Cruising Rob's Blog: Alaska Cruise - Day 6 and 7 (and 8) - At Sea, Victoria, and Disembarkation in Seattle

After enjoying stunning scenery while sailing out of the Taiya and Chilkoot Inlets during and after dinner, we sped up to continue our journey south to Victoria. The entertainment on this cruise has been good. There was a performance by the ship dancers one night, a comedian the next, and a duet that sang Beetles sons. The last night involved the comedian and duet singers in a variety hour.

Since we had kids in ClubHAL I'll take a moment to review that. Given that this voyage was a "1-off" 7 night cruise for a ship that typically sails 14 night or longer cruises, there were A LOT of kids, over 100 in the 3-12 age range, which is significant when you consider that with all berths full, the ship holds just under 1700 passengers. It was apparent that the staff was short staffed initially, but they picked up another counselor in Ketchikan and the whole program was run very efficiently. Our kids both loved it and I never saw the ClubHAL staff appearing frazzled. The highlight of the kids program was on the last morning before Victoria; Cruise Director Bruce and the ClubHAL staff put on "ClubHAL Bingo" in the Mainstage. Waiters walked around handing out cookies and strawberry milk and the kids had a blast. We played 3 rounds and everyone took home a prize at the very end. This was a terrific idea and I told the Cruise Director what a great concept this was. It was nice to see him so into it, himself!

Our last 2 days were spent enjoying the many parts of the Amsterdam and observing how well taken care of. We did eat at Pinnacle Grill for lunch and that was worth every penny, HIGHLY recommended.

We didn't get off in Victoria as we have been there multiple times, but word to the wise, sailing into the Strait of Juan de Fuca is very scenic and we had partly cloudy skies and mid 60's temperatures for it - perfect! I enjoyed much of the last day with a bottle of wine and a collection of Jack London's short stories on the aft decks. For those wondering, the Amsterdam has aft viewing areas on deck 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 and it's possible to connect between all of them using a variety of aft staircases. The deck 2 viewing area was down the hall from our cabin and was nice in port, but very loud when we were sailing since the openings in the hull faced down and collected the sound of the wake. The deck 3 viewing area was probably the largest and had the teak, padded loungers. The viewing areas on decks 6 and 7 were very private with deck 7 being smaller but providing more shade. Note that the loungers on decks 2, 6, and 7 are the standard brown poolside loungers and are not padded.

While our cabin was in the aft of the ship, I was somewhat worried about thruster vibration entering and leaving port. Never heard it. Since the Amsterdam was one of the first ships with Azipod propulsion (where the propellers are on pods below the hull that rotate rather than fixed propellers with rudders) she is exceptionally maneuverable and has no need for aft thrusters.

On our final morning, we enjoyed breakfast in the dining room at 7 and utilized the Port Valet system which basically collected our bags the night before, printed boarding passes, and chauffeured our bags to Denver on the baggage carousel. This free service which (airline baggage fees may apply, our credit card gives us 2 free bags on United so we didn't pay anything) made our walk from the gangway to curbside take less than 7 minutes, including the "customs check" which was a glance at our passports. Prompt service by Already There car service and we were at the airport by 8:45. We had to check car seats, but if we had not, we could have gone straight to security. We made our flight at 11:10am with PLENTY of time to spare. I wouldn't cut it this close if we were flying out on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday due to the larger RCL and NCL ships, but the timing worked great for us this day.

That's it for my detailed blog review. There will be a few more posts I will add with more pictures and a video, but for now, thanks for following along!

ms Amsterdam model in the Crows' Nest. We invented a fun game on board, it was see how many "old HAL" logos we could find. I think we got to 25 or so if you don't count the carved logos in the loungers on deck 3.