Going South

This title is sort of misleading. Juneau was the northernmost spot, so we went straight there, and were going south the rest of the time. However, I can't really title this post Victoria, because it tells you nothing about Victoria, and is more about the deterioration of the cruise in general.

So, one thing I learned from this cruise, and I had heard it before, is that if the cruising company is foreign-owned, all of its stops cannot be US stops. Therefore, since this was Holland America, going from Seattle to Alaska, it is illegal to not hit Canada at all.

We were glad there was going to be a stop in Victoria. We had gone there many times as children. When we visited our friend in Vancouver, we had some hopes that we could take a trip there, but it was farther than we realized, so not practical. That's when I remembered that sometimes we went to Vancouver and sometimes to Victoria, but never really both.

Still, now we were going to have a chance to go back, and our friend had started taking classes in Victoria, so she had not completely relocated, but was spending a few days a week there, and we could meet up. It was a very short stop, but Victoria is a beautiful city, so wandering around a little with our friend should be just fine.

That ended up being the worst day of the cruise. First of all, we had the talk with disembarkation instructions. We were all supposed to go together, but we accidentally overslept, and I was the only one ready in time. I got out just as they stopped serving breakfast, and just as the dolphins everyone had been seeing were no longer visible. Oversleeping was our own fault, but scheduling an overly long and pointless, self-congratulatory thing with some important information during breakfast, when we were not even going to hit land until 6, is on the cruise line.

It really started the day on the wrong foot, but you need to keep going, so we went for our walk around deck, and at some point I got some varnish or something all over my purse, pants, and arm. I do blame this on the ship. At this point I ordered my sisters away, ordered room service, and took a nap. Yes, it was the last day of the cruise, but it was coming a day too late.

We were originally supposed to get into port at 6. That was moved to 7, then to 9. I don't know if the seas were rough or what. They didn't really give us any information about this. Better updates could have been good. Also good would have been them changing the Muppets Quiz to an earlier time so those people stuck waiting could participate. As it was, we waited in a long line and finally got to see our friend a little after 10, and spend about 40 minutes with, going and returning past a big and beautiful ship that had beat us into port by at least an hour.