Into the ice age

It was a very early day today.  By early, I mean we were down by the indoor pool having breakfast at 6:00am.  We needed to get there that early because we were cruising into Glacier Bay National Park and we wanted a front row seat.  Once we were done breakfast, we spent the next three hours cruising through the park.  Park rangers boarded the ship and throughout the day they are describing what we are seeing and giving us a history over the ship’s intercom system.  By this time, Papa was getting tired so he and Nana went back to the room.  Karen and I started roaming around the ship checking out the scenery from different vantage points.

The best part of the park are the various glaciers.  We saw Lamplugh Glacier, John Hopkins Glacier, Grand Pacific Glacier and the best overall was Margerie Glacier.  We actually stopped at this glacier for an hour.  Glaciers do something called calving which means that a chunk of the glacier falls off into the water.  You actually hear a loud crack before the fall.  We were really lucky that we got to see three calvings.  The water is a beautiful aqua and before you get to the glacier, the water becomes what they call iceberg soup.  Many pieces of iceberg are floating all around you, and the captain has to manouveur the ship through them.

The ship left Margerie Glacier so we headed back inside and had lunch in the Vista dining room.  Papa had the tortilla soup with mushrooms and the fusilli prima vera, Nana had the greek salad and the mint and cilantro crusted tilapia, Karen and I each had the apple and pear gazpacho but she had the tomato and bread salad with tender chicken bites and I went with the fish.  After lunch, Nana and Papa went back to their room while Karen and I headed back to the pool to spend the afternoon looking for wildlife while cruising out of the park.  We saw sea otters, sea lions, mountain goats, whales and even dolphins.

We hit the casino before going back to the rooms to order dinner.  We learned from Cruise Critic that you can order anything that is being served in the main dining room for room service.  Since we didn’t bring our formal wear, we decided to do that.  And guess what they were having in the main dining room tonight, surf and turf.  It was a very nice meal with a stunning view.

We were going to see the magician in the Vista Lounge but the orca whales decided to do a show in front of our balcony instead.  We counted I think at least six of them.  There was lots of spouting and one even breached.  Nice finish to a great day.