Day 6—Ketchikan

by | Jun 21, 2026 | Uncategorized

Well, it happened. We got a tan in Ketchikan. Sunshine is almost unheard of in this town, and this is the third time we have found it here. Every other time, it has been rainy and cold. But yesterday was wonderful. We awoke to bright sunshine and an announcement at 7:00 am that whales had been spotted off the side of the ship, so everyone raced to see. I got my trusty Nikon out and got a photo of a whale (see my photos below) from a cruise ship for the first time ever. The only other time we have seen whales was on a whale-watching trip.

We did all the usual things in the morning as we sailed into Ketchikan. We were not scheduled to arrive until 1:30 pm, so we were going sloooowwww. We heard we could have lunch on the Retreat Sundeck, a very nice deck at the very top and front of the ship. So up we went, only to find two small problems. First, there were very few tables (lots of lounge chairs, (I hate eating in a lounge chair), and the food delivery method was a total failure.

When you ordered your lunch, they sent the order down to the kitchen, somewhere in the bowels of the ship. The orders were then sent up in small plastic boxes. We ordered turkey wraps with fries. It took about 40 minutes for the food to reach the Retreat deck. When we finally got it, it was cold. A cold wrap is OK, but cold French fries are basically inedible rubber. We mentioned this to our new friends Richard and Randy today, and they told us that when they had lunch on the Retreat Sundeck on an M-class ship, the food was made very close to the sundeck and was warm. They need to do that on the Solstice.

After lunch, Kathleen and I split up, she went upstairs for a quick nap and I went to walk around the city. WOW, what a change from the last time we had been here. And OMG, the crowds. There were six ships when we docked, and this town has a real hard time absorbing that many people. The sidewalks were jammed with people, and the streets were jammed with buses and tour vans as you will see from my photos below.

I took a quick walk to a local drugstore, which obviously catered to the cruising public. I kind of knew this because I needed more Aleve after hurting my shoulder on our Harv and Marv trip. They carried a 12-pill box of Aleve for $24.99. That was more than $2 a pill. When I jokingly asked the clerk how people who lived here could afford to have a headache, he said that no Ketchikan local would be caught dead shopping downtown. And if I didn’t want to pay their prices, I could find another drugstore (where the locals shop) about three miles away. I didn’t need the Aleve that badly because Cathy had some she said she would give me.

After giving up on the Aleve search, I walked from there over to the historic Creek Street area. It was slammed. I had never seen a line waiting to get into Creek Street, which is a quaint tourist area that was Ketchikan’s original downtown. All kinds of gifty, touristy places abound, along with some fun house tours of all kinds of things. See my photos below for an idea of the kind of place it is.

After that, it was back to Solstice and get ready for drinks, dinner and bed…we thought in that order. But that was not to be. I will send you a bonus post soon explaining the hilarious rest of the evening.

Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping and you will be able to see the captions at the bottom of the photos. 

"You should never go to Alaska as a young man. Because you'll never be satisfied with any other place as long as you live." – John Muir

Day 3—Icy Strait Point

by | Jun 18, 2026 | Uncategorized

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.

 

"The more things change, the more they stay the same" —Jean Baptiste Alphonse Karr

Solstice Day 2—A Sad Sea Day & Your First Food Report

by | Jun 17, 2026 | Uncategorized

For years, I have been telling people that you are much better off taking an Alaskan cruise from Vancouver rather than Seattle. One of the main reasons is the Canadian Inside Passage. This is our 13th Alaska cruise and our eighth (I think) from Vancouver, and it is the first time we have not taken the Canadian Inside Passage.

If you have never sailed the Canadian Inside Passage, it is one of the most beautiful places we have ever sailed. Think of a river cruise on a very big river. Sloping mountains of evergreens come right down to the water’s edge. Eagles fly overhead, and you can sometimes see bears and deer drinking at the shore below the trees. Because this area is protected by islands on the outside and the Canadian mainland on the inside, the temperatures are warmer, and the sun is often out. At the top of this page is a map showing the area I am talking about.

Well, we were very sad to wake up to almost an open ocean. You could see land, but it was quite far to our east. This was not the Alaska cruise I had hoped for. My buddy Bob (who is a strong believer in the Canadian Inside Passage) thought it might have something to do with the size of the ship, but we sailed this way on Infinity a number of times, and that ship isn’t that much smaller than this one.

Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful sea day yesterday. We had breakfast. Bob, Judy, and I went to trivia at 10:30, and then we met everyone for lunch. After lunch, I worked on a few photos, then did four miles on the jogging/running/walking track on deck 14. A major rant from me about walking on the walking track. This is a two-fold complaint. One small complaint I can deal with, but I will mention it so that maybe someone reading this can stop doing it.

