Many of you are aware that for the past eight months, my fabulous husband Ed King had been making secretive plans to take me on a mystery vacation to celebrate my 40th birthday... (he's quite the guy, isn't he??) Somewhere around April, he instructed me to block out August 13th through 24th on my calendar and wouldn't say another word about it. Since I LOVE surprises and he is the king of them, I set aside the time and didn't ask any questions. I suspected that it was a birthday vacation, since I turn 40 (which is, I've been told, "The New Thirty") on August 26th.
Fast forward to Saturday, August 13th... we went to the Atlanta airport where we boarded a plane to
Chicago. Once in Chicago, we got a connecting flight to
Seattle, Washington. We landed in Seattle Saturday afternoon, rented a car and drove to the home of our dear friends, Beth and Frank. At this point, I only knew what I knew... which was that we were visiting Beth and Frank. Of course, I knew there was more in the works, but I didn't ask, because I hate to ruin a surprise.
We visited with Beth and Frank for a few hours, went out for some dinner, went to bed and woke the next morning to drive to
Vancouver, British Columbia. FUN! It's about a 2.5 hour drive to Vancouver and thankfully, crossing the border into Canada was fast and easy. We arrived in Vancouver, dropped off the rental car and were shuttled to
Canada Place, which is a cruise ship terminal. Yippee! A cruise!
I couldn't have been more thrilled, because for several years now, Ed and I have been talking about how much we'd love to take an Alaskan cruise someday. Well someday came early! We got to the ship's terminal around 2pm, went through the various lines and security checks required, and by about 4pm we were checked onto the ship and unpacking our clothes in our stateroom.
But let's back up a bit. Our ship is named the
GTS Infinity. It is almost a thousand feet long and accommodates roughly 2,000 passengers and 1,000 crew. (you do the math on the crew to passenger ratio) The cruise line is
Celebrity, and when you see the commercials for them, people are wandering around in a daze at work, saying things like,
"I was not to be awakened before 9am",
"My butler knew just how I took my tea in the morning", and (my personal favorite)
"I consider this a temporary exile." They've all just come back from a Celebrity cruise and are wistfully and reluctantly adjusting back to normal life. More on that later.
So anyway, we were all checked into our cabin on the ninth deck (with a veranda overlooking the ocean) when Ed said that there were a few more surprises.
More surprises!?!? All right!!
Surprise Number One: It turns out Ed's parents had bought us each a new jacket from
L.L. Bean. They are rain jackets with pockets galore and fleece linings that zip out so you can wear the jacket and fleece together, JUST the outer rain jacket or JUST the fleece. Totally great! These would definitely come in handy for a trip to the great white north! Ed's is bright yellow and mine is blue (to match my eyes -- LOL)
Surprise Number Two: Our friends Lisa and Steve had generously bought me a gift certificate for a treatment at the ship's fabulous
AquaSpa! So Ed said we had to go down there to make an appointment. Woohoo!
Surprise Number Three: While we were getting unpacked and getting used to our stateroom, a knock came at the door. I answered it to find my oldest girlfriend Melanie and her husband Sal standing there! Uhhhhh... WHAT?! Oh my gosh, I was so surprised and THIS was the best surprise of all! Not only were we on a seven-day Alaskan cruise but we'd be spending with two of our dearest friends! I was beside myself with happiness and Melanie and I proceeded to drink the better part of two bottles of champagne while the four of us roamed the upper decks of the ship as we sailed out of Vancouver. What a great start to our vacation!
Over the next seven days, we enjoyed the ship's amenities and stopped at three ports (
Ketchikan,
Juneau and
Sitka), where we did really cool stuff like take a float-plane adventure, saw the salmon running upstream, shopped, ate, went on a whale watch, took in the sights, gambled (on the ship) and met some new people. While on the ship, we stopped for a few hours to view the Hubbard Glacier, where we saw quite a bit of "calving" activity (calving is when big chunks of ice fall off the glacier into the ocean). We also saw harbor seals, orcas, humpback whales and many sea birds as well as a few bald eagles. Alaska is truly an incredible, vast and beautiful place to visit.
At the first port we stopped in (
Ketchikan), I saw a fellow that looked EXACTLY like
Dennis Miller (formerly of Saturday Night Live and presently The Dennis Miller Show). Dennis does happen to occupy a slot on my personal Top Five List, for those of you who keep that sort of list. But I digress... later that day, I learned that it was indeed Dennis Miller I had seen at port in Ketchikan and that he was traveling on our ship. So we figured, heck, if Celebrity Cruise Lines is good enough for him, Ed made a good choice. While we were in Ketchikan, we took a floatplane ride with
Island Wings. Our pilot was
Michelle Madsen and she flew us to the Misty Fjords in her floatplane named Lady Esther, which was truly amazing! Michelle was a lot of fun, a skilled pilot (we felt safe the whole time) and we listened to music through our headphones while she showed us incredible wildnerness. Wait til you see the photos!
