Day 3—Icy Strait Point

Way back in August 2007, we last visited Icy Strait Point. Back then, it was a tiny tourist attraction featuring two things: the longest (at the time) zip line in the world and an old cannery that had been turned into a museum. Here we are, just under 20 years later, and we are back again. When we were here the first time, this was a tender port (for the non-cruisers, that means to get to the port, you get into a lifeboat and they take you to a small dock in the harbor where you get off, see everything, and then get back on). Not anymore.

We visited here with our Martini Mates that year on Celebrity’s Infinity. We came ashore and walked around for about an hour. We took the shuttle bus into the village of Hoonah (where, really, there was nothing to see), then it was back on the tender and back to the ship.

WOW! How things have changed in 19 years. Now there are two piers big enough to handle a cruise ship, so we didn’t have to tender. The two piers are fairly far apart (about a 30-minute hike on a nice trail), so they built a gondola that takes you from the pier where we docked over to the original area, which has now been built up. In 2007, there was a snack bar. Now there are at least four restaurants, a couple of snack bars, and coffee places as well. The Cannery museum is now less of a museum and more of a mini shopping mall. The zip line is still there, but sadly, it was too windy for it to be in service. And no, we were not going to ride it ourselves. Too long and too high, thank you. Plus, we are way too old.

When Solstice arrived, there was a Princess cruise ship on the pier we were to dock on, and because Celebrity has a deal with the locals and helped build the two ocean piers, they got first choice, so the Princess ship had to pull off the pier and tender the rest of her guests back to the ship. The other pier was occupied by Celebrity Summit, a ship we know well after sailing her from Newark to Québec and back in 2018.

Solstice had docked at the pier where you needed to either hike or take the gondola to see the Cannery area. So Mike, Cathy and I jumped into one of the cars and headed over. The gentleman running the gondola was very good at his job. He had three lines, and the gondola hardly ever stopped. You just got on as it slowly came through the on-and-off section. Really simple and easy to do. The ride took about 15 minutes, and we were dropped off at the gateway to the Cannery area.

It was a very short walk down to the Cannery museum and shops, along a really nice boardwalk with stairs that periodically led to the beach. There was also a great statue of an orca whale (see my pics below). We walked down, saw the shops, talked to some folks, were mistaken for someone on a whale watching tour, Mike and Cathy got a beer, and I set off to walk the trail back to the ship. Got lots of photos on the way and had a great time. There are bear warnings all over the place, but the path was well traveled and, as Bob says, “Don’t worry about bears unless you are the slowest person you can see nearby.” I stopped to buy some postcards on the way (yes, I still send paper postcards), and then it was back aboard and off to drinks and dinner.

Sadly, after an awesome sandwich we had for lunch that passed the Steve Test (see yesterday’s post if you don’t know what the Steve Test is) in Luminae, dinner was a total failure. Bob ordered a steak, and it was a huge, thick chunk of beef with absolutely no flavor whatsoever. I know, because he gave me a piece, and I tried it. It was like eating a chewy piece of nothing. No sauce, no grill marks, no nothing. Just a big hunk of beef barely seared on four sides. My cannelloni wasn’t much better. Two pasta tubes, stuffed with too much meat, too little cheese and too little sauce. This time the meal wasn’t fine. It was bad.

Lunch today was an adventure, but I will tell you about that tomorrow. And about our visit to the Hubbard Glacier.

Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. When you do that, you can also see the captions for the photos. These are the first shots of the trip where I was able to show off my photography expertise, so please check them out on a computer or tablet, not your phone.