Fabulous Fjords

A couple of days ago, we had booked a 10-hour excurion to see the Kenai Fjords National Park by boat and we were both really looking forward to it. We were up early to head to breakfast and right before leaving, I checked my email and found I had an email from Princess regarding our cruise. Opening it, I saw we got a complimentary upgrade to a mini-suite. Great! When I looked at the room number, I saw it was an odd number which I was pretty sure was on the wrong side of the boat (I wanted the port side since for the first few days, the land is on that side; otherwise you're just looking at ocean). After looking up the map of the ship, it confirmed what I thought so I immediately called to get our old room back.

After being on hold for 15 minutes, I told them that I didn't want the upgrade - I specifically didn't apply for one earlier because I didn't want to get on the wrong side of the boat. She cheerfully said that maybe she'd do an upgrade on the port side but after a couple minutes, she came back and said she needed to speak to her manager. After another 5-10 minutes on hold - and at this point missing our time for a relaxing breakfast - she comes and says she put in a request to move back to our original spot but they would contact me later. I figured I'd have no cell service most of the day but judging by the sound of her voice, they already gave our original room away so I was not optimistic.

Right before we left I got another email saying we were one room over from where we were before - closer to the elevator but at least on the right side of the boat. Of course, we had to a reprint our boarding passes and luggage tags so it was a hassle just to end up with a worse room.

Putting that behind us, we took the shuttle to Seward which was a neat little town where most cruise ships dock. We went to the park Visitor's Center to get Jess's stamp and then we got in line to board the tour boat. While standing in line, we met a retired attorney and teacher who had just gotten off a northbound cruise. Turns out they live in Savannah but had just been living on a boat for a year. Unfortunately the last hurricane season wrecked their plans and they didn't get to actually do much sailing so they ended up selling the boat and doing some different traveling. We stuck with them and sat with them on the boat and they were delightful company for the day.

The Kenai Fjords National Park was amazing! We got to get up close to glaciers, waterfalls and all kinds of rock formations. We saw Dall porpoises (which look like mini orcas), humpback whales, sea lions, seals, puffins and even a Fin whale. The captain said that's rare and kept remarking on how they never get days this nice. The entire tour was incredible and the pictures probably don't do it justice.

My first glacier!

After a late dinner, we packed up since tomorrow is the start of the cruise!

As they say at Princess, "You already paid so what are you gonna do?" Note: Well...