Alaska Cruises in the Summer - Part 2

 

Day 3 (May 29, 2023) Koningsdam docked at Juneau from 1 pm to 9:30 pm. Since it didn’t arrive in Juneau until afternoon, let’s have breakfast🍞in Lido Market again in the morning. Every time when I walked upstairs to deck 9, I passed by Greenhouse Spa so I decided to take a photo of its price list. Last night (May 28) each of us received a gift card of $70 USD for the spa, I thought we could have a good use of it. I told my friend the prices are $50/$75/$100, either we didn’t need to pay anything or just $5. Then my friend told me that’s the minutes of service not the price😂

The price ranged from $178 to $1135! Now you know I don’t do spa often that’s why I read the content completely wrong 😅. I recall my company’s administrator who also cruised on Koningsdam to Alaska in August told me the spa staffs only earn 18% service fee (that means if we pay $459 USD, the staff earns $82.62 USD). 

Two mornings in a row my friend couldn’t wake up as early as me due to her dramatic stories😆

First night shampoo got into her eye so she had a hard time during the sleep (solution: bring your own shampoo which is gentle enough even for babies👶)

Second night my friend was greatly affected by the waving of the ship so she had a hard time to sleep again (solution: bring Gravol ginger tablet🫚)

Since we didn’t know we could use our Holland America navigator app on our cellphones🖁to message each other on the ship even without wifi or data, everyday I told my friend which area I would sit for my breakfast. It was nice to enjoy a cup of hot coffee with continental breakfast by the ocean view window in the quiet place.

Here we were at Juneau! There were 4 cruise ships at the same time including my ship (Koningsdam), Eurodam, Royal Princess and Celebrity Solstice. In this picture, the one in front is Holland America Eurodam and the one behind is Royal Princess. 

I thought I would never board on the Princess ships since the body design of Holland America ships is way more attractive than Princess ships. Never say never, I joined Princess cruise later in July to Alaska again😉. It’s itinerary was better and provided more variety of desserts (my favourite ❤). Although Holland America wins with outside beauty, Princess has some great inside beauty 😍

We have joined Expedia Cruises Shore Excursions for all the ports (Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan). At Juneau, our tour group started at 1:30 pm while we couldn’t get off the ship until 1 pm (very tight schedule)! Once we got off, we needed to find our Juneau City & Mendenhall Glacier tour group which was 10 minutes away from the pier. The gathering location was outside Mount Roberts Tramway (where is it???). Imagine in the pouring rain ☔ we needed to walk fast and ask the locals for the right direction to find our tour, it was a bit of pain. Once we found it, we were asked to wait for our bus and there were at least 8 buses there. By the time we got on the bus, it was full with only 2 separate seats left as we were the last 2 to board. Due to the rainy weather, the bus windows were foggy so we couldn’t see anything outside when the bus driver introduced Juneau’s historical downtown district. I didn’t find it enjoyable on the bus😔

It was about 20 minute ride from Downtown Juneau to Mendenhall Glacier 🧊, we were given about an hour and 15 minutes to walk around in this area. By reading the information signs, I had high expectation of the glacier although I understand that the size of the glacier is much smaller compared to 1958 when we saw its photos in Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. It is worth to look around in this visitor center and it can be accessible by stairs and also an elevator for those who cannot walk very well.

However due to the drizzling weather, the glacier was not as spectular as I expected. I would love to see it’s unique light blue colour to be standing out. Luckily I could see a piece of beautiful blue colour ice floating on the lake!

About 30 minute walk from Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, there is a 377 feet Nugget Falls  equivalent to the height of 26 storey building, very magnificent! Since we had little time left after taking photos around and the road was a bit wet (天雨路滑), we didn’t have a chance to go to the Nugget Falls. But don’t be disappointed, I went to the Nugget Falls during my second time to Mendenhall Glacier in July. Stay tuned for my blog of July’s Alaska cruise😃

Upon return to the pier, we saw a lineup for king crab🦀. Our travel was a budget trip so we headed back to the ship for some food before we visited Downtown Juneau.

Here’s the view of Downtown Juneau from deck 10 of our cruise 😊

Remember I am a dessert lover 🍰💖 I saw lots of Lime Jello in Lido Market, very tempting! Once I tried it … “No! Doesn’t taste good”! It did not have the lime flavour, strange taste anyways. 

Still I was glad I approached the dessert station and met the friendly staffs there. By seeing their smiles, you can tell I am a potential diplomatic ambassador … haha! 我是一名成功友誼外交大使❗

We still had more than 2 hours left so we got off the ship again. I would like to revisit the booths selling excursions which I didn’t have time to do that earlier.  I wanted to get some information for my July trip. They were ALL GONE😟

My colleague told me to find the public library for free wifi in Juneau. Guess what? It was Memorial Day on May 29. A holiday and library was closed 😏

Never mind then. Just walked around in rain ☔ and saw Juneau City Hall, kind of old and worn. The big picture of Native Art is the most attractive part of this building.

We passed by an interesting shop … many colourful lamps (讓我想起神燈) 🫖, very magical! There were lots of vibrant colour potteries. It was like we entered into a fantasy world 🌈奇幻世界.

At night, a towel animal was waiting for us in our stateroom. What do you think it looks like? It reminded me the first time I was on a cruise back in year 2012, our room attendant put a towel animal in our stateroom every night. Have a good night🌙⭐