Alaskan Cruise Part I
Ok..finally got around to sorting the pictures from the trip :P
Anyway, flew in to Vancouver where we were set to board the cruise ship Infinity. This monster carries about 2100 passengers with about 1000 crew thrown in to serve and pamper said passengers. Normally, i hate travelling with time schedules and places to be at by ie. tours. But transfer to the ship from the airport was really seamless. After checking in our baggage in NY, the next time we saw it was in our room on the ship! Excellent :) No lugging/dragging our huge bags. Prolly wouldn't fit the dignified look. Imagine people struggling up the gangway with their bags. All of us passengers were also subjected to the indignity of donning life jackets and mustering at rails on the decks where the life boats were held. Seems like it is a compulsory drill. The lifeboats were pretty tiny things that are supposed to, in a pinch, be able to carry 150 people. Right, don't think it could have taken 100. Oh wait, maybe the extra 50 comes from people trying to clamber up from the water or clinging to the rails.
Pity the net access onboard was too expensive. US$7.95 for 10 minutes or something like that....must be mad. Spent a lot of time playing ping pong with my dad. hehe...go on a cruise to play ping pong, may as well buy a table! But suddenly we had such a big table to hit onto, smashes and returns just couldn't seem to go out :P
The thing about this cruise is that the dinners are held at this gigantic classy dining hall with assigned tables complete with dedicated waiters and assistant waiters. We had a Filipino guy Cyrel as waiter and a Macedonian, Tose. The Cyrel fellow is a real prankster; managed to spill an empty goblet of rose wine on me. Righto, gave me a darn shock. Especially since i was in my sunday's best. Yeah yeah, dinner jacket and all the jazz...which i really hate. But no choice lah, jeans and collarless t-shirts banned from that restaurant. Want to wear shorts and t-shirt; go have sushi and pizza buffet :P First couple of nights i went for the semi formal dinner thingie until i got sick of dressing up and settled for sushi and pizza :P Man...food food food...the cruise was all about that for the first day as we made our way to Alaska. My favourite place was the poolside area. Oceanview Grill :)
0730 - 1000 Breakfast
1000 - 1200 Late Breakfast
1200 - 1400 Lunch 1200 - 1800 Ice Cream Parlour
1400 - 1630 Tea
1730 - 2200 Sushi
1730 - 0100 Pizza
All buffet of course :)
By the second night i was playing ping pong late into the night with these 17-19 year olds from NY.
When we walked into the room, we were like, what the hell?! Where are the 4 beds! Ahhh....first time on a cruise lah, a bit suaku, didn't know the 4th bed was hidden in the friggin ceiling! Not that we spent a lot of time in the room anyway. The service was incredible, guess the crew didn't have a lot else to do being stuck on the ship. They made the room twice a day and left chocies on each pillow every night. Even carefully placed my sister's soft toy on a pillow for her.
Took us a full day of sailing along the coastline to ge to Alaska and the glaciers. So that was a full day of stuffing food in my face. Terrible. It's a wonder the ship didn't sink.
From afar. Thought it was going to start pouring but thankfully it didn't.
Mind u this is summer, which is why the gaclier advances a little faster i guess. We managed to get to about 2 miles from the glacier's face. Might not look too big from here but it's supposed to be a fair bit taller than our ship. Wouldn't want to be caught in the wash of a calving!
Calving: When fronts of the glacier collapses into the water. U know, those National Geographic nature show type things with huge chunks of ice falling off and into the water.