Stop walking three people across a path built for three people. You are blocking everyone from going in any direction, whether they are walking for exercise or just getting from one end of deck 14 to the other. It is just plain rude. If you see someone coming your way and there is no place for them to go, walk single file for a minute or two until they pass. And while we are on the subject, maybe the real thing I need to say is this: BE SELF-AWARE! I can’t tell you how many people have just walked in front of me. Most of them were either talking to the person they were walking with, looking at the scenery, or looking at their phones. WAKE UP! You are not the only person on the ship or in the world.

My other quibble about the walking track is with Celebrity. And this happens on all the Solstice-class ships. Why is it that people walking, jogging, or running to stay healthy have to pass through one of the only smoking areas on the ship? WTF? Move the smoking area or shut it down. Every time I came around the track to that spot (about 35 times), I choked on the fumes from more than 20 smokers. There is a large smoking area in Sunset Park (one whole side of the aft of the area). That should be enough. Let’s close down the smoking area that coincides with the track. OK, rant over…back to yesterday.

After my walk, it was back to the stateroom to change for dinner (it was chic night). Kathleen says she saw some formal dresses, but I didn’t see any men in tuxedos and very few in ties. All of us had jackets on, so we were looking sharp. There was a pre-dinner reception with the captain and senior officers in The Retreat Lounge, which was very nice. Drinks and nibbles. The captain is a very nice guy who has been with Celebrity since before it became Celebrity.

I thought this might be a good time to talk about the food. So far, we have eaten in three venues on board. We had lunch at the Sunset Bar Cafe on deck 15 during embarkation. The salads and sandwiches were great. I do wish they had a bar there as well, because if you want something to drink besides water, you have to walk to the back of the Sunset area to the Sunset Bar and get your drink either before or after you get food. Now, it isn’t that far, but what was a pain was having to stand in two lines. One for food, one for drinks, and they are far apart.

We had dinner at Trattoria Rossa, and it was wonderful. If you go, have the lasagna or the lamb. That’s what we had. Dessert was also amazing with the made-at-the-table cannoli and tiramisu. It does pass the Steve Test with flying colors.

The rest of our meals (so far, 2 breakfasts, 1 lunch, and 1 dinner) have been at the suites’ restaurant, Luminae. The food has been just fine. Nothing amazing to write home to mom about, but fine. So far, Luminae does NOT pass the Steve Test. For those of you who are new readers, this is what the Steve Test is all about:

The Steve Test

After our disastrous Celebrity Millennium cruise in May 2022 (the food was horrible), my brother Steve came up with a way to rate food and restaurants while traveling, which I have found to be more effective and easier to understand than any other method I have encountered. From then on, I have called this the “Steve Test”.

Here's the test: If you eat at a food venue during your travels, either on a ship (main dining room, buffet, grille, or a specialty restaurant) or on land (hotel, restaurant, street food, etc.), and that restaurant was near you once you returned home, would you go there again? Would you become a regular? Would you go there for special occasions?

That’s pretty simple. I think it's the best way I've ever heard of to rate food on vacation, and I will rate each place I eat while traveling using the “Steve Test”.

I have high hopes that they will improve. My personal feeling is that they are trying too hard to make the food look cool. It takes nice photos, but at the expense of taste, and things that could be great are just OK. My hope is that this will improve as the week goes on. I have included some photos of the food below, with comments to show what I mean.

Breaking news! It’s Tuesday (our day in Icy Strait Point, which I will report on tomorrow), and we had lunch at Luminae. We had a sandwich that not only passed the Steve Test but also made me want to drive across town to get this particular sandwich. More about that tomorrow.

We also want to thank two new friends we have made, Richard and Randy, who told us a secret about Luminae—you can order off the Main Dining Room menu if you just ask to see it. Thanks, guys.

Here are some food pics for you. Enjoy. Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping to read the captions and see what you are looking at. And feel free to look at these on your phones. I took them with mine.

"Do you remember when you were younger, and you used to take photos of your food, send them out to be developed, get back prints and then send them to your friends? Neither do we." —Popular internet meme

We Make It To Broadway

by | May 2, 2026 | Uncategorized

Editor's Note: This will not be my best post ever due to some really ugly tech support problems that took more than an hour to fix. I want to get it online before we head out to breakfast. I promise to do better.

Micheal directing us to our "luxury motor coach"

This is going to be tough. Or as I told Kathleen last night, “I need a sea day.” We’ve had only one full day, and I’m exhausted. I don’t have a lot of time to write and process photos to get this out to all of you. I would give you the entire schedule for yesterday, but that’s for the next post. This one is just to tell you the story of getting there: our bus pickup, our flight, our “luxury motor coach” into Manhattan, and an amazing dinner at Tony’s DiNapoli with some great friends.

