Alaskan Cruise – Day 2 – Cruising the Inside Passage

We awoke at 8AM as scheduled, in fact, I was up before the alarm at about 20 ’til 8. We checked in with mom and dad, but they weren’t yet up, and told us to go on to breakfast without them.

Vivian and I navigated the breakfast buffet landscape, noting, after eating the buffet, that there was also a “waffle stand” and an “omelet stand.”

We went back up with mom and dad, and got them settled with their breakfast, while we went to take care of a couple of things, such as stopping at the registration desk to change mom and dad’s charges to go to my credit card, and to change their Tuesday excursion from the Rain Forest one to the Saxmon Village/Lumberjack one.

When we returned to them, they were gone from their seats, but we found them just around the corner, dad waiting outside the ladies room for mom.

Today was “a day at sea,” and we started it off at an 11:30 lecture called “Whales of the Pacific Coast” with lecturer Walter Walmesley. Learn about the Killer, Gray, and Humpback: come see a whale of a tale. Observation Lounge, Deck 12, Fwd.

Walt is a retired biolgist, and he gave a decent talk. Unfortunately, I was driven to distraction with his willingness to do the entire talk with the slide projector set to automatically advance a slide every 30 to 45 seconds. He just kept pushing the back button over and over until he was done talking about a slide. Ridiculous.

After that, Vivian and I participated in the “Walk a Mile” activity with our Cruise Director Linda. Meet at Stardust Lounge Entry, Deck 6, Aft. This activity was part of the Norwegian Sun Fitness Program: Earn 12 “punches” for a T-Shirt!

The walk involved four laps around the boat, and it was quite a pleasant walk. The pavement was marked with the direction in which we were supposed to be walking, with the inside track labeled “Walking” and the outside track labeled “Jogging.”

When we encountered the first couple walking in the wrong direction, I called them “Salmon,” but they didn’t react. We weren’t sure if they were 1) no fun, 2) didn’t get it, or 3) just didn’t speak English.

At any rate, I noted, “I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.”

At 2:30, Vivian represented us at the “Port Shopping Talk,” affectionately dubbed, “Can you say QVC?” Join Candace, your Port & Cruise Consultant for a NOT TO BE MISSED presentation on Ketchikan, Juneau & Skagway. Find out what the best buys are in each of the upcoming ports and how to save time and money! Maps and VIP cards will be available. Stardust Lounge, Deck 6, Aft.

Vivian took notes at this lecture, and found it very informative, one of the more important things being that this was the only port at which we’d be “tendering” in the morning.

While Vivian attended this, I devised my Sunday blog entry. Next, we both got a nap in with Vivian reading some and falling asleep in the Champagne Lounge area, while I napped in our cabin.

At a little after 6:30, I stopped by The Champagne to once again find Dorothy without any friends. Friends of Dorothy Social. Champagne Bar, Deck 7, Mid. The only person there was Walt, the lecturer, who I’m quite sure was there totally by coincidence.

Vivian went to get mom and dad to go to dinner as planned, but found them already gone. By the time she found them in the restaurant, they had already eaten.

They went back to their cabin, and we had dinner. After dinner, on the way to finding “The Motown Show,” we passed by the Stardust Lounge, where the “Encore Mr. Producer” show was starting.

Norwegian Cruise Line is proud to present a tribute to the musical world of Sir Cameron Mackintosh featuring The Jean-Ann Ryan Company. Sir Cameron is responsible for producing Les Miserables, My Fair Lady, Wtiches of Eastwick, the Musical and many more. Doors open 45 minutes before show time. Stardust Lounge, Decks 6&7, Aft.

We took a seat, first at the bar, and then moved to a regular seat when we realized how good the show was.

We left there intending to check out the Show Tunes at the Piano Bar or the Divas in Dazzles. When we got to the piano lounge, there were only one or two people there, but we decided to sit there for a bit.

The piano player, Kezia, was excellent, and after a while a passenger named Christine came in. Kezia asked her if she sang, she said yes, and she invited her up to sing a song. She had such a fantastic voice, and pretty much was “on stage” the rest of the night.


Kezia

For our next drink, Vivian and I moved up to the seats “built in” around the perimeter of the grand piano. The crowd kept growing slowly, in part due to Christine waving everybody that walked by into the bar.

One time, one of the crew walked by in his uniform, and Christine waved him in. “Good evening,” he said.

“Are you an official?” she asked.

“That would be the captain,” Kezia said.

Kezia took requests of show tunes, and I suggested, “Memories” from Cats, “People,” from Funny Girl, both of which she knew. I asked for something from Miss Saigon, but she didn’t know anything from it.

For one song, she asked that four women come up to the microphone. Vivian got dragged up there as part of the quartet. They sang, along with Kezia, “Hey Big Spender,” and it was a lot of fun.

For another song, she asked four people to come up, and I went up with a beautiful guy names Jawn, Christine, and a lady from Great Britain. We just sang something like “Shoo-bop de-doo” over and over again, while Kezia sang some song. It was really cool. I kept the melody we were given, while Christine harmonized the hell out of our shoo-bop de-doos. It was a lot of fun.

Later I sang a string of short duets with Christine. We started with “Climb Every Mountain,” then did “Eidel Veise,” and “O Beautiful,” getting the crowd into it especially for “O Beautiful.” Christine, who is from Vancouver, didn’t know the words to it, and I was, with Vivian’s help, feeding Christine the next line right before we sang it.

Following that, she did an a capella rendition of “O Canada.” She really did have a beautiful voice, and it was hard to believe she was a teacher, and didn’t do any singing even as an amateur back where she lived. She not only had a good voice, but she had great stage presence, too.

After a while, Dennis, Terri, Lucille, and Bob walked by and we called them into the bar. After a while Cynda joined them.

Lucille said to Vivian, “So what excursion did you guys go on today?”

Vivian tried to be polite, “Uh, er, well, we were at sea all day today. I tried to jump off the boat, but they wouldn’t let me,” she joked.

When she told me later what she had said, I said, “Oh we did ‘The Plank Walk Excursion,’ but we didn’t finish it.”

Later in the evening, I did Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” with Christine. That was a lot of fun. At one point in the evening, when we came back to our seats, we had a fresh round of drinks — compliments of Uncle Dennis, which was very nice.

We really had a good time, and finally, around midnight, Kezia said, “This is going to be the last number.” She played a phenomenal piano piece to close out the evening.

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