Glaciers & Glowtinis - Day 7 Ketchikan

[Melanie R]

Today I felt I had finally got to grips with the whole waking early thing as I woke to the sound of my alarm for the first time in ages, and for once, I was struggling to wake up! I hit the snooze button a couple of times, but I knew I had to get up as I had an early start for my first excursion of the day – a tour of Ketchikan including a duck tour of the harbour. If I’m perfectly honest, as I was lying in bed not wanting to get up for the first time this trip, I was giving serious consideration to skipping it, but then I reasoned I had already paid for it, and it would be nice to see the town and I needed to get my backside into gear!

At 7am I finally dragged myself up and was soon feeling more alert after showering and dressing and I checked on the weather for the day – the app was showing rain but as I headed to the balcony, although it was very overcast it was at least dry.

I was quite surprised to see we hadn’t yet docked – it was approaching 8am and we were scheduled to have docked at 7:30, so I took a few pics of the harbour

and I stayed on the balcony to watch the approach when there was a pa announcement by the captain – due to high winds he had made the decision that it wasn’t safe to dock, so today we would not be in port at Ketchikan but would be having another unplanned sea day 😕

He went on to advise that a revised Princess Patter would shortly be distributed as the entertainment staff were pulling together a new schedule of activities to make up for the disappointment of missing a port.

I was initially miffed that I had got up early for no reason at all, but obviously safety decisions have to be made, so nothing that could be done. I was also disappointed to be missing the second excursion I had planned for Ketchikan – a lumberjack show which I thought would have been a lot of fun!

I also confess to sending a pic home showing another ship which HAD docked, and I may have referred to our captain as a wuss 😳

The captain explained later in the day that his decision had been made after 2 failed attempts to dock, and that the problem was the dock we had been allocated was facing the wrong way for the wind direction to allow a safe approach – the dock the other ship had been allocated was at right angles to ours and so would have been possible – but you have to accept this happens on cruises, I’ve missed ports before due to the weather 🙂

Given I now had the whole day stretching ahead of me with no plans, I decided to head to the main dining room for a leisurely breakfast – as I headed down it seemed that everyone had also had the same idea as there was the longest queue I had seen all cruise! I was waiting almost 30 minutes before I was shown to a table, and I was placing my usual order – orange segments, poached eggs on toast with sausages and some tea.

I tried to catch the eye of the waiter doing the rounds with the pastries, but he was looking quite harassed and seemed to keep missing our section of the restaurant out for some reason, so no pastries this morning

As I now had the whole day stretching ahead of me with zero plans, I decided to head up to Horizons, the buffet restaurant to see if they had any pastries and collected my kindle on the way there. Once I had picked up a couple of pastries, I headed to an outside table around the pool and settled down to enjoy a quiet hour with my book – I reluctantly decided it was a little early in the day to start on the cocktails, but then realised that a mimosa didn’t count – they are definitely breakfast/brunch friendly 😂

After around an hour, although I had chosen a sheltered spot, I was starting to feel a little chilly, so decided to head back to my stateroom to collect a sweater, and to see if the new activity schedule had been delivered – I also decided to wander back via the shop to collect the crystal I had ordered the previous day – as we hadn’t docked, the shops should be open. The shop was indeed open, but the assistant hadn’t yet had time to find the appropriate box, so still wasn’t ready to collect – as I was there I managed to buy another one, so she now had 2 boxes to find! I had received yet another credit to my account for the 2 cancelled excursions, so thought why not!

I returned to my stateroom and changed into a warmer sweater, then I headed out to the balcony but it was a little bit too windy to sit out there at this point, so I checked out the activities we now had planned for the day – I felt I could afford to miss the bean bag tossing (someone had spent ages coming up with that idea! )

so I decided to head to the café for a latte and looked forward to a day of relaxing and chilling with my kindle. Once I had my coffee, I headed back up to the pool deck and found a sheltered spot with a comfy sun lounger, grabbed a blanket from the supply to keep the chill off, and spent a very enjoyable day chilling with a variety of cocktails, cupcakes and my kindle – I had left my phone charging in the room so have no pics of these, but I was too busy enjoying them to worry about it!

I had several conversations with people around me who had also decided to swerve the day’s new activities - I found that people are always happy to chat to you when you’re alone rather than intrude if you are in a couple or a larger group so at no point in my trip had I ever felt lonely, and today was proving to be no exception.

I wandered into the buffet periodically throughout the day as and when I felt hungry, but was grazing rather than getting a proper meal, so by the time the evening started to draw in, I was feeling hungry but wasn’t sure I wanted a full 3 course meal! I headed back to my stateroom via the restaurant to check out the menu for the day and I really wasn’t remotely inspired by any of the options, so decided to go back and get changed, then head up to the buffet.

When I got back to my stateroom, I spotted the room service menu I had used the previous day and on further investigation realised I could order a pizza – decision made!

I headed back out to the International Café and ordered a latte to take back to my stateroom, then called up room service and ordered a pizza. While I was waiting, I head a very quick shower and put my pjs on for the evening. Pizza was duly delivered and I settled on the sofa with my pizza, latte and a movie on the iPad to round off the unexpectedly lazy day!

[Cutiepie]

Gosh you really haven’t had much with the weather. We didn’t either during our Alaska cruise. Your day sounded bliss in the end😊

[Melanie R]

Originally Posted by Cutiepie

Gosh you really haven’t had much with the weather. We didn’t either during our Alaska cruise. Your day sounded bliss in the end😊

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I know - I had booked 4 excursions and only managed 1! It was still the best cruise I’ve ever done though - I’ll just have to go back to do the other ports 😂

[Disney_time]

Pizza in PJs- how delicious. It's not fair - you're living my life!

[mitch84]

Oh what a shame, still you are excellent at making the most of it

[Melanie R]

Originally Posted by mitch84

Oh what a shame, still you are excellent at making the most of it

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These days it takes an awful lot more than some bad weather to ruin my day 😂
As they say, if life gives you lemons...

[kateh134]

Shame you missed another excursion but cocktails and cupcakes and then pizza and PJs sounds like an excellent day to me!

[mitch84]

Originally Posted by Melanie R

These days it takes an awful lot more than some bad weather to ruin my day 😂
As they say, if life gives you lemons...

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Such a good attitude to have, you should be so proud of yourself.
I had a fairly nasty breakup 3-4 years ago, and since then I travel solo a fair bit too. I had to get home from the other side of the world too so stopped at some wineries 🍷;-)
I’m actually recently married, but he’s not got the travel bug and has a couple of businesses so I still mostly cruise solo. I love reading your trippies x

[margyloveswdw]

A disappointing start to the day but you certainly made the most of it! Sounded like a perfect, chilled out day and lets be honest that's what holidays are for

[Loopylooloo]

What a shame to miss a port, but it happens- what makes me laugh is when I hear people complain that we could just pop somewhere else instead - like you can just rock up on a ship and park 😂
Good to see you made the most of this! Hoping tomorrow was better weather...