July 19--Prince William Sound and College Fjord

We spent a fair amount of the day not being able to see any land, which was a first! It was fairly rainy, so there wasn’t much incentive to look outside anyway. We had a little bit of rolling, but nothing severe at all. By early afternoon we had entered Prince William Sound, so that calmed things down even more.

Since it was Sunday, we thought that we would attend a church service on the ship. Forst had called and was told that there would be a Protestant service in the Theatre at 9, but the “Princess Patter” only talked about a Catholic mass there at that time. A second check found that the “Patter” was right, so we skipped a formal service.

Alan and Joyce took time in the late morning to go on a tour of the ship’s Galley, where the food is prepared. We started by seeing a demonstration of some of the fancy cooking that takes place every day on the ship in the Universe Lounge. After that we walked through two floors of the galley. The scale of the kitchens was pretty amazing, and both Alan and Joyce noticed how much stainless steel there was and how clean everything was kept.

The whole clan met up in the Horizon Court for a later lunch. It was still raining, and there were some amazing desserts on display, so there were nearly as many sweet things on our platters as there was “good-for-you” food.

Alan, Joyce, Jon, and Sandi took advantage of one more dance lesson. This time it was “Swing”. Jon actually got to the lounge where the lessons were taking place before Sandi, so he was able to gather some of those much desired husband points. The dance steps are a little more complicated than what we had learned before. That, and the fact that we were getting pretty tired from all the activities, made it a little more difficult to keep from hurting our partners, especially with the quicker beat to the music.

We had one more glacier stop before ending the cruise. Tucked into Prince William Sound is College Fjord. Along this fjord are several hanging and tidewater glaciers. One side has glaciers named after prestigious eastern men’s colleges and the other after prestigious eastern women’s colleges.

While it was still rainy, most of us went outside to take in the sights. We spent most of our time in front of the largest glacier there, Harvard Glacier. We were again treated to a magnificent sight, and the weather cleared just enough to allow us to get some pretty good pictures. It was the coldest day of the cruise, however.

Much of the “free” time today was spent in getting things packed up. We had specific instructions for different suitcases from Princess. Those of us continuing on to the land tour had three categories of things: luggage to meet us at the Princess Denali Lodge; luggage to meet us in Anchorage in a few days; and luggage to hand carry on the train. All of us had to have our luggage that was not being hand-carried outside of our door by 10 pm tonight. It was tough to think about what we would need in the morning that we would be willing to carry around with us the next day (in small pieces of luggage). Of course, the Schaeffers would be heading back to Indiana after the cruise, but their plane wouldn’t leave until nearly midnight the next day, so working out the luggage there also caused some careful thinking.

Another adult dinner followed, this time culminated with the Baked Alaska Parade. The junior waiters marched around the dining room with Baked Alaska desserts held high. While the Baked Alaskas were flaming during the previous trips that Alan and Joyce had taken, these were equipped with an electric candle, so it wasn’t quite the same effect. All at the table agreed that it was mighty tasty, nonetheless!

Not too much was happening after dinner, so Alan finished off his internet time by uploading a few more significant pictures of the trip. Then it was off to bed for an early morning call for disembarking the ship.