20230918 AAAA Trip - Alaska's Inside Passage

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 3/105 - Sailing Alaska's Inside Passage

We sailed a little earlier than planned last night, setting sail around 11:15 p.m. with smooth waters and light, albeit chilly breezes.

We settled in for breakfast in the World Cafe.  

A quick aside for two things I forgot to mention yesterday.  Interestingly enough, we sailed on September 17th, 2023 from Vancouver, celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary (Sept 2) on this repositioning cruise.  Exactly ten years earlier, on September 17, 2013, we sailed from Vancouver (celebrating our 30th) on the Carnival Miracle for a 15-day Vancouver-->Hawaii-->Long Beach, CA repositioning cruise.

Second aside: last night in the World Cafe, one of the wait staff, Max, recognized us from our Amsterdam to Antarctica inaugural sailing of the Viking Polaris.  Always great to see friendly, familiar faces.

Back to today...

We have particular tastes in the morning as we don't drink coffee.  We both carry steel Yeti-style cups and ask for two large glasses of ice and Coke Zero for our morning beverage.  Today, we had to break in new crew members as to what to bring us when we arrived at the World Cafe.  It took some explaining, but we eventually got what we wanted.  Here's the thing...we won't have to do it again.  This is part of what makes Viking cruises amazing.  The onboard crew members are simply amazing.  Their ability to recognize faces and equate them with different needs and wants is unparalleled.  My guess is that tomorrow morning, as soon as we are seated, we will get our glasses of ice and soda without any prompting.  They're just that good.

After getting back to the room, I finished unpacking and we were all settled in.  Arlona added a little style to our door.

At 10 a.m., we listened to the shipwide safety briefing.  They delayed it until today because it most certainly would have been lost on many passengers given last night's late embarkation and departure. It was all the standard still - seven short blasts of the ship's horn followed by one long blast is the general emergency signal.  Locate your muster station - ours is in The Restaraunt, deck 2 aft.  Instruction on how to wear a life vest.  Like I said, the usual.  Still, it is all important information, and we need to remember that not everyone is a veteran cruiser.  The folks we ate dinner with last night are on their very first cruise.

We continued sailing through the passage, enjoying the views.  Alaska is known for its rugged beauty and the inside passage doesn't disappoint.

Just after noon, we attended our first trivia of the cruise.  

Before we started playing, the bar waiter, Kadek came over.  He was with us on our Polaris Antarctica cruise and recognized us and wanted to say, “Hello”.  Have I mentioned that the crew is amazing?

To kick things off, Henry, the assistant cruise director and trivia master decided on a themed trivia.  What is the first thing you typically say when meeting someone?  "Hello".  This trivia was 15 different ways to say, "hello".  Our job was to identify what language each was in.  Wow, a brutal start.  With our team of six, we did better than expected, nailing 12/15.  One team of veteran travelers scored it perfectly, walking away with the win.

Here are the different "hellos":

1. Bonjour - French ✔
2. Hola - Spanish ✔
3. Nǐ hǎo - Mandarin ✔
4. Yasou - Greek ✔
5. Olá - Portuguese ✔
6. Ciao - Italian ✔
7. Annyeonghaseyo - Korean ✗
8. Marhaba - Arabic ✗
9. Shalom - Hebrew ✔ 
10. Hujambo - Swahili ✔
11. Kon'nichiwa - Japanese ✔
12. Xin chào - Vietnamese ✔
13. Males say: Sah wah dee khrap
    Females say: Ssah wah dee khaa - Thai ✔
14. Hallo - German ✗
15. Cześć - Polish ✔
16. Tiebreaker that wasn't needed: Privet - Russian ✔

As always, it was good fun and we learned something.

We grabbed lunch in the World Cafe. The difference in this cruise versus other Viking cruises we’ve been on was immediately apparent.  The place was jam-packed.  We are so spoiled having been on 50%-60% occupancy cruises that a full ship seems a little crowded.  This cruise has somewhere around 700 passengers, or about 75% capacity. We were eventually able to find seats, but it was a different experience.  We continue to run into fellow world cruises all over the ship. That continues to be fun.

We exited the narrower section of the inside passage and headed into more open, and moving water this afternoon.  It wasn’t anything violent, but not the butter-smooth sailing we had this morning in the protected waters of the inside passage.

We wandered a bit, checking out the officer board.

These are the folks who manage the incredible crew who make the cruise a great thing.

Next on the agenda was a visit with our favorite Viking Travel Consultant, Hâmed Reza Esfahanian.  He was the person responsible for booking us on this adventure.  We made the decision and had him book our first Viking River cruise for next August.  We opted for the European Sojourn – a 23-day trip from Bucharest to Amsterdam.  We added the three-day pre-stay in Bucharest and Transylvania before boarding the Viking Vidar longship.  We’re excited to add to our travel plans for 2024.

We enjoyed our first beverages at the Explorers’ Bar before heading to the World Café for tonight’s special meal, A Taste of America.  Chicken fried steak, Tennessee hot chicken, California tacos, honey BBQ brisket – you get the idea.  Most were good, some were not so good, but we still enjoyed dinner.

Arlona was a little worn out from our travel and yesterday’s unnecessarily long boarding fiasco.  Even with a nap late this morning, she was dragging this evening.  We called it an early night to get some sleep before arriving in Ketchikan, Alaska tomorrow morning around 10 a.m.  We have a tour tomorrow, Potlatch Totem Park & Ketchikan Highlights.