Thursday morning at 4:30 am, we gave Keeley her final kisses and pets (she is staying at home with Kathleen’s daughter Michelle), and we set off for Trilogy’s clubhouse, where we would be met by two 14-passenger Sprinter vans I had arranged. They would whisk 21 of us off to SeaTac International Airport. (A quick note for regular readers: I know I promised Kathleen that after arranging all those buses in Scotland pre-pandemic, I would never do that again… but these were vans, not buses ??).

To get this all to work out, we had to find a way to get to the Clubhouse (about half a mile away for us, but 3-4 miles for others—Trilogy is a big place) and not leave our car in Trilogy’s woefully inadequate parking lot for an entire week. Some people actually had friends who liked them enough to get up out of bed and drive them there at that ungodly hour. Others were going to leave our car in the lot, and friends would pick it up later in the day. We had planned to do this, but our friends who were going to do our pick up got called away, and we got really lucky when a friend who is on the trip with us and lives just five houses away from the clubhouse let us park our car in her garage. Her son had her car, so there was room in her immaculate and well-organized garage for our car. We can’t thank her enough.

I had told everyone the vans would be there at 4:30 and that we would leave without them at 4:50. So I dropped Kathleen off at the clubhouse, where we found a BUNCH of people already there before 4:30, loading the vans. We got our luggage into the van, and I drove the short distance to where we would leave the car, then walked back to check off everyone on my van list and make sure we had everyone who had signed up to go with us. The only problem was that when I got back, one of the vans I had left for the airport was gone, and I had no idea who was in it. At this point, it’s only 4:40, and our driver wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to leave anyone behind since I had said we would wait until 4:50. But he told me that the other van had 10 people and we had 11, so I told him to go ahead, hoping and praying that we were not leaving anyone. Thankfully, everyone had been right on time (or early), and we all got there, WHEW!

The airport was far better than we expected. Kathleen and I hadn’t flown since we went to Africa last July (we drove to our October cruise), and SeaTac had made outstanding improvements to its security lines. We were through and on our way to the Alaska Air FC lounge in no time, where we hung out until we were called (right on time) to board. The flight was smooth, and since we had left early, we arrived at JFK in NYC half an hour early. Of course, that meant there was still a plane at our gate, so we sat on the tarmac for 30 minutes. I wish they would figure this out. Why get us there early just to sit on the plane and wait? Eventually, we got off the plane and headed to baggage claim. Alaska Air had done a great job with all our luggage, and I am pretty sure not a single person in our group lost a suitcase.

JFK is a BIG airport, but when we had our bags, Mike (one of our superb guides from Break-Away tours) was waiting to meet us. He got us out and onto our “luxury motor coach,” and we were off into the city. With the traffic, it took us a little more than an hour to get to our Manhattan hotel, but another one of our excellent guides, Hardy, kept us entertained with outstanding information about our drive and NYC in general. Even though Kathleen and I have been here numerous times before, I learned a lot. He would be our main guide for the week, and we are still (after two days) thrilled to have him.

We are staying at the Westin Times Square. It’s a very nice hotel, just about a block from Times Square. But Break-Away uses it because we can walk just about anywhere. Once we arrived and got settled in, we all met in the lobby to walk to a wonderful Italian restaurant, We walked right through Times Square to get there and Tony’s Di Napoli. This place is an institution and has been around since the fifties (just like us ?). They serve you a LOT OF ITALIAN FOOD, and they serve it family style. They bring it to your table on huge platters, and you pass it around. It was just like grandma used to make. Not gourmet, but delicious. Top that off with a nice Chianti and cannoli for dessert, and it was a perfect way to start the trip.

I only had two tiny quibbles about Tony’s. We were seated in a basement dining room, and the lighting for taking photos was terrible, as you will see in my photos. Thankfully, there are only a few of them. I know I could have taken them with my phone and gotten slightly better results, but I wanted the actual feel of the room. The other thing that was a pain was the noise. This may have been the nosiest restaurant I have ever been in. It was a legacy building, and all the walls, ceilings, and floors were hard materials, which meant that with our party and about 50 other people down there, it was LOUD! You pretty much had to yell to be heard by the person sitting next to you, which only made the room EVEN LOUDER! But it was a delicious dinner, and no one left hungry for want of great food. It is almost sad how much we left on the serving platters. After dinner was over (around 10:30 NYC time), we took a short three-block walk back to the Westin and fell fast asleep.

Here are my photos of our the dinner at Tony's. As you can see, it was kinda dark down there. Don't forget, you can click them to enlarge them.

For our first time traveling with 41 people (we only had 21 in the vans—the rest had flown in early or arranged their own transportation to the airport), things were going very smoothly. More tomorrow about our first full day, which about killed us (in a good way). I should also mention that even though we regularly travel with two or four other people, traveling with 41 is really interesting in one big way. We know these folks from living in the same community, and we are all members of the Travel Club. But that doesn’t mean I know every name (because I am president and have a big mouth, they all know me ?). When we first moved into Trilogy, a neighbor who had known us before told us she had been on a Travel Club trip, and no one remembered her name to say good morning or good evening, or anything to her. I kind of vowed that this trip would not be that way for anyone. So I put together a PDF of photos of the entire group with names so I could remember who was who. Two days in, I am doing pretty well, and thankfully, Break-Away had some really great name tags for us, which really helps as well.

That's it for day 1. Yesterday was our first full day, and I hope I get a chance to write it up tomorrow. I certainly took lots more photos as we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center, had dinner at Sardi's and saw an amazing Broadway show—Operation Mincemeat. See you then.

There's nothing that can match Broadway for stature and dignity.   —Sammy Davis, Jr.

 

Cold and clammy Kalama

by | Oct 13, 2025 | Uncategorized

Our first stop on this seven-night cruise is the Washington port of Kalama, billed as the “gateway to Mt. St. Helens.” 98% of the people on board were scheduled to take an afternoon trip by “luxury motor coach” to see St. Helens’ crater and stop by the visitor center. When Kathleen and I saw the weather (having visited Mt. St. Helens numerous times before), we decided to stay on board, and I could finish yesterday’s post. The other four members of our group decided to go ahead and go, as they had never seen the mountain before.

Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal. In fact, for most of the morning, it had been pouring. When they headed out just after lunch, they had high hopes that the clouds would be below them at the summit, but instead, they found themselves in the clouds rather than above them. As my brother Steve said (in a text from the “luxury motor coach”), “We got a nice bus ride.”

But later in the afternoon, while the buses were up in the clouds, the sky cleared for a little bit here in the port city of Kalama, so I got a chance to get off the ship and walk to the new Marketplace building, the port’s Interpretive Center and all the way into town without getting very wet from the passing showers.

This means I took some great photos (at least I think they are), especially one that showcases a very unique feature of our ship. When we sailed up to the Kalama dock, for some reason, we did not stop there. Instead, the captain went a ways down the bank and shoved the nose of the ship directly into the side of the river bank. Then, the front of the bow lifts up, and that’s how we got off and on the ship yesterday. I know it sounds strange, but here’s what it looks like in a photo I took after exiting the ship myself.

After exiting out of Harmony’s bow and getting up to the bank, there was a very nice walkway that took me all the way down to the entrance to the Mountain Timber Market. Think of this as a kind of mini-mall full of cool little shops and other attractions to entice travelers like me to spend some cash. I took a few pictures of this part of the walk that I can share.

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If you are ever driving south on I-5 and need a break, this would not be a bad place to stop. Really, a super building with lots of great shops, not to mention that totem pole.

After visiting the Market and listening to the great music, I headed further towards downtown. I shot a few more photos of the very nice park-like riverbank. There was an outdoor totem pole, a very nice hotel, and, of course, the river itself.

From the hotel, you can stroll past the marina, climb up three rickety, swayin’ metal stairs, cross a bridge over the railroad tracks, then come down even more rickety stairs to reach downtown Kalama. The town—more of a highway-side village—was mighty quiet on a Sunday afternoon. I was looking for a birthday card to send to a close friend, and honestly, the only option available was the local supermarket, which, it turned out, had a surprisingly fine selection of birthday cards. As I mentioned, downtown is really charming and quaint, so I’ve included some photos to give you a sense of the place.

After finding that birthday card, a funny magnet to act as a gift and some cool Christmas ornaments, it was back to the ship for me. On the way, what else? A few more photos to share.

One mystery I would like solved is that the last photo in that group was taken from a very nice pier that would have fit our ship perfectly. We know that because we drove by this pier on Monday on our way to Portland, and one of Harmony’s sister ships was attached to that pier. It would have made it a lot easier for all of us to access that Marketplace as well as the port’s Interpretive Center. No ships were docked there all day, so I have no clue why we didn’t use it.

That about covers Kalama. We had a great day with some very nice food and drink, which I will cover in another post.

There’s nothing greener than Washington state. They have the most beautiful vegetation on the planet. And the water is so clean.   —Fabio Lanzoni