Mendenhall Glacier

We had not booked any shore excursions for the cruise. There will be more on that later, but really the only place where we really left the initial harbor area was in Juneau, where we visited Mendenhall Glacier. 

There were a few shore excursion options for this, but we took the bus, because it was much cheaper and then you are on your own schedule rather than having to go with the tour guide’s agenda.

As you get off the boat, there are several booths for different options, including trips to the glacier. We took the white school bus one, with trips on the hour. While we were waiting for it the rain was really pouring. Somehow we lucked out though, and the rain stopped when we were actually at the glacier. 

Our driver was Tlingit, so he told us about some of the customs and history on the way, as well as the local geography. He pointed out one island off to the side, and he said beyond that there was an island with one brown bear per square mile, so approximately 1600 brown bears. This is unusual, because on the mainland it is mainly black bears. We saw some bald eagles, and also there were ravens that were just enormous. They were almost scary.

Other fun facts included that you get more tourists via ship over the summer than the entire population of Alaska, and that you cannot drive to Juneau; access is only by air or sea. Alaska Airlines is the only air option, and most things come in by barge.

At the glacier we looked around and took some pictures, then went up to the visitor center to watch a short film. It did have a strong conservation message, which I expected. If anyone is sensitive to global warming issues, it is people near glaciers. The film gives you an idea of the glacier at different seasons, with a broad overview of the wildlife, so that was nice too, as I don't think we were there are the best time of year for it (early May).

While we certainly could have done more, in Juneau and in all of our stops, I was really glad that we went here. First of all, the setting is beautiful, and worth seeing in its own right. The visitors center is really good, both for the film and for the helpful staff. Also, while there is rugged terrain, the area is overall pretty accessible, with a nice trail, and elevators. Yes, there are options for more strenuous hiking and getting more adventurous, but people at all activity levels should be able to enjoy their visit.

Cruise Lines

I'm afraid that a lot of my review of the cruise will be somewhat negative, and I want to try and be balanced with that, so I will start off by saying that a lot of it is point of view.The different cruise lines have different personalities, and that's fine, because so do people. What I am getting at is that I liked Carnival way better.

This does not make me look good. The people who prefer Holland America think of Carnival as really trashy. I think of them as snooty. It's a basic difference of opinion.

It started with the booking. The agent asked if I had been on a cruise before and I told him, and with whom, and he just went on and on about how much more I would like this, and all of the fine art on the ship, and how it would all be so much classier. It was great that he was enthusiastic.

First off, I didn't think the artwork was that great. One of the things he said was that you could check out an audio guide for a tour of the artwork, and I planned to do that, but after being around the ship for a while, I didn't want to. It's not that it was horrible, but it wasn't that great. The literature about the ship kept referring to the Waterford Crystal globe, and it's fine, but I guess I am just not that into it.

We probably just have different aesthetics. That definitely came into play on the food. The food looked great, especially the desserts, but they tasted pretty bland. I don't really like rich food. I want it to be flavorful, but not heavy. For example, and some bags taste better than others, but I prefer Hershey kisses to Godiva, for example. Hey, I have conceded that I am trashy. I spent the first six years of my life in a trailer park.

I didn't really like their food that much. This was good, actually, because it kept us from overeating, which is easy to do on a cruise. On the other hand, my brother's neighbor came along too, and he said it was the best food he had ever eaten, so, it's taste.

The other area where it was kind of disappointing was the entertainment. Cruise ship entertainment is cheesy. That's to be expected. On Carnival, they knew they were not that great, so they just tried to have a lot of fun with it and to make sure that we had fun with it. On Holland America they actually seemed to think they were good. They were wrong.

I may have been somewhat prejudiced. Our first day on board we were eating and there was an area roped off for crew, and there was a group of guys talking and being kind of catty and looking really stuck up, and it turns out they were dancers. So every time I saw the one I thought of as "Scarfy" dancing with a big grin plastered on his face, I just thought of his as a faker. Incidentally, no one thought the entertainment was good except for the entertainment staff. That's not just our group. I heard other people making fun of them too, especially the comedian.

For service, it was okay. The people who cleaned our stateroom were great. Our dining hall staff was slow, but I don't think that was them specifically. I enjoyed eating in the dining room on the Carnival cruise, here it was a chore that we did for the family togetherness.

I think my main thing with preferring Carnival was the convenience. They specifically scheduled things so they did not interfere with shore excursions, and they had two shows, so if you were the early dining you had the late show and late dining had the early show, and all of it started after you were back on board. On this cruise, there was only one show, starting at 10, and not worth staying up for. They had one thing we really wanted to do but it conflicted with the Victoria stop, and then once we were running late, you would think they could have rescheduled it, or done something to try and make the wait time a little better, but they didn't.

Some of this is actually problems with that particular cruise, I think. Later on my brother was asking one of my sisters if she would go on another cruise. She said not for a while, and he said he didn't blame her because that was not a good crew, and they really needed to start over with staffing.

I can see how that might help with entertainment and efficiency, but I think I would still find it snooty, and yet for my brother and his wife, that is the way to go. Not the snooty part - they wouldn't call it that - but the higher end experience.

One last thing, as we were getting into Victoria, another ship, Norwegian Pearl, passed us, and again, this is not just my group but the other passengers as well, felt really jealous. There they were all big and brightly colored and going faster than us. That was also the worst day of the cruise though, so timing was an element.

If there is something helpful in this, it is to find the line that is right for you before you take a cruise. I am sure Celebrity would annoy me. Disney would probably be great, but maybe not great enough to justify the extra cost. The thing is, they all know their niche, and it is something where you can get a good idea from their advertising and literature and word of mouth.

Apparently I'm the trashy party girl type. Who knew?

Go by train!

I'm moving in to writing about the cruise now, but first I wanted to cover our ground transportation. We took Amtrak from Portland to Seattle, and then back. We used taxis between the train and the ship.

Both trips went a little differently, with different good and bad parts. On the way up there was a power line down on the tracks, and that delayed us for an hour. That was nerve-wracking, because we did not know it would be an hour. We had allowed extra time, but not knowing how much we needed was scary. Once we got into Seattle, there was also a taxi shortage, so it just kept getting scarier. Several of the people in the line were also going to the ship, so we were all working on being in the same boat.

From that point on, it went really well. Our taxi driver was great. He was telling us about Kenya and fun to talk to. There was construction and detours, but it didn't stump him too much. He actually wanted to turn off the meter so he didn't overcharge us, but it was really not necessary. Soon we were at the port. Now, I do not recommend arriving that close to departure normally, but on the plus side, everyone else had already gone through, and we had no line. Sometimes things work out.

On the way back it was the reverse. We had allowed extra time, which we totally did not need, and we wanted so much to avoid spending those extra hours at the train station. We asked if there was something earlier, and we were able to switch to one leaving in fifteen minutes. That was cutting it close, but the ticket agent was great and she got us on.

Besides the speed and luck, there were two amazing things about this. One is that these tickets were cheaper, so even though there was a change fee, I got a small refund. Also, this particular train was the Coast Starlight, and we had a park ranger on it, so you could have your National Park passports stamped and ask questions. Okay, we did not take advantage of either of those things, but it's still cool.

There are two other things I will say about taking the train. One is that the price is very comparable to the bus, and yet it is considerably nice. When I was in college I took Greyhound a lot, and it was fine, but the last time I was on it was awful. It was overbooked, and they let people stand, because people would get off at the next stop, but then more people would get on anyway, and there were broken seats, and it smelled worse, and gave you a worse view of humanity.

The other thing is that the scenery is so beautiful. I don't have great pictures because we were moving, and some of it you would see from the freeway if you were in a car or bus, but not all of it. It was a gorgeous day with the sun sparkling on the water, and it just really runs along a scenic route. I guess that only matters if you like trees and mountains and rivers and sounds and stuff.

The non-train thing that was interesting was that there was the Cinco de Mayo run blocking our way to the Portland station on departure, and I think it was the Color Run blocking streets in Seattle on the return trip. There's just always something going on for runners, isn't there? When do they train?

Oh, one more thing about the train. It is amazing how close the Tacoma station is to the Chihuly Glass Museum. I think we may have to take advantage of that sometime.

Yellowstone Park and Old Faithful Geyser

Although the other attractions had been great fun, the purpose of our trip to Idaho Falls (besides seeing Jen) was to use it as the gateway to Yellowstone Park.

We started out Saturday morning, and the drive went really quickly. As we left Idaho we crossed over a tiny corner of Montana, and entered the park at about the same time we entered Wyoming.

I do not really have any pictures from while the vehicle was moving, but I have to recommend the beauty of the drive. We passed gorgeous woods and river and grass, and based on some of the shops, it appears to be good fly fishing country. We did stop to get a picture of a bison on the side of the road, but otherwise the first place we parked was the lower geyser basin.

http://www.yellowstonenationalpark.com/lowergeyser.htm

Here you find nearly one quarter of the world's geysers in a 2 square mile area, which is pretty impressive. We walked on a boardwalk path that took us past geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles.

The most amazing thing is probably the color, from the blue of Silex Spring to the reds and oranges that stain the mud in some places. I had initially thought it was because of chemical deposits, but a sign in front of one orange spread saying "Bacteria Mat" pointed me in the right direction. These are bacteria that can handle high temperatures (Silex Spring is 196 degrees), which many other living things can't. This results in an arid landscape of white skeletal trees and only a few birds flitting about, but odd bits of life do poke through, in bunches of small flowers or a dragonfly checking out the crowd. And there are green trees too.

There's something primordial and fascinating about watching the mud pots bubble and ooze, and there are frequent reminders that there are strong forces of nature operating. Red Spouter is just a baby geologically, coming from an earthquake in 1959. You can see and feel and smell the elements. Generally it smelled like fried eggs and syrup, only not delicious.

My favorite was probably the appropriately names Spasm Geyser. The opposite of Old Faithful, spasm goes constantly, and inconsistently, varying in its outbursts but not really slowing down. The pictures can't quite capture that.

Our next stop was Old Faithful itself. There is a clock and schedule you can refer to in the Cafeteria and Gift Shop building, but if you see a crowd gathered around, it is probably pretty close. We arrived just a few minutes before the next eruption, which was good timing.

So, basically you know what it is, a hole in the ground that shoots water into the air on a regular basis. The fascinating thing is that it does it so regularly, but also it is just impressive to watch. It is a lot of water, shooting up with a lot of force, and you can hear about it and not really comprehend it the way you do when you see it.

We ate lunch outside of the cafeteria, and then headed towards the visitors center. This was a fun spot with a lot of good scientific information, and strong reminders that you are on a volcano, which is good to keep in mind. One thing that the center really showed us was that we were missing a lot. Even though what we were seeing was amazing, there was more amazement to be had than we had allowed time for. Fortunately we had a good guide, and we will get her advice when we plan our return.

Our last stop was the Old Faithful Inn. From a distance it reminded us a little of Santa's Castle as seen in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (or Elf), all peaked roof and flags. Oddly, they were celebrating Christmas in August, so the theme seemed appropriate. Inside, you realize you had completely misunderstood how vast it was. The wooden staircases seem to go up forever, kind of like the world's most elegant tree house. It is popular, so you need to make reservations at least a year in advance, but it might be worth it.

As we were leaving the park we noticed cars stopping, and saw a bison, then two, and eventually four bison taking their time leaving the area, and displaying just a little bit of attitude about it. At that point, it's a gang, and they knew they were cool. We also saw some elk on the way back. No bear, but the last thing I saw was information about returning your bear spray, so that was a good reminder.

We went back past the river and woods into Idaho Falls, and ate at Wingers where we had a very nice waitress, even though she seated us in the haunted corner of the restaurant. At other meals I'd had french fries, tater tots, and hash browns, so here I finished out with mashed potatoes, which were excellent. When in Idaho, eat potatoes. The next day we were heading home.