a walk on the Deck Two jogging path – four laps to a mile. I wandered around taking some ship pictures and random shots of the shoreline.

Here’s a couple of pictures from our stateroom – 5088. Always good to have a shot of the toilet!

These pictures are from Deck One. (Viking Ships have ten decks – deck A and Decks one through nine.) The bar is the Living Room where we have our nightly pre-dinner cocktails. The two specialty restaurants are here as well – Manfredi’s (Italian but with a GREAT steak) and the Chef’s Table (set meals with rotating regional themes). Maybe I’ll make it to the treadmills in the gym someday.

Random shots on my walkabout.

Remember this old friend from our cruise in Norway in May?

Lunch was in the World Cafe, the very casual buffet style restaurant. I had BBQ flank steak with German potato salad and French bread. Very international of me. Elaine had delicious looking sea bream. We had beers and indulged in gelato for dessert. After a short nap, we headed to the Star Theater for a lecture on Russia’s conquest of Siberia and eventually Alaska. Russia ended its foray into North America by selling Alaska to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million (or $0.02 an acre), the famous Seward’s Folly. (Interestingly enough, the sale was approved by the US Congress by just one vote.) Russia really had no idea what they were selling to us and we had no idea what we were buying. After the lecture we went back to the room and sat out on the balcony for awhile. It was cool but not unpleasant. We have a complimentary bottle of champagne in the fridge, but we decided to save it for another day.

Cocktails were at 5:30 pm in the aforementioned Living Room Bar. We decided that dinner would be back in the casual World Cafe. They had delicious lamb chops as one of the choices. Amaretto was in the Explorer’s Lounge after dinner.

All-in-all, a very nice day in every regard. Early to bed after turning back the clock an hour as Alaska is one hour earlier than the US and Canadian west coast. There will be lots of clock turning back once we head out to the Aleutians and across the Pacific.

See you tomorrow from Ketchikan, Alaska.

5 thoughts on “Thursday – Cruising the Inside Passage

  1. Very nice stateroom (and toilet)! Great pix on your walkabout.

    Hello again, bighorn Norwegian Viking sheep.

    I remember learning about Seward’s Folly in school. What a great bargain.

  2. That’s primo whale watching too, at the breakwater there. Get those binoculars out. Food sounds good. We are interested in happy hour as that’s our ship in 2026. Cozy? Good bartenders? Enjoy Ketchikan, doing an excursion? The crab men were fabulous as was the visit to the oyster farm. CHEERS, weather looks marvelous. Amazing about that fog, we had it too in early August!

    1. Bartenders excellent. Happy hour is any hour. Yes, doing an excursion in Ketchikan. Read about it tomorrow. There are going to be three other ships in port with total capacity over 8,000 people. That’s more than Ketchikan’s population.

  3. I am a little late for the voyage but we just returned from New Mexico. Glad to see you are on your way. Safe travels you two.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *