Cruisin' Cuisine!

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Breakfasts were yummy…everything from omelets to pastries to Eggs Benedict (pictured above…Melany!s favorite…sorry that I didn't think to snap the picture before I broke the eggs…this looks a little messy…messy but good.  We ate breakfast most mornings in one of the ships complementary dining rooms…good food…good service…good company! 

The first night we ate in one of the speciality dining rooms…Cagney's Steak House.  Above you see our desserts.  Yummy…but by the time we got to dessert we hardly had room!  I will say waaaaaay too much food is served!  By the end of the cruise I had had my fill of 3 course meals…and my body was saying enough is enough…even though good as it was.  It has taken me a while to be very interested in food since I have been back. 

One night we ate at the barbecue restaurant “Q.” I had pulled pork…as you can see the portions were very large.  And, I knew that I wanted to save room for their famous banana pudding served in a canning jar…very good…but it should have been served first so I could have REALLY enjoyed it.  Dessert would have been enough for me for my dinner!  We had entertainment with our meal…a trio from Nashville…so add loudness to that meal, too!

We ate lunch one day at the American Diner…I had delicious loaded nachos!  They made me too full for dinner!  Note the view we had in this restaurant.  Beautiful but quite cool as we were not totally enclosed and our tables were exposed to wind and chill!  The wait staff had on knit hats and jackets!

We were entertained by our cook when we ate at Tepanyaki.  Another delicious meal…I had steak and shrimp…yummy…but too much food! 

Definitely the dining experiences were very good on our cruise.  I will say it is nice to sit down and be treated royally!  The servers were so kind to us and definitely treated us like royalty!  I will say that it was obvious that many of the wait staff grew up in a matriarchal society…I was treated especially nice as a grandmother figure.  

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

I did get good news today at my oral surgeon appointment.  The place has healed over so no further surgery will be required!  

Sunday Alaska Favorite

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Cruise Views From Deck & Balcony

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Sea Gulls

Jelly fish…lots!

Eagle from my balcony when we were docked in a port.

Zoomed in on the same eagle pictured above.

Eagle at the top of the tree and a juvenile eagle to the right side of the tree…brown…no white yet on the head of the juvenile yet,

Two eagles in this tree…one guarding from on high and the other one in a nest.  Those nests are huge! At the raptor center they had a model of a nest that they let you stand in to see the size.

Then he flew…photo not clear…think of it as an impressionist painting! 😁

Not sure if these are seals or sea lions…

Watching an otter float as we pass by him and some of his friends.

Last Full Day at Sea June 8, 2026: Photos Around the Ship

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A couple of the fancy lighting fixtures around the ship.

The Bridge where the ship is steered.  This was taken from my balcony with a zoom lens.

Checking out things from a deck other than from our balcony. This was our day in Ketchikan…I can tell because Melany is wearing the plaid shirt that she wore to the Lumberjack show. 😁

TV screen in my room that gives you a view from the front of the ship.  Shows us pulling into a port.

The art gallery on one of the decks.  We walked by this on our way to some of the dining rooms.  The art was changed frequently.  Melany especially enjoys walking through here.  All this art work is for sale.  There are auctions that take place during the cruise.

A view from the top deck.  Note emptiness of the deck chairs.  When we were in motion, it was pretty cold on the outside decks.

Two other screens on the TV in my room that let know where in the world we were at any given moment.  The top screen shows the path that we have taken on the trip and the arrow shows the current position of the ship.  The world map/globe shows by the circle where we were in the world. These particular screen shots show us on the return trip heading towards Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

I do not do well with taking selfies!  But here is an attempt to get me in my stateroom with my balcony behind me.

I'll end tonight with a photo Melany took of me taking a photo from my balcony.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Hoonah/Icy Point Strait Facts

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Icy Point Strait is the name of the cruise port located at Hoonah, AK.  This is the area that the Tlingit natives were forced to flee to when the glaciers advanced quickly over the area that is now Glacier Bay.  I gave information about that fast moving Ice Age when I talked about Glacier Bay.

Hoonah is the largest Tlingit village in Alaska. It is located on Chichagof Island which is the fifth largest island in the U.S.  It is 30-40 miles west of Juneau and is famous for its rich indigenous culture, exceptional whale watching, and Icy Strait Point, an AlaskanNative-owned cruise destination featuring the world's largest ZipRider. (And, no we did not choose to experience this zip-line experience!) There is no connecting roadway to the mainland, so the town is reached by air service providers and state ferry system…or boat/cruise ships. About 70% of its 850 residents are of Alaska Native heritage.  Its economy is heavily reliant on commercial fishing, timber, and tourism.

