Tuesday July 18, 2023
Hi Folks! All I can say is WOW! This is one of those times when a picture is worth a thousand words and I should just post all the pics and not write a thing but of course I won’t! Lol. I’ll bore you with some of the details.
This was really a sea day but it started early at 7 AM when we started in to see Hubbard Glacier.
First off I have to say once again our luck is unreal since even the Alaska speaker said this is the clearest day he’s ever seen at Hubbard Glacier and he’s been coming for years.
Before getting to the glacier we saw both Mt Augusta at 14,000 feet and Mt St Elias at 18,000 feet and we were 75 miles away and could see them as clear as a bell!
To get to the glacier we had to travel thru Disenchantment Bay. It was named for the explorer who was “disenchanted”when he went into the bay hoping to find the Northwest Passage and got stuck in ice!
Once we got as close to the glacier as the ship could safely get, the Captain let each side of the ship see it and then spun the ship in a slow circle several times so everyone got pictures/views from all angles. Hubbard Glacier is 6.2 miles wide which makes it the largest tidewater glacier in the world! Its face is 700 to 1,000 years old!
We then left the glacier and had breakfast delivered to our room and the weather was so gorgeous we sat on our balcony taking in the beautiful scenery and working on our tans.
They had an afternoon movie in the theater with popcorn and sodas called “Big Miracle” which was set in Alaska. It was based on a true story where 3 whales were stuck under the ice and a whole group of unlikely interest groups (Greenpeace, oil drillers and even the Russians!) came together to save the whales. It was really good and heart warming.
We then went to the afternoon tea where they had all kinds of fun cupcakes. Like we needed more calories! But of course we had to try a few.
We then went back to the room and started getting packed up. So sad! The week flew by but it was an amazing trip. Tonight we had dinner at the third and last specialty restaurant named Chartreuse, which is French themed. It was very good but each of the dishes were prepared slightly different than we’re used to (not that we eat in French restaurants that much!) but even the escargot was not prepared with the normal garlic and olive oil base but rather it had a mustard base but it was very good!
Kathy had asked them to have a cake and sing happy birthday to me which was a surprise since we just celebrated last night but it was a sweet ending to a great cruise! And we took our picture with our favorite waiter that we called Junebug but whose real name was Jhunbe. What was funny was he knew our favorite waiter Jeffrey we had on the last Regent cruise and he told us they’re both moving to the new Regent ship (the Grandeur) that starts sailing this Oct. Sounds like we’ll be looking to book a cruise on the Grandeur very soon!
We then finished the night off with our usual routine we love which was pulling slots and listening to Prado on the piano.
Tomorrow will be a long travel day and we won’t get back to Charlotte until Thurs 7/20 due to our red eye flight. I’ll post one last entry on 7/20 or 7/21. Hope all are well!
The Wandering Italian 