Another day we stopped at
Juneau, where we had a fairly rainy day. I was just exhausted from waking up at 5:30 every morning to watch the sun come up, so I took the rainy day opportunity to take a nice loooong nap before dinner while Ed, Melanie and Sal shopped in the town's stores. Another day at sea, we stopped at the Hubbard Glacier, where the captain anchored the ship for a few hours so we could watch the giant ice chunks falling off into the water. It was breathtaking and Ed got great photos and video of it all happening!
Our last port was
Sitka, which was our favorite of the three... picturesque and peaceful. We jumped on a whale watching boat, the
Esther G, a 28-foot aluminum vessel that seats six passengers. The Esther G. just happens to be captained by the world's nicest and friendliest boat captain,
Davey Lubin. We saw humpback whales galore which was about the coolest part of our whole trip! Check out the photos of all the flukes in the
online picture gallery. I ask you... what are the odds that
both vessels we chartered, the floatplane and the boat, would be named
Esther?? I think someone named Esther needs to be playing the lottery somewhere soon!
Anyway, back to the boat... as on any cruise, the food on the ship is ever-present. The difference is that this ship's food was actually
really good! There were several food options to choose from... the buffets and restaurants, as well as the
AquaSpa Cafe, which offered a buffet of light and healthier options. We ate every breakfast and lunch at the AquaSpa Cafe, which really helped us avoid gaining ten pounds each over the course of the seven days! The spa cafe also has tables overlooking the water, which is a terrific way to begin your morning. In the evenings, we dined in the main dining room of one of the restaurants called the Trellis. It was the four of us, plus a couple from Israel, Itzik and Nili. They were delightful and we all got along well. (the Trellis actually offered us both vegan menus, and most everything we ate there was DELICIOUS.) Another plus for great personalized service!
There is an Internet cafe on the ship, a small library, a coffee shop, a game room, and many other places to spend your time while you're out at sea. The AquaSpa offers any number of wonderful pampering spa treatments (I got the Mediterranean Float treatment) as well as a large workout room with treadmills, elliptical machines, exercise bikes, and weight machines. They also offer Pilates classes. In the spa area, there is a large Thalassotherapy pool, which is half chlorine and half salt water. There are bubbling jets at the sides and heavy streams of water coming out of fountains to stand beneath. There are also several whirlpool and hot tubs as well as an outdoor swimming pool.
To celebrate my birthday we made reservations at the
S.S. United States for one of our dinners. The S.S. United States is a four star restaurant on the ship which includes interior decorations that were originally on board the fastest ocean liner of all time, the S.S. United States. The restaurant is beautiful, the service is impeccable and the food is amazing. We seated at 9pm and over the next three hours, we had dinner. We started with an incredible goat cheese souffle appetizer (heavenly!), medium rare Chateaubriand for two with the best Bernaise sauce I ever tasted, an assorted cheese course (complete with both stinky and non-stinky varieties!) and raspberry souffle for dessert. (Yes, in case you're wondering, that night we leaped so far off the Vegan Wagon we couldn't even see it in the distance) After dessert, they brought a small birthday cake, which none of us could even begin to consider touching. Oh the fullness! In short, it was an incredible dinner and was only an additional $30 per person to dine there. Well worth the time and money!
The service on this ship was really incredible and although our first cruise (Royal Caribbean to the Bahamas in 2002) was a bit underwhelming,
Celebrity Cruise Lines has changed all that and we officially have caught the cruising bug. We've learned to pick destinations that offer great shore excursions that mesh with your own style, and to go with a higher end cruise line. After spending seven wonderful days with our friends aboard the Infinity, being pampered and catered to, seeing incredible vistas and doing amazing adventures on land, we were terribly sad to come back to the real world.
Once the cruise part of our vacation was over, Beth and Frank came to Vancouver to pick us up from the ship terminal, and we spent the day in Vancouver with them. We went to
Grouse Mountain to see more incredible views of the city and
Mount Baker, a snow-capped peak in Washington. We headed back across the border into the U.S. on Sunday evening and spent Monday and Tuesday leisurely tooling around the Seattle area, eating like pigs and just enjoying the scenery and the company of our friends. We flew home yesterday (Wednesday 8/24) and are both back in business today. It was really wonderful and as I have said in the past, I have the best husband ever and am so blessed and grateful for that. In case you're wondering, we both consider this a temporary exile...
Monica, thrilled to be turning "The New Thirty"
ps: Ed took over 800 photos on this trip, which you can view at:
