Day 4—Hubbard Glacier

by | Jun 19, 2026 | Uncategorized

Sometimes when I am doing a live blog like this, it is hard to remember the day before yesterday. Especially when you have a really big excursion on the intervening day. Yesterday we were in Juneau and went out whale watching but that’s a story for tomorrow. Today is Hubbard Glacier which we visited on Wednesday—the day after we visited Icy Strait Point.

For the uninitiated, one of the biggest reasons people cruise to Alaska is to see the glaciers. There are four glacier-viewing areas any ship can visit, though some are much better than others. In our 13 cruises to Alaska, we have visited all four. By far the best is Glacier Bay, followed by Hubbard, Misty Island Fjords, and Tracy Arm.

This year, there are only three because Tracy Arm has been experiencing rockslide activity, and the cruise lines are avoiding it. When I first went to Glacier Bay, I was so impressed that I wanted to know why everyone doesn’t go there on every cruise. I found out it’s an environmental issue. Glacier Bay is a national park, and the number of ships that can sail in is highly regulated through a permit process. Because the permits are grandfathered (cruise lines that have been here the longest get first call), if you want to see Glacier Bay, you need to cruise with either Holland America or Princess, as they have been doing Alaska the longest and have the permits to show for it. Or you can take one of the smaller cruise lines that leave midweek, when Princess or HAL are not sailing and not in the Bay. Permits are issued to X number of ships per day.

Hubbard is used by the second tier of cruise lines (in terms of the number of years they have been cruising in Alaska, then Tracy Arm and finally Misty Island Fjords. While in Glacier Bay, you may sail by more than 10 glaciers. When you visit Hubbard, you see two—Hubbard and Turner. Hubbard is the main attraction as Turner is receding.

According to Wikipedia, receding glaciers, also known as glacial retreat, occur when a glacier melts and shrinks faster than it can accumulate new snow and ice. Because glaciers naturally flow downhill like slow-moving rivers, “receding” simply means the ice is melting away at its lower edges—or terminus—faster than the glacier can replenish itself.

Hubbard is an advancing glacier. When a glacier advances, it gains more snow and ice (accumulation) than it loses to melting or breaking off (ablation), causing the end of the glacier (the terminus or snout) to grow and push further downslope or out into a valley.

In layman's (and photographic terms), Hubbard advancing means the front of the glacier is pretty much a beautiful white and blue, while Turner (right next to it) is white but covered in all kinds of black debris. Check out my photos to see what I mean. In the distance above is Hubbard.

Whew! Now that you know more about glaciers than you ever wanted to know, here’s what happened to us on our Hubbard Glacier day. Wait. You still need to know about the ice. As glaciers advance, pieces of ice fall off. And if there is a huge ice field in front of the glacier, the ship can’t go there. And when we went to Hubbard, there was a HUGE ice field in front of us, so we barely got to see her. We spent 90% of our time in front of Turner's dirty face, and later in the day got to see Hubbard from afar.

I created a small map to show you how close we got to Hubbard and its position relative to Turner. We could go no further around the point than into the aptly named Disenchantment Bay due to the buildup of ice in the water. On previous visits to Hubbard Glacier, the ship we were on had been able to get much closer to the face of the glacier—not on this trip. If this were your only cruise to Alaska, you would not get the big deal that many of us make about viewing glaciers.

All this said, I will just let you look at the photos, and the captions will do a better job of explaining our distance, viewing angles, etc.

 

“A glacier doesn't die in thunder. It dies in silence. Drip by drip. Story by story. What we're losing isn't just ice— It's the future, melting away.” —Anurag Maloo

Solstice Day 1—Embarkation

by | Jun 15, 2026 | Uncategorized

Good day to all of you! It’s a sea day (haven’t had one of those in a while), and we are sailing up the Canadian Inside Passage (which is usually like glass) on a cloudy day. After the 80+ degree temps in Vancouver yesterday, this is welcome weather to me.

First, I have to make a quick correction to my last post. Mike and Cathy's flight was canceled, and United Airlines didn't even tell them. Thank goodness Mike checked. If he hadn't, they would have arrived at the gate and been told, "Sorry, no flight for you." But this meant I didn't have to make the trip from Chilliwack to YVR (Vancouver International Airport—all Canadian airports start with Y) and back again.

But that was only the start of their woes. Their original flight was from FLL to SFO, then SFO to YVR. Their new flight was SUPPOSED to be from FLL to ORD (Chicago), then ORD to YVR. But when they got to ORD, they were told their flight to YVR had been canceled. In case you are keeping track, that is two canceled United flights. So they rebooked them on a flight to Toronto. Which sounds crazy because they had flown west and were heading west, but now they were flying east. Once in Toronto, they would switch to Air Canada and fly west to YVR. A totally miserable flying experience. They did make it to YVR and out to Chilliwack…eventually, but the original plan was for all of us to go to dinner before they went back to their hotel for the night. They had been scheduled to arrive at YVR by 2:00 pm. That would have put us back in Chilliwack around 5:00, just in time for dinner. They actually wound up arriving at their Chilliwack hotel around 11:30. That’s a long day when you get up around 5:00 am in the EDT. It would have killed us.

That gets you up to date on everything before yesterday. And that brings us to one of the smoothest embarkations on a cruise ship we have ever had, from Canada Place (Vancouver’s cruise ship terminal) or maybe from anywhere. The last time we had embarked from Canada Place was two years ago. It had been the absolute worst embarkation experience of our cruising lives, worse than most airports. It had taken us 3+ hours to go from luggage drop-off to being on board. We totally missed lunch, and by the time we had finished all the safety stuff and unpacked, it was time for dinner.

Not this time! Bob had hired a van and driver to take us into Vancouver. He picked us up right at 9:00, and we were on our way. After a totally uneventful ride, we arrived at Canada Place at almost exactly 10:30, drove down into the parking garage, unloaded our luggage, got Kathleen and Judy into their wheelchairs, went through Customs and security, and then checked in. By 11:05, we were standing on the ship. That may be a record.

I do need to add (though I don’t think it made THAT much difference) that we were in a suite, which did get us through even quicker. The wheelchairs helped as well, since you can pretty much go to the head of many of the lines.

Once we were onboard, we were invited to leave our carry-on bags in our suite (it’s not really a suite, as you will see in the photos. For something to be a real suite, it has to have more than one room—not counting the bathroom). I have included stateroom photos below in the gallery. This was just a bigger stateroom. Then the six of us met up in the new Sunset Park on deck 15 for lunch (see photo at top). It was a glorious day, and we really wanted to eat outdoors, so that kind of made our choice for us. On past Celebrity cruises, when we boarded, we could pretty much eat at the buffet, and that was it. This worked out so much better. They had a variety of salads and sandwiches, and the nearby Sunset Bar provided the Aperol Spritz (for you cruisers out there, when you get a suite, you get a Premium Beverage Package). And the roast beef sandwich I had was delicious. There’s a picture in the gallery of the selection we had.

At this point, people were just getting on board, so the ship was still kind of empty. Which brings us to the only thing we don’t like about this cruise so far—TMP (TOO MANY PEOPLE). It has been at least two years since we were on a ship this big, and we had forgotten how many people were on board. And we try to forget that cruise two years ago, so it has really been four. When all beds are occupied, Solstice can accommodate more than 3,100 guests. My guess is that we are pretty close to that on this voyage. Another thing we aren’t used to is kids. This is the first full week off from school in many places, and there are a TON of children on board. That’s another thing we just aren’t used to. Most of our recent cruises have been on Viking (either ocean or river), and they have a rule: no humans under 18. So seeing this many kids (an estimated 200-300) is just crazy for us. To be honest, I never understand why anyone brings kids on Celebrity. If you have kids, take them on Royal Caribbean. It’s a nice cruise line owned by the same people, with about 1,000 times more activities for kids. Here, there is a kids' club, but that’s about it. And it certainly can’t handle all the kids on board at one time. It’s much too small for that. It’s supposed to serve every kid, from toddlers to teens. Not sure that is going to happen. So if you haven’t cruised before, take my advice—when you cruise with your kids or grandkids, choose RCL or Disney; ships that cater to kids.

Speaking of first-time cruisers, there are a lot of them on board, including a lot of first-time Celebrity cruisers. We ran into a couple while we were checking in at our muster station. She was happy to be on a cruise, and he just wanted to know where the nearest bar was. Seriously, he was thrilled that he could get 25 drinks a day on his Classic alcohol package. We told him he was on the wrong cruise line. That Carnival didn’t sail until Monday. She told us that her mother had bought the cruise, so they wound up on X. OK, if his MIL was on board, maybe that’s why he was drinking so much ?.

After lunch, I walked around the ship taking photos (see gallery) until about 2:30, when Kathleen called to say our bags had arrived. I went back up to the suite to unpack. Kathleen had read online about someone complaining that there wasn’t enough storage in the Sky Suites. We can’t imagine how many clothes she must have brought with her because we have SOOOOO much storage. Two full dressers and two full closets. I have four drawers that are so big and deep that I am using one just for dirty clothes. Usually, I have to put those in a plastic bag. By the time we had unpacked, it was time to meet the gang for sail-away at 4:00.

We had decided to meet at the same table in Sunset Park where we had sat for lunch, but Sunset Park was now JAMMED with people. No chairs, no place to even lean. Cathy finally snagged us a table and four chairs, and we hung out. Bob and Judy told us they were going to stay on their own veranda. We finally gave up. The crowd kept growing. We headed back to our stateroom, and Bob and Judy joined us on our veranda.

At lunch, a member of the food staff stopped by our table and offered us a 35% discount if we wanted to eat at a specialty restaurant on our first night. We had previously discussed skipping those, but I secretly (OK, it wasn’t a secret—I told everyone) wanted to try the new Italian place because I had seen they made cannoli at the table. We all thought about skipping it, but then Mike said he was paying, so we had dinner there last night. It was delicious. And it’s a beautiful restaurant (pics below). And the cannolis were amazing. The rest of the dinner, the ambiance, and the service were all top-flight. I would eat there again. It passed the Steve test.

We had decided to meet for pre-dinner cocktails in the Retreat Lounge. The first (and last) time we were on this ship, it was called Michael’s Club. It is now a cocktail lounge for Retreat (suite) guests only. We found it to be just what we were looking for. We had a table for six. There was no loud music, so we could have a nice time conversing. For the first 20 minutes, we were the only people in the place, so we received amazing service from our bartender, Christian.

Speaking of service, that is the one thing Celebrity has ALWAYS done well. The people who work on Celebrity ships are truly amazing. From the woman polishing stair rails who greeted me with a huge smile to the bartenders, waiters, counter staff, and everyone else, they provide some of the best service at sea.

Dinner was excellent. I had a decent octopus appetizer. I had lasagna Bolognese as my entrée. Kathleen had lamb, and of course, we got the cannoli for dessert. All of those were superb. The octopus could have been better. Our server said it was steamed for two hours (to make it more tender) and then thrown on the grill. But the problem with that is that the steaming made the outside kind of mushy.

After dinner, Kathleen went off to bed, and I joined the rest of our crew to see the first night’s main entertainment in the theater, a comedian named AJ Jamal. If you ever get a chance to see him, DON’T! While introducing him, the cruise director told us he had been on HBO. He must have meant he was playing Scrabble and dropped the letters h, b, and o and sat on them, because this guy was horrible. He had no actual set; he just kept trying to make a fool of audience members or find something funny to say about them. When he wasn’t doing that, he made all the usual cruise jokes about booze, food, embarkation, etc. Not a single original and funny line in his 45-minute set. Sad.

That about covers our day. A gallery of photos awaits you below. Don't forget: if you click the first shot, it will fill your screen, and you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping.

"Money doesn't buy happiness... but it buys a cruise ticket, and that's pretty much the same thing."   —Captain Stubing on Love Boat

Day 7–Our last Day…Hudson Theater Tour and I Sum Up

by | May 11, 2026 | Uncategorized

Wednesday was our last day in NYC, but our flight didn’t leave until almost 7:00 pm, so we had a whole day ahead of us. The only full-group activity on the schedule was a tour of one of Broadway’s oldest theaters, The Hudson. At 9:00 am, we met in the lobby and walked over to the theater, where we were again met by the best guide in Manhattan, Tim Dolan (that's him above, taking the ussie). I think that, as great as our other sessions with Tim were, this was his finest hour. He obviously loves Broadway, but I truly believe he would move into the Hudson if they would let him. Later, he showed us a secret apartment that has not been used since 1992, and I think he would love to live there.

The show currently playing at the Hudson was Every Brilliant Thing, a one-man show starring Daniel Radcliffe, so the theater was decorated for it. To be honest, I wish we had seen this play instead of Oh, Mary. I think everyone would have enjoyed it much more. There isn’t much more I can tell you about the Hudson Theater tour other than that Tim was at his best, telling story after story about the couple who built the theater, sailed on the Titanic, and eventually went broke during the Depression. We got to see videos of the theater’s ups and downs, from being a porno theater to housing the original Tonight Show with Steve Allen. It was the scene of performances from Elvis singing to an actual hound dog to Barbara Streisand’s first television appearance.

After the tour, we headed back to the Westin to check out by noon and then hung out until our bus left for the airport at 2:30. I grabbed a couple of sandwiches for lunch, and we were ready to go. Once the bus was loaded, it took more than 90 minutes to cover the 16 miles from the hotel to the airport. We, of course, made it in plenty of time. Kathleen and I hung out in the Admiral’s Lounge (American Airlines has a deal with Alaska to provide lounge access at JFK). The flight went well. We arrived on time, got our luggage, and joined 26 people headed back to Trilogy. We got home about 11:00 pm and found a very wound-up dog that just wanted to play.

Of course, I have a few photos left from our Hudson tour, so here they are. Remember, if you click them and view the slideshow, the captions explain what is going on.

Let Me Sum It

While doing tech support in our clubhouse here at Trilogy, many of our travelers stopped by to say how much fun they had and how they loved 90% of our time on Broadway. Their biggest complaint was all the walking and all the stairs. I have to admit that this trip far exceeded all my expectations. I had a great time, and about half of the reason was all the great people from Trilogy I got to know. Some I had known or worked with before we left, and others I barely knew.

We loved the shows, especially Maybe, Happy Ending. We (just the two of us) even liked Oh, Mary. I love a good, broad farce, and that’s exactly what it was. We loved about 95% of the food. Nothing incredibly special, but for us, dining was more about the people we were eating with. The best meal was the tapas dinner at Boqueria, and the worst was easily the chicken parm at Bond 45.

The Westin Times Square is an excellent hotel. Nothing special that we haven’t encountered before at hundreds of hotels in our travels, but it is incredibly well situated for attending Broadway performances.

I can’t say enough good things about Alex Tobias, one of the owners of Break-Away Tours, which planned this entire trip. The schedule was excellent. The tour guides at venues all over the city were outstanding, and Alex is a joy to work with during planning. As President of the Travel Club, I have talked, texted, emailed, and visited as we planned this trip. I could not have asked for a more responsive business partner. I look forward to working with him again on our London West End Theater Tour in June of 2027.

But the absolute best thing (at least for me) was all the sessions we had with Tim Dolan. This man is a walking encyclopedia of Broadway and the theater, and his delivery is amazing. After we got back from the trip, I subscribed to his newsletter and found that he writes just like he talks. It is truly awesome to both read it and hear it. He has a fan in me. That’s him in the giant selfie at the top of the page.

There is nothing that can match Broadway for stature and dignity. — Sammy Davis Junior

Day 6– Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Broadway Museum and “& Juliet”

by | May 10, 2026 | Uncategorized

This was probably the busiest day of the entire trip. I got up early for a quick morning walk to find the theater we were going to that night to see “& Juliet,” a delightful jukebox musical featuring songs from the early 2000s. We heard everything from “Oops, I Did It Again” to “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”

I thought I would just get in about a 30-minute walk, but it did not work out that way because, once again, I got lost. Not sure how I did that this time, since both the theater and the restaurant I was looking for were on the same street. You had to walk by one to get to the other. I got some interesting photos you can see below. The one at the top is, in my opinion, the best shot I got on this trip. It’s a Times Square panorama composed of 11 separate frames stitched together in Photoshop.

After I got back from getting lost, grabbed a takeout breakfast from the diner across the street, and got Kathleen fed (she was not having a good reaction to the chicken parm from last night), I got down to the lobby to join the rest of the group

One thing I have not mentioned so far in our Broadway story is how we took over the hotel’s lobby almost every time we were going somewhere. It was a very comfortable lobby with room for about 50 people to sit. With 41 of us, that pretty much filled it up. It was a great place to meet in the morning to talk about the play from the night before, the tour from the day before, how much our feet hurt, or the aforementioned chicken parm. I have some photos I took this morning in the group below. Don’t forget that if you click them and look at the slideshow, they have captions, so you know what is going on.

After our early-morning lobby roundup, we headed to Rockefeller Center, where we took a short (not really) elevator ride to the Top of the Rock for amazing views of NYC. The views were truly amazing, but the hazy skies kind of ruined the photography. I know I could go into Photoshop and replace the skies, and I did that with a couple of photos, but as an actual photographer, I feel like that’s cheating. I posted both shots below so you could see what I mean. It was pretty darned impressive, though.

After our Top of the Rock experience, we had some free time to walk around the Rockefeller building and the surrounding buildings. I kind of became the tour guide, since I had been to this part of Midtown a few days earlier during our walking tours. A few folks wanted to see the inside of St. Patrick’s, so I walked them over there. Then we took a quick trip to see the site of the greatest art crime of all time (Rockefeller replacing Diego Rivera’s incredible mural with a piece of crap tribute to wealth and industry), and finally grabbed a drink at Starbucks.

We then met up with the rest of the group outside Radio City Music Hall. We got the full tour there as well (told you it was a VERY busy day) from a delightful young lady from California. Lots of photos of that are below as well. We even got to meet a Rockette. Many in the group had their photos taken with her, and she did a great job answering our questions. It was an excellent tour.