Pictured above is a former cannery for salmon…now turned into gift shops, restaurants, a cannery museum, and theater.  The island has one of Alaska's highest concentrations of brown bears and nearby area is known as the richest humpback whale feeding grounds in Southeast Alaska.

Tourism may very well have saved Hoonah after the village saw its fishing and logging industries dwindle in the 1980s and 1090s.  Icy Strait Point employs about a quarter of the Hoonah's population, most of whom are share holders in the Huna Totem Corporation.

The first cruise ship arrived in 2004 at Icy Point Strait.  Presently, more than 75 ships dock annually at Icy Strait Point during the months of May-September. Tourism is helping the Tlingit people in this region keep their culture alone and thriving.  As, I mentioned last night, the young lady who was one of our guides on our whale watching excursion is a native Tlingit and her name is Alaska!  I belive that most of the excursions offered at Icy Strait Point are Native Alaskan run.  Nice to see the Natives of this area so front and center and being able to keep their heritage alive and well and using tourism to their advantage.  

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Whale & Mammal Excursion, Cont.

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We saw a mama Coastal Brown Bear and her cub.  The guides on our boat were excited as they hadn't seen much bear activity in a while. 

And, they were really excited to see Orcas/Killer whales.They hadn't seen any in a month.  Just seeing their dorsal fins sticking out of the water, it looked a bit like a shark approaching! And, they are known as "killer" for a good reason!

Interesting facts a out Orcas:

Orcas (also known as killer whales) are highly intelligent, apex marine predators. Despite their name, they are actually the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. They are uniquely recognized by their striking black-and-white color pattern and massive dorsal fins. 

Their varied diet includes fish, squid, seals, sea lions, sharks, and even other whale species.

Often called the "wolves of the sea," they hunt in tight-knit family groups called pods. They use advanced, coordinated tactics, such as creating waves to wash seals off ice floes or purposefully beaching themselves momentarily to grab prey off the shore. 

Wild orcas can live for 50 to 90 years, with females typically living longer than males.

They live in complex, multi-generational family groups led by older females.

Pods pass down specialized hunting techniques, migration routes, and distinct vocal "accents" from generation to generation.

And, we saw sea lions.  It was a very good excursion…seeing a variety of Alaska's wile sea-life. Our main guide's name was Alaska and she is a native Tlingit.  It was so good to see the natives so involved in Alaska tourism.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!

Port Day #4: Icy Strait Point/Hoonah, AK June 7, 2026

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Our excursion for this port of call was  whale and mammal watching on this small excursion boat pictured above.  This excursion was great and we saw so much.  Tonight I will tell about what we saw when we found a group of three humpback whales.  Something I really wanted to see: humpback whales bubble-net feeding and that wish was granted.  This experience is pictured in the next photo.  I will tell about this unique way they cooperate to get big mouthfuls at a time.  Pictured just below are three big whale mouths gulping up large amounts of fish as they surface with their mouths wide open.

Bubble-net feeding is an ingenious, highly synchronized cooperative hunting technique primarily used by humpback whales. Using exhaled air and synchronized vocalizations, the whales create a cylinder of bubbles that traps schools of small fish into a dense ball near the surface before lunging through them with open mouths.

While other Belen whales theoretically have the capacity to blow bubbles, humpbacks are uniquely built for this maneuver:

1) Specialized flippers (you will see one waving with one of these flippers below): researchers have discovered that humpbacks possess remarkably long, wing-like pectoral flippers that allow for incredibly sharp, biomechanically efficient turns.

2) Learned Behavior: bubble-netting is a learned, cultural behavior rather than a simple instinct. Specific humpback populations, such as those in Southeast Alaska and the Gulf of Maine, pass these tactical hunting skills down to one another.

How it works:

1) Whales dive deep beneath a school of prey and begin swimming upward in a spiral pattern, releasing air from blowholes.

2) The rising air forms a cylindrical “curtain" of bubbles. Because the shimmering bubbles and strange sounds confuse and panic the prey, the fish are tricked into thinking there is no escape and huddle together,

3) Often, a lead whale (the "trumpeter") will emit a loud, piercing feeding call that forces the prey upwards and synchronizes the team,

4) The whales gather in a tight ring outside the bubbles, coordinate their timing, and surge straight to the surface in unison to scoop up thousands of fish in a single gulp. 

I’ll tell more about this excursion and what else we saw tomorrow evening.

To be continued! Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!