The splash resulting from a bit of calving. I saw a huge double calve at the right most edge of the glacier but could not catch it on film. Before reaching the glacier, we attended a powerpoint presentation about the area. Pretty cool stuff. As it turns out, icebergs have anything from 10% - 30% of their true size above water. The variation is caused by impurities like rocks and dirt having been eroded and embedded in the advancing river of ice. Don't think we hit any really big chunks :P
Seals! Kinda like me. Blubbery, mostly lying down and spending most of their lives on ice. Like mine has been for the last 7 - 8 months :)
Ok, enough tinkering with the darn thing now that i've finally managed to get the pictures into one entry like i wanted. More about the trip tomorrow :)
Anyway, flew in to Vancouver where we were set to board the cruise ship Infinity. This monster carries about 2100 passengers with about 1000 crew thrown in to serve and pamper said passengers. Normally, i hate travelling with time schedules and places to be at by ie. tours. But transfer to the ship from the airport was really seamless. After checking in our baggage in NY, the next time we saw it was in our room on the ship! Excellent :) No lugging/dragging our huge bags. Prolly wouldn't fit the dignified look. Imagine people struggling up the gangway with their bags. All of us passengers were also subjected to the indignity of donning life jackets and mustering at rails on the decks where the life boats were held. Seems like it is a compulsory drill. The lifeboats were pretty tiny things that are supposed to, in a pinch, be able to carry 150 people. Right, don't think it could have taken 100. Oh wait, maybe the extra 50 comes from people trying to clamber up from the water or clinging to the rails.
Pity the net access onboard was too expensive. US$7.95 for 10 minutes or something like that....must be mad. Spent a lot of time playing ping pong with my dad. hehe...go on a cruise to play ping pong, may as well buy a table! But suddenly we had such a big table to hit onto, smashes and returns just couldn't seem to go out :P
The thing about this cruise is that the dinners are held at this gigantic classy dining hall with assigned tables complete with dedicated waiters and assistant waiters. We had a Filipino guy Cyrel as waiter and a Macedonian, Tose. The Cyrel fellow is a real prankster; managed to spill an empty goblet of rose wine on me. Righto, gave me a darn shock. Especially since i was in my sunday's best. Yeah yeah, dinner jacket and all the jazz...which i really hate. But no choice lah, jeans and collarless t-shirts banned from that restaurant. Want to wear shorts and t-shirt; go have sushi and pizza buffet :P First couple of nights i went for the semi formal dinner thingie until i got sick of dressing up and settled for sushi and pizza :P Man...food food food...the cruise was all about that for the first day as we made our way to Alaska. My favourite place was the poolside area. Oceanview Grill :)
0730 - 1000 Breakfast
1000 - 1200 Late Breakfast
1200 - 1400 Lunch 1200 - 1800 Ice Cream Parlour
1400 - 1630 Tea
1730 - 2200 Sushi
1730 - 0100 Pizza
All buffet of course :)
By the second night i was playing ping pong late into the night with these 17-19 year olds from NY.
When we walked into the room, we were like, what the hell?! Where are the 4 beds! Ahhh....first time on a cruise lah, a bit suaku, didn't know the 4th bed was hidden in the friggin ceiling! Not that we spent a lot of time in the room anyway. The service was incredible, guess the crew didn't have a lot else to do being stuck on the ship. They made the room twice a day and left chocies on each pillow every night. Even carefully placed my sister's soft toy on a pillow for her.
Took us a full day of sailing along the coastline to ge to Alaska and the glaciers. So that was a full day of stuffing food in my face. Terrible. It's a wonder the ship didn't sink.
From afar. Thought it was going to start pouring but thankfully it didn't.
Mind u this is summer, which is why the gaclier advances a little faster i guess. We managed to get to about 2 miles from the glacier's face. Might not look too big from here but it's supposed to be a fair bit taller than our ship. Wouldn't want to be caught in the wash of a calving!
Calving: When fronts of the glacier collapses into the water. U know, those National Geographic nature show type things with huge chunks of ice falling off and into the water.
The splash resulting from a bit of calving. I saw a huge double calve at the right most edge of the glacier but could not catch it on film. Before reaching the glacier, we attended a powerpoint presentation about the area. Pretty cool stuff. As it turns out, icebergs have anything from 10% - 30% of their true size above water. The variation is caused by impurities like rocks and dirt having been eroded and embedded in the advancing river of ice. Don't think we hit any really big chunks :P
Seals! Kinda like me. Blubbery, mostly lying down and spending most of their lives on ice. Like mine has been for the last 7 - 8 months :)
Ok, enough tinkering with the darn thing now that i've finally managed to get the pictures into one entry like i wanted. More about the trip tomorrow :)
posted by cokecat at 10:37 am
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