After that, we walked back to the hotel, where we could rest for about five minutes (almost not an exaggeration) before heading out for our last tour of the day to The Museum of Broadway. This place was amazing. The exhibits were outstanding, taking you decade by decade through the history of Broadway. The captions on the photos will explain more.

Then we were on our own for dinner (we hit a Greek place called Delos, which served good, basic Greek food), and then it was off to the theater to see “& Juliet.” Then back to the hotel to collapse…or to pack, since we had to have our checked luggage ready to go by 8:45 the next morning. More about our final day in NYC tomorrow.

I remember the old Times Square from when I was younger, and there was a seedy thrill to it. Some of that is gone, which I have a little bit of nostalgia for.  —Janeane Garofalo

Day 5–Theater Talk Breakfast, Fire & Harbor Cruise

by | May 8, 2026 | Uncategorized

This would be a good day for most of us. But not for the theater where Book of Mormon was playing on Broadway. Keep reading.

I didn’t go out for a pre-tour walk, so there were no photos from that. Our day actually started with a quick walk up the street to The Brooklyn Deli, where Alex had rented out the entire place for 90 minutes so we could hear from Tim Dolan. We had been with Tim for a separate theater talk two days earlier, when he and Cassie Silva from “& Juliet” spent an hour explaining how Broadway works. This time, we heard Tim talk during breakfast. We walked up the street, grabbed food, and then heard from Tim.

We would also hear from Tim on our last morning in NYC, and I can say that after being in his presence three times and touring Broadway with him, he is by far the best guide I have ever had the chance to tour with. There is no one like him. His encyclopedic knowledge of Broadway's history and lore is unmatched. More about him on the day we do the Hudson tour. So much of his talks are just us asking questions and him answering them in great depth. I know our tour to London next year will be a bit worse without Tim.

Sadly, you can’t tour with Tim personally unless you travel with Break-Away Tours. Tim owns Broadway Up Close, a business that provides tour guides for many parts of Broadway. He told us he has about ten guides working for him and that he seldom leads tours himself anymore, except for Break-Away. He alone is a reason to tour with Break-Away. Tim also owns a souvenir shop right on Times Square. If you are ever there, it is just south of 45th Street in Times Square. It’s a really cool, bright green booth.

After our outstanding theater talk, we walked back to the hotel. On the way, the streets were jammed, and there was a constant wave of fire truck sirens. When we got back to the hotel, we must have passed at least 20 of them. No exaggeration. After I got Kathleen back to our room, I headed out to buy postcard stamps (yes, I am still that guy) and took my camera in case I saw anything to photograph. As it turns out, I did. The fire was only three blocks away from our hotel. It was at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, where “The Book of Mormon” is currently playing. At least it should be by now, as they had a lot of water damage to fix. Happily, it wasn’t much of a fire, and we heard later that it started in a top-floor lighting rig. The NYFD had it out in no time, but in the meantime, they sent just about 20 trucks. I saw numerous engines, ladders, and ambulances. I got pretty close and shot some street photos of the whole incident. I asked Tim about it later in the week, and he said that they take no chances with the old theaters because so many of them have a bunch of flammables inside.

After that, it was back to the room to get ready for our afternoon trip, when we would take a guided harbor cruise around most of Manhattan, including a close-up view of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the Brooklyn Bridge. We had a great guide on board the boat, and we spent a lot of time with him. I didn’t take many photos because the sky was very flat that day, but what I did get is below, along with the rest of my pics.

After the harbor tour, it was back to the hotel to get ready for our third group dinner at Bond 45. This was the worst of the three group dinners, and it did not pass the Steve Test. See the quote below if you don’t know what the Steve Test is. There was some pretty decent pizza for an appetizer, along with a make-your-own Caesar. I just wish they would cut up the lettuce. These wedge salads are a pain. But the real pain was the entrée choices: Atlantic salmon (YUCK!), pasta (pretty blah), and what they called chicken parm, which was chicken breasts smashed as flat as a thin pizza crust, covered in tomato sauce and cheese, and then topped with a literal half pound of pepperoni. Just what you give old people battling cholesterol.

I forgot to mention that while I was out taking photos of firefighters, the rest of the group (minus Kathleen and me) were visiting the 911 museum. We had just been there a few years ago, so Kathleen took a nap, and I took photos of firefighters.

My photos are below. Don't forget: if you click the first shot, you can scroll through using your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE... don't look at my photography on a phone. Please...

The Steve Test: I call this the Steve Test because my brother Steve came up with it. I think it’s brilliant. (If you eat in a restaurant while traveling, and if that restaurant is near you once you get home, would you go there again?) If it were in your hometown, would we eat there regularly?