Cruising the Inside Passage

Our Cabin on the Verandah Deck 6
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Today was a day for sleeping in and taking it easy with a full day at sea cruising through the Inland Passage. After breakfast in Lido, we took our brisk 10 lap morning walk around deck 3. During this time we took in the magnificent scenery, and stopped now and then to try and glimpse the (supossed) humpback whales, and to see dolphins surfing in the waves down the side of the ship.

After a much needed coffee in the Explorations Coffee lounge and a session of travel blogging, I started doing some small crosswords while Joe headed up to the room to watch a movie. An afternoon kip was called for before we caught the final ShowLounge show for the night - with the two cruise headline acts, the musician and the comedian, entertaining the guests. After this it was down to the Ship restaurant for the MasterChef Dinner Extravaganza.

This Alaska is Baked!

Making waves in the Inside Passage
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The waiters put on a kind of show during the meal, which consisted of 5 courses, and culminating in the traditional Baked Alaska. It was a little disappointing though that these were not alight - but with fire restrictions these days I suppose you can't blame them. We were seated at a table for 8, with a couple from Florida, a couple from near Toronto canada and another couple from the US, the state I cannot recall just now. It was good once again to mingle with other passengers.

We decided it was time to head back to the room and try and pack everything into our bags. We have had to buy a small duffle bag to send purchases and the usual unwanted items back to Australia. We are going brave the post office on Monday somewhere in Vancouver.

Andrea Cruis'n in the Inside Passage
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Overall we have both enjoyed the cruise very much, the service and standard of the cruise on Holland America has been excellent. Every deck, retaurant, stairwell has hand disinfectant gel dispensers to keep the ship and passengers as germ free as possible, and we managed to get through the cruise without any tummy issues which was great.  We both agree that cruising is probably not for us as a preferred mode of international travel, as we both get bored easily and always prefer to be doing something. The average age of the patrons on board seems to be retirement set, and the activities scheduled on board more aimed at the age group (go the bingo!) which I suppose is not suprising, but does make mingling with same age couples a little more difficult.

Well, that's Alaska, bring on Vancouver!!!